Here's a book I received for review which didn't wholly convince me... The Affinity Trap is, as far as I can establish, Martin Sketchely's first published novel. It's also the first in a trilogy; usually referred to as the 'Delgado' trilogy, although other names are in use, too; apparently the (soon to be released) next book in the series is 'The Destiny Mask'.
The story plays in the mid-near future, where humanity, or at least the part that counts, lives in 'Myson Towers (named after their inventor), which are essentially sealed off environments, sealed against their surrounding constituent riff-raff, not against each other. So the upper class, military, secret service etc have luxury, virtual vacations, space travel, contact with alien cultures etc. The rest of humanity has been left behind, and lives in crumbling dystopian towns, regularly harassed by 'Purifiers' who kill everyone on sight (from the air, or course), or eke out a living in the remaining countryside, and are victimized by army training exercises. So far so classic. Inhabiting this set-up is Commander Alexander Delgado, long term officer in the 'Structure' section of the secret service. He's been there for a while, and is a left-over from the old days of benevolent General Smythe, who was ousted in some kind of coup by General William Myson (exceedingly wealthy son of the inventor of the Myson Towers), who turned Earth, its politics, science, and military into a wealth-generating behemoth. And now Delgado is tasked to fly to the Affinity Group (some strange religious conglomerate – we don't learn too much about them) and retrieve a Seriatt 'female' known as Vourniass Lycern Conosq dis fer'n'at (apostrophy alert!), with whom Myson intents to father a child, purely for political (and thus profit) reasons. Cue James-Bond style secret service shenanigans. And sex. Lots of sex, at least for the first half of the book (yes, it gets better, at least on that front, after a while). Which sets of all kinds of emotions and developments in Delgado, most of which are not desirable from his and/or his employer's perspective. Or from mine.
Toast is Charles Stross' first published work of fiction. He wrote the introduction in 2000, it hit the shelves in 2002; and in 2006 it was released into the wilds of the Interwebs on a Creative Commons license as it was out of print, and no-one was interested in re-printing it. This is a review of the electronic version – get your own, the link is below the review! And of course go buy his other books.
Toast is a collection of short stories, and it obviously is older than the current collection, Wireless, (yes, I'm reading things out of sequence yet again). It contains an introduction by the author, 10 stories (each with a short introduction, too), and a 2005 update/afterword for the re-release.
The introduction in itself is very interesting – it talks about the acceleration of the rate of change (and the associated socio-technological developments), and what this means for us, as well as for the poor SF writer: Change destroys Science Fictional futures. And accelerating change destroys futures even faster. Welcome to the brave 1st decate of the 21st Century, a decade which will destroy more SF futures than any ten year span that preceded it.
Hell's Angels was the late Hunter S. Thompson's 1st published book, although 'The Rum Diaries' (published a lot later) & 'Prince Jellyfish' (unpublished as of yet… the estate has plans, though) were written earlier. It is a straight journalistic work of research, and not in the 'Gonzo' style he became famous for later; although, with what we know today, some things foreshadow what was to come.
The book is a highly readable, interesting, and absorbing account of the time Hunter spent riding with the Hells Angels in 1965. He was never part of the group, but, after somebody introduced him to the San Francisco chapter, he asked if he could spend time with them, and write a book about; which, after much discussion, they agreed with. Hunter followed them in his car, and later on his motorbike (not a proper chopper…), including a high speed crash which took him, and his bike, off the road for a while.
The Cassini Division is the 3rd book (out of 4) in Ken MacLeod's highly enjoyable Fall Revolution sequence; and just to be clear from the outset - this instalment, despite being a bit simpler in structure and scope, keeps up the high quality level in writing and reader enjoyment which we've come to appreciate from the first 2 books.
Notice to readers who are not readers (yet) of the earlier books in the series – this review will, by necessity, contain spoilers for the earlier books. Desist from reading on if this bothers you.
The story kicks off with a new protagonist: we encounter Ellen May Ngwethu on Earth, trying to convince Jonathan Wilde (the copy that came back from New Mars through the Wormhole) to provide some undisclosed information, to no avail. She then progresses on a backup plan by embarking on a trip through the wilds of 'non-co' London (canals, overgrown roads etc – Ken has loads of fun with old aka current-day place names and references) to seek out Islamabard Kingdom Malley – Sam to his friends - (yes, him of the Malley-Equations that allowed the construction of the wormhole). She manages to convince him to join her in the Cassini Division, the crack force of the Solar Union which keeps watch over the post-human civilization on Jupiter. Her target? To find a way through the wormhole (colloquially known as the 'Malley Mile'), and check that David Reid has not re-started the 'fast folk' on New Mars and caused another Singularity which would endanger Earth.
The Road to Dune is, like all of the Dune books sinceFrank Herbert's untimely death, a book by his sonBrian Herbert and his writing partner Kevin J. Anderson, but based on some of the tons of material Frank left behind, and thus based in the Dune Universe. I leave it to the fans to decide if Brian's and Kevin's writings are canon, and to what degree.
This is a book of three parts – first off the mark is a rendering of the 'original' Dune novelette (or, at least, that's the length it came to here) called 'Spice Planet', that Brian and Kevin partially pieced together from chapters Frank left behind, and partially wrote based on his outline and notes. It is a recognizable setting and story line for everyone who has read Dune, albeit with differences to Character and Place names, with a simpler storyline, and with significantly fewer layers and complications than the book that was finally published. I think that, if it would have been published in this short form, and with this level and quality of content, then Dune would be forgotten by now, and so would, conceivably, be Frank, which would be a great loss to Science Fiction in my opinion.
"The bomb lives only as it's falling" (Slias Engin)
Use of Weapons is the 4th instalment in the loosely connected series of books in the Culture universe by Iain M Banks. This is a story, as the title indicates, about weapons. About how weapons can be used, and about what can be used as a weapon (Zakalwe, the main protagonist, uses weapons, but is also used as a weapon). And it asks, between the lines, what is the use of weapons? And what does using weapons do to you as the user? But before I become overly philosophical here let's get back to the story for a bit.
Rasd-Coduresa Diziet Embless Sma da'Marenhide (known as Dizzy or Sma to her friends) is pulled out of an assignment at short, or rather, no notice. She is to find a former Special Circumstances mercenary called Cheradine Zakalwe, and convince him to come along on a mission to extract Tsoldrin Beyache, a pensioned-off ex-politician, and convince him to come out of retirement and use his name and influence to save the cluster he lives in from developmental regression into all-out war and accompanying barbary. Simple enough as a story arc, you say? It is indeed, even with a few side threads and extra adventures thrown in. The main storyline in this book is actually brief, and quite simple, and rather straight-forward. What provides the meat here are numerous flashbacks, stretches of introspection and trips down memory lane, all focusing on Zakalwe, which provide most of the tension and depth in the main story. Not a technique I've encountered frequently in SF I have to say – it works well, although it makes the book feel slow, despite a good amount of action.
Hell's Angels
The Cassini Division
The Road to Dune
