SFBK Science Fiction Book Club

Every Doctor Who Story 1963 to Now

2012-01-27T13:07:00.001Z

An video from Babelcolour detailing every Doctor Who adventure from 'An Unearthly Child' in 1963 right up to 'The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe' Christmas Special. But remember, there are still 106 episodes missing from the BBC archives (these have been represented in this video by way of either small surviving clips or reconstructions).

Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang

2012-01-19T13:26:00.003Z

The book choice for February is 'Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang' by Kate Wilhelm. The book won the Hugo for Best Novel in 1977. I'm box ticking here - female author (following earlier discussions about not having read very many), not too long (so those of us who haven’t finished Imajica yet can do!) and a favourite genre of mine (post-apocalyptic sci-fi), plus it has some still contemporary themes (ecology and cloning).

Blurb from back of book: “The Sumner family can read the signs: the droughts and floods, the blighted crops, the shortages, the rampant diseases and plagues, and, above all, the increasing sterility all point to one thing. Their isolated farm in the Appalachian Mountains gives them the ideal place to survive the coming breakdown, and their wealth and know-how gives them the means. Men and women must clone themselves for humanity to survive. But what then?”

Happy reading
Regards
Julia

VALIS

2011-09-27T13:36:00.001+01:00

The book for October is Philip K Dick's theological SF work VALIS. Published just a year before his death in 1982, it is about Horselover Fat (who as author surrogate both is and is not Dick) and his experience of God.

Philip K Dick (1928-82) was described by The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction as ‘one of the two or three most important figures in 20th century US SF’. Over his career he wrote more than 50 books, won the Hugo for ‘The Man in the High Castle’, the BSFA award for A Scanner Darkly’, and had his work made into a number of major Hollywood films (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, The Adjustment Bureau, etc)
From the back cover:

'It began with a blinding light. A divine revelation from a mysterious intelligence that called itself VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System). And with that, the fabric of reality was torn apart and laid bare so that anything seemed possible but nothing seemed quite right.
It was madness, pure and simple. But what if it were true?'

Critical reviews:

'For everyone lost in the endless multiplicating realities of the modern world, remember: Philip K Dick got there first', Terry Gilliam

'Valis is a carefully structured, profoundly thoughtful story of some crazy people who might just have touched something so deep-rooted in myth and legend that it is literally unspeakable', Theodore Sturgeon

'It is about madness, pain, deception, death, obsessive delusory states of mind, cruelty, solitude, imprisonment, and it is a joy to read', Washington Post

For a graphical representation of what Philip K Dick’s book’s can be like, you might not do better than this:

2011 Hugo results

2011-09-15T19:33:00.000+01:00

The votes have been counted, the tuxedos pressed, and the 2011 Hugo rockets presented to the deserving. But who were they?

Best Novel

Blackout/All Clear (WINNER)
by Connie Willis
Feed
by Mira Grant
Cryoburn
by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
by N.K. Jemisin
The Dervish House
by Ian McDonald

Connie Willis’s two-part time travelling story has already won the Nebula and Locus awards, giving her nine major awards for her novels as Lois McMaster Bujold and Orson Scott Card. Only Ursula K Le Guin and China Miéville have more. Similarly only Heinlein has more Hugo best novel awards. Connie Willis now has in total eleven Hugo awards and seven Nebula awards for her writing.
Interesting to note that four out of the five nominees here are female.

Best Novella

The Lifecycle of Software Objects (WINNER)
by Ted Chiang http://www.subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/fall-2010/fiction-the-lifecycle-of-software-objects-by-ted-chiang/
Troika by Alastair Reynolds
The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window by Rachel Swirsky
http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/summer-2010/fiction-the-lady-who-plucked-red-flowers-beneath-the-queens-window-by-rachel-swirsky/
The Sultan of the Clouds by Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.asimovs.com/2011_04-05/images/511Nebula10_sultan.pdf
The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon by Elizabeth Hand
http://www.elizabethhand.com/bellerophone.php

It is nice to see that most of the Novellas, Novelettes and Short Stories are available to read online.
The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window won the Nebula award, but only managed third place in the Hugo. The Lifecycle of Software Objects and The Sultan of the Clouds were also up for the Nebula.

Best Novelette

The Emperor of Mars (WINNER)
by Allen M. Steele
Eight Miles
by Sean McMullen

http://www.seanmcmullen.net.au/eightmiles.htm
Plus or Minus
by James Patrick Kelly

http://www.jimkelly.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=136&Itemid=41
That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made
by Eric James Stone

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/84509
The Jaguar House, in Shadow
by Aliette de Bodard

http://aliettedebodard.com/bibliography/online-fiction/the-jaguar-house-in-shadow/

That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made won the Nebula best Novelette. Also duel nominated were Plus or Minus and The Jaguar House, in Shadow.

Best Short Story

For Want of a Nail (WINNER)
by Mary Robinette Kowal

http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/for-want-of-a-nail-is-a-hugo-nominee/
Amaryllis
by Carrie Vaughn

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/amaryllis/
The Things
by Peter Watts

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/
Ponies
by Kij Johnson

http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/ponies

In comparison, in our book club vote (using the Hugo alternative voting system) placed the stories in the following order:

The Things
For Want of a Nail
Ponies / Amaryllis

On the other hand, Ponies won the latest Nebula award

Best Related Work

Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It (WINNER)
edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea
Robert A. Heinlein : In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 1: (1907–1948): Learning Curve
by William H. Patterson, Jr.
The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing
by Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg
Writing Excuses , Season 4
by Brandon Sanderson, Jordan Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells
Bearings: Reviews 1997-2001
by Gary K. Wolfe

Read an excerpt http://www.lxnen.com/rogerbeccon/X/Bearings.pdf

The Heinlein book could have won an award for the longest title.

Best Graphic Story

Girl Genius, Volume 10 (WINNER)
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Fables: Witches
Schlock Mercenary
Grandville Mon Amour
The Unwritten

Personally, my vote would have gone to Grandville Mon Amour, but then I didn’t get a vote...

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Inception (WINNER)
How to Train Your Dragon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Toy Story 3
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Inception also won the Nebula Ray Bradbury award

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

Doctor Who: “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang” (WINNER)
written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes
Doctor Who: “Vincent and the Doctor”
written by Richard Curtis; directed by Jonny Campbell
Doctor Who: “A Christmas Carol”
written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
written by Rachel Bloom; directed by Paul Briganti

Watch Online
The Lost Thing
written by Shaun Tan; directed by Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan

Interestingly (in a geekish way), while most results reflect the ordering in the initial count of votes, Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury came second in each of the alternative vote run-offs, and The Lost Thing always came third.

Best Editor, Short Form

Sheila Williams (WINNER)
Stanley Schmidt
John Joseph Adams
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder

Best Editor, Long Form

Lou Anders (WINNER)
Ginjer Buchanan
Beth Meacham
Liz Gorinsky
Moshe Feder
Nick Mamatas
Juliet Ulman

Best Professional Artist

Shaun Tan (WINNER)
http://www.shauntan.net/
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio / Daniel Dos Santos
Bob Eggleton

Best Semiprozine

Clarkesworld (WINNER)
edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, Sean Wallace; podcast directed by Kate Baker

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/
Locus
edited by Liza Groen Trombi and Kirsten Gong-Wong

http://www.locusmag.com/
Interzone
edited by Andy Cox

http://ttapress.com/interzone/
Lightspeed
edited by John Joseph Adams

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/
Weird Tales
edited by Ann VanderMeer and Stephen H. Segal

http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/

Best Fanzine

The Drink Tank (WINNER)
edited by Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon

http://efanzines.com/DrinkTank/
File 770
edited by Mike Glyer

http://file770.com/
StarShipSofa
edited by Tony C. Smith

http://www.starshipsofa.com/
Challenger
edited by Guy H. Lillian III

http://www.challzine.net/
Banana Wings
edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer

http://efanzines.com/BananaWings/

Best Fan Writer

Claire Brialey (WINNER)
Christopher J Garcia
Steven H Silver
James Bacon
James Nicoll

Best Fan Artist

Brad W. Foster (WINNER) http://www.jabberwockygraphix.com/
Randall Munroe http://xkcd.com/
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles http://www.stevestiles.com/
Taral Wayne http://taralwayne.deviantart.com/

My favourite of these Randall Munroe, an artist that I have been following for a while, and his exceptionally funny xkcd cartoon series. Ok, the artwork is simple, but it is not easy to make funny and geeky jokes. Possibly not enough of the Hugo voters were geeks.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2009 or 2010, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).

Lev Grossman (WINNER)
Lauren Beukes
Saladin Ahmed
Dan Wells
Larry Correia

For the full listing and the vote breakdown see the Hugo pages:
http://www.renovationsf.org/hugo-intro.php
http://www.thehugoawards.org/

Where are we now? A Greenbelt 2011 talk by Simon Morden

2011-09-01T20:21:00.000+01:00

Blue Pill – Red Pill

I like the film The Matrix. And yes, it is a shame they never made any sequels. In The Matrix, a young computer hacker called Neo starts to realise that reality isn’t quite what it’s supposed to be. He ends up being offered a choice by Morpheus.

“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

I’m going to offer the writers in the audience a similar choice: you can listen to what I have to say, and decide it’s not for you. You’ll wake up tomorrow, and the world won’t have changed. Or you can decide I’m on to something here – and it could end up changing everything.

How did we get here?

Back in 2005, in an act of either misplaced bravery or extreme hubris, I took on the Christian fiction industry. I delivered a – the kind word to use would be polemic – in a tent located pretty much where the Jesus Arms is. I wasn’t expecting to bring down the temple in one mighty shove, but I did want to let people know that I was as mad as hell, and I wasn’t going to take it any longer.

What brought me to that point was partly my own experiences with the fringes of the Christian fiction world, but mostly a growing realisation that there were grave artistic problems with writing what Christian fiction publishers wanted. I was frustrated by the blind alley I felt I’d led myself up, and then frustrated all over again at others making that same journey.

