Tag: V

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Onward, Drake! – Mark L. Van Name (Editor)

Short story collection celebrating the seventieth birthday of science fiction luminary David Drake, by many considered the father of modern military science fiction.

Somewhat in character, Mr. Drake provided the two longest stories for the collection himself. The rest vary from pure tribute, to tuckerization of Mr. Drake himself, to various forms connected thematically somehow. The afterwords provided by the various authors are charming, with insights into how Mr. Drake’s work and personality affected them personally and professionaly.

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Irontown Blues – John Varley

Chris Bach is a private detective with a sidekick named Sherlock. Sherlock is a genetically enhanced bloodhound with significant intelligence. They live in one of the vast habitats under the Lunar surface. Due to Post Dramatic Stress Disorder, Bach has retreated into a pseudo-fantasy world based on noir films and novels. He wears a fedora, and lives in “Noirtown“, a neighbourhood designed around the aesthetic of the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. One day, as befitting the stereotype, a mysterious “dame” walks into his office. She needs someone found.

Set in the “Eight Worlds” Universe some time after Steel Beach, the novel sports two very interesting, and very different, protagonists. Bach develops from his past trauma, shown in flashbacks, through his present low, and on to his maturity. More daring by Mr. Varley is to write almost half the narrative in the voice of his canine companion Sherlock. While the concept had the potential to fall flat, it is skillfully delivered, and Sherlock is fully developed as a character, albeit a rather peculiar one. The plot itself is somewhat bare-bones, but with characters like this, it has little impact on the quality of the novel.

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Elon Musk: Inventing the Future – Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk is looking more and more like the real life Tony Stark, minus the super-powered metal suit. Self-made billionaire, innovating industrialist, visionary and working hard to save the future of the human race. Mr. Vance’s biography draws on thousands of hours of interviews with Musk, his family, his friends, his colleagues and his peers. It takes the reader from Mr. Musk’s beginnings as an awkward wunderkind to the not so distant past of early 2015. Since then, SpaceX has gone from triumph to triumph with ever increasing ambition, and Tesla seems on the verge of following.

The biography gets up close and personal with Musk, declining to gloss over the man’s less pleasant character traits. By all accounts he can lack empathy and is not overly concerned with coddling people. His goals are overarching and he has little patience with people who get in his way.

Even before reading this book, I had noticed a disconnect between how normal people in industry try to analyse Musk and how he actually behaves. Musk’s goals are far more long term than building successful companies. His business empire is a means to an end, not the vehicle of his chosen legacy. It is somewhat baffling that he has repeatedly and clearly stated his goals (most notably removing dependency on fossil fuels and colonising Mars to ensure humanity’s long term survival) but most people either don’t take him seriously (he’s dead serious) or try to judge him as if he were a normal person (he isn’t).

As recently as yesterday, Mr. Musk outlined his refined vision for Mars colonisation. What was interesting is that the competition is now starting to pay attention, coming up with (rather staid) ideas of its own. Ten or fifteen years ago, Musk was a weird guy with weird ideas whom the establishment could ignore. Today, his continued success at delivering on his spectacular promises has already engendered deep shifts in the areas of energy production, the automotive industry and the space launch industry. The competition is imitating and scrambling to catch up, but this was Musk’s goal all along. He always knew that Tesla wouldn’t kill all the other car manufacturers. His goal was to make all cars electric, not to have them all branded Tesla.

For the reader who wants to delve deeper into the thinking behind Musk’s ideas, I highly recommend Wait But Why’s series of excellent in depth articles.

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Dark Lightning (Thunder and Lightning IV) – John Varley

ThunderandLightning4DarkLightningAt the end of Rolling Thunder, the great asteroid starship Rolling Thunder leaves the solar system led by the extended Garcia-Strickland-Broussard clan. The ship is a classic hollow rotating cylinder, propelled to a high fraction of the speed of light by the mysterious squeezer-bubble technology invented by Jubal in Red Thunder. As with previous installments in the series, we again jump forward a generation. The story is told in the first person by identical twins Cassie and Polly, daughters of Jubal and Podkayne. After one of Jubal’s regular exits from stasis in a “black bubble”, he screams that the ship must be stopped. Eventually he figures out that Dark Energy (catchily referred to as “Dark Lightning” in the book) may be a danger when traveling at a very high percentage of the speed of light. However as always with Varley, the story is about the people. Jubal’s scream of “Stop the Ship!” triggers shipwide unrest, and the twins are the ones who have to sort things out.

