Tag Archives: Science Fiction – General

“You love the sea, don’t you, Captain?”

“Yes, I love it! The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert where a man is never alone, for he can feel life quivering all about him. The sea is only a receptacle for all the prodigious, supernatural things that exist inside it; it is only movement and love; it is the living infinite, as one of your poets has said. And in fact, Professor, it contains the three kingdoms of nature — mineral, vegetable, and animal. This last is well represented by the four groups of zoophytes, by the three classes of articulata, by the five classes of mollusks, by three classes of vertebrates, mammals and reptiles, and those innumerable legions of fish, that infinite order of animals which includes more than thirteen thousand species, only one-tenth of which live in fresh water. The sea is a vast reservoir of nature. The world, so to speak, began with the sea, and who knows but that it will also end in the sea! There lies supreme tranquillity. The sea does not belong to tyrants.”

Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Ambergris

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Ambergris [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Jeff VanderMeer, a combined volume with City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.

Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris is named for the fantasy city in which the three component volumes transpire, one that compares to the Well Built City of Jeffrey Ford and the Viriconium of M. John Harrison. This “New Weird” setting is introduced in a kaleidoscopic fashion through a collection of shorter pieces in City of Saints and Madmen, each written in a different documentary register. One of these, “The Strange Case of X” involves some transformations of veridicality reminiscent of the fantasizing technique in Paul Park’s Roumania and the John Crowley stories “Conversation Hearts” and “Anosognosia.”

There is a sort of talmudic textuality to the second book Shriek: An Afterword. Janice Shriek claims to be writing a biography of her brother Duncan, and she includes excerpts from his journals. But he has reviewed and annotated her MS, although she seems to think he is already dead. Another editorial layer is added at the end. The “Afterword” is (at least initially) supposed to be end-matter to Duncan Shriek’s “History of Ambergris” pamphlet that forms a portion of City of Saints and Madmen. In the course of the biography-cum-confession the reader is introduced to a tension between “Nativist” denial and the Shrieks’ acceptance of human contingency and the mysterious mycelial agenda.

The third book Finch is a sort of noir detective story with an espionage substructure and Cronenberg horror esthetics. It reminded me of Mieville’s The City and the City, and I also detected something shaped like the corpse of Fleming’s Casino Royale with psychedelic mushrooms sprouting all over it. It is divided into seven long chapters named for the days of the week over which the story takes place, and I serendipitously fell into the rhythm of reading them on the corresponding days of the last week of April.

This Farrar, Straus and Giroux omnibus reprint is a beautiful book, and it provides a long and satisfying read. I did take pauses between each of the three books within. I gather that some editions of Ambergris: City of Saints and Madmen under its own cover have additional content not included here, and I would be happy to spend time reading that at some point.

Under the Moons of Mars

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] ed and intro by John Joseph Adams, foreword by Tamora Pierce, with Joe R Lansdale, David Barr Kirtley, Peter S Beagle, Tobias S Buckell, Robin Wasserman, Theodora Gross, Austin Grossman, L E Modesitt jr, Genevieve Valentine, Garth Nix, Chris Claremont, S M Stirling, Catherynne M Valente, and Jonathan Maberry, with different illustrations for each story by different artist (including Molly Crabapple, Charles Vess, Michael Kaluta, Jeremy Bastien, Meinert Hansen, John Picaccio, and Daren Bade), and an appendix by Richard A Lupoff; “inspired by the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs” but also it was not “prepared, approved, licensed, or authorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. or any other entity associated with the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate.”

While the publishers of this anthology of new Barsoomian fiction probably hoped to capitalize on the concurrent Disney movie John Carter, the commercial failure of the latter certainly shouldn’t be held against them. Designer Tom Daly seems to have taken into some account the lovely Frazetta-illustrated editions of ERB’s Barsoom under the Nelson Doubleday imprint that were my initiation to that planet in the 1970s. This book sits next to them on the shelf like a member of the family. All of these stories were written for this collection, and there is a piece of original art (black and white) to illustrate each. The world of science fiction writers teems with those who love Barsoom in one way or another, and artists also enjoy its charms.

I found all of the stories reasonably enjoyable. Only a few are straightforward pastiche; most attempt some inversion or diversion of the received standards of the Barsoomian tale. A few are told from the perspective of John Carter’s foes, a few by green Martians, one by Woola the calot, and one by a “sidekick” earthling who didn’t appear in the ERB stories. Two involve Tarzan cross-overs. Prose styles vary from the straightforward fantasy adventure narrative that Burroughs did so much to invent, to more poetic and introspective pieces.

The art was less impressive to me. Each illustration is given a full page, and while some were terrific (those by Charles Vess and Michael Kaluta of course, and also Jeremy Bastien, Meinert Hansen, John Picaccio, and Daren Bader), many of them seemed on the weak side, not to mention sometimes overdressed. After all, artists working with this subject matter have to endure comparison with Richard Corben and Michael Whelan, in addition to the aforementioned Frazetta. I certainly would have liked to see one of Frank Cho’s drawings of Dejah Thoris here. Still, including this great variety of illustration was a sound idea.