By 2005, I’d been a published author for six years: I’d written a host of short stories, enough for two collections, a small press novel, and a novella that later went on to be shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award. None of these had been published by Christian publishers, but a decade earlier, I’d been in negotiations with Lion. We’d just about malleted out a publishable manuscript, when they decided to stop publishing adult fiction completely.

What I discovered afterwards, was that this publishable manuscript simply wasn’t up to scratch, according to every agent and SF publisher in the UK. And yes, I did try. Something was clearly wrong – was it because the story was too Christian, or because it wasn’t good enough?
The answer, slowly won over the next few years, was both, and the two were inextricably linked. There was something about my creating Christian fiction that degraded the story’s worth – and after that, I realised that it wasn’t just me thinking that way. There were other Christians who wanted to be writers, but somehow couldn’t quite mould the stories they wanted to tell to fit inside the strictures that the Christian publishing industry imposed.

So when I stood up in front of all those people – and it was quite a number, considering I was very much a Z-list author without much past success, a current publishing contract, or at that point, an agent – it was with real, heartfelt indignation but with very little else. I would encourage you to read the original talk if you haven’t already, but the argument boils down to essentially this:

“[For Christian fiction publishers], the criteria are not based on either literary merit, or commercial success. There is another whole area of concern which overrides even the commercial one. Does it fit into our doctrinal basis? Does it have Christian characters at its centre? Does it avoid references to sex, drugs, drink, violence? Does it communicate God to the reader? Will it strengthen Christians? Will it save souls?

The publisher and the bookseller are no longer filters for artistic or commercial concerns. They become controllers of the content of the story. They are the gatekeepers, and their criteria for publication dictates what shall pass.

We, the writers, are faced with the proposition that if we do not write to their criteria, there is no chance of publication – no matter how good our writing is…

… This is what causes Christian fiction to have such a bad reputation: it is simply that good writing is rejected because it does not say what the publishers want it to say.”

I finished the talk, and waited for the audience to smack me down. It didn’t happen. There were questions, which I fielded more or less competently, and then it was over. Except that it wasn’t. I put the text of the talk on my website, and people started reading it, and quoting it. People used it for academic research and teaching fiction writing courses. Six years later, and it still pops up whenever the subject gets mentioned.

Has anything changed?

So, in those six years, has anything happened to make me change my mind? I hadn’t given the question much serious thought in the intervening time, so this has been an opportunity for me to revisit the subject in hopefully a more measured and objective way.

In those intervening years, I’ve had another four novels published – three of those in the last year, though that’s not normal by any stretch of the imagination. But yes, I now write books and people pay me for them.

I hope I’ve grown as a writer in that time. Hopefully, I’ve grown as a person in that time too, but that’s probably a different talk. The last three novels are worth discussing, though, because I have, more or less unconsciously, taken almost every single taboo in Christian fiction and given them a thorough kicking. My protagonist is a violent, sweary atheist scientist with poor impulse control and a very suspect past. He drinks vodka for breakfast and thinks Christians are idiots. And when I say sweary, he swears both in Russian and English, and its about as far removed from gosh-darn as you could possibly get.

It gets better, or worse, depending on your point of view. Most of Europe has been destroyed by terrorists using stolen nuclear warheads. Those terrorists were Christian fundamentalists trying to force the Second Coming. The United States of America is controlled by conservative evangelicals with policies not unlike those of the Tea Party and, as a consequence, the US government is one of the bad guys. The good guys are mixture of Catholics, communists, anarchists and traitors.
Not only did I have a fantastic time writing these books, a lot of people are having a good time reading them. Even American conservatives.

The question that immediately arises from this is: how can I possibly justify writing these irreligious, profane, blasphemous things when I am supposedly a child of the living God? It’s pretty much what a Christian fiction publisher would ask, let alone a Christian fiction reader.

Time, then, to look at Christian fiction. Why do we have it and what is its purpose?

Why do we have Christian fiction?

Again, it’s one of those things I could spend the whole talk exploring. But essentially, we have Christian fiction because there’s a market for it.

Christian publishing is predicated, like its secular counterparts, on producing commercially successful writing. It produces Bibles, study guides and other educational material, biographies, life-style guides, as well as fiction. So Christian fiction sits in amongst this industry, as part of it and as a small part of it: not insignificant, but a publisher that produces ten fiction books a year may well publish a hundred other titles as well.

This is also why Christian fiction is overwhelmingly North American, and more specifically from the USA. It’s difficult, if not impossible to sustain a separate commercial Christian art industry in isolation or opposition to secular art in the UK because the market is too small even if Christians exclusively consumed Christian art. That market doesn’t really exist because UK Christians tend to use secular art by making their own choices about it, and furthermore UK Christians are actually suspicious of art labelled as Christian. The exception is liturgical art to be used in churches and as worship – but that need not be produced by Christians!

What is the purpose of Christian fiction?

Christian fiction will necessarily have the same purpose and the same sensibilities as the non-fiction produced by that publisher. That is to say, if all the other output of a Christian publisher is to either teach Christians how to be better Christians and reinforce the Christian worldview as True, or teach non-Christians the Truth of Christianity, those purposes will also apply to the fiction that publisher produces. To expect anything else would be asking them to deny their reason for existing in the first place.

To illustrate this point – and I’m in no way picking on the particular publisher here, just that there is a lot of documentation about this incident – the year after I gave that first talk at Greenbelt, there was some editorial ‘tidying up’ done by Thomas Nelson, one of the big Christian publishers in the US. At the time they were expanding fast, and had lots of different imprints, each with their own editors and authors. Those in charge began to realise that things were starting to get away from them – to quote the CEO, Michael Hyatt, there was an increasing tendency to “color a bit outside the lines.”

They looked at themselves and decided what it was they wanted to be: and out of everything, they decided they wanted to be a Christian publisher. That’s hardly surprising, but they felt the need to set out what they were, what they were going to publish, and who they wanted to work with. There was some controversy at the time, because it was reported that assent to the Nicene Creed and Philippians 4:8 would be written into author contracts – in the event, this wasn’t actually true, but the truth was stranger than that.

Firstly, Thomas Nelson defined their editorial standards. Like other Christian publishers, they wanted all their books written from a Christian worldview, but they also wanted their authors to explore any subject they wished. So there would be books on spiritual and devotional topics, but also business, culture, politics, entertainment, cooking, family, and fiction too.

Secondly, they stated that the editorial standards focused on the author, not the content. Thomas Nelson explicitly stated that “content flows out of worldview and, ultimately, out of a writer’s heart”. So – they wanted to publish those authors who professed “a personal faith in Jesus Christ”, who embraced the central truths of historic Christianity (as summarised in the Nicene and Apostles’ Creed), and who sought to live according to the standards of biblical morality.

Thirdly, they said that beyond those standards there was “great latitude”. They used Philippians 4:8 not “as an editorial standard per se, but as an inspiration for how broad and expansive our publishing program could be.”

So – time to take stock. I’m a Christian, I hold to the historical creeds of Christianity, I genuinely make an attempt to live out the teachings of Christianity. So far, so good. Because their editorial standards focus on the author, there’s the reasonable assumption that whatever I’ve written, I’ve written from a Christian worldview. Outside of that, I have “great latitude” in what I write. My last three books are well-written enough to be published by a large, successful publisher, and they are on the way to being commercially successful too.

For those of you who haven’t memorised Philippians 4:8, this is what it says:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (NIV)

Thomas Nelson use that verse to arrive at eight (count them – eight) minimum criteria for content. They state you are “free to think or write about anything”, as long as these criteria are met. I am merely going to flag up the incongruity of being free and having eight minimum criteria, then I’m going to read them to you in full.

1. It must be true. This means that it must be authentic or corresponds to reality. We want to publish books that embrace reality as God created it, not books that “sugar coat” reality or try to make reality something it is not.

2. It must be noble. This means that it must raise us up and make us more like God. The opposite is to debase or degrade. We want to publish books that ultimately motivate people and call forth their best qualities.

3. It must be just. This means it must be righteous or consistent with the commandments of God. It also means it must be fair. We want to publish books that promote righteousness and godly living. By the way, this doesn’t mean that novels can’t have evil characters. (There are plenty of them in God’s story.) But it does mean that in the end righteousness is rewarded and evil punished—if not in this life, the next.

4. It must be pure. This means it must be chaste, modest, clean. We want to publish books that promote holiness and offer a necessary corrective to the current trend to sexualise everything. This does not mean that we are opposed to sex, of course. But we want to make sure that our books advocate a view of sex that is consistent with Christian morality.

5. It is lovely. This means it must be aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. We want to publish authors who are committed to beautiful writing. Both what is said and how it is said are important. Beauty is not a means to an end. It is an end in itself, because it reflects the beauty of the Creator.

6. It is of good report. This means it must be commendable or of high reputation. Again, the emphasis is on that which represents the best, that which anyone could read and agree that it is well-written.

7. It is virtuous. This means it must affirm behavior which is consistent with the highest values. Values that don’t manifest themselves in behavior are merely platitudes. We want to publish books that challenge people to live lives of moral excellence and virtue.

8. It is praiseworthy. This means it must be worthy of recommendation; something you can personally endorse. At the end of the day, we want to publish books we are proud of, books that we are willing to give to a family member or friend with the confidence that they will enjoy it and grateful that they took the time to read it.

How have I done? Have I embraced reality? Have I avoided sugar-coating the world I describe? Does it raise readers up? Does it motivate people and call forth their best qualities? Is righteousness rewarded and evil punished? Is it sexually chaste? Is the writing aesthetically pleasing? Is the writing of a high standard? Does it challenge people to live lives of moral excellence and virtue? Can I recommend the book to others? Can they recommend it to their friends?

I don’t think I’m a million miles from the mark in being able to say a tentative yes to all those things. Given all that, why didn’t I or my agent consider Thomas Nelson when selling the rights to the Metrozone?

