What do you get when someone deeply embedded in the Now, the discussions around our online culture, about our electronic rights, about where we are and where we are heading, and who has published copiously on these topics previously writes a work of fiction? The answer, for very good (and maybe even obvious?) reasons is with a cracker of a novel playing on exactly these topics - here is someone who knows what they are talking about, and who is telling us about what she feels we need to think of for the future.
Annalee Newitz is a journalist who writes about the cultural impact of science and technology, the former editor at iO9 and Gizmodo, a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and currently the Tech Culture Editor for Ars Technica. Besides all her online and magazine work she has 6 non-fiction books to her name, now followed by her first novel, Autonomous.
Autonomous is a story about bots, about ownership, and about self-image and self-determination. Or, alternatively, about business, intellectual property, and the protection of investment; including the question of what is socially, ethically, and morally acceptable (or can be got away with, at least). The story, set in a 2144 which is surprisingly recognisable, follows two main protagonists - firstly Jack, a designer drug pirate who travels in a stealth submarine, and distributes free drugs to the needy who cannot afford them; and secondly Paladin, a bird-like bot, freshly become incorporated and thus indentured to the African Federation, who now is set to work for the IPC to track down patent violations. You see, this world is nominally run by a small number of power blocks, but all the more so by ever-mightier corporations, who more or less can flaunt the law as they wish in the protection of their interests; we witness some events involving violence I found rather unpalatable, but apparently quite accepted as fait accompli by society. Jack has a problem though - one of the drugs she reverse-engineered, has had produced, and sold to pay for her charitable work belonged to a mighty corporation called Zacity, and has a flaw - it does not just make work much more enjoyable and desirable to do (as it is designed to), it makes the user dependent on continuing to do it to the exclusion of everything else - to their death. And Zacity will do anything to keep this from becoming common knowledge.
The story is subtitled 'Working Back from Human Extinction', and does exactly that - provide a list of events and interventions, in reverse chronological order, of the run-up to human extinction. You will not be surprised that it begins in the today, or maybe even the yesterday, with 'Turn off the lights when you are no longer in the room.'
But if the path to hell is paved with good intention, then the path to human extinction is paved with decisions made with the best intentions. At least some of them, the rest of course were made due to greed, other interests than humanity overall, or simply stupidity...
Do I need to introduce William Gibson? Author of Neuromancer (and 12 novels since), winner of about everything which can be won in the field? Yes, he’s moved on from his Cyberpunk days, that’s perfectly ok, and to be expected. And, with The Difference Engine he is/was one of the founding fathers of Steampunk, too. Plus - he’s still putting out utterly compelling material, like the book at hand. The Peripheral is his latest novel (and yes, I’m behind, it’s been a year since he published this), it’s a standalone novel in a rather interesting setting, inasmuch as this plays in a future world (post-apocalyptic does not really cover it. post-dystopian?) which has learned to make connections to the past - each of which splits of another ‘stub’, creates another time line which started the same as the past, but which branches off from the point of contact. So far so Everett-Wheeler-Graham, I guess…
The story starts with Flynne standing in for her war vet brother, flying a paid shift running security in a game (or that’s what she thinks it is), and witnessing a murder in the process. Playing games for money seems to be one of the main ways of earning a living in Flynne’s world - the other alternative seems to be fabbing (think 3D printing, advanced), mostly counterfeit goods or drugs. But the crime she witnessed was real, and not in a game, and someone wants Flynne dead now, urgently. In parallel chapters we follow Wilf Netherton as one of his charges tries to contact the denizens (‘Patchers’) of the floating city in the Pacific Garbage Patch to cut some kind of deal - and the whole operation goes badly belly-up. This leaves Wilf initially out of work, and soon thereafter a target for elimination for reasons he is not entirely sure of - something else is afoot, and not just that deal/project having gone wrong and a number of Patchers killed in the process.
Neal Asher is a British author, splitting his time between his places in Essex and Crete (I guess we’ll have to see what Brexit does about such arrangements!). He has been publishing SF Novels since 2001 - most of them are set in his Polity universe, where humanity has spread over a large amount of space, and is ruled by a centre of (superficially) beneficent AIs. There are humans outside that sphere, there are borderlands with other species, and there are solar systems trying to go their own way, which leads to frequently violent conflict with Separatists. Any similarities with current political arrangements and wrangles might be entirely coincidental.
Infinity Engine is the final book in a trilogy called Transformation, following the path of development of a rogue AI known as Penny Royal. The earlier two books are called Dark Intelligence, and War Factory, and I would consider The Technician, which set up the scenario for the Trilogy, as an near-integral part of it, too. Overall there are now a substantial number of books available in the Polity universe, spread across time and topics (never mind approaches), and split into individual sub-series. Someone's drawn up a time line, and boy does it help. In terms of this series, though, you don’t have to have read all the books. You could start with Dark Intelligence, or you could pick up The Technician first, and thus get some more background (never mind entertainment) before diving into the trilogy proper. But if not everything I mention in this review makes sense then this is because I’m talking about the final book in a trilogy. Also - of course - anything I give away of the story here is per definition a spoiler for the earlier books - caveat!
Infinity Engine has another point setting it apart - a musician called Steve Buick has composed and recorded an album of original music to go with the book; this is available on evokescape.com. I have not heard it, so cannot comment on how much (or at all) this improves the reading of the book at hand.
Here's a little treat for you, and fresh off the press (virtually only, though):
Uncanny Magazine has, in its November/December issue, a story by Karin Tidbeck called The Bone Plain - talking about running away, about finding your own way, or maybe yourself. And about redemption, maybe.
But read for yourself, the story is not very long, but very much worth reading!
Karin Tidbeck is a Swedish writer of Weird Fiction, sometimes, as is the case here, with a hint of Fantasy (or 70s SF art? I could picture the Bone Plain setting as such!), and a new and exciting voice that you should not miss!
Masterworks is a series, now running to 73 titles, which was originally published by Millennium and is now being continued by Gollancz; consisting of classic SF tales which deserve to be kept in print. Philip K. Dick figures quite large in that run – so far this contains 14 (!) novels from his back catalogue.
Dick, who died in 1982, published 44 novels and 121 short stories over the course of his life; a number of which won awards; the one at hand won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1975.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said takes its title from a lute ayre (look it up!) by John Dowland, written in 1596 (yes, you read that right). One of the main characters loves the song, and quotes it in the story. Its lyrics also open each part of the book. The relationship between the song, its lyrics, and the story and underlying meaning and themes of the book would be the work of a PhD thesis, should one be so inclined (me? Not, sorry.)
The story follows Jason Taverner, a genetically modified human (a Six – presumably that's the sequence of attempted modifications) who is a singer and TV star with a 30 million audience at his weekly show. Except that, after being attacked by a lover/protégé, he comes around in a cheap hotel, and, much worse, in a world where no one remembers him, and where he has no records, papers, or database entries. The latter is bad, as this is a police state, set in a USA after a 2nd civil war. The students (and their teachers), who are hold-outs from the war/coup, are still kettled in their campuses, barricaded in, some under terrible circumstances. This is a near-panopticon world, with pol (Police) and nat (National Guard) road blocks, random checks for ID on the road, with bugs attached to people and clothing (and to ID) sending regular blips with the location and who the owner/wearer is with. And if you don't have ID, or get picked up for the wrong reasons you are off to a labour camp, just like that. Essentially this is as close to a repressive panopticon society as you can get without ubiquitous computing.
