Review of Mainspring -- Jay Lake

The fields of fantastic fiction continue to fragment as publishers, authors, and readers refine and assert their talents and tastes. Currently in vogue is the subgenre of steampunk, a strange mix of Victorian-era trappings with postmodern dystopian sensibility. The term is young and as a result, it is less than precise, having recently been applied to writings as diverse as China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and Christopher Priest's The Prestige. Here we have a new and popular offering in the steampunk genre: Jay Lake's Mainspring.

Hethor, an orphaned horologist's (clockmaker's) apprentice is visited by a clockwork angel named Gabriel and given a mission from God: to find the Key Perilous and wind the mainspring of the world:

The angel gleamed in the light of Hethor’s reading candle bright as any brasswork automaton. The young man clutched his threadbare coverlet in the irrational hope that the quilted cotton scraps could shield him from whatever power had invaded his attic room. Trembling, he closed his eyes.

His master, the clockmaker Franklin Bodean, had taught Hethor to listen to the mechanisms of their work. But he’d found that he could listen to life, too. Hethor heard first and always his own breathing, even now heavy and slow despite his burgeoning sense of fear.

The old house on New Haven’s King George III Street creaked as it always did. A horse clopped past outside, buggy wheels rattling along with the echo of hooves on cobbles. Great steam-driven foghorns echoed over Long Island Sound. The new electrick lamps lighting the street outside hissed and popped. Underneath the noises of the city lay the ticking of Master Bodean’s clocks, and under that, if he listened very hard, the rattle of the world’s turning.

But there was no one in the room with him. No one else drew breath; no floorboard creaked. No strange smells either. Merely his own familiar sweat, the hot-tallow scent of his candle, the oils of the house—wood and machine—and a ribbon of salt air from the nearby sea.

Was this a dream?

“I am alone.” He said it as something between a prayer and the kind of spell he used to try to cast in the summer woods when he was a boy—calling on Indian lore and God’s word and dark magic from the Southern Earth and the timeless power of stone walls and spreading oaks.

Finally Hethor opened his eyes.

The angel was still there.

It no longer seemed made of brasswork. Rather, it looked almost human, save for the height, tall as his ceiling at the attic’s peak, close to seven feet. The great wings crowded the angel’s back to sweep close across its body like a cloak, feathers white as a swan. Its skin was pale as Hethor’s own, but the face was narrow, shaped like the nib of a fountain pen, with a pointed chin and gleaming black eyes. The lines and planes of the angel’s visage were sheer masterwork, finer than the statues of saints in the great churches of New Haven.

Hethor held his breath, afraid to even share the air with such perfection. No dream, this, but perhaps yet a nightmare.

The angel smiled. For the first time it appeared to be more than a statue. “Greetings, Hethor Jacques.”

With voice came breath, though the angel’s scent was still that of a statue—cold marble and damp stone. Or perhaps old metal, like a well-made clock.

Hethor dropped his grip on the blanket to grab the chain around his neck and traced the wheel-and-gear of Christ’s horofixion. “G-g-greetings . . . ,” he stammered. “And welcome.” Though that last was a lie, he felt he must say it.

“I am Gabriel,” said the angel, “come to charge you with a duty.”

“Duty.” Hethor sucked air between his teeth and lips, finally filling aching lungs with breath he had not even realized he had been holding in the strangeness of the moment. “My life is filled with duty, sir.” Duty to Master Bodean, to his studies at New Haven Latin Grammar School, to his late parents and the church and the crown.

The angel appeared to ignore Hethor’s statement. “The Key Perilous is lost.”

Key Perilous? Hethor had never heard of it. “I . . .”

“The Mainspring of the world winds down,” the angel continued. “Only a man, created in the image of the Tetragrammaton, can set it right. Only you, Hethor.”

His quest undertaken in faith, Hethor immediately sets off to meet his destiny. The narrative begins in an appropriately Dickensian fashion: the orphan child, disdained by all those around him and trod upon by those in power, stumbles about in his quest, snubbed at every turn. But it is clear from early on that Greater Powers are at work, and slowly, miraculously, events lead young Hethor by turns toward the completion of his quest.

His adventures take him across a Victorian Europe, into the high staterooms of power, and into the lowest, darkest dungeons reserved for the blackest of outcasts. In true steampunk fashion, he soon finds himself aboard an airship, Her Imperial Majesty's Ship of the Air Bassett, bound for war to protect the Crown's colonial interests. The airship brings him to still more new and strange lands and into the company of friends and foes of startling variety. Eventually, with the help of many others, our intrepid Hethor reaches the mainspring of the world and finds his destiny.

Clockwork Wonder

The lavish detail with which Lake renders his tale is easily the best quality of the book. From the earliest chapters, we have a sense that we are there with Hethor, breathing the air and hearing the clockwork whir of a world "off track." From the mire-smirched streets of a London-that-never-was to the deck of an airship, we see sights that are familiar in a nostalgic, historical sense but wholly new in exciting ways.

Once Hethor is conscripted into the crew of the Basset, things really get interesting. The further we travel from the lands of Europe into the haunted seas of the south, the more wondrous the sights become. The heart of the novel is played out against a geographic feature not found in our world: the massive equatorial wall that forms the gear track which meshes with the orbital track around the sun. The descriptions of the miles-high construct are simply breathtaking. Upon the wall are countless microcosms of which we catch only glimpses--vertical cities, hollows of vegetation and strange inhabitants, even battlefields upon which Her Majesty's forces charge clockwork monstrosities the size of houses.

Hints of Something Deeper

The beginnings of the story are thoroughly grounded in theological themes and touch on matters of philosophical importance. Biblical references abound, and not only for period-authenticity. Hethor continually finds himself confronted with questions about the nature of God, the workings of our natural world and its relationship to God, and about man's proper place before God. The central conceit of the novel, that in this world, the clockwork universe is just that: a clockwork universe, and the "evidence" for a Creator is everywhere. There are philosophical materialists who explain it away using logic both appropriate to the period and consistent with the storyworld. Everywhere are hints that something deeper is being explored than merely Hethor's desire to fulfill his divine quest.

But here lies the greatest weakness of the novel. [spoiler alert] While fascinating questions abound in the first half of the novel, we find virtually no interest in exploring these questions in its second half. Ominous angel-like villains appear, further hinting that something interesting is going to be revealed about the antagonist and his purposes, or that Hethor is in for a worldview-shaking revelation, but no such event occurs in the book. All such questions are left behind once Hethor crosses the equatorial wall and encounters "The Correct People" in the dense jungles of the far side. He journeys with them to the pole where access to the mainspring can be found, and discovers that the Key Perilous is the love he has in his heart for his lover. Hethor is briefly granted divine power with which he rewinds the mainspring of the world and also resurrects his love. The climax of the book involves violence, suffering, and action, none of which seems to connect significantly to the larger questions raised by Hethor during his journey.

Jungle Love in a Clockwork Adventure?

In the second half of the book, Hethor transitions from one world to another, entering the jungles of the southern world. Here, he encounters the Correct People, with whom he journeys to the end of the world. The Correct People are a kind of sentient Lemur-people who dwell in lush jungle, untouched (mostly) by the western and European influences that dominate the northern part of the world. It is clearly Lake's intention to show us the unspoiled quality of the southern world in all its savage nobility. The Correct People have no leaders, no institutions, and virtually no taboos. They maintain a kind of faith in God and in his messenger, but no sense of traditions or religious behaviors of any kind. As a plot device, this could have been used as a contrast to the logical thinking of the northern world. But again, Lake seems more interested in the episodic progression of the plot rather than in engaging with the questions he raises.

In a bizarre turn of events, Hethor falls in love with a female of the Correct People in all her Lemur-beauty and savage charm. Here we find ourselves with very strange and graphic sexual description. Again, in a more complex book, might have been used to some effect to explore contrasts between worlds and societies. But with its unnecessarily graphic depiction and with the lack of meaningful connection to plot or theme, it comes across as merely perverse and voyeuristic.