Mostly because neither of us are insane enough to try. It would be a cold day in Hell before a Christian publisher like Thomas Nelson – whatever their stated editorial principles might be – would ever publish a book like Equations of Life, because their editorial practice has not changed from when I gave the first talk, back in 2006. They would not publish the book then, and would not do so now because the central character is not a Christian, he drinks, he swears, he doesn’t get saved. It doesn’t tell a story they want told. That’s their prerogative – but I think they need to make that clear, rather than throwing up a wall of spiritual-sounding words that obfuscate, rather than clarify.

After reading Thomas Nelson’s editorial policy, how much clearer are you as to what they actually want? They say they want books that don’t sugar-coat the world, but you’d never get so much as a “bloody hell” past them. The same with a Christian character who drank beer. They’re not lying when they say what they want, but neither are they telling you the whole truth. Which is sad.

So what is the truth here? I think it is this: Christian fiction, dominated as it is by big US Christian publishers and driven mainly by the preferences of a certain section of Christian America, is simply the cultural expression of that brand of Christianity. These values are not Christian values per se, but there are enough people who reflect those cultural values who want to buy books that reflect those values. Christian fiction is essentially Conservative Protestant Evangelical American Christian fiction.

That means we need to take a look at the cultural markers that come up in Christian fiction.

There are behavioural mores regarding:
Drinking and smoking – it’s something that non-Christians do.
Swearing – not just irreligious blasphemy, but all forms of invective – sexual swearwords, and bowdlerised versions of both – are taboo.
Sexual behaviour – all sexual/sexualised behaviour is allowed strictly only within marriage between heterosexual partners, and even then, must not be talked about in anything but the vaguest way.
Violence – acceptable to a large degree, as a corrective and as retribution for unacceptable behaviour. This seems to have become much more used in Christian fiction recently – possibly due to the wars that the US have recently fought/are fighting.

There are also deeper cultural differences between the US and the UK regarding:
Patriotism/nationalism – taking a wild generalisation, Britain’s patriotism is backward-looking and rooted in the past, while American patriotism is forward-looking and rooted in the present. US evangelical Christians are usually patriotic and nationalistic, UK evangelical Christians much less so, if at all.
Political views – America has two political parties, one which is very right wing, one which is moderately right wing. In the UK, most of the Conservative party lies to the left of the Democratic party. US evangelical Christians are predominantly Republican supporters, while UK evangelicals don’t even all vote for the Tories.
Isolationist outlook – American poet Ambrose Pierce quipped that “war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography”. The UK, and UK Christians in particular have a much more global outlook.
Tolerance to the secular world – the plural of anecdote is not data, but I perceive a much greater tolerance to the secular world and especially its art, amongst UK Christians than US evangelicals.

So while conservative cultural values like no drinking, no smoking, no profanity, and no sex outside marriage are paramount, violence is not an American conservative Christian taboo. As to why this is the case is probably beyond the remit of this talk, but it’s certainly useful to identify it.

To illustrate this point, I found an online discussion about whether swearing should or shouldn’t be permissible in a Christian novel. The example I’m going to read was highlighted as an exemplum of how to handle bad language, given by a poster who maintains:

“… there is no reason whatsoever to use swear words. I believe the Bible is very clear that it’s sinful. Literature is no exception. I also disagree that writing out these words “enhances” or “is necessary” to any story. Swearing can be skilfully written without using the actual words themselves.”

This is from Angela Hunt’s The Novelist, published by Thomas Nelson 2006:

In this scene, the twenty-one year old son, Zack, goes on a tirade against his parents, Carl and Jordan. Their son has been exhibiting behaviour that they’ve never seen before. (Please note that Jordan is the novelist of the title, and “Tower” is her protagonist hero.)

“Helpless, I watch as the son curses and threatens to pummel his father; the father red-faced, dares his son to “bring it on.” I stand to intervene, but when I step between them, Zack moves closer and calls me a word I wouldn’t put in the mouth of Tower’s most nefarious villain. As automatically as I would smack a spider that has just inflicted a painful bite, I slap my son’s cheek.

Zack’s hand curls into a fist, ready to strike. I refuse to back down; I’ll slap him again if that’s what it takes to knock sense into his head.

“You will not threaten your mother!” Carl roars, and suddenly his arms are around our son. Zack is screaming, kicking; Carl locks his elbow around Zack’s throat and is choking the breath out of him. Zack’s face grows red, and I am about to scream for mercy when Zack goes limp – he hasn’t passed out; he has given up, and not a moment too soon.

My son is weeping when Carl releases him.”

(Angela Hunt, The Novelist, Thomas Nelson 2006)

This excerpt was presented entirely without irony, or it seems, any self-awareness at all. The poster, and presumably the publisher, thought that a scene depicting parent on child domestic abuse was okay, but in the same scene, it was beyond the pale to read any of the words Zack called his mother. The violence – a mother slapping her son, a father choking his son – was explicitly described. The swearing was deliberately excluded.

There is no rhyme or reason for this, except that these are specific cultural norms promoted and guarded by a specific culture. In the UK, the cultural expression of Christianity is significantly different. The US culture is not mine. No wonder I had such difficulty fitting within it.

UK Christian fiction?

Of course, I do have a culture, and that is middle class, professional, left-wing, white, male, Radio 4, Church of England, English. Given that market isn’t huge, a British writer will be necessarily writing books that appeal outside of their immediate culture. So can we say that we have indigenous Christian fiction in the UK, and if we do, what does it look like?

It looks like what it is – Christians writing fiction. If you write fantasy, it looks like Tolkien, Lewis, Charles Williams, David Gemmell, JK Rowling. If you write crime fiction, it looks like Dorothy Sayers, PD James, our own Ruth Downie. If you write science fiction, it looks like Paul Cornell, and it even might look like me.

Is this a problem, though? Is lacking a distinctive label detrimental to either our witness, or our art?
I’d argue it’s actually healthier, not just for us, but for everyone. The Christian artist has to be ‘in the world’. Their art has to compete for attention, as there is no ready-made market. Their art has to be commercial even when it is discussing Christian things, because we are not simply speaking to ourselves. It stops us being insular. Christian artists mix in the same commercial and artistic environments as everyone else.

What your publisher will be looking for from you is good, commercial fiction. That’s actually all they’re concerned about – is it good, can we sell it? They’re not concerned about doctrinal tests, or whether your lifestyle comes up to scratch. They’re not concerned about the amount of ale quaffed, curses uttered, drugs consumed, virgins deflowered, or shibboleths spiked. They care about the story and the craft used to tell it.

They’re not going to bar you because you’re a Christian. They’re not going to stop you having Christian characters. They’re not even going to stop you having Christian characters who behave Christianly. I recently read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead – not my usual fare as it doesn’t even contain so much as a hint of a giant fighting robot. However – it came recommended, and I discovered it is a quite astonishing book. It is not published by a Christian publisher, and I challenge you to find me another book that is that equals it in its art and its story, and yet is so Christian.

A while ago, I posed the question of how could I, a Christian, write such violent, sweary stuff and still call myself Christian. After all, I must have all those things in my heart, because that’s where the author writes from. I can’t have used my imagination, or my skill at creating characters and staying true to a plot arc, because writers don’t use any of those when they make up stories. The story is a mirror of the author, according to the tenets of Christian fiction.

Bollocks. That’s not just nonsense, it’s dangerous nonsense. It’s deeply damaging to both the art of storytelling, and to the individual storyteller. Let me tell you what some reviewers have been saying about the Metrozone books.

Because the Metrozone series has been published pretty much everywhere in three months, I’ve got a lot of reviews, and in the nature of reviews, some are brilliant, some are good, and some not so good – which is one of those things, and my skin is now considerably thicker than it was in April. One particular reviewer had issues with the first book, but carried on to the second. They had issues with that one too, but carried on to the third. This is what he had to say at the end of the third book:

“It’s not that often I come to admire a fictional character, but Petrovich is a truly admirable creation: a self-sacrificing hero, an idealist who refuses to be seduced by power and fame. Petrovich is the kind of unwilling leader we wish for in the real world: someone with the wisdom to exercise power nobly for the betterment of society before standing aside to let everyone else do their part. He’s a character of sufficient complexity to experience guilt about the consequences of his actions without feeling remorse for doing the right thing. He gives a speech toward the novel’s end about how he’s changed because of the events described in the trilogy, how he’s learned to be unselfish, to value his friends and to be a reliable friend to them, but it’s clear that Petrovich had integrity from the start, and it’s his integrity, his consistent refusal to take the easy path when he doesn’t feel it’s morally correct, that makes him so interesting.”

So this is the strange thing. My violent sweary atheist protagonist turns out to have a moral core after all, and not only that, but he has qualities that make at least one person wish he was real. More than one, because another reviewer has said:

“I’d totally date Petrovitch. In a heartbeat.”

Which is all kinds of wrong, but she liked the books so I’m not going to complain. I’m highlighting this, though, because I’m genuinely moved by some people’s reactions. When you write books, it’s a very lonely process. You put every bit of skill and artistry you can into the words you use, and you just don’t know if you’re going to succeed in creating something that’s good. Only when it’s out there do you get to find out.

Petrovitch, as another reviewer pointed out, is a bit of a rubbish hero. He’s about as far removed from the classic strong-jawed, capable killer as you can go. But he is the one you need. I’d never go as far as suggesting that “what would Petrovitch do?” is an acceptable way to live your life, but if his example does inspire small acts of honest tenacity or unwarranted generosity then good. It’s not why I wrote the books – I wrote them because they were fun stories and I like blowing stuff up – but I’m reliably informed they’re more fun because of the compelling characters. I don’t do didactic fiction: when I want to preach I book a slot at Greenbelt, then everyone knows what they’re getting.

Conclusion

Christian fiction, as we understand it, is the cultural art of socially and politically conservative American Christians. This is not to say whether it is right, or wrong, or good, or bad. But it does mean that the label ‘Christian fiction’ does not belong to them. I’d argue further and state: we should not need a separate category for Christian fiction. That some do is, I think, a failure of vision and courage on the part of publishers and consumers and authors.