In true Varley form, the worldbuilding is first-class, detailed and intricate. The characters are authentic and easily engage the imagination. The twins are in their late teens, and as such their commentary is peppered with talk of boys and fashion, but without being annoying. Mostly it is just plain funny. After the pessimistic tone of Red Lightning and very gloomy one of Rolling Thunder, it is also nice to read an installment in the series with a brighter outlook.

4½Rosbochs

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Rainbows End – Vernor Vinge

RainbowsEndElderly Robert Gu wakes as if from a long, dreamy haze, cured of his Alzheimers. He was a renowned poet and academic, but now must learn to explore a new world. It is the current connected world run wild. Almost everyone “wears”, meaning wears smart clothes and contact lenses. Through these means and ever present connectivity, overlays and information hemmed in only by imagination allow people to connect and interact in ways that were impossible previously. Robert Gu is initially confused, but soon haltingly learns to embrace things. Soon, though, he is unwittingly caught up in a world-spanning conspiracy.

The world-building in this novel is fabulous. Mr. Vinge has cleverly extrapolated on current trends to bring us the nightmare of any Internet luddite, and the wet dream of those who live online. The consequences portrayed are a mixed bag, some expected and some not. They are all interesting, however. The device of having an elderly person “travel forward in time”, as it were, allows us to experience the new world through fresh eyes.

While I loved the bits where Robert Gu must come to terms with the new reality, the overall story itself felt messy and weak. There were some interesting ramifications but I kept thinking that this novel would have been better as a novella with the technothriller bits weeded out.

3Rosbochs

 

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Slow Apocalypse – John Varley

SlowApocalypseA screenwriter living in the Hollywood Hills gets advance warning of a coming disaster, a nanopathogen that renders oil supplies useless. Thinking itself a little mad, he nevertheless stocks up on supplies such as canned food and water. Pretty soon there are gas shortages, and it is clear that society is slowly unraveling while the government is hiding the truth. Things get worse and the small hill community where our hero lives buttons up, barricading the access road to prevent refugees from coming in. Then a massive Earthquake brought on by the destruction of the Los Angeles oil fields hits. Fire, flood and anarchy ensue.

Unlike many post-apocalyptic stories, this one isn’t about a superbly prepared person or group. Our hero is simply a normal person, and he does make mistakes. Varley’s skill at bringing characters to life really shines in this book. The struggle is personal, and those with real power are far away, unknowable, and untrustworthy. The big moral of the story is of course how very dependent the world is on oil. What would happen if all the oil reserves in the world vanished within the space of a few weeks? Society would break down very quickly, especially in big cities dependent on cars like Los Angeles.

4Rosbochs

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Rolling Thunder (Thunder and Lightning III) – John Varley

In the sequel to Red Thunder and Red Lightning, we yet again skip ahead a generation, this time to Podkayne, granddaughter of Manny and Kelly. Martian born and bred, she is drafted (as all are) into service with the Martian Navy. The book starts by ridiculing Earthies (those who live on Earth) as generally helpless and whiny. It is hard to find too much fault in that assesment, but more about that later. As is sometimes the case with Varley, he writes more chronicle than anything else, and thus we follow the meanderings of Podkayne. It isn’t until the second half that things really start to happen. By then a very gloomy post-9/11, post-Katrina view has settled onto the book. If it weren’t for cheery Podkayne, this would not be a very cheerful book. In the end, the protagonists make a big decision, and there is a happy ending, of sorts.

While Red Thunder was a very positive book, and Red Lightning was at least mildly optimistic, Rolling Thunder paints a very bleak picture of Earth’s future, with billions dead and the planet rendered uninhabitable. Certainly the catastrophes depicted are not man made (unlike in Red Lightning) but it is clear that mankind had already started the processt”. Podkayne is a serviceable protagonist, but she is no Manny or Ray from the previous books. The end, and I won’t give away the surprising development there, feels a bit too much as if Varley wanted to tie up the loose ends any which way. I do love reading Varley, and this was, as always, entertaining. His voice is mesmerizing and his insights into human character are always interesting and novel. However I do feel that this was not on par with most of his work. Or perhaps he just gave me a bit too much of the blues.

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The John Varley Reader – John Varley

This collects all of Varley’s short fiction to date. What really makes the book shine, though, are the introductions to the stories. Eminently readable little anectodes from the author’s interesting life. Even with only the introductions and no stories, this would have been a great (albeit rather short) book. The stories are wide ranging from drama to action, with Varley’s sublime characterization always front and center. A great book.