For the Steampunk Spectator

Lake's Mainspring work remains a brilliantly imagined exploration of a clockwork world, a winsome creation of a clockwork mind. The vistas seen from the deck of the Airship Basset are worth the read. However, one cannot help but be disappointed in Lake's handling of his weightier themes. There are two possibilities in play here: the first is that Lake raised themes natural to his story, but did not have the craft to satisfactorily bring these questions to a narrative resolution within his own storyworld. The second possibility is that he deliberately raised the questions and intentionally left them unanswered as a philosophical statement. This last is unlikely, since the shape and structure of his narrative does not support this sort of playful or querying ambiguity. Let us hope that the first is true, and that Lake will grow as a writer such that his ability to play with such themes rises to the heights of his vivid imagination.

Clockwork lovers, pick up a copy at the library and follow Hethor to the equator, savoring the sights there. But the discerning reader will want to put the book down shortly after Hethor crosses the equatorial wall, and trust to their own imaginations as to where Hethor went and what he experienced along the way.

Review of Children of Húrin -- J. R. R. Tolkien

The impact J. R. R. Tolkien has had on the fantasy imagination is hard to overstate. The cycle of stories began with The Hobbit, culminated with The Lord of the Rings, and is supported by the Silmarillion and a series of Unfinished Tales. Early in 2007, another legend has been added to the cycle, the darkly brooding Children of Húrin.

According to Christopher Tolkien, who edited this tale to completion out of original manuscripts nearly completed by the Elder Tolkien, there are three fundamental stories that form the backbone of the history of Middle-Earth: Beren and Lúthien, The Fall of Gondolin, and The Children of Húrin. In Tolkien's view, each of these tales is "sufficiently complete in themselves as not to demand knowledge of the great body of legend known as The Silmarillion."

The Children of Húrin is set far back in history from the events recorded in The Lord of the Rings and form part of the imagination of the characters therein. In one exchange between Elrond and Frodo during the council at Rivendell, Túrin son of Húrin is named by Elrond as an Elf-friend. Elsewhere, the hide of Shelob is described as so invincible that it "could not be pierced by any strength of men, not though Elf or Dwarf should forge the steel or the hand of Beren or of Túrin wield it." A legendary figure indeed.

Húrin (Lord of Dor-lómin, husband of Morwen and father of Túrin and Niënor; called Thalion 'the Steadfast') is a great hero at an ill-fated battle described early in the book. Part of a great host of Elves and Men who face the dark lord Morgoth, Húrin falls with all his men, taken captive to Morgoth's subterranean prison-fortress Angband as a prisoner who may know the whereabouts of Morgoth's most hated adversary, the Elf-King Turgon:

Therefore Húrin was brought before Morgoth, for Morgoth knew by his arts and his spies that Húrin had the friendship of the King; and he sought to daunt him with his eyes. But Húrin could not yet be daunted, and he defied Morgoth. Therefore Morgoth had him chained and set in slow torment; but after a while he came to him, and offered him his choice to go gree whither he would...if he would but reveal where Turgon had his stronghold....But Húrin mocked him, saying: 'Blind you are, Morgoth Bauglir, and blind shall ever be, seeing only the dark. You know not what rules the hearts of Men, and if you knew you could not give it...'

Then Morgoth laughed, and he said: 'Death you may yet crave of me as a boon.' Then he took Húrin to the Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, and it was then new-built and the reek of death was upon it; and Morgoth set Húrin upon its top and bade him look west towards Hithlum, and think of his wife and his son and other kin. 'For they dwell now in my realm,' said Morgoth, 'and they are at my mercy.'

'You have none,' answered Húrin. 'But you will not come at Turgon through them; for they do not know his secrets.'

Then wrath mastered Morgoth, and he said: 'Yet I may come at you, and all your accursed house; and you shall be broken on my will, though you all were made of steel'...Then Morgoth stretching out his long arm towards Dor-lómin cursed Húrin and Morwen and their offspring, saying 'Behold! The shadow of my thought shall lie upon them wherever they go, and my hate shall pursue them to the ends of the world....I am the Elder King: Melkor, first and mightiest of all the Valar, who was before the world and made it. The shadow of my purpose lies upon Arda, and all that is in it bends slowly and surely to my will. But upon all whom you love my thought shall weigh as a cloud of Doom, and it shall bring them down into darkness and despair. Wherever they go, evil shall arise. Whenever they speak, their words shall bring ill counsel. Whatsoever they do shall turn against them. They shall die without hope, cursing both life and death.'

Thus begins the tale of woe which Tolkien relates in The Children of Húrin. We hear of the childhood of Túrin his son and of Húrin's wife Morwen. As Morgoth's power grows, his hand reaches closer to the land of Hithlum where Húrin's kin dwell, and Morwen sends Túrin away to be fostered by a powerful Elf-King called Thingol in Doriath. Túrin grows in stature and skill, trained by the Elves in all their arts, but ever does his shadow of Doom follow him. Túrin desires to make war upon the servants of Morgoth, though Thingol and the other Elf-Kings are content to wait until the time is right, hidden away in their kingdoms. Túrin becomes a legend beyond Doriath, joining hardy men who hunt Orcs in the wilds. Ill fate conspires against Túrin, his pride breaking the friendship of good Men and Elves; and he finds himself a captain of a brood of outlaws, and then even this band fails him and he is captured by Orcs to be taken to Angband and Morgoth.

But his Doom shadows him still, saving his life but dealing him woe at every turn. He is freed from captivity, escaping to the great Elven fortress of Nargothrond under the lordship of Orodreth. Here, his counsels overturn the wise words of other counselors, and Orodreth's strength is spent fruitlessly against Morgoth, who eventually brings the great Dragon Glaurung to the gates of Nargothrond and overthrows it. Túrin flees the battle in madness cast upon him by the power of Glaurung, and further ill befalls those Túrin loves.

At last he comes to the woodlands of Brethil where he will spend his last days. He has changed his name and forsaken his past in the hopes of leaving behind his Doom. But it is not to be; ever are his ill counsels heard over the wiser words of Men and Elves, and all that Túrin attempts fails. At the last, Glaurung comes to destroy him in the hidden woodlands of Brethil, and Túrin goes to face him. And though he slays the mighty Dragon of Morgoth, he finds that his Doom is come, all who Túrin once loved are despoiled and lost, and death comes to Túrin, cold release from his ill fate.

Not of the Red Book of Westmark, but rather of the Silmarillion

This tale told of Túrin's Doom belongs alongside the tales of The Silmarillion rather than those written by Bilbo in the Red Book of Westmark which became the Lord of the Rings. Here we have no consoling tales of victory against overwhelming odds, but rather the slow descent into darkness in the long years until Morgoth falls at the end of the Third Age. For those who have read the Silmarillion, the book will bring to mind the character and shape of all Tolkien's legends, crafted after the style of Viking sagas. True to tradtion, the book begins with a long string of names that will bewilder all but the greatest fans. It takes the tale several chapters to descend into the personal narrative we are familiar with in the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. When it does, we are glad to return again to Middle-Earth.

Great Vistas of Middle-Earth, and Great Deeds of Men and Elves

Though absent are the glimmers of hope and beauty that shine from the pages of the Lord of the Rings, here still is the mist-shrouded wonder of all the lands of Middle-Earth. We travel the lands once trod by Treebeard in his youth, we see the haunting beauty of Elf-Maids in their prime, we hear the steadfast march of good Men against the inexorable approach of darkness.

We see the handiwork of Eöl the Dark Elf who forged the sword Anglachel from meteoric iron. Dwarf-wrought mail clinks upon the breast of Túrin and his friends. Lembas meets the need of hopeless Men for the first time in this tale.

And of course all the horrors lurking at the command of Morgoth multiply. Orcs crawl over the lands, bringing darkness with their foul cries and black shafts. Giant trolls fight in mighty battles in the hosts of Morgoth. And the first of all the Dragons made by Morgoth, Glaurung, bursts upon the page with fiery blasts, sundering all in his path and spellbinding his foes with his fell glare.

The Names of Túrin

Names and titles are powerful in legend; Tolkien knew this fact well and wove this tradition firmly into his other tales: he who is called Strider names himself Aragorn son of Arathorn and King of Gondor at the right time, signalling a turning point in the tale. Gandalf the Grey, who is also called Mithrandir, becomes Gandalf the White.

