The Mercy of Gods
Read courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. I will admit to a little trepidation when I saw this was coming. I’m a major fan of The Expanse series; there’s always that mix of excitement for new work from a favourite author (combo, in this case), and worry that new work will not compare to the old. What if the first stuff was a result of thinking and planning for their whole life, and now they are doing stuff with less preparation?
Happily, my fears were completely and utterly unfounded. This book is wildly imaginative, the characters are flawed and complex and compelling, and I am already psyched for the next one. Which is probably in at least a year, so that’s going to be so very frustrating.
Humans live on Anjiin. They haven’t always been there, but they have no history to explain how or why or even really when they arrived. But they’re doing very well in terms of arts and sciences and general life standards. They have a highly structured society, which isn’t great for everyone, but people deal with it as people always do. Dafyd works in a team that has recently made a major breakthrough: they have figured out a key step in integrating the two sets of biology on Anjiin. Because this is the clue as to humanity not being indigenous to Anjiin: there is the biology that seems related to humanity, and there is… everything else. And ne’er the twain shall meet. Until now.
At this point, it seems like the story will be about science and scientific rivalry. Which is all well and good. But then something is spotted on the edge of the heliosphere, and it turns out to be aliens, who do dreadful things to Anjiin and then collect a bunch of humans and take them… somewhere else. At which point the story becomes something else entirely. There are a whole range of aliens under the dominance of the Carryx, and humans are now one of them; they have to figure out what that means, on a personal and collective level. There are (unsurprisingly) a range of responses – and it’s in this that Corey shows a deep and compassionate understanding of humanity. I don’t agree with all of the ways various characters respond – and I’m not meant to – but I do understand why they act like they do.
It’s a first book in a series, so the ending is in no way a finale. It’s absolutely a prologue to what’s to come – indeed, the opening of the book, written by a Carryx, already says that Carryx interaction with humanity is going to have unexpected and catastrophic consequences. Exactly how will that happen? No idea! Need the rest of the series to figure that out!
The Far Reaches: an anthology
Read courtesy of NetGalley. It’s out now.
Honestly you just look at this list of authors and you can’t help but be impressed, right? I don’t love the Behemoth but this is a pretty amazing anthology.
James SA Corey gives a non-Expanse short story where the goal is humanity populating the galaxy. Which isn’t necessarily a goal I can subscribe to, but the method proposed here is an ingenious one. Clearly the distances are too great to send actual humans; generation ships are deeply problematic. So instead, Corey invents “slow light” that (don’t ask questions) allows for duplication of… stuff. So you can scan people and things and beam it out into the void – and ta dah! Humans colonising worlds that may or may not actually support them. Unsurprisingly, there’s not a lot of focus on the science; instead, this is all about the people. Because it’s the same people going to each of the maybe-settlements, and they can communicate with each other – albeit only at the speed of light. I loved this a lot.
I’ve never read anything by Veronica Roth! But I was fairly impressed by “Void”, which takes a completely different spin from the Corey: while it’s not quite a generation ship, the Redundancy moves people between our solar system and that of Centauri – so the crew lives on ship time, speeding along, while history goes on around them. Again, this is not a story of war or empire or politics of any sort; it’s human relationships and failings and friendships. It’s nicely done, and is exactly the sort of story that works well in the short format.
Ann Leckie, though! A new Ann Leckie story is always to be celebrated! And this is a super weird one from her. Humanity is not at the centre; instead it’s an alien whose planet has been discovered and settled by humans. This particular alien has the uncommon ability to look to the future, and organise its people to make its plans reality – partly inspired by the humans, and partly through its own intuition. So it’s a story of bootstrapping, and of individual genius and shortcomings, as well as the functions of society. It’s enthralling.
Then Rebecca Roanhorse, whom I have also never read. And “Falling Bodies” is heartbreaking. Ira, newly arrived at the space station Long Reach (which is, I’m sure, unintentionally hilarious to the Australian reader), is hoping for a fresh start. He’s human but hasn’t grown up with a human family; he’s got a new name and identity to live on this station, rather than spending however many years in prison; and he’s not sure how to fit in, and whether it will all last. The fitting in bit won’t be unfamiliar to anyone who’s gone away to uni, or moved towns in general; Ira’s particular circumstances just make it that much harder. Set more against a political background than most of the other stories, this one is still intensely personal.
And THEN there’s Nnedi Okorafor’s “Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach”. Seven people in all the world are chosen not at random or for skills but because of their genetics – the fact they happen to match with a genetically bio-engineered creature/machine, in partnership with which they must go exploring the solar system. As with the other stories, the main character, Tornado, isn’t anyone special – she says so herself – and so it’s a story of solitude and companionship, resilience or not… it’s beautifully written, and it’s hopeful and heartbreaking, and I loved it.
