Sometimes the little throw-away things have the biggest impact on your life, or your project; frequently much more than anything we’ve planned out and worked hard towards - I’m sure we’ve all been there! Sydney Padua, the author of ‘The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage *The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer’ might know this even better than most of us. She undertook to draw a very short comic, historically (mostly) accurate, about Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, and during research stumbled over the eccentric genius of Charles Babbage, and his steam powered computer. And as she found the ending to be ‘awfully grim’ (Lovelace went off the rails like her father before her and died young and quite mad, whilst Babbage died a crabby old man who had never finished any of his marvellous calculating engines) she added an alternative one, set in a better universe. Which, to everybody else and the Internet at large, meant that she was now drawing a comic about how their lives played out if they built the Difference Engine, and went on to a life of fighting crime!
“Hundreds of pages of comics later and it’s becoming a little hard to insist, as I still do, that I am not drawing a comic called The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage”
It's a deceptively simple story about withholding personal information from the authorities who, by default, feel entitled to this, and the consequences and complexities this can have if you attempt to live a 'normal' life in an environment which expects you to share and overshare these things.
It's fascinating, thought provoking, and (at least for me) slightly sad. But go read, and make up your own mind!
The illustration which goes with the story is by very talented Illustrator Daniel Stolle
Now here’s a book I tried to avoid. Not because I don’t like Neil’s writing, most of it agrees with me, or because I don’t like Mythology, Norse or otherwise (I quite do), but I turned down an electronic review copy because I expected there be endless reams to be written about it (there were indeed), and it to sell like hot cakes anyway, without any publicity by myself (oh, and didn’t it just). Plus, I really have enough to read and write about, or so I thought. Others thought otherwise, though, and so here I am with a signed copy, and, as I’m wont to, an opinion after reading it. Even if it’s been 3 months since the book came out.
So, hype aside, what is this about, then? I mean, Neal has been writing about Norse Mythology, and using its characters and tropes in his oeuvre for a long time - quite openly in the Sandman series, or in Odd and the Frost Giants, but as an influence in many other parts and stories, too. But this here is the full treatment, with focus, of course. And, from his introduction, it sounds like the main aim for him was to share his fascination with this body of mythology, and animate people, many people, to join in and start reading more of the topic.
Also - I really don’t see a point in introducing the author, Neil Gaiman, who has been described as the SF Rockstar before. I don’t think there are any in the current crop of genre writers who have anything like his reach and success in the mainstream - the late Terry Pratchett might have come close, but otherwise you’re going back to Vonnegut, Ballard, or maybe Asimov.
The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross has been a running concern since the release of The Atrocity Archives in 2004, it has progressed from its original blueprint of geeky humour mixed with Lovecraftian horror via the horror of Bureaucracies running Occult Secret Services trying to save the world from, err, the end of the world, to the current crop of stories which are rather darker, and are driving towards whatever the (presumably cataclysmic) conclusion of the series is. The series currently runs to 7 novels plus several short story/novella add-ins so far; The Annihilation Score, the topic of this review, is the 6th book (yes, I’m still one behind), and an 8th instalment, titled The Delirium Brief, is hitting the shops in July 2017. I better get reading…
The Annihilation Score is different to its predecessor in two main points - firstly it deals with Superheroes, instead of the usual more horror-based approach (the horror of Bureaucracies is still present, of course, with added politics), but secondly, and even more of a departure, the main protagonist relating the story is not Bob Howard this time, but his estranged wife Mo O’Brien instead. And, in keeping with this change, we get to hear the story not just of the current outbreak of Superhero powers in the UK (related to the the usual scenario of the walls between realities being eroded dangerously), but we also learn much much more about the relationship between Mo, and her magic violin, Lector. The fact that it has a name, a personality (yes, it’s self-aware), its own goals, needs, and drives, and a sex life (by invading Mo’s dreams…) make for a certain amount of uneasy reading - the sex is less pervy and quite a lot more creepy than it could have been; instead we get massive relationship and jealousy issues towards Bob, who now, with his mentor Angleton dead, is the earthly vessel for the Eater of Souls. Who in turn does not really like Mo, it appears.
“...and what must it be like, to be an alien spirit bound into an instrument carved from the agonised bones of dying men and women, immobile and helplessly dependent on a human host, hungry for experience and thirsty for blood…”
Here is an unexpected treat - and no, I don't mean the Eggs!
Behind Click-Bait Headlines like the one above you normally find either yawn-inducing mundanity not worthy of the over-hyped title, or advertising completely unrelated to the topic. If you're lucky...
Still, this here is very much worth reading, because of What Happened.
What do you call a human Empire, spread out across a number of star systems, and set up so each system relies an all or most of the others for survival? With an Emperor (sorry, Emperox, gender neutral term) at its centre, a trade guild/house system ruling it together with a Church, and a society in what amounts to a caste system? Thriving? (well, yes). Wealthy? (yes, albeit much more true for the top layer). Corrupt? (oh, certainly).
But more to the point, this first book in John Scalzi's new Interdependency series, The Collapsing Empire, also adds 'Endangered - due to its reliance on the little-understood Flow links which tie this Empire together' to the list of attributes. Never mind the fact that this could mean the end of humanity as they know it... There's more to be added here, but I really don't want to spoil a book which you should read for yourself! But let's just say that the title alone has at least two meanings.
John Scalzi is an American SF writer, who has been entertaining the readers with his tales since 2005, and has won Hugo, Locus, Campbell, and Seiun awards for his work during that time. He is a former president of the SFWA and was (to some extent still is) an exponent in the last few rounds of politics in the SF community (e.g - google Puppygate if you like non-edifying squabbling). He also writes non-fiction, and regularly blogs on whatever.scalzi.com on a wide variety of topics. The Collapsing Empire, out for a few weeks as I'm writing this (yes, I'm behind. Sorry.) kicked off the new Interdependency series in style: Scalzi summarised it as “Sales records broken, bestseller status achieved, and TV deal gotten”. Way to go...