I liked Tamora Pierce’s forward, even if it wasn’t very enlightening. The glossary by Richard S. Lupoff seemed pretty comprehensive and accurate, but not terribly necessary. I can recommend the book as an acquisition for die-hard collectors of Barsoomiana, and as a good one to borrow from the public library for those looking for light entertainment of the sword-and-planet flavor.

A sacred secret. We shall not die. The reflections shall leave And it will happen fast. We shall all be changed, and by that he means reversed back, suddenly. In the twinkling of an eye! Because, he thought glumly as he watched the police psychologists writing their conclusions and signing them, we are fucking backward right now, I guess, every one of us; everyone and every damn thing, and distance, and even time. But how long, he thought, when a print is being made, a contact print, when the photographer discovers he’s got the negative reversed, how long does it take to flip it? To reverse it again so it’s like it’s supposed to be? A fraction of a second. I understand, he thought, what that passage in the Bible means, Through a glass darkly.

Philip K Dick, A Scanner Darkly [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Perhaps the Stars

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Perhaps the Stars [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Ada Palmer, book 4 of Terra Ignota.

This fourth book of Terra Ignota provides a conclusion worthy of what has come before. It is longer than any of the previous volumes by at least 50%, and it involves more narrative lacunae and changes of style. It does not resolve all of the enigmas raised in previous books, nor even those opened within its own pages, but it does complete the story and give it greater context and significance.

Terra Ignota has an unreliable and culpable narrator addressing himself to a posterity even further removed from the (actual) reader, but represented by a Reader character whose identity is in some measure disclosed at the end. It entertains metaphysics and vaults into the very highest political arenas of its imagined world. For these reasons and others, it has invited comparison to Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, and Ada Palmer has admitted to her admiration for Wolfe’s work. There is an especially Wolfean development in this final volume when . . . . . . . . (hover over to reveal) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Poignantly, Wolfe died in 2019 as Palmer was finishing Perhaps the Stars, which has for a recurring theme the ways in which the death of the writer is neither the death of the author nor the death of the story.

I feel petty to notice it, but there is grammatical tic that recurs through all the volumes of Terra Ignota: the use of nominative pronouns where objective ones are called for in subordinate formulae at the tail end of sentences, like: “Who knew that such things could happen to we who had accomplished so much?” As I saw this oddness repeat, I grew to wonder whether it was Palmer or Canner who was to blame, and if the latter, what it could portend. It certainly seems wrong that the academically-accomplished writer of these books should have included such nonstandard English as mere error.

The scale and complexity of these books are impressive. They are still new, and I think that they will have staying power to gain in popularity and acclaim, like the Book of the New Sun and Herbert’s Dune books. Attempts at scholarly criticism and substantial intellectual response began already after the release of the second book Seven Surrenders. I was not surprised to find out that there is a fan wiki to attempt to trace the sometimes bewildering details of character, place, and plot, but disappointed to discover that it is still sparsely populated.

I would advise prospective readers of Terra Ignota to view the four books as a single work and avoid setting it aside between volumes–perhaps especially between the third and fourth books where there was in fact a delay in publication. Do not skip past the fanciful-seeming publication conditions and dramatis personae front matter in each book. These supply important (p)reviews of the social structures, factions, stakes, and characters. If you’ve never read Homer, or if it’s just been decades, consider reading an encyclopedia article for an overview of the Illiad and the Odyssey. Ditto for Thomas Hobbes and his Leviathan, and perhaps Voltaire and Diderot to boot.

The Will to Battle

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Will to Battle [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Ada Palmer, book 3 of the Terra Ingota series.

There was less discontinuity between the second and third volumes of Terra Ignota than I had expected. Narrator Mycroft Canner’s exposition is less polished, more raw (and unreliable) for reasons that become evident near the end of The Will to Battle. The book’s title references a quote from Hobbes’ Leviathan XIII which is supplied as an epigram, observing that war is in effect when that will exists, not merely when it is expressed through actual combat. As the previous volumes established that this one would be, it is concerned with the re-invention of war after multiple human generations of global peace.

There’s a blurb from Cory Doctorow on the cover of The Will to Battle that touts the plausibility of Too Like the Lightning, which I would not really number among Terra Ignota’s virtues. But I would agree with his other adjectives: “intricate” and “significant.” You can tell Palmer is a professional historian, because her 25th-century future doesn’t start today: it starts in antiquity, and the characters think about the 18th century far more often than they do the 20th or 21st.