In the Children of Húrin, Tolkien exploits this theme even further, using Túrin's attempts at changing his name to turn aside fate as a central theme. Túrin comes so often into the company of different people that each time it seems he attempts to start anew. He calls himself Neithan ("the wronged") when he falls in with outlaws after fleeing Doriath in anger. He falls to the orcs but escapes, afterward coming to Nargothrond. There he names himself Agarwaen, Son of Umarth ("Bloodstained, Son of Ill-Fate"). And finally in Brethil, he names himself Turambar ("Master of Doom"), thinking he has at last run free of his fate. At last when his Doom finally overtakes him, his true name returns and is forever carved in ironic Elven runes over his tomb: Túrin Turambar Dagnir Glaurunga (Túrin, Master of Doom, Bane of Glaurung).

Inexorable Fate, Unstoppable Maleficent Will

Here is a tale steeped in the ancient traditions of the premodern world. In his exploration of fate, Tolkien has crafted a heart-rending tale more akin to Antigone or Oedipus Rex. Here, through no fault of his own, Túrin is held captive to a Doom pronounced upon his family by a malevolent figure, never managing to rise above a single word of the evil curse. Túrin is a heroic figure, not blemished by any feature more wicked than any of our beloved modern heroes, and he surely does not deserve this fate. What's more, he strives heroically at every turn to rise above it, bending all his strength and faculty to the task. And yet he fails. Here is no modern exaltation of the free-willed individual. Here we glimpse into the fabric of things, and we shudder at the thought of powers (good and ill) which spin out our fate for us.

Recommendations

Tolkien fans will of course love this book (or perhaps hate it for the presence of pseudo-historical errors I did not notice). It is now part of the Tolkien Canon. It is eminently more readable than the difficult Silmarillion, though less so than the Hobbit or even The Lord of the Rings. Yet even for all its dry-at-times saga-like character and attention to details unimportant and cluttering to the eyes of many a reader, there is much to recommend the The Children of Húrin even to those who know nothing of any of the other of Tolkien's works. Perhaps for the reader which finds those other beloved tales too fantastic or too fairy-tale-like, The Children of Húrin would be a welcome dark tragedy.

Review of Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson

Science fiction is a genre sustained by big ideas. These big ideas often involve technology or science, though sometimes authors venture into philosophy or even sociology. Sometimes, though, the big idea ladled out in prose for the reader is simply style.

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is an experiment in narrative look-and-feel, a taste of the future not quite realistic but eminently believable. It is a fast-cut MTV music video of striking images wrought in catchy, smile-inducing prose streaking along at breakneck speed. The reader knows exactly what he's getting into with what may be the most engrossing first chapter in science fiction:

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.

...The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, sh*t happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of fat ladies' thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.

Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a roll model. This is America....There's only four things we do better than anyone else

music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills."

So now he has this other job. No brightness of creativity involved--but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it for free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class action suit.

Never has the delivery of pizza been so utterly fascinating, exciting, dangerous, and sexy. The reader is wise to let this foretaste inform his expectations of the coming narrative. The plot content is no more surprising or nutritious than a slice of pepperoni pizza, but the ride itself is absolutely worth the trip.

Our tour guide on this chic ride around a cyberpunk future is Hiro Protagonist. Only in a sarcastic, media-drenched dystopian novel could an author get away with naming his protagonist Protagonist. Hiro is the quintessential hacker archetype: smart, resourceful, and connected. For a cyberpunk character, Hiro is also kind, charming, and good. Here is no burned-out drug addict, anti-hero type that usually anchors such stories. Hiro gets himself in trouble with the Mafia (who of course run the pizza delivery chain) and has to find a new job. He ends up stumbling onto a strange new drug being marketed both in the "real world" and in the 3D immersive internet of the future. The drug, called Snow Crash, is a vehicle for spreading both a computer virus and a mind-wiping DNA virus at the same time. What?

As Hiro learns more about who is making this virus and what its capable of, he gets himself more and more in over his head. He meets some colorful characters along the way: Y.T., the 15-year old blonde-haired ballistic-armored skateboard thrasher-ette; Ng, the Korean cyborg six-wheeled bus armed with miniature helicopters and cyborg rat-dogs; Raven, the mutant Aleutian harpooneer carrying a thermonuclear warhead strapped to his motorbike; and a long string of others.

By the middle of the book, it's clear that this is your standard conspiracy to enslave/destroy the whole world, and only Hiro and his friends have the know-how and tools to stop the evil-doers. But remember, it's not about the plot; the plot is an excuse to get there in style.

First Steps Toward a Wired View of the World

In order for a cyberpunk novel to be a cyberpunk novel, a significant portion of its action must occur in cyberspace. Here, we see Stephenson's imagination at its most realistic, having foreseen what is essentially today's massively multiplayer "game" called SecondLife. Millions of people walk around in a digital world, interacting with each other for business and pleasure. "Avatars", the digital representation of the user, vary infinitely, though newbies stick to the default options. Experienced users know that the Metaverse has different rules than the real one, and hackers reign supreme in such a world. Best of all, Stephenson doesn't take his hackers too seriously; other characters around them playfully call them antisocial nerds; and before nerdy was hip, there was Hiro.

Stephenson, who published Snow Crash in 1992, had the keen eyes of a reliable futurist. Even now, the narratives which take place in Stephenson's "Metaverse" read as nostalgic rather than merely dated.

A Tribal World of Fractured Individuality

The other setting for the story, the "real world" of the novel, is a fractured North America. Gone is any semblance of nationalism or stability. Anywhere you stand, you can look around and see "franchulates", relatively small enclaves of people within a protected border. These are not really small nations, cities, or villages, but rather collections of businesses and their patrons. These businesses are responsible for policing their immediate areas. Absolutely everything is contract work: jobs, police protection, medical attention, pizza delivery, weapons manufacturing, media, even citizenship and its privileges. This is a world completely swallowed by capitalism, everything has its price and there are no institutional forces driving or shaping the economy. But neither is this a philosophical analysis of (or attack on) capitalism; it is presented as more or less a neutral fact of the world, a fascinating setting in which the characters unravel the mystery of Snow Crash.

Even more fractured are the characters' self-conception of identity. As Hiro and others move in and out of each others' lives, loosely affiliated with their employers, passing through boundary-less social circles, and crossing effortlessly the market-identities of various franchulates, it is clear that these characters are adrift in identity crisis. They have no community, no belonging, no family, no committed relationships of any kind. There is a hollow emptiness that trails behind these interactions, the hint of loneliness in this fast-paced narrative.

Dreading the Infocalypse

The center of the plot is a thoroughly science fiction Big Idea. What if people could get infected with computer viruses? Spread them around like a disease? What if language, properly framed, could propagate these viruses just like digital language does in the world of the microchip? Stephenson takes a scoop of real world mythology, the Tower of Babel, and postulates that as an event in which the human world was innoculated against the spread of informational viruses. The Sumerian language, unlike any other in the world, was uniquely capable of carrying these languages because of its elemental nature (like the assembly or machine code of a computer). But someone "reprogrammed" human language, killing off the Sumerian language and confusing the world's languages. Only now, someone has rediscovered ancient techniques for programming people, forcing them to obey verbal commands and spreading around informational viruses that propagate the control. Hiro and his friends must stop the dark figures who are reviving this ancient menace, hackers against hackers, before the world descends into "Infocalypse", a mindless prehistoric despotism. What?

Real and Digital Humanity

In spite of the strangeness of the novel's inner plot, the novel sustains interest till the last page. Part of the reason for this is the chic and slick-ness of the prose, but even this cannot prop up a novel for 460+ pages. Stephenson paints rich and likable characters. In other cyberpunk stories, angst and frustration mark every interaction; no one can control their dark side and all is tragic quagmire; the reader is left with a nagging ennui. Not in Snow Crash. Here, Hiro has a good and reliable friend in Y.T. Y.T. is nice to people even though she is a punk attitude-spewing teenage girl. When things get serious, her tough-chick facade cracks. Y.T. meets Uncle Enzo, the head of the Mafia franchulate, and their interactions are some of the most authentic, charming, and thoroughly human in the novel. For a story which spends much of its time in a digital playground, this novel is firmly grounded in human relationships, however fragmented they may be.

