NewCon Press, 2025, 139 p. Reviewed for ParSec 15.

Some while ago sentient ramship UNDSP-14 CORBYN had passed through a human-colonised star system but ignored all its inhabitants’ attempts at communication. However, they exerted themselves to sending after him their one and only light speed ship, the Great Honour, utilizing a D-jump mechanism Corbyn did not have, which folded space to make the distance between two points negligible. Corbyn’s ship had resilience, though, and the Great Honour hadn’t, so was falling apart when it caught up.  Corbyn rescued crew member PurLeeDah and salvaged the D-Jump. Now, at her request, he is returning PurLeeDah to her home system but they are travelling at 0.9999999999c and need to dump velocity by innumerable small collisions to below 0.8c in order then to decelerate “as God and Heinlein intended.” This means transiting the system above its ecliptic for twenty (subjective) seconds, jumping back and doing it again and again, thousands of times, each time making a spectacular light show in the planet’s sky, shedding blue Cherenkov radiation. No wonder the inhabitants, who have, in the many relativistic centuries since launching the Great Honour, regressed to pre-industrial levels, come to call Corbyn the Travelling God as he moves from what they call the Gates of Heaven to Exaltation. It also means PurLeeDah has spent most of the interim in suspended animation.

As time goes by the condition of the cold sleep system deteriorates and Corbyn offers PurLeeDah the possibility of seeking out other star systems, possibly more evolved and able to slow them down more easily, but she declines, wanting to see her own planet again. To slow down more quickly, Corbyn takes a risk.

The overall story is told in nine sections as Corbyn drops in velocity to 0.999999999c, 0.98c, 0.95c, 0.92c, 0.85c, Orbital Velocity, and Stationary (with respect to the planet,) each section beginning with what is happening on Corbyn before giving us a snapshot of the life of humans on the planet as they slowly develop civilisation again, their worship of the Travelling God evolves and the time taken for each transit gradually increases. In effect Morden has put together eight otherwise unconnected stories of the History of the World (PurLeeDah’s world) by using an inventive framing device. (If you were paying attention you may have noticed there were only eight – not nine – velocities mentioned above. The ninth is a valedictory chapter.) Each of the eight stories is peopled with believable characters in convincing scenarios.

I did idly wonder if Morden has read Brian Aldiss’s short story Heresies of the Huge God, with which this has some thematic similarities: but it is of course as possible that he has not. The resemblances are only incidental in any case. Not that it matters. Morden has written a very good novella indeed, a story to show that Science Fiction still has life in it. And we all stand on someone’s shoulders.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “And he and her had had rationalized” (he and she had rationalised.)  “The only way he knew … were the stars” (the only way … was the stars,) dove (dived,) “The chase to over too soon” (to be over too soon,) “in his own prophesy” (the noun is ‘prophecy’, prophesy is the verb,) “lay of the land” (it wasn’t a song; ‘lie of the land’,) “Berengas’ abacus beads” (several instances of Berengas’; Berengas’s,) prophesies (prophecies,) “calculations were only be done by” (‘were only done by’ or ‘were only to be done by’,) “he did recognized this” (recognise) “one of which were” (None of which was,) “Stratos’ face” (Stratos’s,) “taller than a few stories” (storeys, please,) “no sign anything resembling” (no sign of anything.) “Neither of them were in the first flush of youth” (Neither of them was in…,) “‘more advanced that I am’” (advanced than I am.) “ ‘It is semi-rigid inflatable boat’” (It is a semi-rigid inflatable boat,) “holding on edges” (holding onto edges,) “there would be hole there now” (there would be a hole there now.) In the “About the Author”; published in three months of each other” (published within three months of each other.)

Or at least it ought to be.

The publication date was yesterday.

I’ve not accessed my copy yet but this one should contain my reviews of:-

City of All Seasons by Oliver K Langmead and Aliya Whiteley

The History of the World by Simon Morden

Project Hanuman by Stewart Hotston

Those reviews will appear here in due course.

Yes, they come thick and fast. This one will be for ParSec 15.

It’s The History of the World by Simon Morden. I can’t find a cover for it at the moment, though.

Amazingly it’s actually Science Fiction. Sometimes recently  it has seemed as if the publishing of SF had dried up.