Gollancz, 2024, 252 p. Reviewed for ParSec 12.

The book is set in the near future, after a series of disasters known as the Decade of Plagues. Most people now have an ASPIS chip, a miniature mRNA factory capable of immunising against viruses as they appear. The price is your bodily chemistry, and anything that affects it, is known to the authorities. Another apparently universally used technology is a device known as Eyes, a sort of superannuated smart phone, head worn – but can also be hand held – goggles of a sort, allowing internet contact, and blink-activated. These are treated as unremarkable, everyday objects.

Our protagonist Inara has been living in The Harbour, one of a number of Darkome villages, a network of conscientious objectors to the big-tech likes of ASPIS, where people live off-grid and construct their own anti-viruses. Like all women in her extended family Inara has the rare Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Her body lacks the crucial protein named p53, which guards against damage to DNA and kills mutated cells. As a result, she is a tumour hotbed. At seventeen she has fought cancer twice and bears the scars to prove it. Her mother had been trying to find a cure but failed and died of a brain tumour. Inara is trying to carry on the work using her mother’s cells as test subjects.

This youthful not-quite idyll comes to an end when her father manoeuvres her into enrolling in an ASPIS trial called PROSPERITY-A, which can detect pre-cancerous mutations and target them, therefore nullifying her lack of p53. Inara’s decision to comply means she has to leave The Harbour, and boyfriend Jerome.

Some while later, living in rented accommodation which she can’t afford, she discovers a lump in her breast, a lump which ought not to be there if her aspis is working properly. Somewhat unseriously, both on Rajaniemi’s and her parts, this malignancy is referred to as the Heffalump. The replacement aspis she requests also quickly malfunctions and she slowly realises that the Heffalump’s cells have the ability to hypermutate, and may be able to take over the aspis. Not that she knows quite how that works. Nevertheless this is an ability Darkome has been looking for, the capability of an aspis-jailbreak.

Her discovery kicks the story into thriller mode as Inara seeks to alert Darkome and bargain with ASPIS. Stepping into the lion’s den of ASPIS headquarters she finds all sorts of skulduggery occurring and mayhem arising.

The text is full of biochemical terminology which in a story like this is necessary though may be off-putting to some. But if it is, just plough through it. No harm done.

Inara is an amply engaging protagonist in a ‘it’s me against the world’ kind of way – lone hero(in)es have of course long been an SF staple. (Not so much the heroines, to be fair, at least until recently.) However, other characters can at times feel as if they are there only for her to react against. But this is in the end a thriller. The form demands that sort of thing.

Normally the presence at a book’s end of the phrase TO BE CONTINUED (in those capitals) might have felt something of a let-down. Inara’s story and situation are, though, intriguing enough to welcome the thought of being reacquainted.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “in vitro” (possibly an uncopy-edited authorial instruction to italicise. In the old days before word-processors, underlining took that function. in vitro, then, which did appear later,) “there was no way for two Aspises fail on me in a row” (for two Aspises to fail on me,) “a mRNA drug” (since the letter ‘m’ is pronounced as beginning with a vowel this would more naturally be spoken as ‘an mRNA drug’,) “‘to cover these, ,’ he said” (no need for the extra space and comma.)  “‘Aaaand there is’” (no idea why this is represented as an extended ‘ah’ sound,) “Ca2+ channels” (Ca²⁺,) zmey (elsewhere zmey,) “drivers’ licences” (driving licences, please.)

Issue no 14 of ParSec magazine is now available.

Among its other goodies this one has my reviews of:-

If the Stars are Lit by Sara K Ellis

Orphan Planet by Madeehah Reza

The Hamlet by Joanna Corrance

Dark Crescent by Lyndsey Croal

NewCon Press, 2024, 213 p. Reviewed for ParSec 12.

The pitch for this post-apocalypse novel must have written itself. “Lord of the Flies – with girls.” Job done. Don’t you want to read it now? (No matter what I say.)

Nevertheless, a reviewer must review.

The story is set in an alternative 1975 on the largest of the Near Islands, an entirely fictional small archipelago located fifteen miles from Aberdeen. The girls are survivors of a nuclear attack on that city in what becomes obvious must have been a world-wide war. Most of the school’s pupils and teachers were away on a trip when the bombs fell.