Recommendations

Readers must beware that cyberpunk fiction in general is rife with foul language, violence, sex, and drugs; Snow Crash has plenty of the first. As far as violence goes, it is an action-oriented plot with frequent armed conflict, but for the most part it is much less brutal than most other similar fare. There is only one sex scene in the book, though it is somewhat disturbing because of the characters involved. And for a cyberpunk novel, there is almost no drug culture; the only drug making its presence felt is the eponymous Snow Crash.

For readers who love science fiction, this is a must-have book. It stands with Neuromancer at the genesis of cyberpunk fiction and is one of the fullest and purest expressions of the form. While the center of the plot may be a little silly (Sumerian Enki programmers and Asherah temple prostitutes, what?), the book is a sheer pleasure to read with lots to see and ponder along the way. More than many other books of its kind, it bears repeated readings. Even more rare, it inspires the desire to pull it off the shelf and read a chapter for the flavor it leaves in your mind.

Review of The Book of Three -- Lloyd Alexander

The fairy-rich world of Welsh mythology has given birth to countless fantasy stories in the past 30 years. The mythology of the Mabinogion has created for itself an entire subgenre of literature which has had resounding influences on diverse modern figures such as Charles De Lint, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Susanna Clark.

One of the earliest authors to explore Welsh imagery and themes for young adult literature was Lloyd Alexander. His Chronicles of Prydain cycle of novels have been best sellers for decades, still read with joy by young and old alike.

The first of five Prydain novels, The Book of Three begins with Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper and his dreams of adventure. By the end of a short chapter one, Taran is already trying to forge a sword out of steel better put to use in horseshoes. Hen Wen, the oracular pig which Taran tends escapes into the woods beyond his small village, and Taran carelessly chases after her despite warnings from his master. It is said there is a new war captain abroad, the Horned King, which rides at the head of the hosts of Annuvin, the dark underworld of Prydain.

Heedless and headstrong, Taran wanders into the woods alone, and stumbles upon a famous prince named Gwydion, who turns out not only to be a swordsman but a wizard as well. Taran quickly falls into step with Gwydion, learning more of the Horned King and his master, Arawn Lord of Annuvin. Their adventures introduce them to other characters: the smart and plucky heroine Eilonwy, the beast-child Gurgi, the colorful bard Fflewddur Fflam, and the dour dwarf Doli. Together, the companions move from one adventure to the next, eventually facing the Horned King himself in the midst of a great battle between the forces of Annuvin and Gwydion's Fortress of Don.

Above all, The Book of Three is the story of Taran beginning his journey to manhood, along the way discovering that heroism is usually pressing on in spite of fear and gloom because there is no other choice. Near the end of the book, Taran, back at home, is talking with his old master Dallben, fearful that he didn't make much of a hero during his adventures:

"Well, now," Dallben said, "I should like the two of us to speak quietly to each other. First, I am interested to learn what you think of being a hero. I daresay you feel rather proud of yourself. Although," he added, "I do not gain that impression from your face."

"I have no just cause for pride," Taran said, taking his usual place on the familiar bench. [he explains how he had little to do with victory during each step of the adventure, his companions doing most of what seemed like the real work]..."As for me, what I mostly did was make mistakes."

"My, my," said Dallben, "those are complaints enough to dampen the merriest feast. Though what you say may be true, you have cause for a certain pride nevertheless. It was you who held the companions together and led them. You did what you set out to do, and Hen Wen is safely back with us. If you made mistakes, you recognize them. As I told you, there are times when the seeking counts more than the finding."

..."Yes, but that is not all that troubles me. I have dreamed often of Caer Dallben [Taran's home village] and I love it--and you and Coll--more than ever. I asked for nothing better than to be at home, and my heart rejoices. Yet it is a curious feeling. I have returned to the chamber I slept in and found it smaller than I remember. The fields are beautiful, yet not quite as I recalled them. And I am troubled, for I wonder now if I am to be a stranger in my own home."

Dallben shook his head. "No, that you shall never be. But it is not Caer Dallben which has grown smaller. You have grown bigger. That is the way of it."

Finding Your Way in the World

The Book of Three, and in many ways, the whole cycle of Prydain, is the story of a young man growing up, at that verge when the hearth is oppressive and all the world is a stage for adventure. This is not an unknown storyline; Joseph Campbell's hero's journey admirably describes the trajectory and major movements of the novel, though with four books to go, The Book of Three is only the beginning. But here we sense that we will grow up with Taran, and unlike many books who attempt to lead us through the hero's journey, this one resonates powerfully with the shared experience of the would-be hero in all of us.

Recommendations

This is a book to read aloud to your children. It has action, adventure, vivid imagery, easy to read pages and short chapters. Very likely, Taran's adventures will linger long in their minds, a memory of literary adventures they will treasure. It is also a book to be enjoyed by adults who look back fondly on their own steps of leaving the hearth to seek adventure in the wider world, a wistful remembrance of headstrong youth, and yet sometimes also long for the comfort of home never quite to be found again.

Review of Perdido Street Station -- China Miéville

Seen as a whole, the genre of fantasy has been solidly medieval in its flavor for many decades now. For many, fantasy fiction is synonymous with horses, dragons, knights, fairies, trolls, wizards, woodlands, and castles. Against a larger backdrop, this can be seen as the flowering of a rich tradition of European fairy tales, and most specifically, the wide and lasting popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Some writers, sensing a stagnation in the literature of fantasy, react strongly against these associations and seek other realms in which to paint their epics. This is the starting point for China Miéville's Perdido Street Station. We stand near a shadowy character at the beginning of the book, seeing through his eyes the slow revelations of New Crobuzon, the dystopian city at the center of Miéville's story. In lavish detail, the city appears to our eyes, and with each passing paragraph, we realize we have never been here before:

The river twists and turns to face the city. It looms suddenly, massive, stamped on the landscape. Its light wells up around the surrounds, the rock hills, like bruise-blood. Its dirty towers glow...It is a vast pollutant, a stench, a klaxon sounding. Fat chimneys retch dirt into the sky even now in the deep night. It is not the current which pulls us but the city itself, its weight sucks us in. Faint shouts, here and there the calls of beasts, the obscene clash and pounding from the factories as huge machines rut. Railways trace urban anatomy like protruding veins. Red brick and dark walls, squat churches like troglodytic things, ragged awnings flickering, cobbled mazes in the old town, culs-de-sac, sewers riddling the earth like secular sepulchres, a new landscape of wasteground, crushed stone, libraries fat with forgotten volumes, old hospitals, towerblocks, ships and metal claws that lift cargoes from the water.

How could we not see this approaching? What trick of topography is this, that lets the sprawling monster hide behind corners to leap out at the traveler?

It is too late to flee.

Here is New Crobuzon, our polluted-twisting-stinking setting for many hundreds of pages. If you can stand the stench, it is a vivid and striking place which will last in the mind long after the details of the story are lost to memory.

Miéville's sprawling story moves something like this. A lazy-genius scientist, Isaac dan Der Grimnebulin is contracted by an alien exile who has had his wings shorn for a crime he won't discuss. The alien pays well enough for Isaac to undertake the task of restoring his ability to fly, searching all the realms of science for a possible solution. In the process of conducting research, he accidentally comes into possession of a bio-weapon of awesome power, inadvertently releasing it into the wild to wreak havoc on the city. Isaac and a growing cadre of misfits compete with city powers and figures of the city's underworld in an attempt to stop the menace. Along the way, Miéville weaves in such diverse themes as inter-racial sexuality, Marxist political reform, the search for unified field theory, the near impossibility of cross-cultural communication, artificial intelligence, the use and abuse of technology for re-making humanity, and more.