Finally, John Scalzi’s “Slow Time between the Stars” is another non-human story. In this case, the narrator is an AI: a ship, for want of a better word, launched by humans, containing the “Alexandria Module” – a repository of all human knowledge – and the task of finding a human-habitable planet and then creating those humans and whatever they required to survive. But of course, sentient beings often end up with their own intentions and goals, and so here. It’s a story of becoming, more than anything – learning about self, and figuring out what to do with it.
The unifying theme here is that these are individual stories. For all the title is “Far Reaches”, these stories are intensely personal. They’re not even really ABOUT exploration or anything else on the grand side of things. They’re about people, and much more about internal discovery and knowledge than external. These stories are fantastic.
Galactic Suburbia 143
In which we talk reviews and gender balance thanks to the Strange Horizons SF count, and Alisa makes books while Tansy & Alex visit the theatre! you can get us from iTunes or at Galactic Suburbia.
What’s New on the Internet?
Locus Awards finalists
Shirley Jackson nominees: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2016/05/2015-shirley-jackson-awards-nominees/
Peter MacNamara Achievement Award
Strange Horizons – the 2015 SF Count
CULTURE CONSUMED
Tansy: A Sci-Fi Vision of Love from a 318 year old hologram, by Monica Byrne , Wuthering Heights by shake & stir co; Whip it, Kingston City Rollers
Alisa: Working on the release of the Tara Sharp mysteries by Marianne Delacourt (now available for pre-order) and Grant Watson’s upcoming book of film essays.
Alex: Coriolanus (all female production directed by Grant Watson for Heartstring, Melbourne’s new independent theatre); The Dark Labyrinth, Lawrence Durrell; Nemesis Games, James SA Corey; Saga vol 5; Fringe rewatch, The Katering Show
Skype number: 03 90164171 (within Australia) +613 90164171 (from overseas)
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Nemesis Games
Previously, in The Expanse: Leviathan Wakes; Caliban’s War; Abaddon’s Gate; Cibola Burn.
Basically my entire review of this book consists of JAMES COREY YOU ARE TOO MEAN FOR WORDS WHY FOR DID YOU DO THAT?!
Spoilers for the first four. Duh.
The preceding books have mostly focussed on Holden and someone else, or a few other someones, doing important things in the solar system. This time there are four points of view: Holden, Amos, Alex, and Naomi. This should have warned me about what was coming, but somehow my brain refused to process the obvious reason for doing this.
Corey splits up the crew of the Roci.
Splits. Them. Up.
I mean, it was bad enough when half the crew went onto the surface of a planet in the last book. Of course sometimes one or more have gone off on their own individual missions. But never before have the four been pursuing largely separate ends, separate from one another. It was devastating.
Where Cibola was focussed on the early attempts at colonising a new planet through the gate, this is focussed squarely on the repercussions of such colonising for the solar system itself. After all, why bother terraforming a planet when there are planets already ready to be colonised, where you can walk on the surface? Why break your back mining asteroids when there’s minerals on the worlds where you can breathe the air? … but then what happens to those places that had people working on them, who then leave?
It’s kind of an epic version of a gold rush.
Overall this is another excellent, page-turning, enthralling novel and I cannot wait for the sixth (and final, I think) volume.
I have one quibble. Continue reading →
Cibola Burn
It’s weird. I did my mammoth James SA Corey re-read specifically in order to read this and then… it took me a while to really get into it. Partly, I think that’s because it was jarring to go from the familiar to the not but with some familiarity; it kind of threw me. And then there’s the fact that most of this book is set on, or orbiting above, a planet. I mean, there’s been bits set on Earth before, and quite a lot within the inhabited asteroids, but – a planet? as the main setting for an Expanse novel? That’s just weird.
But, eventually I got there. And of course I’m glad I did because this, really, is the conclusion to the arc that started with Leviathan Wakes (… although I’ve just bought the fifth novel and there’s a sixth due next year, so I don’t really know what’s going to happen there).