The tale is narrated in retrospect (of a few years later) by the only boy, Stephen Ballantyne, son of the headmistress who took advantage of the convention that such children attend their parent’s school. All but one of the girls plus Stephen survive but his mother dies in the second blast.

A classic children’s story arrangement, then, with the parents out of the way and no other adults at hand. But these are not youngsters. They are fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds on the cusp of adulthood forced to rely on their own resources, albeit with a well-stocked library at hand. It helps the island is well-endowed with rabbits and sea-birds – not all of them palatable though.

The writing style is more irreverent than you might expect, with stabs at levity (one running joke in particular) and occasional addresses to the reader. It is at times consciously alliterative. In Dexter’s outlining of his scenario he has narrator Stephen tell us one girl’s name evokes “the milky mystery of midnight mosques.” And he eschews describing foul-mouthed language, “This is, after all, an adventure story set on a desert island.” Stephen also claims his greatest fault is self-effacement.

Step forward Pearl Wyss, “the smallest and mousiest-looking of the girls,” who had previously shown her mettle on a trip to a farm on the mainland for a demonstration of artificial insemination and, invited to repeat the farmer’s no doubt spitefully given information, does so flawlessly. Pearl becomes the driving force behind the rump school’s efforts to ensure survival, steering their debates and swaying (most of) the girls with her arguments.

Her awareness of the treatment of women by men down the ages colours her approach: watches to be set for any encroachment from the mainland, the building of a stockade and later a wall, the reconstruction of the curriculum to be more useful in their straitened circumstances, the manufacture of bows and training in shooting arrows.

The first man to arrive – on a rowing boat – only confirms her fears when he attempts to rape one of the girls. He is thereafter caged and ostracised.

Not all the girls agree with her. Some of their worries, such as wanting to get married in due course, a future Pearl’s prescriptions would seem to deny them, exemplify attitudes of the time where it is set. But her answer to that problem of course lies in front of them all the time. She is willing to be ruthless in defending the school against incursion by men no matter how inoffensive they may appear to be or even if they’re accompanied by women. Towards the book’s climax she says, “We make war because we hate war.” Turning into her enemy? All through the book Stephen acquiesces in her designs but in the final paragraphs he lets his air of self-effacement slip.

In an enterprise such as this it does not do to become bogged down on the details, the scenario is all. But two A-bombs dropped on Aberdeen? One would surely be enough. And how likely was it that a single mother in the 1970s would have become a headmistress; particularly of a girls’ school? Plus radiation sickness would most likely have been more prevalent than is presented here.

These are nit-picking, though. This may be no Lord of the Flies but it is still a well written, solid piece of work. In its essence it is not concerned about girls or women or whether they behave better or worse in any given situation. It is really about the nature of men and whether that nature will ever change.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- H2O (H₂O,) knit (knitted,) rowboat (several times; rowing boat,) E=mc2 (E = mc²,) focussed/unfocussed (x 2 each; focused/unfocussed,) airplanes (aeroplanes,) Benn Gunn (Ben Gunn,) “a saree” (a sari,) a sentence framed as a question but lacking its question mark, row-boat (x 2; elsewhere rowboat but in any case ‘rowing boat’,) “‘any who disagree this choice’” (who disagree with this choice.)

The Slab, 2024, 354 p. (No price given.) Reviewed for ParSec 12.

Notwithstanding the success of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and the Discworld series (both of which editor Donna Scott mentions in her introduction) I have never found Science Fiction and humour to be easy bedfellows, though I do admit to having a few guffaws when reading Eric Frank Russell’s Next of Kin many (many) moons ago. Indeed, I read the first few Discworld books and was only amused once – by an outrageous pun. (In Equal Rites in particular I thought there was a more serious book struggling to emerge from under its surrounding baggage.)

But we all need a good laugh in these disturbing times. So, with a will, to the contents.

As with all anthologies the quality and execution vary but in one with a premise like this it is inevitable that the tone of each story tends towards being similar.

One story that certainly hits the spot is Sundog 4 by Alice Dryden. A homage to the corpus of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson – familiarity with that œuvre may be required for a full appreciation – its plot has the breathless yet carboard quality of the different puppet series (and of the ones with actors whose dialogue might as well have been uttered by puppets) while slipping in direct references to those many shows. Very enjoyable. One might even say FAB.

