I was rather excited when I stumbled across The House of Doctor Deeby Peter Ackroydwhilst sheltering from a downpour in a Charity Shop in Bury St Edmunds. Peter Ackroyd is a writer (of biographies, fiction, children's books, and a play) that I greatly appreciate, and Doctor Dee a historical figure that I'm interested in. What could possibly go wrong with the combination of these two? Much, I have to report, to my disappointment; and not just that this is fiction, and not the biography I hoped it would be when I saw it on the shelf (but, at least this, is not really Peter's fault).
The book nominally tells the story of Matthew Park, a researcher into historical papers, who inherits a house in Clerkenwell from his father. When he moves in to the place to escape his mother he finds that the house affects his moods, his perceptions, and his grip on reality unduly. He sets out to discover more, and learns that the house used to be belong to Dr Dee, the 16th Century mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, and Queen Elizabeth's (in)famous astrologer and consultant.
In reality this is a fictionalised account of the final years of Dr Dee, which digresses greatly from the historical records. The book follows the two strands (modern times, and 16th century) as they slowly coalesce (I kid you not), with much more weight and focus on the pseudo-historical strand. Both are told in the 1st person, but only Dr Dee really comes to life, which mainly serves to outline how repulsive, selfish, and less than human (despite his reported human foibles) the learned man was (or, at least, is displayed here). Matthew's character is sketchy, and mainly comes across as weak, confused, embarrassing, and not in any semblance of control.
Iron Sunrise, the second book in Charles Stross' Timelike Diplomacy series (as it is now known) starts with a bang. A big one. When the planet of Moscow, a happy, democratic, quite enlightened (if slightly backwards) planet is ‘Iron Bombed’ (essentially – the core of its sun was replaced by an iron crystal of equivalent mass, leading to some rather cataclysmic-catastrophic reactions in its suddenly unsupported mantle), the resulting massive radiation and plasma pulse obliterates everything in its way in the star system. This leads to the automatic deployment of its 2nd strike deterrent force – sublight speed bombers equipped with planet busters, neigh impossible to stop, or defend against. These are aimed at Moscow’s local trade competitor, New Dresden, which is 35 light years away from Moscow. And 30 years from the arrival of the bombers when we join the story. How do you evacuate a planet of 3 billion people, even over 30+ years? You do the maths – it transpires, very simply, that you don’t, not with any kind of fleet of ‘normal’ FTL space ships. And, even better, it wasn’t even New Dresden behind the bombing in the first place… This situation brings on the ‘Black Chamber’ UN diplomats from Old Earth, especially Rachel Mansour and her (now) husband Martin Springfield, the protagonists from the first book playing in the ‘Timeline Diplomacy’ universe, Singularity Sky. Their mission? Figure out who bombed Moscow and who is now killing, one after the other, its remaining Ambassadors to other worlds. Stop them. And stop the bombers running on New Dresden. It's quite a brief… But the person who knows what really happened, or who at least has access to the clues, is a displaced evacuee teenager called (ok, calls herself) Wednesday Shadowmist, who gets evacuated from Portal Station 11 (affectionately known to its inhabitants as 'Old Newfoundland Four'), 3.6 light years away from the explosion; a distance which provides enough time to evacuate, but is still way too close to the Iron Sunrise to protect human life within the station from the expanding shock wave …
Here are a few thoughts on Wireless, a collection of short stories by Charles Stross, a book a received from Little, Brown Books for review (thanks).
This is, like every other collection of short stories and novelettes that I've ever read a mixed bag, covering a wide scope of topics, writing styles, and quality of story. Overall it's entertaining if not terribly complex or deep; but then most short stories are written as test balloons, trials, and to play with ideas that didn't warrant full size novels, so that's par for the course, if not better given the case at hand.
The book contains stories written between 98 and 08; all of which (save Palimpset) were published previously, some in electronic form only. Given the above, here is a quick run through the contents:
Stephen Bury is a pseudonym for a co-writing effort by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George. Cobweb is their 2nd book as co-authors, after 'Interface'. The story is written to play in an alternative recent history, although it could just as well fit in with the facts as we know them from the 1st Gulf war, edited as they are when they reach us... It follows two separate strands in the build up to the war. On the one hand we have gutsy Betsy Vendeveter, a low grade analyst in the CIA, who has just stumbled over a connection that nobody else has noticed, and then committed career suicide by actually releasing it, which means she seriously overstepped her boundaries. Especially as her observation, concerning mid-Eastern graduate students, biological weapons, and associated skullduggery torpedoes all the careful work, done over many years, of James Gabor Millikan, US Diplomat to the Near East, and main shaper of US foreign policy in the area. So, from thereon she is shunned, shunted about, and only helped in the most obscure ways – the service wants, no, needs her insights, but cannot be seen to want her.
Ally is the 5th (and penultimate) book in Karen Traviss' excellent Wess'har Wars series, and thus the set-up for the much-anticipated final instalment.
It will be interesting to see how she ties up all the story strands and complications – this book shows how difficult it can be to actually line them all up to even allow for such an attempt. Her main challenge, I guess, is also what makes this series such a great read: with every book the story direction changes, as new levels of argument and complications are introduced. Every time you think you've got the ethical, moral, religious, and ecological arguments and positions the story plays in (and with) nailed down – along comes another instalment, and turns it all on its head again; both through more extreme examples, as well as through demonstration of compromise under constraint, and consequences this has. Whilst this makes for a challenge, as the books keep taking you out of some kind of comfort-"I-know-how-things-tick-here"-zone, it also makes this story arc very very enjoyable as she refuses to trot out the same old 'it sold well earlier' approach. Commendable.
SPOILER WARNING. The following will (well, should) not spoil your enjoyment of this book. But. If you haven't read the earlier books in the series, and are planning to do so (I can only recommend you give it a go, it's worth it) then this will seriously spoil your fun from discovering where things are heading, and all the changes Karen introduces to keep you and me entertained and on our toes. So, if you're planning to start at the beginning, stop reading NOW.
Iron Sunrise
Stephen Bury is a pseudonym for a co-writing effort by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George. Cobweb is their 2nd book as co-authors, after 'Interface'.
Ally
