Well, here we go again with a non-fiction volume, and on a topic close to my heart. Robert Zubrin's (and Richard Wagner's) The Case for Mars - The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must was originally published 20 years ago - a duration which used to be an eternity in space developments and progress, and which seems to have mainly seen stand-still now, at least on the human exploration front. But a disclaimer first, before everyone gets offended - I'm an interested (very) amateur, so my reading and opinions here are based on my limited knowledge from outside the space industry and science community, and without the historic background other people have. If you know more than me then I'd be more than happy to add your opinion/explanations (as long as printable) to my efforts - the contact form is on the left, and worked last time the spammers tried! Dr Robert Zubrin in an American aerospace engineer, and space advocate, with a heavy personal investment in getting human space exploration re-started, and humanity to Mars. You can find substantial materials by him on the Internet and in print, and there are presentations by him on the topic on YouTube should you be interested after reading this!
Back to the book at hand - this kicks off with a foreword by Arthur C Clarke, including his address to the future Martians which was sent with the Russian Mars Lander in 1996. He closes with: "The choice, as Wells once said, is the Universe - or nothing... The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close. Humanity will have turned its back upon the still untrodden heights and will be descending again the long slope that stretches, across a thousand million years of time, down to the shores of the primeval sea." Beyond that we get a Foreword, a Preface, 10 chapters of core content, an Epiloge, a Glossary, a list of Notes and References, and an Index; making this a very well appointed and structured book indeed.
Nnedi Okorafor is a US-born writer with roots in Nigeria; she writes both fantasy and sf, with her writing reflecting both the country and society she lives in, but frequently, especially in topic and setting, her African roots. Besides being a successful writer she also is a professor at the Chicago State University. She has been nominated for, and has won, a number of awards, most notably the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature for her first book (Zahrah the Windseeker), the Hugo and Nebula awards, and the World Fantasy Award for best Novel with Who Fears Death. Noor is her 14th novel, with yet another one (Akata Witch 3 – Akata Woman) scheduled for publication in January 2022.
Nnedi emphatically considers most of her output to be Africanfuturism (ie to concern itself with the future of Africa and its people) and not Afrofuturism (which concerns itself with the future of the African diaspora in the USA), and Noor clearly falls under that definition.
I also feel I have to include a disclaimer here – I am totally utterly caucasian in background and upbringing. Not African, not of African descent, and not even American. This means that my knowledge of the cultural background of this story is minimal, so there will be, by definition, loads that I misread, or plainly miss due to this. So take this review as what it is – a read by somebody not familiar with the setting, and thus really only valid for other readers approaching this story from a similarly alien angle. All errors, by omission or commission, are by default mine.
It's the Laundry Files, Captain, but not as we know them. This is either the 10th book in the Laundry Files sequence (although some might count this differently, too), or the 1st one in a new series – Laundry Files: New Management.
The author, btw, is of the latter view, and sees this as the first in a trilogy. None of the main characters from the original run of stories appears in Dead Lies Dreaming (except the Elder God who is now British PM), but this is very clearly set in this world, and after the events in The Labyrinth Index. It makes for an excellent jumping-on point – whilst you won't have the background information of how things got to be the way they are you actually also don't need that background, and could just start fresh with this, and what follows from it (the next book is announced for Jan 2022, and titled Quantum of Nightmares). Which does not mean that you shouldn't read the rest of the series, which is excellent. Just that you don't need to do so beforehand!
Charles Stross is a British writer living in Scotland, with 31 novels to his names (series, and publication history are complex, country/continent-dependent, and your count might vary), plus chapbooks, shorts, novellas, collections... I have read a good part of it, and generally find it stimulating, engaging, and more-ish reading. That other people share that view reflects in a series of Award-wins, including several Hugos. The Laundry Files, the series which defined the world this story is set in, now runs to 10 books, and a number of novellas filling in parts, and is based on the basic premise that magic is like formal math, that formal math is a way to perform magic, and that computer algorithms (and their proliferations) has brought on a huge increase in magic in the world. There's more, of course, which derives from that.
In January 2020 Clarkesworld Magazine published a story by Isabel Fall (a new writer, writing under a pseudonym) named I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.
In my eyes it's a clever and well-executed piece of near-future fiction, set in a oddly broken US, where the military have shaped and used sexual identity to forge a closer bond between the weapon and its pilot - so much in the vein of a Peter Watts story that some people assumed it was actually written by him (no, it was not).
But it clearly also takes up the anti-trans meme in the title, and re-claims it for the trans community (Isabel Fall herself is trans). But somewhere between the unknown, anonymous author, the provocative title, and the modern-day tendency to be outraged just in case and on behalf this led to a shitstorm of abuse that ended in Fall asking Clarkesworld to take down the story, and check herself into a clinic due to suicidal ideation given the attacks on her.
So far so good (the story) and so bad (the unwarranted over-reaction to it). The story was, under the shortened moniker Helicopter Story, nominated for a Hugo Award in 2021 (it didn't win it), but is still only available on the Archive (the Wayback Machine has purges it's copy) and on private uploads. The space it took up on the Clarkesworld page is taken up by a statement by Neil Clarke, the editor. This is worth a read, too.
If you haven't read it then I would, now you know the above, invite you to read it yourself, links are below. And, both in this case as well as in general - please be respectful with other human beings, even if you disagree with them. Things are frequently more complex than they seem at first glance.
I still recall where I first came across the name Ben Bova – it was in a short story (which impressed me hugely) called Stars, Won't You Hide Me, which was included in one of these door-stop sized collections of short SF stories. I also know where I was when I learned of his death from COVID-related pneumonia/stroke – exactly where I am now, in my study, at my desk, in lockdown.
Ben's introduction to the collection at hand points at that he's published more than 1000 works of short fiction, nearly 150 novels, anthologies, plus books of non-fiction. I don't think he expected this selection, called My Favorites, to be his final book, not from how he sounds. But he points out that his stories are like his children, and that these are his favourite ones.
The book contains 14 stories, each with a short introduction by the author, and all published before. The introductions add something to most of the stories I felt, even if I'd have loved to get more background, more extra info. One piece of information that I would have found helpful would have been when these were originally written and/or published, it would definitely have helped to place them better, and appreciate them as products of the time, of where the world and he was at the time.
Still, this is an interesting and much varied selection, and I shall forgive him for not including Stars, Won't You Hide Me. He had a lot to choose from, and he knew them better than you or me.
Is this an essential book? No, not in my opinion. It is interesting, entertaining, but also something aimed at fans and completists I feel. Recommended within these caveats.
Here's a recommendation from our friends over at the Translated SF Wiki (you should check them out if you have an interest in non-UK/US SF!)
Anton Stark's short story Silkstrand, A Minute Of is a fascinating little fragment, set in Chinese-style high culture, and following one of the characters responsible for maintaining the universal clock that keeps the Empire ticking, and time flowing correctly. But who, by chance, finds out that - no, I'm not telling. Go read it, it's short, it's clever, and it's charming.
The story was published, both as text and as a Podcast on Cast of Wonders - links below.
The picture on the right is a wooden Triangle Mandala - it felt somewhat appropriate given the subject matter!