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Demon (Gaea III) – John Varley

Demon jumps ahead another 20 years after Wizard. Robin has returned to her home in the coven habitat. Chris has remained on Gaea, and is slowly turning into a creature more and more like a Titanide (a centaur race native to Gaea). Cirocco is still around, but no longer does Wizard work. Gaby is dead, but keeps returning to Cirocco in dreams. Gaea has gone completely nuts, prancing about as a 15 meter Marilyn Monroe while making and screening movies in her own bloodthirsty fashion. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the final war has begun. Humaniy is destroying itself in nuclear fire. Not in one big conflagration, but in a staggered series of bursts. Refugees flock to Gaea, who has provided transportation but no regulation. Newcomers are robbed and enslaved by some of the humans already there. Amidst the chaos, Robin returns, together with her 19 year old daughter Nova and her newborn son Adam. She had to leave the women-only coven since she had a son, and both children seem to be Chris’, despite the two never having had relations. Gaea’s trickery again. It is soon clear that the final confrontation with Gaea is at hand, with Cirocco reluctantly at the helm of the forces arrayed against the mad habitat mind.

While better than Wizard, this one also left me unsatisfied. Varley simply isn’t that good at writing about military matters, and it shows. There are some surprising developments, but the surprise ending was too unexpected, and not supported very well by the story that went before it. I’m all for surprise endings, but this one felt as if it was hardly connected to the rest of the book. Decent Varley but only for the die-hard fan. It’s a shame that this series went downhill after Titan.

 

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Wizard (Gaea II) – John Varley

Wizard picks up about 80 years after the events in Titan. Cirocco is now a Wizard for Gaea, meaning she’s a troubleshooter. Gaby is sometimes her sidekick, and sometimes just does freelance work. They are both paid with extended lifespans. Since Titan, plenty of humans have emigrated to Gaea. There is a limited quota for free trips, and through this program, two new travelers, both prone to periodic seizures, arrive in Gaea. One is Chris, a rather shy and geeky young man from Earth. The other is Robin, who comes from an ultra-radical sect of witches (in the Wiccan sense) living in a habitat on the far side of the Moon. The sect is made up entirely of women, and holds men to be evil. Robin has never met a man, and has some strange conceptions about them. As they arrive, Gaea tells them that she can cure their ailments, as long as they do something heroic. They join up with Cirocco and Gaby on a circumnavigation of the habitat wheel. The wizard and her sidekick have a hidden agenda, though. Gaea is becoming ever more senile and crazy, and the two are looking for allies in a coming war against her.

The adventures of Chris and Robin make for a coming of age tale of sorts. The scenery is still wondrous, and Varley has added much to the richness of his world. The prose is excellent and the characters are rich and alive. Despite all that, I was still somewhat disappointed. The story sets up the next and final book (Demon), and develops the characters, but the plot isn’t that interesting. There seems to be little sense of where the story is headed. While this is often the case in long sections of many Varley books, in this one there weren’t any other really stellar bits to compensate. Varley is never bad, but it was an ultimately unsatisfying read.

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Titan (Gaea I) – John Varley

Varley’s Big Dumb Object story, and the first in his Gaea trilogy. The first expedition to the Saturn System encounters an enormous spinning habitat (Gaea). As they approach, the ship is captured and destroyed. Some undetermined amount of time later, the expedition members, including Cirocco Jones, the Captain, emerge quite literally from the ground at various points on the outer rim of the habitat. They have all changed somehow, some having acquired new skills (such as being able to talk to some of the denizens of Gaea), some being depressed, some introverted. Cirocco Jones and what for all intents and purposes is her sidekick, Gaby, set off on a quest towards the center of the habitat to find some answers. Since Gaea is spinning, the center is “upwards” in their frame of reference.

A common misconception about this book is that it book is fantasy. It certainly does have some fantasy tropes, but is firmly in the science fiction section. The world building is ingenious and entertaining. Varley is excellent at characters and character interation, and so his Gaea, not unexpectedly, serves as the backdrop for character development and conflict. The ending is, as usual with Varley, both somewhat unexpected and viscerally satisfiying, even if in this case it also has to serve as a setup for the next two books in the trilogy. All in all a good read, but not stellar Varley.

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Mammoth – John Varley

A time machine is found next to a preserved mammoth in northern Alaska. A scientist and an elephant keeper are accidentally sent back in time, returning with a few mammoth. There is a a tycoon and there is a troubleshooter.

Into this deceptively simple idea Varley injects his sharp wit, his well rounded and interesting characters, his irreverent prose. The conclusion is perhaps foregone, but the ride is enjoyable. Varley has a way of making you love his characters, for they are imperfect humans like us.