Elsewhere we have a marriage broker on a Venus where every inhabitant – even the tentacled ones – seems to be Jewish, struggling to find a match for his client. A man signs up for an Intergalactic Cultural Exchange Plan with predictable unlooked for results. There is a warning about the implications of (mis)using an up to four-dimensional photocopier, particularly as regards photocopying arses – or ex-girlfriends. A minor convict set to do community work in an old people’s home is surprised by the inhabitants’ behaviour. A bored spaceship Captain leaves an AI in charge of his ship while he goes into cold sleep: after a 60 year delay in waking due to a meteorite strike he finds the ship’s bots have gone rogue. A robot cobbled together from spare parts by an aged Professor to commit burglaries for him fails in its final attempt; but he doesn’t. A bunch of Spiderbots battles against Mandroids® and Robosapiens® to try to save the human world. A family finds their virtual holiday goes wrong; for a start they’re not all on the same one. A scenario where every living thing has its own type of Grim Reaper, De’Swine, De’Fungi etc, and they have a philosophical problem with the big one, De’Ath. On a world plagued by sand an experienced, not to say old, female drug smuggler has to negotiate yet another double cross. Would-be students of a Present Studies course are encouraged to kill Hitler via time travel while their attempts are monitored by a course tutor who knows those attempts will fail. Dating Apps are beyond old hat when 4C (foresee; get it?) comes along to show users a trailer of how any relationship will evolve: a situation itself not beyond manipulation. In a future depression where eggs have become horribly expensive a banjo player makes his money by his seeming ability to make chickens lay freely; but he’s really selling something else. A mad scientist invents a process rendering his body incorporeal seemingly only in order to torment his stepson (who is savvier than he thought.) Aliens attracted by Earth’s radio and TV emanations abduct a woman to explain it all: they remain baffled; she puts the experience down to a spiked drink. People who shuffle through existence after the bombs fall cope by going to open mic nights. A religious woman who dies in undignified circumstances – though not anything like as shameful as her husband’s demise – gets a surprise in the afterlife. An explanation of the history, and future, of humans’ fear of spiders. A waitress in an Australian restaurant discovers the menu’s ‘kangaroo in orange sauce’ option is a manifestation of an alien invasion. The malfunctioning of a teleportation device poses an ethical dilemma for the duplicates it spews out every twenty minutes. To pep up an ageing lothario from a long line of such with an affinity for ginger, his doctor arranges for him to attend a Ginger Girls Gala, a convocation of those delightful lovelies. A transcript of a Prime Ministerial Press conference where it is repeatedly denied that time travellers have come back from the year 2345 to interfere in the present day, and where the questions spiral into more and more bizarre territory. A report outlining the genesis and results of five failed experiments in eugenics. A newly married man buys the naming rights of a star for his wife: twenty years (and an impending divorce later) they find themselves transported to that star’s system, where they are being worshipped as gods. A rich man’s attempt to remove any influence of trade unions on business practice, by travelling back in time to have a law passed, has unexpected consequences: not least for him.

