A disorienting story, set in a disorienting world - not just to you, the reader, but to its remaining occupants, too. something has passed by Earth, and nothing is the same anymore - and the changes keep happening, like a spring winding down to its inevitable conclusion. Which might not be the end, but merely the end of everthing as we've known it.
Great stuff, and much recommended reading.
The picture on the right is by a (Korean?) artist called 非 (hi), of whom very little appears to be known.
Andy Weir describes himself as “Science Fiction Author and general science geek” with an interest in relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. The Martian is his first novel, originally self-published in 2011, and now, in edited/re-written form, published by Random House in February 2014. He has a number of other short stories (especially the much-translated “The Egg”) to his name, a link to his website where you can read those is below.
The premise of the The Martian is simple – as Mark Watney, the main protagonist puts it: “The Ares Program. Mankind reaching out to Mars to send people to another planet for the very first time and expand the horizons of humanity blah blah blah. The Ares 1 crew did their thing and came back heroes. They got the parades and fame and love of the world. Ares 2 did the same thing, in a different location on Mars. They got a firm handshake and a hot cup of coffee when they got home. Ares 3. Well, that was my mission. Okay, not mine per se. Commander Lewis was in charge. I was just one of her crew. Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be 'in command' of the mission if I were the only remaining person.
What do you know? I'm in command.”
You see, the Ares 3 mission had to be aborted due to a severe sand storm on Mars. And during the evacuation from the Hab the crew was supposed to inhabit for the duration of their stay to the MAV (Mars ascent vehicle) an antenna tore lose, hit (and in parts skewered) Mark. Having lost visual contact, not being able to find him, and his (damaged) suit incorrectly indicating that he was dead the commander, with extreme resistance, gave command to take off to save the rest of her team.
Mark agrees that this was the correct decision, albeit one that now leaves him the sole human on Mars, with minor injuries, a functioning infrastructure (minus comms rig), not enough food until Ares 4 arrives, and no ride home. Just peachy...
Chuck Wendig is a writer who had escaped my attention so far (except for his endorsement on Charlie Human’s Apocalypse Now Now!), despite ISFDB listing 10 novels, one collection, one anthology, a chapterbook, a number of short stories, and a nomination for the John W. Campbell Award. Not for The Blue Blazes, as this, the first book in a series focussing on the character (and named after) Mookie Pearl, was only published this year. The next book in the series is apparently titled Bloody Bride, and is due in early 2015
The Blue Blazes are set in a contemporary New York, with an added underground/magic layer. Yes, it’s yet another Urban Fantasy (or Magic Realism, if you prefer the term), so very much part of the trend. It could nearly be YA, although I don’t think it’s intended as such, and is not being marketed as it, either.
You see, the Sandhogs, the workers who build and maintain the tunnels under New York, have tunnelled into what is now known as the Shallows, or the Great Belows, and from there now come weird and dangerous creatures into our world. Except for the hole being plugged and guarded. You can only see these creatures if you are ‘blazing’, ie under the influence of the drug Blue Blazes, or Cerulean; which is mined underground, and traded, for good money, amongst the cognoscenti. Besides sight it also gives its user strength, toughness, and an increased ability to heal.
It's about games, or, to be precise, about a world where all the Universe's games are mined from, and access to which is guarded by a tower and its warden (or is it the other way round?), who you have to pass to go and mine a game. Which can, and usually does, mean a challenge, and a game, and potentially consequences of losing said game.
I will not spill (and spoil) more of the story - go and ready it for yourself, it's available for free on Lightspeed Magazine. Yes, it has echoes of Ian M. Banks' Player of Games, but in a good and, in my opinion, non-derivative way.
It's also eligible for the 2014 Hugos, and has been recommended for such by Aliette de Bodard - I can heartily second that endorsement. Good stuff!
How does one introduce an author as pre-eminent as Bruce Sterling? He's got (depending on how you count) 13 Novels, a good number of short stories (filling, to date, 5 collections), plus several non-fiction books to his name. He's been nominated and has won multiple awards, including a staggering 9 Hugo nominations (incl 2 wins, both for stories in this collection) and 7 Nebula nominations. He's one of the founders of the Cyberpunk movement as well as the newer 'Slipstream' genre.
This here is a brief review of his short story collection titled A Good Old-Fashioned Future from 2001, containing stories originally published between 1993-98, including the two (Bicycle Repairman and Taklamatakan) for which he received Hugo Awards.
Overall this is a rather high grade collection, containing 7 stories with an interesting structure of lengths (I cannot imagine this being accidental), only one of which didn't really capture me; which is rather good going for a story collection.
Below is a run-down of the individual stories, their topics and/or my thoughts on them; if you feel that this would affect your enjoyment of the stories (and I can thoroughly recommend that you obtain and read this book) then you might want to stop reading now.
The December issue of Spaceflightreported from the 64th International Astronautical Congress:
“In Beijing, the new WSW Executive Director Remo Timmermans got off to a flying start by securing the appearance of the world's most famous living astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. However, the BIS got extra kudos by arranging the world's second most famous astronaut, Chris Hadfield, to appear at a formal event the Society helped to organise […]”
And I think this about sums it up: Chris Hadfield is currently hot property, owing to his social media profile during his stint as Commander of a long-term mission to the International Space Station. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth is both the story of how he became an Astronaut against all odds, his adventures as an Astronaut, but especially what outlook on life got him there, and what he learned from the experience.
You haven’t heard of/from him? Let me summarise – Canadian Astronaut, part of the Shuttle crew who installed a docking adapter for said Shuttle on the Russian Mir station; then part of the team which installed the Canadarm2 on the ISS whilst it was being built, and now, as I said above, Commander on the ISS, with a huge presence on Twitter, Youtube, and G+. If you haven’t seen his version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity which he recorded on the ISS (yes, he’s an accomplished musician, too) then you should go and watch it now (link below, together with the bio from the book). I don’t know how long it will be until that song is Bowie’s again, in my mind… but he's good at this on his own, too:
“Behind us, a trail of burning snowflakes from the firing sparkle away into the night” – poetic, and he really should use this in a song, just in case he hasn’t done so yet.