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The Persistence of Vision – John Varley

This short story collection showcases Varley at his most Varley. Not a lot of action, but quite a bit of character driven plotting. Light reading but nevertheless enjoyable and in some cases thought provoking. I did find it uneven, and some of the stories were maybe a little bit too focused on just showcasing the Eight Worlds Universe. The title story, “The Persistence of Vision”, is a departure and a wonderful tale of identity seeking.

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Millennium – John Varley

The premise behind this book is, ahem, simple. Fifty thousand years from now, humanity is dying off as the result of plagues, toxic chemicals and radiation. However, time travel has been discovered and the “Gate Project” is kidnapping people who were going to die anyway in the past. For example passengers from the Titanic, victims of air crashes and so forth. These abductees, who are far more healthy than their short lived and sickly descendants, are put in storage for a future repopulation of the Earth. The story initially revolves around an impending mid-air collision between a 747 and a DC-10 over California. The two protagonists tell their stories in first person format more or less alternately. Bill Smith is the head of the crash investigation in the 20th century, and Louise Baltimore is the head of the “Snatch Team” from the Gate Project in the future.

So far so good. The characters are, as is typical for Varley, deeply flawed and authentic. The story is laid out as logically as possible, although the mechanics of time travel make this tricky. Once Varley has established the premise, the plot is about a developing temporal paradox that threatens the already bleak future with complete annihilation.

The first four fifths of the novel are quite enjoyable. It is clearly laid out where it could easily have been confusing and Varley skillfully ensures that the doomed humanity theme carries over into the characters and the story. The references to old fashioned computers don’t distract since Varley is always about the people, not the technology. The ending did annoy me a bit, since I dislike deus ex machina. But I must admit Varley pulled it off very well, especially by inserting a quite literal meaning in the whole thing.

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The Ophiuchi Hotline – John Varley

John Varley’s first novel, and also the first one in the Eight Worlds Universe, has an interesting and intricate, premise. Four hundred years previously, enigmatic aliens invaded the Earth, and most of humanity died off. Humans now live scattered around the solar system, dependent at least in part on technological know-how beamed from faraway Ophiuchi. No one knows who or what is beaming the data, except that it is finely attuned to the needs of humans. Lilo, a genetic engineer condemned to death for taking her reasearch into unethical directions, is embroiled in a plot to retake the Earth for humanity. Her multiple journeys throughout the Solar System are mirrored by journeys of discovery into her own humanity. As multiple clones are branched off, Varley explores how Lilo’s personality differs given her environment, and yet retains its basic values.

This one is clearly written during the seventies, as there is a lot of nudism and casual sex.

The book seems to beg the question: “What’s the point of retaking the Earth when life is an eden out here?” The ending does take the clear stance that we have to proactively defend our existence, and not take our survival as a spieces for granted. I very much enjoyed this book, which packs a lot of story into a mere 170 pages.

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One Jump Ahead (Jon & Lobo I) – Mark L. Van Name

This is the first book in the Jon & Lobo series. Jon is a man with a troubled past. His planet was destroyed and he was subjected to experiments that left him nanotechnology enhanced. Such enhancements are thought to be impossible and he needs to keep them a secret from those who might profit from them. Suffice it to say, he is a sort of super-soldier. He takes on the task of freeing a kidnapping victim. This simple act entangles him in a complex web of intrigue involving powerful corporations and governments. Along the way, he picks up an assault vehicle known as “Lobo”. The vehicle can handle anything from underwater to deep space. It is also a deeply sarcastic conversationalist.

This novel reminds me a little of the Stainless Steel Rat books. A lone hero and a plot that seems made up as it goes along. Jon is not unlikeable, but his tribulations tend to be long winded and after a few such passages I started losing interest. The characters are straight from central casting, and the locales are even worse. Cookie-cutter, forgettable places that made the plot hard to follow. As our hero jumped to a star system, I struggled to remember what had happened there earlier. The plot is decent, but I couldn’t make myself care very much whether Jon succeeded in his exploits or not. Things are going really well until they go really badly, at a point in the novel that is far too predictable. The hero is supposed to have setbacks, but this one is far too expected. The paraphernalia is pretty cool. In good Bond fashion, the right tools for the job always seem available to our hero. This is fine for comedy, but this book is not going for laughs.

And yet, there is some attraction here. If one can look past the stilted prose the stock characters and the unoriginal plotting, there are hints of potential for this hero. The machine communications are funny and interesting. The universe is engaging enough that it is worth revisiting.

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A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky – Vernor Vinge

Vernor Vinge thinks big, strange and different.