At the start of this talk, I said I was going to offer you a choice: a blue pill or a red pill. If you take the blue pill, you’ll keep on trying to write Christian fiction for Christian publishers. You’ll keep on having to change your manuscripts because it doesn’t say what they want it to say. You’ll feel the pressure of having not just your work scrutinised for heresy, but your life as well. And as it was in The Matrix, you’ll have this constant nagging feeling that somewhere out there, there is a reality that you can’t quite see.

So here’s the red pill. Take that one and yes, you might well start by waking up in a tank of slime attached to a vast machine that’s using your body as a battery. Which is not a bad analogy. The journey is still hard. The odds of you succeeding are still small. I can’t tell you where you’ll end up.
But, if you fail, you fail with your integrity and your faith intact. If you become successful, it will be because your story-telling ability was good enough and for no other reason. That, to my mind, goes to the heart of what it means to be a Christian writer.

I was going to end there, but I heard something else just recently, and it is this:

“A ship in harbor is safe – but that is not what ships are built for.”
(John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928)

What can be said for ships can also be said for novels. If we stay in harbour, our ships are of no practical use. We need to steer out into the night, through the storms, to uncharted destinations. When they return they will be full of treasure. Because that is what ships are built for.

Taken from http://www.simonmorden.com/ under a Creative Commons licence

A Total Lunar Eclipse Over Tajikistan

2011-08-06T20:13:00.002+01:00

OK, it's not science fiction, but the thought that it was a magical event.

This is an extremely cool video of a total lunar eclipse over Tajikistan

Total Lunar Eclipse In Tajikistan from Jean-Luc Dauvergne on Vimeo.

NASA picture of the Day explanation: If the full Moon suddenly faded, what would you see? The answer during the total lunar eclipse last month was recorded in a dramatic time lapse video from Tajikistan. During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth moves between the Moon and the Sun, causing the moon to fade dramatically. The Moon never gets completely dark, though, since the Earth's atmosphere refracts some light. As the above video begins, the scene may appear to be daytime and sunlit, but actually it is a nighttime and lit by the glow of the full Moon. As the moon becomes eclipsed and fades, the wind dies down and background stars can be seen reflected in foreground lake. Most spectacularly, the sky surrounding the eclipsed moon suddenly appears to be full of stars and highlighted by the busy plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. The sequence repeats with a closer view, and the final image shows the placement of the eclipsed Moon near the Eagle, Swan, Trifid, and Lagoon nebulas. Nearly two hours after the eclipse started, the moon emerges from the Earth's shadow and its bright full glare again dominates the sky.

Latest Dr Who trailers

2011-08-06T18:31:00.008+01:00

The BBC have released the trailer for episodes 8 - 13 of the current series and it is looking good

Dr Who made the Fez and the bow tie cool, but looks like River is making the eye patch creepy.

and here is the trailer from Comicon:

and The God Complex

Expect to get your mind bent this season.

The Curse of Chalion

2011-07-19T14:02:00.002+01:00

This month’s book (well, this month and next) is Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion. It won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the Hugo, Locus Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards, subsequently vindicated with the sequel Paladin of Souls, which won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for best novel. Bujold has actually won the Hugo four times (a record only beaten by Robert Heinlein), Locus three times and the Nebula twice with her novels, making her one of the most feted SF&F authors.

The Curse of Chalion is a fantasy book based heavily, though not excessively, on the time of the Spanish unification under Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. This adds an interesting Iberian flavour, contrasting to the British style of so many fantasies

Do check out the author’s website, http://www.dendarii.com/chalion.html, which contains character lists, maps, and other optional information.
From the press release:

Cazaril was a soldier, a slave, a courtier -- and carries the scars to prove it. Now, broken in body and spirit, he seeks menial work in the household where he once served as page. To his surprise, he is offered the position of secretary-tutor to the granddaughter of his former liege-lady -- young Royesse Iselle, strong-willed sister of the heir to Chalion's throne. But his new post takes Cazaril to the place he fears most: the royal court at Cardegoss, where powerful adversaries who once consigned him to chains now hold power over the realm. Even as he confronts enemies who have neither forgotten nor forgiven his past, he falls in love with the beautiful, courageous Lady Betriz. When he discovers that an uncanny ill-fortune hangs over the royal family -- and that the curse of Chalion hangs over him, as well -- he comes to realize he is the only one who can prevent this insidious evil from slowly conquering the kingdom and its people.

So we have sword and sorcery, theology and politics, all wrapped up by a master storyteller that I am ashamed not to have read earlier. I have now finished the book (I didn’t intent to, I could not help it) and now have to seek out the sequel...

Locus Awards 2011 Winners

2011-06-26T19:13:00.000+01:00

The winners of the 2011 Locus Awards have been announced:

Best Science Fiction Novel

Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis

Surface Detail, Iain M. Banks
Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold
Zero History, William Gibson
The Dervish House, Ian McDonald

Best Fantasy Novel

Kraken, China Miéville

Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
The Fuller Memorandum, Charles Stross
The Sorcerer’s House, Gene Wolfe

Best First Novel

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin

The Loving Dead, Amelia Beamer
Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu

Best Young Adult Book

Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
Enchanted Glass, Diana Wynne Jones
I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett
Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld

Best Novella

The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang (Subterranean)

Bone and Jewel Creatures, Elizabeth Bear (Subterranean)
The Mystery Knight, George R.R. Martin (Warriors)
Troika, Alastair Reynolds (Godlike Machines)
The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’10)

Best Novelette

The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains, Neil Gaiman (Stories)

The Fool Jobs, Joe Abercrombie (Swords & Dark Magic)
The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, Theodora Goss (Strange Horizons 1/18-1/25/10)
Plus or Minus, James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s 12/10)
Marya and the Pirate, Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s 1/10)

Best Short Story

The Thing About Cassandra, Neil Gaiman (Songs of Love and Death)

Booth’s Ghost, Karen Joy Fowler (What I Didn’t See and Other Stories)
Names for Water, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 10-11/10)
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time, Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/10)
The Things, Peter Watts (Clarkesworld 1/10)

Best Magazine

Asimov’s

Analog
F&SF
Subterranean
Tor.com

Best Book Publisher

Tor

Baen
Night Shade Books
Orbit
Subterranean Press

Best Anthology

Warriors, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds.

Zombies vs. Unicorns, Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier, eds.
The Beastly Bride, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed.
Swords & Dark Magic, Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders, eds.

Best Collection

Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories, Fritz Leiber

Mirror Kingdoms, Peter S. Beagle
What I Didn’t See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler
The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson, Kim Stanley Robinson
The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny: Volume Five: Nine Black Doves, Roger Zelazny

Best Editor

Ellen Datlow

Gardner Dozois
Gordon Van Gelder
David G. Hartwell
Jonathan Strahan

Best Artist

Shaun Tan

Bob Eggleton
Donato Giancola
John Picacio
Michael Whelan

Best Non-Fiction Book

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1: 1907-1948: Learning Curve, William H. Patterson, Jr.,

80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin, Karen Joy Fowler & Debbie Notkin, eds.
Conversations with Octavia Butler, Conseula Francis
CM Kornbluth: The Life and Works of a Science Fiction Visionary, Mark Rich
Bearings: Reviews 1997-2001, Gary K. Wolfe

Best Art Book

Spectrum 17, Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds.

Bob Eggleton, Dragon’s Domain
Donato Giancola, Middle-Earth: Visions of a Modern Myth
Shaun Tan, The Bird King and Other Sketches
Charles Vess & Neil Gaiman, Instructions

SF and the Gender Divide

2011-06-21T14:02:00.003+01:00

Following on from the Guardian SF&F special in May there has been a lot of debate on the blogosphere regarding the gender divide in science fiction, exemplified by this article on the SFWA website by Cheryl Morgan.

In response to the British Library’s summer exhibition: “Out of this World”, which celebrates science fiction right back to its earliest incarnations, the Guardian asked a number of prominent SF&F authors (mostly male) to nominate their all-time favourite SF. Nearly all the men and most of the women picked male authors. Nicola Griffith on her website did some maths and found that females accounted for only 4% of these recommendations.

Do women really write so little good SF? Is there a male conspiracy at work? Are we as a book group contributing to gender inequality?

Well, I disagree with the first and cannot comment on the second, but the third question we can address.

What have we read to date and what about the books on the proposed list? Well we have so far read 40 novels, of which only six were by female authors (15%):

Troll Fell - Katherine Langrish
Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon (Nebula)
The Many-Coloured Land - Julian May (Locus)
Powers - Ursula K Le Guin (Nebula)
The Dreaming Tree - C.J. Cherryh
Tales from Moomin Valley - Tove Jannson

Of the 41 novels on the Proposed list, only five a by female authors (12%):

Lud-In-The-Mist - Hope Mirrlees
Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm (Hugo, Nebula)
The Handmaid's Tale - Margret Atwood (Arthur C Clarke)
The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell (Arthur C Clarke, BSFA)
The End Of Mr Y - Scarlett Thomas

Does this prove that women cannot write good SF or Fantasy? Or indeed only fantasy? Not really. Of the proposed works by female authors, three have won the Hugo, British Science Fiction and two Arthur C Clarke awards between them; all SF. While the six read books have won two Nebulas, one SF and one F, and a Locus.

On the subject of award winning SF&F, how do the ladies cope there? If we look at the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, World Fantasy (WFA), Arthur C Clarke and Locus awards for best novel, of the 288 awards, 74 have gone to female authors. Of the 130 winning authors, 35 were female. Thus 27% of the authors are female, winning 26% of the awards. This is at nearly twice the rate that we have been reading female authors.