The Spectacle of Weird

The greatest strength of Miéville's story is his ceaseless creative imagery. The city itself is a marvel of images: dark, slimy, gloomy, rotten, twisting, decaying. Around each corner is a new vista painted in original tones. The inhabitants of the city are a motley parade of human and alien, nearly all of which we have never seen before: the cactacae, a race of plant creatures covered saguaro-style in spines; the clockwork artist khepri, mantis-headed humans who speak in signs and pheromones; the sprawling frog-like vodyanoi who can shape water at will and crawl around the city soaking in wheeled bathtubs; only the raptor-winged garuda have we seen before.

Magic and technology are blurred here, and both are pervasive. Steam-powered constructs stomp around the city, coal-fired furnaces and analytical engines "elyctrical" and "alchymical" abound, and Miéville's version of the mage-wizard, the "thaumaturge" work like technicians and plumbers around the city. The horrid Re-made make their appearance frequently: people who have committed serious crimes and subsequently transformed by bio-thaumaturges into mockeries of their crime, i.e., a child-killer has the arms of her dead child grafted onto her face.

Cults are everywhere, worshipping both powerful alien figures and abstract philosophy. There is no "faith" reminiscent of the real world here, only fanatical devotion to a niche ideal, such as the accumulation of knowledge, concrete forms of bizarre alien beauty, mechanical perfection, or cold logic.

The center of the book's imaginative power revolves around a bio-weapon which Isaac releases into the skies of New Crobuzon: the utterly alien slake-moth. The creatures are gorilla-sized moths with hypnotic wings, inhabiting multiple dimensions at once, physically powerful, and nearly impossible to kill. They "taste" human emotion with dripping prehensile tongues, searching the city for humans on which to feed. It is not their flesh they are after, but rather their dreams: the "intoxicating brew of conscious blended with unconscious". They drink their victims with impunity, leaving them mindless husks covered in citrus-smelling slime. These slake-moths run rampant through the plot, plowing through increasingly desperate and fascinating attempts to stop them. Miéville has stated his goal in the writing of fiction as the creation of great monsters, and here he has spectacularly succeeded.

New Crobuzon: The Dystopian Ideal

The central character in Perdido Street Station is New Crobuzon. The weight of this city in Miéville's imagination must have been profound, since Miéville seems unable to keep from lavishly describing every corner of the city in which a scene was set, every journey across town, corners and places at best incidental to the plot. We are meant to see New Crobuzon as a decaying living thing, the literal bones of which rise high above the city, bleached by the sun and visible from every street corner.

New Crobuzon is the ideal Dystopian city. The sprawling city government is corrupt to the core, every member of which is amoral and self-interested in the maintenance of power or personal gain. The city is policed by faceless militia which move and violate with impunity. There is no middle class in Miéville's vision: only the city government in power supported on the backs of the oppressed worker laboring ceaselessly at the dock or factory. Within the urban squalor, children wander the city covered in grime, ready to steal from passersby or to rat them out to the government. Industry fills the air with soot or pooling oil into the city's rivers.

The plot of the novel winds exclusively through the interstices of New Crobuzon: the city's counter-culture, the domains of minor criminals, nomadic street markets, deserted homes, sewers, forgotten garbage dumps. Even the eponymous Perdido Street Station is not visited for the transportation center that it is. The final climax of the book takes place here; not within the station mind you, but on its roof, invisible to all but the city's outcast poor who huddle in camps high up in a world of angular elevated tile. For Miéville, the only safe place is well clear of the corrupt establishment, whether it be government, the academy, industry, or religion.

The Stumbling Outcast

Miéville's characters are perfect for such a journey through the underbelly of the city. Each character is an outcast from one or more groups: Isaac begins the story living from contract to contract with the city university, unable to hold a position there because of laziness and difficulty sustaining interest on any one project. His love-interest, the insect-headed Lin, is a rogue artist who is rejected by her peers; she is also a dubious member of a counterculture gathering of artists who also look askance on her whims. The wingless alien who comes to Isaac has been exiled for crimes against his people.

Later in the book, other outcast characters make their appearance: the editor of a forbidden, Marxist revolutionary newspaper; a low-level criminal operator who has connections with all of the underworld figures; a vast artificial intelligence hiding from the eyes of the city; an incomprehensible extraplanar creature who literally exists only in the fate-like connections between events; and many others.

The figures that oppose them are almost always institutional: the city mayor and his lackeys; the city militia; the heads of powerful organized crime. Miéville does not paint the outcast as hero necessarily, making sure that each character undergoes and fails crises of conscience. Here, no semblance of traditional morality exists. We journey with characters on the margins of a corrupt society, carving out what meager existence they can and failing even at that.

Miéville paints a beautiful picture of the love between Isaac and Lin, moments which stand out against the bleakness of the rest of the book. While Miéville makes much of the forbidden nature of inter-species relationship, the taboo comes across as somewhat hollow given the thoroughgoing counterculture of the book. It is difficult to imagine an underworld populated by figures of fragmented identity holding on to a traditional view of sexuality in this one case. Still, little of the plot rests on this conceit, and the emotional moments between Isaac and Lin throughout the book offer a welcome "humanity" amidst the gloom and grime.

[Spoiler alert] At the end of the book, Miéville reinforces the hopeless image of these outcasts by leaving all of the major antagonists alive and in power, forcing the surviving protagonists out of the city they love. The tender relationship between Isaac and Lin is ruined by her having been psychically shattered by a slake-moth attack, ultimately Isaac's fault. Even the exiled alien is left without resolution to his desire to fly, instead embracing a delusion of transformation involving vivid and painful self-mutilation. We are left with bitter images and little consolation as the book comes to an end.

Recommendations

Miéville's vision revels in darkness, a shadowy dream that never quite ends. Critics continually praise Miéville's work as original and creative--they are quite right. Miéville's work is already being considered definitive for this generation, and here is a good example of his genius. If brooding fiction and the spectacle of the grotesque are marks of interest for the reader, then proceed into the rich minings to be found here.

But be warned: here is no balanced or nuanced picture of humanity, but rather a journey into darkness which leaves the reader with precious few glimpses of beauty by the end. If the underbelly of urban culture is off-putting, pervasive foul language offensive, and the thoroughgoing absence of goodness disturbing, then this book is one to put back on the shelf.

Review of the Manuscript Found in Saragossa -- Jan Potocki

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is a strange little book unlike anything else I've ever read, except perhaps the Arabian Tales from 1001 Nights. It is quite old, the first publishing of which occurred in France in 1814, making it older than almost every other modern expression of fantasy.

The book is subtitled "Ten Days in the Life of Alphonse van Worden", which aptly describes the frame story. Signor van Worden is abandoned by two of his companions who have taken with them all his provisions for a long journey. Forced to seek shelter and food wherever he kind find it along a deserted trail in a mountainous region of Spain. He comes to the entrance to a lonely valley and sees a gibbet set for three men. Two carcasses hang there, the third noose awaiting the last of the Zoto brothers, infamous bandits known to prey upon travelers through this land. Van Worden recalls stories that at night these bandit-corpses leave the gibbet and harass travelers in revenge for their deaths.

Unperturbed, van Worden proceeds into the valley. He comes across the Venta Quemada, an old Moorish castle converted lately into a hostelry and subsequently abandoned. He had been warned away from the place by other travelers; but being a man sworn to fear nothing, not the least of which being ghosts and apparitions, he decides to search the desolate place for a place to rest and perhaps some food.

He finds nothing to eat, but finds a bed of hay upon which to lay his head. Unable to sleep, he lays there in silence until midnight comes, at which he hears a haunting bell tolling twelve (he heard no such bell toll the previous hours). Shortly thereafter, a pair of beautiful women approach and invite him to a sumptuous feast. To his surprise, they turn out to be distant relatives of his, though they are Muslim. They enjoin him several times to convert to Islam in order that they might marry him and restore the link between the van Worden and Gomelez families, making him heir to an outrageous fortune. Because of his honor, van Worden refuses to abandon his faith; they continue their amorous designs, and though they do not persuade him to convert, they do lure him into their bed. A few hours later, van Worden awakes to the shocking realization that he is lying beneath the gibbet with two hanged bandits swinging above him.