As always, there are multiple narrators. The prologue starts with Bobbie Draper, which is mean because it meant she wouldn’t feature and I really like Bobbie. Anyway. The first chapter is Basia, and it took me a little while to recognise the name (and a rather obvious hint, actually): but this is Miller’s acquaintance from Eros, the one whose little boy was kidnapped at the same time as Mai. He’s been part of the first wave of people to head out through one of the gates that’s now opened to the galaxy; basically, they’re squatters. Which is mostly fine, since their planet has a nice store of lithium for digging up and then selling – but because of that lithium, there’s a corporate ship coming with offical Earth papers that say the planet is theirs for the mining. Of course, why should an Earth piece of paper make a difference? And so Basia gets caught up with the wrong people (saboteurs) for the right reasons (family and freedom). He has many difficult decisions to make over the course of the novel.
The second narrator is Elvi, a scientist who is coming to the new planet (whose name depends on which side you’re on) with the corporate ship because heck, wouldn’t you? Chance to check out (what should be) a pristine new environment? Of course things go wrong (see previous comment on Basia’s friends), but she does at least get to do some science. I wasn’t always happy with Elvi’s narrative; I’m particularly conflicted about the romantic aspects, because while I think I understand it, it did feel a bit like “oh a lady must feel romance” and that makes me sad. She does get to be a kickass scientist though, which I guess is a consolation.
Third is Havelock, and I am so embarrassed by how long it took me to figure out who this was. It wasn’t until there were really obvious comments about being an Earther and being part of Belter security that I realised: this was Miller’s partner, back in the day. The one he warned off when things were getting difficult for Earthers. So we have a marvellous set of call-backs to the first novel, here. I mostly liked Havelock, although his tendency to just follow and mirror what his leaders are doing got pretty old. I enjoyed the perspective he allowed, though – it did add a nice rounding to the story.
And fourthly, of course, what would an Expanse novel be without James Holden? Oh Jim. Seriously. This time, he’s involved precisely because of who he is: one of the most notorious men in the solar system, renowned for a disturbing sense of decency and fierce love of truth. Who better to negotiate between Belter squatters and an Earther corporation? BAHAHA.
Also, of course, Miller is still around and being annoying in Holden’s head. In fact, the artefact gets its own occasional appearance in the narration of the story…
Not quite as enjoyable as the previous novels, but still a really solid SF story… and the epilogue makes me rather excited for the fifth.
You can get Cibola Burn from Fishpond.
Galactic Suburbia 133
In which Alisa has feelings about Lovecraft’s image being associated with (and from next year, removed from) the World Fantasy Award.
WHAT’S NEW ON THE INTERNET
World Fantasy Awards announced
CULTURE CONSUMED
ALEX: Alex: re-reading the James SA Corey series, The Expanse, books 1-3, so I could read the fourth one, Cibola Burn; Eff Yeah Film and Feminism podcast; Manners and Mutiny, Gail Carriger.
ALISA: PhD research and experiments.
TANSY: Tremontaine Parts 1-3 by Ellen Kushner & others, The Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, I, Zombie, Supergirl, Jessica Jones
Skype number: 03 90164171 (within Australia) +613 90164171 (from overseas)
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Abaddon’s Gate: Redux
(Some spoilers below for Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War. READ THEM.)
The last line of Caliban’s War was an absolute killer, because I read it when it was first published which meant that the next book was about a year away and GOODNESS ME it was a cliffhanger. So I preordered this as soon as I could and happily, it arrived about a week before I went on holidays. I very carefully put it on a shelf where it wasn’t tempting me to read it… and then this week, on holidays, I cracked it open and devoured it in one day. And it was worth the wait. Oh yes. Thank you, James Corey.*
Naw. Cute. PastMe did not feel the need to reread the other two, clearly. Continue reading →
Caliban’s War: Redux
This review will contain spoilers for Leviathan’s Wake, the first in this series. As with that book, I’ve just reread this one, so this is the REDUX…
Leviathan Wakes: redux
I have the fourth book in the Expanse series waiting to be read… but I haven’t read the other three in a long time, and then only once each. So, yes, I am re-reading. And I’m now going to do a Le Guin and REDUX my review of Leviathan Wakes.
Galactic Suburbia 104
In which we gaze into the World of the Future with a double dose of Culture Consumed and Culture Yet To Consume. Get us at iTunes or Galactic Suburbia.
Culture We Are Looking Forward To
Alex: new James SA Corey; Isobelle Carmody’s last Obernewtyn novel; every TPP; Guardians of the Galaxy; Snowpiercer; Saga.
Tansy: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison; Kameron Hurley, The Mirror Empire; Ben Peek, The Godless; Sailor Moon
Alisa: Extant
Culture We Have Consumed
Alisa: Twinmaker, Sean Williams
Alex: holidays!! Diaspora, Greg Egan; The Reluctant Swordsman, Dave Duncan; James Tiptree Award Anthology 3
Tansy: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet.
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Randomly Yours, Alex 