It is interesting to note that the most awarded author is Ursula K Le Guin, with twelve novel awards, followed by Lois McMaster Bujold with nine, along with China Miéville and Orson Scott Card.
These novels were:

C J Cherryh

Downbelow Station: (Hugo)
Cyteen: (Hugo, Locus)

Catherine Asaro

The Quantum Rose: (Nebula)

Cherie Priest

Boneshaker: (Locus)

Connie Willis

Doomsday Book: (Hugo, Nebula, Locus)
To Say Nothing Of The Dog: (Hugo, Locus)
Passage: (Locus)

Elizabeth A. Lynn

Watchtower: (World Fantasy)

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Healer's War: (Nebula)

Elizabeth Moon

The Speed Of Dark: (Nebula)

Ellen Kushner

Thomas the Rhymer: (World Fantasy)
The Privilege of the Sword: (Locus)

Gwyneth Jones

Bold As Love: (Arthur C. Clarke)

J K Rowling

Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire: (Hugo)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: (Locus)

Jo Walton

Tooth and Claw: (World Fantasy)

Joan D Vinge

The Snow Queen: (Hugo, Locus)

Julian May

The Many Coloured Land: (Locus)

Kate Wilhelm

Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang: (Hugo, Locus)

Lauren Beukes

Zoo City: (Arthur C. Clarke)

Lois McMaster Bujold

Falling Free: (Nebula)
The Vor Game: (Hugo)
Barrayar: (Hugo, Locus)
Mirror Dance: (Hugo, Locus)
Paladin Of Souls: (Hugo, Nebula, Locus)

Louise Erdrich

The Antelope Wife: (World Fantasy)

Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale: (Arthur C. Clarke)

Marge Piercy

Body of Glass: (Arthur C. Clarke)

Margo Lanagan

Tender Morsels: (World Fantasy)

Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Mists of Avalon: (Locus)

Mary Doria Russell

The Sparrow: (Arthur C. Clarke, BSFA)

Mary Gentle

Ash: A Secret History: (BSFA)

Nicola Griffith

Slow River: (Nebula)

Octavia E Butler

Parable Of The Talents: (Nebula)

Pat Cadigan

Synners: (Arthur C. Clarke)
Fools: (Arthur C. Clarke)

Pat Murphy

The Falling Woman: (Nebula)

Patricia A McKillip

Harpist in the Wind: (Locus)
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld: (World Fantasy)
Ombria in Shadow: (World Fantasy)

Rachel Pollack

Unquenchable Fire: (Arthur C. Clarke)
Godmother Night: (World Fantasy)

Sheri S Tepper

Beauty: (Locus)

Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: (Hugo, World Fantasy)

Tricia Sullivan

Dreaming in Smoke: (Arthur C. Clarke)

Ursula K Le Guin

The Left Hand Of Darkness: (Hugo, Nebula)
The Lathe of Heaven: (Locus)
The Dispossessed: (Hugo, Nebula, Locus)
Tenau: The Last Book Of Earthsea: (Nebula, Locus)
The Telling: (Locus)
The Other Wind: (World Fantasy)
Powers: (Nebula)
Lavinia: (Locus)

Vonda N McIntyre)

Dreamsnake: (Hugo, Nebula, Locus)
The Moon and The Sun: (Nebula)

If we look at which awards have been recognising female authors, then we start to see some interesting facts:

Adding one when a female wins and taking one away when it’s a male, we can see that the awards were male dominated in the 50s and 60s, but in the 70s and 90s females were being equally recognised as their male compatriots. The Arthur C. Clarke is the most equitable (at least initially), and British Science Fiction Awards the least. This is interesting support for the theory that British SF is more sexist than the US market.

So, what can we do to address this imbalance? Deliberately read more female authored works of course!

We have already read a novel by Ursula K le Guin, so something by Lois McMaster Bujold, possibly Paladin of Souls as this is the most awarded (I have not actually read any and am keen to rectify this omission). This should be followed by something by Connie Willis and Vonda N McIntyre. Going on the awards then these should be Willis’ Doomsday Book and McIntyre’s Dreamsnake.

Matt Smith to return for new Doctor Who series

2011-06-08T13:41:00.004+01:00

Matt Smith has signed on to appear in a new series of Doctor Who, the BBC has confirmed.

Fourteen new episodes of the sci-fi show, written by executive producer Steven Moffat, have been commissioned.

However it is not yet known when the new episodes will be broadcast.

The corporation also confirmed there would be six more episodes of the current series to be screened later this year and a 2011 Christmas special starring Smith is planned.

Sam Hodges, head of communications for BBC One, fiction and daytime, tweeted on Tuesday: "#DoctorWho is returning. Fourteen new episodes have been commissioned with Matt Smith as The Doctor #bbc1."

Moffat later added: "14 eps + Matt DEFINITELY. I've got a plan and I'm NOT TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS."

Earlier this month, the writer told the Radio Times the Daleks would be given "a rest" from the series.

"There's a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe," he said.

Repeated from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13694871

Nebula Award Winners Announced

2011-05-22T20:00:00.037+01:00

The 2011 Nebula Award Winners are:

Winning Novel:

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

Also Nominated:

The Native Star by M.K. Hobson
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Echo by Jack McDevitt
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Winning Novella:

“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean)

Also Nominated:

The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi (Audible; Subterranean)
Iron Shoes by J. Kathleen Cheney (Alembical 2)
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
The Sultan of the Clouds by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov)
Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance by Paul Park (F&SF)

Winning Novelette:

That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone (Analog)

Also Nominated:

Map of Seventeen by Christopher Barzak (The Beastly Bride)
The Jaguar House by in Shadow by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov)
The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara by Christopher Kastensmidt (Realms of Fantasy)
Plus or Minus by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov)
Pishaach by Shweta Narayan (The Beastly Bride)
Stone Wall Truth by Caroline M. Yoachim (Asimov)

Winning Short Story (tie):

“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com)

“How Interesting: A Tiny Man” by Harlan Ellison (Realms of Fantasy)

Also Nominated:

Arvies by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed)
I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno by Vylar Kaftan (Lightspeed)
The Green Book by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex)
Ghosts of New York by Jennifer Pelland (Dark Faith)
Conditional Love by Felicity Shoulders (Asimov)

Ray Bradbury Award:

Inception

Also Nominated:

Despicable Me
Doctor Who:“Vincent and the Doctor”
How to Train Your Dragon
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3

Andre Norton Award:

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Also Nominated:

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
White Cat by Holly Black
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch
The Boy from Ilysies by Pearl North
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

http://www.sfwa.org/2011/05/nebula-award-winners-announced/

Life is a Beach

2011-05-17T20:24:00.002+01:00

An original short story by Peter Willox
The first I knew of my mother’s demise was the alarm in my eye. I was at work at the fusion plant so I flipped down the clear screen on my helmet and read the auto message from Mum’s implant. She had died at a clinic in Birmingham, coordinates attached. I buzzed the clinic. Something had “malfunctioned” on her ‘stay young’ driver. There was nothing they could do. Could I pick up her ashes and deal with them according to her will (attached)?

It was to be Brighton, the fondly and often remembered place of her childhood with its amusements, candyfloss, ice-cream sellers, roundabouts and swings. She would smile most as she told me how the sea felt on her feet, the sound on the stones. She would also tell me of the day when Brighton died, the day of the Tsunami. The tides had been getting higher year on year as the caps melted but for her as a young girl this had just added to the excitement of the beach, but then came the ‘slide.

She had been visiting an uncle in the country. Her parents and brother had died that day and so did something else. It was as if people stopped enjoying the sea. Suddenly the friendly sea became the enemy that had taken away a childhood dreamland and a nation’s spirit. Now there were no beach holidays and eventually no beaches, the flood waters finishing the job. She stayed with her uncle’s family and she never went back, until now.

Now I stand barefoot on the cold, slippery seaweed that has taken hold of the tarmac road which had once led downhill into Brighton’s colourful and cosmopolitan centre. The grey waves wash over my bare feet, catching me in their brief ice embrace, and for a moment I am with my mother as she lets the sea caress the space between her toes. But the waves let go and withdraw taking with them my memories of her stories and the ashes of her presence. Cold drizzle and warm salt tears a tide on my cheeks. The cry of gulls carries with it the faint sound of children laughing. But they are long gone, as are the beaches of old.

I say my last goodbyes to my mother and turn back up the road. I feel I am also saying good bye to a way of life I never really knew but perhaps hoped for. I stop and shiver as if to shake off a feeling that is clinging to me. All is not bad, I tell myself. My life is good really, and we are coping with the difficulties that modern life brings to us fairly well and yet. Suddenly a phrase comes into my mind; a joke my Mother used to use. Laughing I shout at the top of my voice “Life is a beach and then you dry!” and doing so I take the first step onto the sand of my new life.

© Peter Willox 2010
All rights reserved

The Quantum Thief

2011-05-17T19:57:00.026+01:00

Nominated by Peter W, chosen by Rodney (one of our increasing number of remote members), the book for this month is The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, which is described as a far-future thought experiment SF detective novel.

Reviews

'If you dropped Greg Egan's hard physics chops into a rebooted Finnish version of Al Reynolds with the writing talent of a Ted Chiang you'd begin to get a rough approximation of the scale of his talent. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I read it. Hard to admit, but I think he's better at this stuff than I am. And The Quantum Thief is the best first SF novel I've read in many years -- Charles Stross

TQT has been heavily trailed as 'the' big SF debut novel of the year. These accounts are correct. The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride. It's the sort of book you'd get if Scott Lynch and Greg Egan teamed up, with the characters and black humour of the former mixed in with the hardcore physics of the latter. The story unfolds briskly with barely a pause for breath, the plot is gripping, the ideas complex but thought-provoking, and there are all the requisite shocking revelations and intriguing plot twists you could wish for. The Quantum Thief is a bravura debut novel, a confident and accomplished work that reinvigorates the genre. It is easily the best SF debut since Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon --The Wertzone

Comes together piece by piece in the mode of M. John Harrison's Light - and it's every bit the equal of that modern-day genre masterpiece. Beneath the science, you see, beneath the staggering speculative wonder of it all, Hannu Rajaniemi has a knack for spare, no-nonsense storytelling that approaches the poetic at times. The Quantum Thief is a revelation, in the end, and make no mistake: we have here the sci-fi debut of 2010 --The Speculative Scotsman

Product Description/Blurb

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy - from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to steal their thoughts, to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of the Moving Cities of Mars. Except that Jean made one mistake. Now he is condemned to play endless variations of a game-theoretic riddle in the vast virtual jail of the Axelrod Archons - the Dilemma Prison - against countless copies of himself. Jean's routine of death, defection and cooperation is upset by the arrival of Mieli and her spidership, Perhonen. She offers him a chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self - in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed . . . The Quantum Thief is a dazzling hard SF novel set in the solar system of the far future - a heist novel peopled by bizarre post-humans but powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.