Thus begins a series of encounters between van Worden and others who have also had encounters with either a pair of beautiful women or handsome men. Each tells their story throughout a series of ten days, often within their own stories, relating other stories of people who also have experienced the delights and terrors of the valley. Here is an excerpt of the story told by Zoto, the last of the three brothers who has yet to be hanged:

...Eventually my successes [as a bandit] caused offence at court. The Governor of Cadiz was given orders to take us dead or alive, and sent several regiments after us. Meanwhile, the Grand Sheikh of the Gomelez invited me to enter his service and offered me refuge in this cavern. I accepted without hesitation.

The Court at Granada refused to accept failure. Seeing we could not be found, it had two shepherds from the valley seized and hanged as Zoto's brothers. I knew those two men and I know they committed several murders. Yet they are said to be angry at having been hanged in our stead and at night slip free of the gallows in order to cause chaos. I have never been witness to any of this and I don't know what to say about it. However, it is true that I happen to have passed close by the gallows at night on several occasions, and when there was moonlight I saw clearly that the two hanged men were not there, and in the morning they were back again.

And that, honored guests, is the story you asked me to tell...

We end up later with reasons to doubt his version of the story, but other reasons to believe it. The family of Gomelez appears in various stories, as do a pious hermit and his demoniac patient named Pacheco, Moorish pirates, swashbuckling bandits, bishops and princes, and dozens more colorful characters, each one's stories adding more fantastic pieces to the narrative whole.

To Each His (or Her) Own Temptation

Most of the stories told involve the storyteller relating the steps which led to their encounter with the two "evil spirits", and they nearly always involve the two spirits offering to the storyteller some thing they desire. For van Worden, it was the treasure and prestige of a marrying back into the Gomelez family, but in order to do so, he had to abandon his faith. For another storyteller, it was the promise of fulfillment of a gnostic prophecy, though they had to violate the precepts of well-known cabbalistic practices in order to fulfill it. Again and again, each storyteller awakes beneath the gibbet after succumbing to temptation.

The pious hermit plays an interesting role in the story--he has not encountered the women himself, though his demon-possessed charge Pacheco has. After hearing van Worden relate his experiences, he begins to challenge him frequently to confess his sins to God, a recommendation van Worden receives coolly at best, thinking it an affront to his honor to ever ask for forgiveness. The situation repeats itself several times, and even by the end of the book, van Worden is still interested in "learning more information" about the nature of these women, as are most of the other people touched by their wickedness. The cast of storytellers increases, and more are drawn into the story. The book ends with an offer to continue the story if "this one is well received."

Gnosticism and Cabbalism

The author of the book is well-versed in the traditions of cabbalism (or the qabbalah or the kabbalah), and the last sequence of stories brings this into clear focus. A brother and sister, both high masters of the gnostic "sciences" are also tempted by the gibbet-demons, and are drawn into more interest in them because none of their powers will reveal their nature or subject them to the cabbalists' will. True to form, both of the cabbalists end the book with an ever-increasing thirst for the knowledge that is, by their own admission, for things men were not meant to know. Also interesting to note, the only person not to fall prey to the decadent and carnal charms of the demons was the cabbalist woman, who at the moment she was about to give in, uttered an incantation that shattered their spell over her. Other reviewers have sought deeper connections to gnostic thought, but such were lost on me.

19th Century "Eroticism"?

In reading about this book from other reviewers, I discovered that many consider this book to be a form of eroticism in its earliest incarnations. But if titillation was the aim of the author (even for the 1800's), then he seemed to be half-hearted about it. This is nothing like the ribald stories of the Decameron and others, exploring the humanist side of a new world of Enlightenment freedom. Rather, in this book, those who succumb to the carnal passions are drawn into a narrative that begins to move them along of its own accord, while others (like the pious hermit) attempt to forestall it. There is an ominous nature to the pleasures of the flesh, even if Potocki drew each individual episode in more candor than is common for literature of his era. This is no book celebrating sexual adventure.

Recommendations

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is a book that is historically interesting, magnificently written, and a marvel of literary genius when placed in its context. It is a short read, weighing in at less that 160 pages counting a painstaking introduction by Brian Stableford. For those who prize inventive literary structures like those of the Decameron or the 1001 Nights, or even the complex devices of writers like Italo Calvino, this is a must-read. For others more interested in contemporary fantasy and its tropes, the story might wander a bit or lack the punch of modern supernatural or fantastic literature.

Review of Dune -- Frank Herbert

Dune is a celebrated classic of science fiction, winner of numerous awards, and part of the greater cultural fabric of a wide segment of our culture. It is an ambitious novel chronicling the rise of Paul Atreides, a messiah-figure who brings about a titanic shift in the establishment of an interstellar empire.

The story is set against a political backdrop part feudal Europe, part cyberpunk megacorporation. The Atreides family has just been granted control of an economically important planet over against their sworn enemies, the Harkonnens. This planet, called Arrakis or Dune, is a barely-habitable desert planet from which the empire harvests an important resource called spice.

The Harkonnens do not quietly accede to the Atreides' takeover; a covert war begins not only to wrest control of Dune from the Atreides, but to strike a blow to destroy their royal line forever. Treacheries multiply, armed conflict erupts, and the young Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica flee into the dangerous desert to escape the Harkonnens. In the deep desert they find themselves among the Fremen, Dune's mysterious and canny native population. Hardened by their harsh environment into masters of their world and a formidable fighting force, the Fremen teach Paul and Jessica to thrive in their midst:

Stilgar flicked a testing glance across the group, motioned two men out. "Larus and Farrukh, you are to hide our tracks. See that we leave no trace. Extra care--we have two with us [Jessica and Paul] who've not been trained." He turned, hand upheld and aimed across the basin. "In squad line with flankers--move out. We must be at Cave of the Ridges before dawn."

Jessica fell into step beside Stilgar, counting heads. There were forty Fremen--she and Paul made it forty-two. And she thought: They travel as a military company--even the girl, Chani....

..."Watch where you go," Chani hissed. "Do not brush against a bush lest you leave a thread to show our passage."

Paul swallowed, nodded.

Jessica listened to the sounds of the troop, hearing her own footsteps and Paul's, marveling at the way the Fremen moved. They were forty people crossing the basin with only the sounds natural to the place--ghostly feluccas, their robes flitting through the shadows. Their destination was Sietch Tabr--Stilgar's sietch.

She turned the word over in her mind: sietch. It was a Chakobsa word, unchanged from the old hunting language out of countless centuries. Sietch: a meeting place in time of danger. The profound implications of the word and the language were just beginning to register with her after the tension of their encounter.

"We move well," Stilgar said. "With Shai-Hulud's favor, we'll reach Cave of Ridges before dawn."

Jessica nodded....Her mind focused on the value of this troop, seeing what was revealed here about the Fremen culture.

All of them, she thought, an entire culture trained to military order. What a priceless thing is here for an outcast Duke!

At the same time, the Fremen come to believe that Paul and Jessica are fulfillment of a religious prophecy sacred to their people. Paul and Jessica both become more Fremen than Atreides, and eventually lead their new people to victory against the oppressive and wicked Harkonnens.

Fictional Cultural Anthropology

One of the reasons Dune is so effective and engrossing of a story is because of Herbert's skill at the illuminating detail. In a world utterly swallowed by desert, one might think the scenery could becoming boring: sand, dunes, rocks, sky, heat. But Herbert writes with the hand of an ecologist who loves his imaginary land. The desert comes alive in his narrative, a force to be reckoned with but never despised or resented. Here the desert lives and breathes, cradling a people of its own who love her. But here also are a people not afraid to upset the ecology: the Fremen dream of a transformed Dune which flows with water and blooms green with the seasons.

The Fremen too are much of the beauty of the book. Herbert has done an impressive job in rendering them as a believable culture attuned to the water-hungry world of the desert. "His body is his own, but his water belongs to the tribe." When any Fremen or foe dies, others distill the water from his body and reclaim it for the tribe. All wealth is measured out in carefully decanted water. Rich people are described as water-fat. Spilling water on the ground and allowing beggars to sop it up with towels is seen as a magnanimous act on the part of the nobility.