A Fire Upon the Deep. Hi-tech meets lo-tech in a story with some rather interesting takes on physics and sentience. Don’t be surprised it you don’t understand anything for a hundred pages or so. It gets easier. A fantastic view of the universe, and amazing aliens. A great journey.

A Deepness in the Sky. Chronologically a prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep but apart from being in the same universe and having one character who appears in both they are completely unrelated. Interstellar travel is slow, and sometimes plans take decades to come to fruition. A mission to a mysterious star finds fascinating aliens who live on a planet with some pretty extreme climate. The mission itself is subverted by tyrants. The novel follows both the aliens and the humans as they both struggle towards the climactic conclusion: Contact!

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Marooned in Realtime – Vernor Vinge

This novel is published both as a singleton and in the omnibus edition Across Realtime together with its prequel The Peace War.

The sequel to “The Peace War” jumps 50 million years into the future. The 300 remaining humans travel forward through the eons with Bobbles, the invulnerable stasis fields introduced in “The Peace War”. One of them is left behind. The only remaining cop in the world must solve the mystery of why she had to die marooned in “realtime” while the rest jumped ahead in time. This book is absolutely fantastic. The factional disputes, the feeling of disconnection, the sheer human suffering of losing everything you ever knew, is portrayed masterfully. It delves deeply into the question of what should we, as humans, really do with our lives and our race. Some wish to recreate the human race now that enough people are simultanously “in realtime” (not in stasis). Some with to travel forward through the eons and see what awaits at the end of the universe. Some, it would seem, want to continue the nationalist struggles of a long-lost past. What a ride!

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The Peace War – Vernor Vinge

This novel is published both as a singleton and in the omnibus edition Across Realtime together with the sequel Marooned in Realtime.

The “Peace Authority” has stopped war by encasing warring factions in impenetrable force fields known as “bobbles” created by the “Bobbler”. Then all high technology was banned. Fifty years later, the inventor of the Bobbler leads a revolution.

Vinge skillfully describes the human condition in this very odd future world. While most humans are poor, the Peace Authority has set itself up as a sort of benevolent dictatorship, but it has stagnated technologically. The Tinkers, under the ad-hoc leadership of Paul Naismith, inventor of the Bobbler, have advanced electronics well beyond those of the Authority. The Authority’s blind spot is that it cannot believe the Tinkers are so advanced when high energy applications are banned.

There is a little of everything here. A coming of age story, love lost and hope for its resumtion, honor, loyalty, betrayal. Vinge uses the plot device of the bobbler and the bobbles to great effect, and meticulously exhausts the implications of the technology’s effect on humanity.

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Red Lightning (Thunder and Lightning II) – John Varley

The sequel to the wonderful Red Thunder does not disappoint. A generation after the events of Red Thunder, the children of Ray Garcia and Kelly Strickland are growing up on Mars. An unexplained impact in the Atlantic and a consequent tsunami to dwarf all previous tsunamis are catalysts for the action. But this is not a disaster novel. It’s a novel about how Ray Garcia-Strickland grows from just another teenager into a man. Told strictly in Varley’s favored first person, we see the world through the eyes of an adolescent who wants to be a man but hasn’t quite figured out how yet. The tone is authentic and as usual Varley delivers on his characters. Thoroughly well imagined and believable, they feel like old friends by the end.

Varley’s novels, and especially the Red Thunder series, leave me with a feeling of well being after every section I read. The characters are so likeable and authentic it makes me want to be with them, in their world. Add to that the long section set in a fascism-leaning America logically and quite frighteningly extrapolated from today’s fear of terrorism as a convenient excuse for governmental power grabbing (the historical parallels are remarkably sinister), and it makes for a great novel.

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Red Thunder (Thunder and Lightning I) – John Varley

RedThunderFor some odd reason I had never read Varley, an author who was first published in 1977, before I picked up this book. After this experience, I realized my mistake. Red Thunder makes some rather preposterous assumptions in order to underpin a story. A decade or two from now, two lower class Florida youngsters dream of going to space. They and their girlfriends accidentally run into (actually run over) an ex astronaut who has fallen from grace. Said ex astronaut has a quasi autistic genius cousin who has accidentally invented an immensely efficient and cheap form of energy generation/propulsion. Seeing as the Chinese are on their way to being first to Mars and the American expedition will not only be second, but may well have an accident on the way, this motley crew builds a spaceship.

Appalled yet? Most authors would have made a hash of this and turned out unreadable drivel. But Varley concentrates on the people aspect. The whole thing becomes an excellent, funny and exciting coming of age story.