Regarding The Difference Engine, the general consensus was that the stories were well written and enjoyable with plenty of good ideas, but would have been better if there was a plot as well...

When I get a spare moment I will finish off my overview of Steampunk genre and culture and put it on the website for your interest.

Meanwhile, while you are waiting for your new order to arrive, don't forget the Hugo short stories (http://sfbk.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-club-short-story-vote.html). Please let me have your votes by the 28th. If you don't like reading them on the computer screen or smart phone, Tony has some hard copies which he promises to hand on this weekend. If anyone else has printed them off please let the group know.

BSFA Award 2010 Winners

2011-05-14T20:49:00.028+01:00

The 2010 British Science Fiction Awards ceremony at the 62nd Eastercon convention, Illustrious 2011, has announced this year's winners:

Best Novel 2010: The Dervish House, Ian McDonald http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/books/the-dervish-house-paperback

Best Short Fiction 2010: The Shipmaker, Aliette de Bodard (Interzone 231) http://aliettedebodard.com/

Best Non-Fiction 2010: “Blogging the Hugos: Decline”, Paul Kincaid http://www.paulkincaid.co.uk/

Best Artwork 2010: Cover of Zoo City, Joey Hi-Fi

Equations of Life

2011-05-06T13:51:00.025+01:00

Simon Morden, author of The Lost Art and Another War, and contributer to this site, has a new book out: Equations of Life. Its London cyberpunk distopian setting is alreading getting excellent critical review.

Samuil Petrovitch is a survivor. He survived the nuclear fallout in St. Petersburg and hid in the London Metrozone - the last city in England. He's lived this long because he's a man of rules and logic. For example: GETTING INVOLVED = A BAD IDEA.

But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking. Before he can stop himself, he's saved the daughter of the most dangerous man in London. And clearly: SAVING THE GIRL = GETTING INVOLVED.

Now, the equation of Petrovitch's life is looking increasingly complex: RUSSIAN MOBSTERS + YAKUZA + SOMETHING CALLED THE NEW MACHINE JIHAD = ONE DEAD PETROVITCH.

But Petrovitch has a plan - he always has a plan - he's just not sure it's a good one.

You can read an extract, or find more information at Simon's website or that of his publisher, Orbit

Book club short story vote

2011-04-27T18:11:00.000+01:00

As you may have seen, the Hugo nominations for 2011 have been released (list on http://sfbk.blogspot.com/2011/04/2011-hugo-award-nominees-announced.html).

As the four nominated short stories are all available online, I thought that it might be a good idea if we had our own vote (using AV in the best Tory (and Hugo) tradition). If you are interested, would you like to read the following and place them in order of preference, “1” for first place, “2” for second and so on. If you dislike a story then don't give it a vote. I will use the Hugo methods on http://hugos.renovationsf.org/vote/ for the sums.

Get me your votes by May 14th and I will announce the winners on the 16th. It will be interesting to see how they compare to the “real” vote announced in August.

Best Short Story

“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010) - http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/amaryllis/

“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010) - http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/for-want-of-a-nail-is-a-hugo-nominee/

“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010) - http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/ponies

“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010) - - http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

2011 Hugo Award Nominees Announced

2011-04-25T23:12:00.001+01:00

The nominations are out for this year's Hugo Awards:

Best Novel

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

Feed by Mira Grant

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Best Novella

“The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window” by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2010) - Read Online

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean) - Read Online

“The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” by Elizabeth Hand (Stories: All New Tales, William Morrow)

“The Sultan of the Clouds” by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s, September 2010) - Read Online (PDF)

“Troika” by Alastair Reynolds (Godlike Machines, Science Fiction Book Club)

Best Novelette

“Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen (Analog, September 2010) - Read Online

“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)- Read Online

“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s, July 2010) - Read Online

“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s, December 2010) - Read Online

“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone (Analog, September 2010) - Read Online

Best Short Story

“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010) - Read Online

“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010) - Read Online

“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010) - Read Online

“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010) - - Read Online

Best Related Work

Bearings: Reviews 1997-2001, by Gary K. Wolfe (Beccon)

The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing, by Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg (McFarland)

Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea (Mad Norwegian)

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 1: (1907–1948): Learning Curve, by William H. Patterson, Jr. (Tor)

Writing Excuses, Season 4, by Brandon Sanderson, Jordan Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells

Best Graphic Story

Fables: Witches, written by Bill Willingham; illustrated by Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)

Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment) - Read Online

Grandville Mon Amour, by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)

Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel, written and illustrated by Howard Tayler; colors by Howard Tayler and Travis Walton (Hypernode) - Read Online

The Unwritten, Volume 2: Inside Man, written by Mike Carey; illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner)

How to Train Your Dragon, screenplay by William Davies, Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders; directed by Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders (DreamWorks)

Inception, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, screenplay by Michael Bacall & Edgar Wright; directed by Edgar Wright (Universal)

Toy Story 3, screenplay by Michael Arndt; story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich; directed by Lee Unkrich (Pixar/Disney)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

Doctor Who: “A Christmas Carol,” written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)

Doctor Who: “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang,” written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)

Doctor Who: “Vincent and the Doctor,” written by Richard Curtis; directed by Jonny Campbell (BBC Wales)

Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, written by Rachel Bloom; directed by Paul Briganti - Watch Online

The Lost Thing, written by Shaun Tan; directed by Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan

Best Editor, Short Form

John Joseph Adams
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams

Best Editor, Long Form

Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
Moshe Feder
Liz Gorinsky
Nick Mamatas
Beth Meacham
Juliet Ulman

Best Professional Artist

Daniel Dos Santos
Bob Eggleton
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

Best Semiprozine

Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, Sean Wallace; podcast directed by Kate Baker

Interzone, edited by Andy Cox

Lightspeed, edited by John Joseph Adams

Locus, edited by Liza Groen Trombi and Kirsten Gong-Wong

Weird Tales, edited by Ann VanderMeer and Stephen H. Segal

Best Fanzine

Banana Wings, edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer

Challenger, edited by Guy H. Lillian III

The Drink Tank, edited by Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon

File 770, edited by Mike Glyer

StarShipSofa, edited by Tony C. Smith

Best Fan Writer

James Bacon
Claire Brialey
Christopher J Garcia
James Nicoll
Steven H Silver

Best Fan Artist

Brad W. Foster
Randall Munroe
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2009 or 2010, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).

Saladin Ahmed
Lauren Beukes
Larry Correia
Lev Grossman
Dan Wells

Note: All Campbell finalists are in their 2nd year of eligibility.

For full details see http://www.renovationsf.org/hugo-intro.php

The Difference Engine

2011-04-25T21:03:00.000+01:00

Our next reading is The Difference Engine by Bruce Stirling and William Gibson.

Fresh from their successes in creating the cyberpunk genre, they turn the clock back and imagine what might have been had Charles Babbage created his mechanical computer, initiating the information revolution 100 years early.

While they did not create the genre, The Difference Engine made it mainstream reading. Steampunk is possibly the major SF genre of the present day, spilling out into popular culture, film, and fashion. This is where it came of age.

Sarah Jane’s Awfully Big Adventure

2011-04-20T14:06:00.000+01:00

Elisabeth Sladen, known to millions as Sarah Jane Smith, died today aged 63 following a battle with cancer.

She first appeared in Doctor Who in the 1973 episode The Time Warrior as Sarah Jane as the investigative journalist swept up into the Doctor’s work with UNIT, in this case dealing with the first appearance of a Sontaran. She travelled with both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker for four series, returned in 2005 with David Tennant in School Reunion, and was given her own show, The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2007.

According to the BBC, a special tribute is planned for this Saturday’s Doctor Who season premier.

The Nebula 2010 nominees

2011-02-27T21:21:00.000Z

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has announcd the nominees for the 2010 Nebula Awards.

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of SFWA. The awards will be announced at the Nebula Awards Banquet on Saturday evening, May 21, 2011 in the Washington Hilton, in Washington, D.C.. Other awards to be presented are the Andre Norton Award for Excellence in Science Fiction or Fantasy for Young Adults, the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation and the Solstice Award for outstanding contribution to the field.

Short Story

"Arvies, Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine)
"How Interesting: A Tiny Man", Harlan Ellison (Realms of Fantasy)
"Ponies", Kij Johnson (Tor.com)
"I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno", Vylar Kaftan (Lightspeed Magazine)
"The Green Book", Amal El-Mohtar (Apex Magazine)
"Ghosts of New York", Jennifer Pelland (Dark Faith)
"Conditional Love", Felicity Shoulders (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine)

Novelette

"Map of Seventeen", Christopher Barzak (The Beastly Bride)
"The Jaguar House, in Shadow", Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine)
"The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara", Christopher Kastensmidt (Realms of Fantasy)
"Plus or Minus", James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine)
"Pishaach", Shweta Narayan (The Beastly Bride)
"That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made", Eric James Stone (Analog Science Fiction and Fact)
"Stone Wall Truth", Caroline M. Yoachim (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine)

Novella

"The Alchemist", Paolo Bacigalupi (Audible; Subterranean)
"Iron Shoes", J. Kathleen Cheney (Alembical 2)
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects", Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
"The Sultan of the Clouds", Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine)
"Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance", Paul Park (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
"The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window", Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Magazine)

Novel

"The Native Star", M.K. Hobson
"The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms", N.K. Jemisin
"Shades of Milk and Honey", Mary Robinette Kowal
"Echo", Jack McDevitt
"Who Fears Death", Nnedi Okorafor
"Blackout/All Clear", Connie Willis

The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

"Despicable Me", Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud (directors), Ken Daurio & Cinco Paul (screenplay), Sergio Pablos (story)
Doctor Who: "Vincent and the Doctor", Richard Curtis (writer), Jonny Campbell (director)
"How to Train Your Dragon", Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders (directors), William Davies, Dean DeBlois, & Chris Sanders (screenplay)
Inception, Christopher Nolan (director), Christopher Nolan (screenplay)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Edgar Wright (director), Michael Bacall & Edgar Wright (screenplay)
Toy Story 3, Lee Unkrich (director), Michael Arndt (screenplay), John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, & Lee Unkrich (story)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy

Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi
White Cat, Holly Black
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, Barry Deutsch
The Boy from Ilysies, Pearl North
I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett
A Conspiracy of Kings, Megan Whalen Turner
Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld

The Nebula Awards Weekend will be held Thursday, May 19th to Sunday, May 22nd 2011 at the Washington Hilton hotel in Washington D.C.