Best of all, Herbert's love for his setting does not overwhelm the story. Too often, other authors write in order to describe the world which has captivated their imagination. Here, Herbert tells a story which grips the reader, the setting only adding to and magnifying the story rather than overshadowing it.

Timeless Archaisms

Dune is a rare book within the science fiction genre in that its technology does not seem dated more than thirty years after its publication. There are no computers at all (for reasons which are elegantly and provocatively explained in the text) and magic-like interstellar space travel abounds but remains remote and mysterious, the methods of which are far beyond the purview of ordinary mortals.

Since Dune is a novel set in the midst of violent conflict, military technology is a staple of the narrative. Everything from high-tech lasguns and force-field-like body shields through nuclear weapons, shoulder-fired rockets, and artillery barrages come to bear in its pages. But Herbert has contrived to artfully cast the high technology of his setting in a way that comes across as decadently archaic. The core of his strategy is to pit the most fanciful of technologies against each other: the lasguns and shields. If a lasgun beam should ever intersect an operating shield, the result is a thermonuclear explosion. This understandably limits the appearance of lasguns, and since personal, vehicle, and fortification shields are everywhere, the most commonly employed weapon in Dune is the knife. One-on-one duels appear frequently and very many of the great conflicts between large forces employ this simple but effective weapon. The overall effect is one of fragmented archaism in which the focus is on setting and conflict rather than technology. A beautiful touch by an insightful author.

Poisons and Drugs

Poisons are everywhere in this book. Blades are coated with them, several people die at the hands of poisoned needles, it finds its way in food, torture, threats, it is even used as a breath weapon by a hapless prisoner. References to poison snoopers crop up whenever food is discussed. Villains are described as having an interest in rare and interesting poisons.

And while poisons seem as much a part of the desert landscape as sand, the center of the plot revolves around the use and effects of mind-altering drugs. Far from the cyberpunk celebration of recreational drugs, the ones that make their appearance here are more utilitarian: they keep fatigue at bay, they render to astrogators the ability to chart pathways across the stars, and they grant prescient powers to Paul, the messiah figure, enabling him to see into the past and future, as if time were a picture of possibilities. From the vividness of the descriptions, one wonders how much mind-altering drugs played into the background of Herbert's own experiences.

Humanism Ascendant

The human machine is a wondrous, rational construct in Herbert's imagination. Here is not a creature full of mystery, but rather a rational being with faculties to be trained, martialled, and brought to bear on the problems facing him. These themes are played out in numerous ways, most vividly in Herbert's special types and guilds of humans which make their appearance in the pages.

First there are the Bene Gesserit, a society of women tracing their history back thousands of years. These women have a single purpose: to guide the genetic proliferation of the human race, ensuring that genes do not stagnate or fail before their time. They achieve this by marrying into and producing children in families with genetic lines they consider important, mixing them according to some plan of their own divising. They are a secretive and feared people, most of those beyond their order referring to them as "Bene Gesserit witches." The Bene Gesserit are trained in observation, able to discern the subtlest motive in a glance, a touch, the tone of speech. They are trained in control, able to contain and compartmentalize fear, love, hate, anger, jealousy, and other emotions even under extreme duress. And they are trained to use the Voice, placing subtle tenors and vibrations in their vocal sounds which force listeners to obey stated imperatives. This at no time is considered to be psionic, telepathic, or magical (except by the ignorant and superstitious), but rather a faculty of all humans, most of whom lack the proper training.

There are the Mentats, special humans which can process complex data like a computer. Discovered and trained without their knowledge to a certain age, these people are employed or enslaved by those around them to perform the functions of a computer: predicting outcomes, storing detailed data, calling up records, calculating algorithms. The Mentats do not have personalities much different than anyone else (unlike the Star Trek vision of the walking computer: the Vulcan), merely additional and specialized training to bring out latent potential.

There are the Guild steersmen, members of a company guild which maintains a monopoly on space travel. These guildsmen use a powerful mind-altering drug which allows them to see into the future and thus navigate the rigors of interstellar faster-than-light travel. These guildsmen are also ordinary people who have simply used a natural technology to gain access to a broader perception of time.

Herbert's vision of mankind is coolly humanist. Here are all the motivations and machinations of ancient nobility: treachery, maneuvering, murder, betrayal, bribery, emotional and economic manipulation in pursuit of power. Nothing here suggests that humanity is anything other than what we know today, but time and technology has opened up new possibilities for us to bring to bear as weapons against one another.

Chaos as Rational Tool

The ultimate resolution of Dune's plot rests on the need to destroy a calcified, stagnated human order so that the refreshing chaos of randomness can re-invigorate humanity's gene pool. In Herbert's novel, the human race is driven by a kind of fate experienced as a racial drive, an animal need to enrich its gene pool (its highest expression seen in the Bene Gesserit plans to organize and rationally extend the best of man's genetic features).

This theme is played out powerfully by Paul's transformation from a skilled and gifted youth into the messiah-figure of the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen. Even though Herbert employs religious terms, rhetoric, and symbols, there is nothing like a religion of the transcendant to be found in the book. Religions abound, but are either accretions of ancient wisdom meant to sooth the hurting or foolish superstitions or strange ethical taboos local to a culture. Paul-as-messiah is no figure come to guide mankind, but rather the unwitting agent of the animal need of the human race to mix its bloodlines. This messiah is a hammer come to smash a stagnant human civilization (stagnated tellingly by corporate monopoly and corrupt political power).

Here, strangely enough, is chaos pursued as a rational tool in the hands of the humanist mind.

Recommendations

Dune is a must-read for any fan of science fiction or fantasy. This is a book to own in hardback and to re-read every few years. It's philosophical themes are effectively balanced on the one hand by a vivid interest in an endlessly captivating desert culture and on the other by action-laden conflict. Herbert has been endlessly imitated and has deeply influenced successors as wide ranging as George Lucas and Robert Jordan.

Review of Fitzpatrick's War -- Theodore Judson

Fitzpatrick's War is a future historical fantasy loosely steampunk in flavor. The main narrative, set in a future earth, concerns the post-hoc confessions of a high ranking soldier in a corrupt world-spanning empire. This soldier, named Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce, is befriended by the deeply psychotic Lord Fitzpatrick the Younger in their days together at the War College. We learn of their early friendship and the slow development of Bruce's complicity in a war of genocide. Much of the fictional memoir is a confession of guilt he feels over what he knew to be wrong but lacked the courage to oppose.

This central narrative is perhaps a bit conventional in its features, but the author has given us an additional and charming twist. The whole of the narrative is presented within a sort of outer wrapper: a fictional Doctor Professor Roland Modesty Van Buren writes an introduction to this "Annotated Edition" of the memoirs of Bruce. Even better, our historian-narrator wastes no time attacking Bruce relentlessly, claiming that the memoirs scandalize the wondrous name of Fitzpatrick, a celebrated hero of world history.

Put simply, the effect of the book is thus: the world of the fictional reader who might receive a copy of this "annotated edition" is presumably caught up in the massive historical coverup which has conspired to glorify the machinations of Fitzpatrick and his empire. All public writings eulogize and sanctify the life and accomplishments of this great person--save this scandalous piece by Bruce. We, the real reader, are meant to see right through the "historian's" attempt to discredit Bruce, seeing his future time for the fascist, puritanical, misogynistic culture it has become. In fact, the book's whole project fails if we do not sympathize with the "immoral creature" that Bruce supposedly reveals himself to be.

One World, the Yukon Confederation, and the Timermen

At the time of Bruce's memoir, the world had not yet been fully united beneath the Yukon Confederation, a large North American nation of little population but great military might. The United States remains a dim and scandalous memory, having descended into chaos long hence. The Yukons are portrayed essentially as an English society of Puritans in the late 19th century in terms of their speech, attitudes, religious affections, and family structure. Elsewhere in the world are other powers, most notably the Chinese.

Above all this are the Timermen, an enigmatic group of people who maintain a rigid enforcement upon the advances of technology. Since electricity is blamed for a history of great evil and suffering, the Timermen maintain a vast network of satellites that detect and destroy any major electrical contrivance on the face of the earth. They are supposed to be egalitarian in their application of this limit, but it turns out that they favor the Yukons for purposes I will reveal later.