In this third book, Palmer’s references to literature and history are as manifold as ever, but Leviathan and Homer’s Illiad stand out for the extent to which they are presumed and explicitly referenced by the text. Each contributes an actual character into the mix. Palmer’s Achilles Mojave is (in some still mysterious but actual sense) the ancient Achaean, and a spectral Thomas Hobbes joins “the reader” in the frame conversation with Mycroft that occasionally obtrudes on the narrative.

This chronicle–more “secret” than the one of the prior books–affords some more empirical precision regarding not only the dates of the events chronicled, but the dates at which Canner is supposed to have written about them, along with the composition of the first two books. (Curiously, The Will to Battle begins punctually on the 550th anniversary of the reception of Liber Legis.) Palmer pulls a breathtaking stunt with narrative voice at the beginning of the final chapter that I can’t help but remark yet refuse to spoil.

Because of its complexity and hectic pace, I think too long a hiatus between volumes can pose a problem for readers of Terra Ignota. I was honestly a little worried after just a few weeks when I came back to The Will to Battle. But I was happily impressed by the “Seven-Ten List for Our Changing World” in the front matter as an excellent refresher on characters and plot as they had been left at the end of Seven Surrenders. I will charge on to Perhaps the Stars before the month is over.

I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked.

Andy Weir, The Martian: A Novel [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

“Then how do they pay you for the pleasure of your company?” I ask. “With secrets”

Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

The Place of the Lion

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Place of the Lion [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Charles Williams.

This novel is certainly the least accessible of Charles Williams’ novels I’ve read so far. Principal characters discuss matters like Neoplatonism and angelology in ways that I understood, but would likely mystify the general reader. There is also a little plot sloppiness: for example, trains become inoperable, and then a character takes a train on the allegedly impassable line, with no explanation of how it was restored. The conclusion lacks plot closure in some important respects, with the cause of the book’s central crisis never really explained, despite the exposition of how it becomes mystically resolved.

The central concern of The Place of the Lion is a class of theriomorphic “Celestials” that answer to the denotations of Christian archangels, Platonic ideas, Gnostic archons, and so forth. These are somehow unleashed on the countryside by a minor theosophical organizer named Berringer, and they proceed to sow terror and ecstasy among the locals. The first two Celestials to emerge are the Lion and the Serpent, as manifestations of archetypal Strength and Subtlety.

Although the characters overtly reference Plato and Abelard, the theology central to the book’s plot is very much that of Pseudo-Dionysius, with the protagonist Anthony Durrant prosecuting cataphatic mysticism, while his complementary character Richardson is engaged in a severely apophatic aspiration. Gnostic elements are also conspicuous; the philosophy graduate student Damaris Tighe takes the role of the inferior Sophia in a redemptive process that also makes Anthony Durrant into a possessor of the Holy Gnosis.

A friend recently pointed out the class-constrained character of Williams’ diction (which he finds off-putting), and I did notice that this novel was not only fully as class-conscious as the other Williams I’ve read, but that the omniscient third-person narrator seems to assume and validate class prejudices more often than overturn them.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book, but I found it to be the weakest of the author’s books I have yet read.

Seven Surrenders

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Seven Surrenders [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Ada Palmer, book 2 of the Terra Ignota series.

In Ada Palmer’s “Author’s Note and Acknowledgments” appended to Seven Surrenders she mentions such earlier science fiction writers as Alfred Bester, Jo Walton, Gene Wolfe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Voltaire, Yevgeney Zamiatin, and Yoshiyuki Tomino, among others. She does not include Frank Herbert, but the book that I was most reminded of in my reading of this second of four books in the Terra Ignota series was Dune Messiah, in the ways it expanded on the inventive world-building of its predecessor volume and in the incredible pitch of political and personal intrigue. The scale of Terra Ignota is smaller than the vast interstellar empire of Herbert’s Arrakis, but a global terrestrial society of the 25th century seems big enough for serious work.

In the midst of the story, Palmer uses a metafictional device to reflect on the ambitions of science fiction: “Apollo didn’t really think the war over Mars in two hundred and fifty years would be fought with giant robots, it was just the only way they could describe a war that would be meaningful, conscionable, with space for human dignity” (249-50). I wonder which aspects of Palmer’s own sometimes extravagantly-imagined future she finds least likely, but it is clearly not a prognostication. It is an engaging, immersive way to describe in high relief the tensions and vulnerabilities provoked by secularism, feminism, humanism, and other species of thought that have emerged from the Enlightenment with consequences yet to be determined in our present world. It also seems to be trying to sound the humanity that we share with Hellenic antiquity, in order to understand what of us can be maintained and/or transformed in centuries to come.

The four books of the series are evidently divided into two pairs, and this second completes the opening arc concerning the “Days of Transformation” that bring to its end an existing world order. While curiosity does drive the reader toward “the Crisis still unfolding” in the next two books, this one (unlike the first) offers some sense of a plot climaxed and concluded.

The Hermetic Library Blog

Faint gibbering heard from somewhere near the restricted stacks