View complete article...

2011 Hugo Award Nominations Are Open

2011-01-12T18:40:00.000Z

Renovation, the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention, has announced that the 2011 Hugo Nominations are now open.

Go to the Hugo Awards website for more information on how to submit nominations and ballots.
http://www.thehugoawards.org/2011/01/2011-hugo-award-nominations-are-open/

Yellow Blue Tibia

2010-11-16T22:36:00.002Z

The book for December / January is Adam Robert's well reviewed Yellow Blue Tibia. I say well reviewed, Kim Stanley Robinson himself said that Yellow Blue Tibia should have been up for the Booker prize. Meanwhile, it was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke, the John W Campbell, and the British Science Fiction Association prizes instead.
While last month's book, Darwin's Radio, was solidly American, Yellow Blue Tibia crosses the Iron Curtain to explore the murky aspects of Communist propaganda, where fact can become strange as fiction, or possibly the other way around. As Eric Brown said in his Guardian review:

It's 1945. Stalin calls together a group of science fiction writers and orders them to produce a scenario of alien invasion; he perceives the American threat to be on the wane, and the Soviet state needs an enemy against which to rally. No sooner have the writers developed a scenario than Stalin demands they forget the idea on pain of death. Skip to 1986, when Konstantin Skvorecky, ex-SF novelist and world-weary alcoholic now working as a translator, is approached by an old colleague who tries to convince him that their long-forgotten scenario is in fact coming to pass: aliens appear to be invading the world. What follows is in part a droll comedy of manners parodying the fall of Soviet communism, part an intellectual inquiry into the idea of multiple quantum realities and part an attempt to discover why, despite the ubiquity of reported sightings, UFOs have never been proved to exist. As ever with Roberts, the writing is impeccable and the ideas riveting.

I must confess that this book has been on my reading list for a while, so that I am very glad that I now have the excuse to buy it.
You can find more about Adam Roberts and his writing at his website: http://www.adamroberts.com/

Darwin's Radio

2010-10-20T00:17:00.002+01:00

This month's book is Greg Bear's Nebula 2000 winning (and Hugo nominated) novel of human evolution

Amazon.co.uk Review

Greg Bear notoriously reworks traditional SF themes in his own special way. His first success, Blood Music (1985), features an intelligent plague which seems destructive but eventually recreates humanity in new, transcendent form-
-echoing Arthur C. Clarke's rough-hewn 1953 classic Childhood's End. Darwin's Radio revisits this territory but foregrounds scientific, medical and political reactions to disaster; it's reminiscent of a Michael Crichton technothriller. The menace is a "new" virus, SHEVA, which is in fact very old--embedded in a ancient human DNA sequences and now emerging as "Herod's 'Flu", which in pregnant women always forces miscarriage. Chillingly, US health authorities first see this threat as something to boost funding, while conservative scientists suppress research into the bizarre reality of what's happening. Evidence from Neanderthal remains and Stalin's mass graves hints that SHEVA is no disease but evolution in action. Human genomes everywhere, linked by the subtle network of "Darwin's radio", are activating Plan B: the creation of a new species. Then, with the world racked by panic, riots, death cults and martial law, SHEVA begins to mutate ... Tense stuff, though some biological info-dumps are tough going, and it's awkwardly paced towards the end when nine months are needed for the biologist heroine's own pregnancy, leading to... but that would be telling. This is a fearfully plausible scientific thriller. --David L Langford

Sequal: Darwin's Children

The Stars My Destination analysis

2010-10-19T23:37:00.001+01:00

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
And death's my destination.

Outline

Gully Foyle is marooned 170 days in space on the wreck of the Nomad with thought or hope other than that of day-to-day survival. None, that is, until a passing ship, the Vorga, spurns his distress signals. In his despair Gully is changed into a driven man, one that will not stop until he has his vengeance on those that left him to die.

Over the course of the story, Gully changes. Initially on the outside from the facial tattoos given him by a lost tribe deep in the asteroid belt, then on the inside as he forces himself to change to achieve his goals. And the final change? Well you will just have to read the story for that one...

Author

Alfred ‘Alphie’ Bester was born in 1913 in Manhattan, New York, the second child of James (Austrian descended first generation American) and Belle (Russian Jewish immigrant). After university briefly studying law, Alfred started writing science fiction while working in public relations, winning in 1939 a place (and $50) in Thrilling Wonder Stories with his piece: The Broken Axiom. It is popularly reported that Robert Heinlein had decided against entering that same competition as the prize money was less than he could get from selling his story direct to Astounding Science Fiction.

Backed by a growing number of stories published in this and other magazines, Bester gained a place in 1942 at DC Comics, writing Superman, Green Lantern and other titles. In 1946 he moved into radio, writing scripts for shows; then two years later doing the same for television.

In 1950 he started writing science fiction again, publishing short stories throughout the decade in Astounding and Galaxy Science Fiction. It was during this period that he wrote The Demolished Man, which won the Hugo Award in 1953; the first ever presented. In the same year he also published Who He?, a thriller set in 50s television, and followed with The Stars My Destination in 1956.

In 1959 Bester took a twelve year break from SF while he was the he senior editor of the Holiday magazine. In 1973 he returned to SF, publishing a number of Hugo nominated short stories and novels before his death in 1987.

Bibliography & Awards

Highlights:
1953: The Demolished Man (winner of the first Hugo award)
1953: Who He? Also published as The Rat Race
1954: Star Light, Star Bright (retro Hugo nominated)
1954: Fondly Fahrenheit
1956: The Stars My Destination also published as Tiger! Tiger!
1958: The Men Who Murdered Mohammed (Hugo nominated)
1959: The Pi Man (Hugo nominated)
1959: Murder and the Android (TV adaptation of Fondly Fahrenheit – Hugo nominated)
1975: The Computer Connection (Hugo nominated)
1975: The Four-Hour Fugue (Hugo nominated)
1980: Golem100
1981: The Deceivers
1987: Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master award
1991: Tender Loving Rage (posthumous)
1997: Virtual Unrealities (posthumous)
1998: Psychoshop (posthumous)
2000: Redemolished (posthumous)
2001: induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (posthumous)

Context

The Golden Age of SF

The Golden Age of SF is generally held to be the 1940s and 50s, lead by John W Campbell during his stint as editor at Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell led the movement away from the “pulp” stories of the 20s and 30s, epitomised by EE “Doc” Smith and the early Space Opera, and into the realms of what we now know of as Hard SF. Here the material sciences were emphasised, whether physics, chemistry, or electronics, with less concern placed on characterisation. I suspect that it is no coincidence that the Golden Age is also that of the huge technological advances as a result of the Second World War, whether rocketry or atomic weapons: the SF authors now had something firm to work on, space flight was finally within reach. The stars of this age (excuse the pun) are Robert A Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov.

New Wave

With the 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite closing the gap between speculative fiction and reality, and the feeling that SF was becoming clichéd, fans and authors began to desire explorations of new themes and directions. As Brian Aldiss says in his seminal Billion Year Spree. The History of Science Fiction:

“On the whole, the props of SF are few: rocket ships, telepathy, robots, time travel, other dimensions, huge machines, aliens, future wars. Like coins, they become debased by over-circulation ... in the fifties, ... writers combined and recombined these standard elements with a truly Byzantine ingenuity ... but there were signs even then that limits were being reached. By the sixties, the signs could not be ignored.”

What was need now were not stories of technology, but stories about the effects of technology on people and the way that they live. The popular backlash against Hard SF and the move into the Soft SF topics of psychology, sociology, religion, sex and drugs (but little rock and roll) was lead by the likes of Michael Moorcock (then editor of the New Worlds magazine) and JG Ballard: “it is inner space, not outer, that needs to be explored”. Some of the old school authors joined the movement; Heinlein’s 1961 classic Stranger in a Strange Land marks both his Middle Period and his entry to the New Wave.

When the New Wave authors lead the revolution against the old establishment, they found that Alfred Bester was already there waiting for them. In both his major 1950s SF works, the character arc is central to the story. In The Stars My Destination the central theme is the effect of vengeance on the avenger, and in The Demolished Man the psychological breakdown caused by committing murder in a society of mind-readers. Bester was writing Science Fiction in the Golden Age, but he was already ahead of his time.

Cyberpunk

With the passing of 60s radicalism, the end of the moon landings, loss of the Vietnam war and the harsh realities of the oil crisis, the New Wave authors were absorbed into the mainstream: Hard SF and Space Opera were back. But in the same way that age of disco and prog rock were ended by punk rock, so the direction of SF was changed by the emergence of Cyberpunk in the early 80s. The gleaming spires of the future were replaced by “high tech and low life”, information technology, cybernetic enhancements and mega-corporation dystopias. While there was no computerisation in Alfred Bester’s work in the 50s (it was still mostly hidden in military research establishments), the Cyberpunk authors recognised and built on Bester’s groundwork established 30 years earlier. William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and one of the architects of the cyberpunk movement, said that “I can’t remember having met an SF writer whose opinion I respected who failed to share my enthusiasm for Alfred Bester’s work”. As Neil Gaiman wrote in his essay Of Time, and Gully Foyle: “The Stars My Destination is, after all, the perfect cyberpunk novel.”