Judson draws for us a detailed world which surpasses our own in terms of genetic engineering, chemical engineering, and a few other sciences, but who is locked in the age of steam. Imagine world wars being fought without a diesel engine, without radios, but with huge steam-powered bombers dropping incendiary fluids which make napalm look like kool-aid. Along with the usually believable mannerisms and set pieces of a Victorian-era world, Judson's future earth is well fleshed-out.

"The Rigorists Always Win" [spoiler alert]

The narrative-within-the-narrative structure plays out conventionally: we come to love Bruce and the woman he marries, we come to loathe Fitzpatrick the Younger as he descends into megalomaniacal madness, and we shudder at what Fitzpatrick manages to build--one world, united under the military might and oppressive cruelty of the Yukons. But this is not all Judson is attempting to tell. Ultimately, this book proves to be a work of science fiction proper, since Judson reveals his hand at the very end of the book in a conversation between Bruce and the Timermen. It turns out the whole of the book, conceits and all, was truly just a social experiment played out in fiction as Heinlein or Asimov might have done. Observe:

"To crown everything, I am about to tell you the last secret of the world."

"Hood already told me two," I said [Bruce speaking]. "The first is that the Yukons can never lose a war. The second is that we will one day have to lose; our guilt will bring us down."

"What guilt" laughed Dr. Murrey [a Timerman]. "Way back when I asked you that question during the oral exams, I could tell you were not cut out to be a Timerman. Oh, you're smart enough, more than brave enough to make the grade. Your problem is that only a few weaklings among the Yukons feel any guilt--call it 'regrets' or 'shame' or whatever you wish. The great majority of our countrymen believe the beautiful lies History tell them. None of the Timermen regret anything.

"No, Brigadier Bruce, the last and only secret of the world, the thing that lets the Timermen keep the Yukons in the first stage of civilization and never will allow the Confederacy to pass into empire and decadence is this: rigorists always win. I do not need to adorn that truth. The great Arab Historian might have said: 'The faction that maintains its solidarity of purpose always is the victor.' The Roman Republic beats mercantile and superstitious Carthage, hungry barbarians beat degenerate imperial Rome, Mongols beat decadent Sung China, Roundheads beat Cavaliers, fire-breathing abolitionists beat genteel southerners, Bolsheviks beat moderate Russian Reformers, and Yukons beat Americans. Rigorists always win."

Judson goes on with the conversation from here, revealing how the Timermen manipulate events up and down the castes of society to ensure the eternal supremacy of the Yukons (and above them, themselves). The whole of Judson's narrative turns out to be chiefly an experiment to see if "the Arab Historian's" premise be true.

History and Meaning in Judson's Future Earth

Ultimately, Judson's work leaves us empty. He explores his hypothesis and leaves us with a sense that the Timermen will endure and the Yukons will indeed go on forever. There are no subtle indications that the Timermen are wrong, or that forces beyond even their control might assert themselves someday. Even Hood's assertions that eventually guilt will bring the Yukons down has been effectively nullified by the structure of Judson's narrative.

In Fitzpatrick's War, we are given an intensified glimpse of a soul-wrenching modern truth: that not only is History dependent on the observer, but the History is not the common man's friend. He gives us no glimpse of alternatives (such as a utopianist might), rather leaving us to stew in our postmodern angst, shaking our heads in clenched reservation at our plight. Judson goes so far as to end the book on a note which attempts to bring into focus the only possibility for goodness or happiness: a brief glimpse of Bruce's love for his wife, a moment in which they flout cultural norms and kiss each others' hands in a display of public affection.

This book is clearly the product of our culture, one in which loneliness and feelings of angst at our own powerlessness pervade our every interaction with the institutions around us. Even more, this is a product of modern Western guilt at a past which is seen only in the negative: government, social institutions, moral boundaries, religious faith, and even academia are complicit, tools of empire in the hands of wicked power brokers. A bracing vision indeed.

Recommendations

This is an interesting book, most interesting to those with a penchant for political or philosophical theory. Anyone who has studied at the graduate level in history, theology, or philosophy will probably enjoy it more than most. Buy this book if you enjoy your steampunk in less than all its dystopian splendor, but dislike actual Victorian literature because of its cultural sensibilities. Otherwise, get it from the library first.

Review of Tales of the Dying Earth -- Jack Vance

Tales of the Dying Earth is a collection of four novels in Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth series. The books are set on a far future earth so late in its history that the sun itself could fade into darkness at any time, and whose inhabitants seem only to bide their time until the curtain falls on earth forever.

Of the four novels that comprise the omnibus, only two are directly connected. The first volume, The Dying Earth, is essentially a collection of short stories about different characters: Turjan of Miir, Mazirian the Magician, Liane the Wayfarer, Ulan Dhor, and others. In the first of these stories, Turjan of Miir create twin golem-like women, T'sais and T'sain, who frequent several of the following stories, playing major and minor parts. The last story in this first book, mostly unrelated to the others, introduces a character called Guyal of Sfere, who goes on a quest to discover a source of answers to his endless "why?" questions.

The second two books in the omnibus, The Eyes of Overworld and Cugel's Saga, center around the character Cugel, a clever and lazy anti-hero who simply wants to find a state of ease somewhere to satisfy his endless appetites. He cannot fight; he can only talk and scheme. These he does endlessly, moving from one series of adventures to the next.

The last book, Rhialto the Marvellous, begins again with a new set of characters centering on Rhialto, an intelligent scheming magician among intelligent scheming magicians. A series of stories end in a search for a lost magician on the very last planet at the end of the universe.


Technical Style for a Logical World

Vance uses the series of short stories to paint a broad picture of the Dying Earth and its people. His use of language is precise, including his choice of names for imaginary places, people, and things. Vance creates tightly formed societies which adhere to strict behaviors. Carefully positioned in the path of specifically shaped characters, these places and people interact with the characters to create riddle-like experiments.

His prose style is unique: a combination of dry wit with utterly unreal dialogue which seems stilted at first, but quickly becomes part of the fascinating scenery of the world. Here is a sample:

Guyal of Sfere had been born apart from his fellows and early proved a source of vexation for his sire. Normal in outward configuration, there existed within his mind a void which ached for nourishment. It was as if a spell had been cast upon his birth, a harrassment visited on the child in a spirit of sardonic mockery, so that every occurrence, no matter how trifling, became a source of wonder and amazement. Even as young as four seasons he was expounding such inquiries as:

"Why do squares have more sides than triangles?"
"How will we see when the sun goes dark?"
"Do flowers grow under the ocean?"
"Do stars hiss and sizzle when rain comes by night?"
To which his impatient sire gave such answers as:
"So it was ordained by the Pragmatica; squares and triangles must obey the rote."
"We will be forced to grope and feel our way."
"I have never verified this matter; only the Curator would know."
"By no means, since the stars are high above the rain, higher even than the highest clouds, and swim in rarefied air where rain will never breed."

Though set in a far future earth, this is by no means a science fiction book. It is pure fantasy, as evidenced by the plot arcs which play frequently with logic puzzles, riddles, and human nature in ways more appropriate to fairy tales.


Vision and Meaning in Tales from the Dying Earth

Upon reading tales from this omnibus, the reader will frequently find a wry smile on his face. These stories are light-hearted, the characters rarely suffer serious injury or loss, and many of the adventures are cast in sarcastic, comedic tone. This is a book to enjoy in short or long stretches, savoring the fascinating puzzles and intricate out-workings of Vance's ordered mind.

At a distance, Vance shows us a world on the verge of a cold, quiet death. The people under the dying sun are either willfully oblivious to their looming fate or nervous but powerless to affect its approach. Perhaps the reader is invited to throw a glance over his own shoulder, wondering what fate approaches in the far distance; to glimpse the vastness of his own powerlessness and temporality. But, in the spirit of Vance's light-hearted and whimsical style, we shrug our shoulders and get back to the diversions at hand.


Recommendations

This is a must-have book. Keep it alongside a set of good anthologies. Pick it up when you need something light to read between longer works, enjoying the relaxed pace, episodic adventures, and wondrous sights revealed by Vance's careful hand.