Main Themes & Motifs

Revenge

The Stars My destination is essentially a book about revenge, whether its effect on the person caught up in its execution or those subject to collateral damage. Gully is initially changed from a mindless drone to a mindless predator, then a showman and finally a rounded and compassionate human being. It is not a recommended route, Gully was lucky to survive, as were his targets.

Gully was not alone in seeking revenge: Olivia Presteign sought to pay back all of humanity for her blindness and isolation, the Outer Planets on the Inner for economic collapse, the Inner Planets on the Outer for the nuclear attacks, Lindsey Joyce on herself for her crimes. All were changed, some for the better, some for the worse, but none would ever be the same again.

Jaunting

A central motif in The Stars My Destination is that of teleportation, which goes by the name of jaunting. Named after the fictional scientist Dr Charles Fort Jaunte, who accidentally discovered that he had the innate ability during a laboratory fire, the technique has been refined and taught across most of humanity in the Solar System.

It was not without its cost though. Who will drive a car or take then train when they can jaunte? Transportation systems became redundant, along with the supporting industries such as petroleum (this would be such a popular discovery today). With whole industries collapsing, the trade between the inner and outer planets suffered so much that it led to inter-planetary war.

War

Written just ten years after atomic bombs ended the Second World War, the book has an undercurrent of fear of nuclear destruction symbolised by PyrE. While Asimov at the same time viewed atomic weapons as essential for civilisation in his Foundation trilogy, Bester saw in them the potential for universal destruction that we need to resolve and come to terms with. War had recently engulfed the world and threatened to again, but this time promising few survivors. Nuclear bombs had as much a hair-trigger as the PyrE, though these thoughts came from presidents not psionics. The name itself hints at Bester’s antipathy: funeral.

It is interesting to note that Gully’s predicament was based on an actual event during the Second World War. A shipwrecked mariner survived in the pacific for four months, ignored by passing ships that feared that he was a decoy to lure them into the sights of a hidden submarine.

Commerce & Corruption

“This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying...but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice...but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks...but nobody loved it.”

The rich are extravagantly retro; the offices drably so. All SF books are products of their time and have to be read as such. Some scenes and details have not dated well, but much is timeless. It reads as if the world has reverted to the era of cold-war rock and roll, but with a proto-cyberpunk overlay of human enhancement and corporate corruption.

With jaunting so common, security is now much more difficult. Houses are close off to the outside world, rich properties are protected by labyrinths to disorientate visitors, women are locked away to “protect them”. With easy mobility, society has more stratified. Squatters and looters now roam the planet while the rich flaunt their wealth by using conspicuously expensive mechanical transports, all scenes reminiscent of the Great Depression: Bester’s formative years.

Literary influences

There can be few SF works that have as many anchors in literature as this. From Shakespeare to Blake via folk poetry, Bester’s writing is grounded in the past while looking to the future.

The story of Gully, or Gulliver Foyle to give him his full title, is in many respects a reworking of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), but achieving the same result in a mere quarter of the pages. 1000 page plus novels are not a new invention. Gully’s name also possibly points a reference to Jonathan Swift’s political satire of 1726: Gulliver’s Travels, and its theme of whether men are born corrupt or become corrupted.

The opening to part two of the story quotes from Tom O’Bedlam, inmate of the madhouse: “With a burning spear and horse of air, to the wilderness I wander”. But this is just Gully’s persona, a cover that holds a grain of truth: “With a knight of ghosts and shadows I am summoned there to tourney, ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end – methinks it is no journey”. He is hiding one madness with the pretence of another.

Without a doubt, one of the major influences on this story is William Blake’s 1794 poem The Tyger (commonly rendered The Tiger today). While his Geoffrey Fourmyle incarnation is Tom O’Bedlam, The Tyger perfectly describes Gully’s true character and fate

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings did he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thine heart?
And when thy heart began to beat
What dread hands and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What the grass
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Synaesthesia

The concussion from the PyrE explosion gave Gully a real neurological condition: synaesthesia. It is a confusion and crossing of the senses, where the stimulation of one leads to experience of another.

“Colour was pain to him...touch was taste to him...smell was touch...”

Common forms include associations of colour with numbers, letters, or days of the week. There are recorded cases of synaesthetic musicians who know what to play because the music smells right, artists who can quite literally paint a poem, speakers who cannot say certain words because of their taste on the tongue. It is not known if it is more common among creatives, but certainly the cross-connectivity will encourage creativity, which is a different way of looking at things.

Synaesthesia has been used a number of times in literature in a metaphorical sense: a loud shirt, a bitter wind. Bester though was one of the first to directly describe the synaesthetic experience. But while the description is literal, Bester also makes it gorgeously poetic. Ray Bradbury opens Fahrenheit 451 with a burst of poetic prose, Bester saves his until the fiery climax. Figurative, factual, beautiful, terrible; it is a trick difficult to pull off, yet Bester does it with ease. Bester (and Bradbury) stand in stark contrast to their Golden Age contemporaries in their mastery of the English language.

“Hot stone smelled like velvet caressing his cheek. Smoke and ash were harsh tweeds rasping his skin, almost the feel of wet canvas. Molten metal smelled like blows hammering his heart, and the ionization of the PyrE explosion filled the air with ozone like water trickling through his fingers.”

Concrete Poetry

Unlike most of his fellow SF writers who were steeped in the sciences, Alfred Bester’s tapping into literature gave his books another unique edge, including his use of a style called Concrete Poetry to explain aspects of the story. Here the shape of the words on the page is as important in conveying the information as the words themselves.

For example, here is a telepathic discussion in The Demolished Man, in the form known as a “basket”:

With Gully Foyle’s synaesthesia attack, Bester uses the Concrete Poetry techniques to further convey Gully’s warped senses and confusion.

Good authors are always trying to “show not tell”; Bester took it one step further.

Of course, a negative aspect of this innovative use of embedded graphics is that it makes it far more difficult for publishers to reformat the text for a new generation: the old style fonts will be with Bester for a while.

Gully Foyle

Author's Portrayal

EDUCATION: none
SKILLS: none
MERITS: none
RECOMMENDATIONS: none

He was a no-man on the Nomad, though mad he truly was. Scarred in face and mind by his experience of marooning and abandonment and rescue; consumed by a burning hatred for those who left him to die until there was no humanity left - only the predator. Tiger of face and of mind, Gully Foyle was the foil to the richest man of the twenty-fifth century. He had no purpose except survival until the Vorga gave him a fire of life; the hidden treasure of the Nomad giving him the fire of death.

But his quest makes him grow and change. By the time he finds his true object of hatred it has already become his true love. He starts not even black and white but only black, yet is finally colour against the grey. In the end he finds ambiguity, complexity, and his humanity. His redemption holds a paradox at its heart: the ultimate loaner saved himself through those he betrayed; the unlovable loved. It was impossible, but the impossible was what Gully did best.

Reader's Response

The future here is not bright, nor orange; it is dark, red and black. There are no heroes, no knights. Everyone is on the make for themselves, traitors to all except their own gain. Gully is an antihero, who demands our empathy because of his simplicity and endurance, but at the same time repulses us because of his violence and guttural nature. Which of us could survive like he survived? But which of us would seek vengeance like him? He is rage personified. His antagonists are immoral; he is amoral. He is hate focused, with no thought for those in the way. He is an arrow.

By part two of the book he has become more of a sympathetic character. His disguises and the aftermath of his tattoos force him to attain self control. Though still driven by the need for revenge, he does start to achieve the moral high-ground over his foes and forgiveness from those he has wronged in his quest. By the end we are totally on Gully’s side.

Critical Response & Legacy

In his peak time in the 1950s, Alfred Bester wrote two SF novels and a number of short stories. Although he did not produce a large quantity, the influence of his quality resonated for decades to come. His first novel, The Demolished Man, won the first ever Hugo; The Stars My Destination would have been eligible for the 1957 Hugo, except that year they awarded them only to periodicals. Both these novels are recommended in Andrews and Rennison’s 100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels, which is a rare honour as most authors are allowed only one.

Bester’s invention of the term Jaunte for teleportation was memorably used in the 70s TV series The Tomorrow People, and by Stephen King in his short story The Jaunt. King also explicitly pays tribute when his character Scott Landon in Lisey’s Story dedicates his new library to Alfred Bester.

In the TV series Babylon 5, the psi-cop character Alfred Bester is a homage to his book The Demolished Man. Another reference is in F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s short stories about a time-travelling criminal repeated is foiled by a scientific principle called “Bester’s Law”: a time-traveller who attempts to rewrite the past can only alter his own timeline.

Other top SF authors have heaped direct praise on The Stars My Destination:

Robert Silverberg: “On everybody’s list of the ten greatest SF novels”
Samuel R. Delany: “Considered by many to be the greatest single SF novel”
Joe Haldeman: “Science fiction has produced only a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them”

The New Wave of the 60s found Bester already surfing there; the cyberpunks in the 80s jacked-in and found him already online. As Robert Adam said in The History of Science Fiction: “singlehandedly it sometimes seems, [Bester] invented both New Wave and cyberpunk”.

Conclusion

“The Stars My Destination” is a title riddled with ironic hope. Like Neil Gaiman, I prefer the original British title: “Tiger! Tiger!”. This is partly because it was under this title that I first read this book, but mostly because it better fits the character of Gully Foyle. Revenge was his destination, not the stars. Well, at least initially.

With Gully Foyle, Alfred Bester created a character that at first is utterly repulsive, yet still engaging; then took him through a wild, imaginative, and feasible arc into the final, super-human yet utterly human result. Along the way Bester exposed the fears and corruptions of 50s American culture: dark, scared, but ultimately hopeful for the future. He also inspired SF writers and literary movements for decades to come. The Stars My Destination, or Tiger! Tiger! if you prefer, is truly one of the great books of the science fiction cannon.

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination

Peter Debney; 2010