Comedic fiction can be hit or miss in the eye of the beholder. Laughs in Space has more than enough hits to satisfy the jaundiced reviewer.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- Two stories’ titles are missing from the contents page – though they follow the starting title Random Selection. There are some uneven paragraph indentations. Otherwise; “‘He’s brain in a jar!’” (He’s a brain in a jar!) ambiance (ambience,) “then the girl up and asked” (upped and asked,) a piece of direct speech opened with a single quotation mark but ended with a double one, “a cut-and-dry case” (the phrase is ‘cut-and-dried’,) “and laid back” (and lay back.) “A horde of Flergians were spread out in the garden” (a horde … was spread out,) antennas (antennae [as used elsewhere],) “yelled to the top of his lungs” (yelled at the top of his lungs,) Jims’ (x2, Jims’s,) “the skin on her arms not as taught” (not as taut,) slipperier (what’s wrong with ‘more slippy’?) smidgeon (smidgin or smidgen but definitely not smidgeon,) “off of” (just ‘off’. Please?) “a per centage” (a percentage,) Professors’ (Professor’s,) Professors (Professor’s,) epicentre (centre,) “a trail of bone-white husks litter the highway” (a trail … litters the highway,) “none of them … have a clue” (none of them … has a clue,) miniscule (minuscule,) “Woward meister” (Meister,) “of a film … of a bean growing, its roots uncurling,” (its shoots surely?) “but he’s no idea” (but he’d no idea.) “‘Who’s Wendy,’ Candy asked’” (‘Who’s Wendy?’ Candy asked,) “the image pixilated (pixelated; pixilated means drunk.) “‘It was just figure of speech’” (just a figure,) D’Apes (elsewhere De’Apes,) “lay a … hand on” (laid a … hand on,) “into De’Apes face” (into De’Apes’s face.) Mortallity (Mortality – spelled correctly one line later,) “looked pointedly looked downwards” (only one ‘looked’ needed,) “steadied themselves” (x 2, in both cases this was an individual; steadied themself?) “‘And who come for them?’” (comes.) Gavrilo Principe (Gavrilo Princip,) “had lain the table” (had laid the table,) “Dai lay down the hammer” (laid down,) “‘I can say with them for good’” (I can stay with them for good,) “when you know fully well” (the idiom is ‘know full well’,) “the rest of the room are hanging on his every couplet” (the rest of the room is hanging on… ,) “from whence they came” (whence = from where, from whence then = from from where, just ‘whence they came,) a full stop after the closing quotation mark of a quote instead of before it, “it as too real” (it was too real,) “for six and a half decade” (decades,) in one story though not in others the convention of a repeated opening quotation mark on a new paragraph within an extended piece of dialogue was not followed (x 2,)  a missing full stop, “before fished them out” (before I fished them out,) “ginger nut biscuits and ginger snaps” (aren’t they the same type of biscuit) bikkies (x 6, this affectionate term for biscuits is usually spelled biccies.) Games of Thrones (the author probably intended the plural of Game,) “‘since record began’” (records,) “the committe were somewhat mollified” (the committee was…,) two out of five of one story’s subheadings were italicised when the first three were not, “seven hundred ninety two” (seven hundred and ninety two,) “taught and impressive muscles” (that’ll be ‘taut’, then,) “were stood” (were standing,) “were sat” (x 2, were sitting,) “it had taken her taken her quite a long time” (remove one ‘taken her’,) “‘this the leader of our army’” (this is the leader,) “barring Pilates’ way” (Pilates’s way,) “‘Ready!’ came Pilates reply’” (Pilates’s.) “Stood at either end of the generator they each pulled a leaver” (Standing at either end of the generator they each pulled a lever.)

This year’s winners were indeed announced at Eastercon and the full list can be found here.

As far as the adult fiction categories go we have –

Short fiction:

Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabelle Kim

Shorter fiction – which somewhat confusingly is for longer fiction than the short fiction category; ie novella and novelette (whatever a novelette is):-

Saturation Point by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Novel:

Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley

I note there was an award for best translated short work:

Bone by Bone by Mónika Rusvai, translated from Hungarian by Vivien Urban.

I haven’t read any of them.

(I have read the novel withdrawn from consideration, Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky. My review appeared in ParSec 13 and will do so here in due course.)

Solaris, 2023, 339 p.   Reviewed for ParSec 12.

This is a collection of fiction of mostly fantasy stories, perhaps in keeping with Nordic traditions but there is a sprinkling of Science Fiction. They are split almost equally between translations and stories which first appeared in English, though they do contain a surprising number of Scottish terms. None of them would appear out of place in any speculative fiction anthology though, in most, character or place names display their provenance.

The book’s contents are ordered by the authors’ countries of origin.

Sweden:

She by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy from the Swedish, Hon, has an epigram from Nathan Wahlqvist to the effect that “a haunting is dependent on a series of highly unlikely coincidences,” and so inherently rare. This tale of the haunting of a house newly built on the site of an older one relies on the facts that the owners, a couple trying to embark on parenthood, sourced its materials on the cheap and the grandfather of one of them had done wrong in the past.

Lost and Found by Maria Haskins, translated from the original, Vindspår, by the author tells of the mental disintegration of the survivor of a crashed escape pod from a ship surveying exoplanets for possible terraforming. Or was there really something out there?

Sing by Karen Tidbeck is set on a planet whose human inhabitants are strangely affected by the rising and setting of the system’s moons. Most can sing when a particular moon is up but our narrator can’t. She is also physically impaired and hence not fully part of the society. A visitor finds the planet’s parasitic ecosystem strange and is shocked by the method through which the singing is acquired.

Denmark:

The False Fisherman by Kaspar Colling Nielsen, translated from the Danish Den falske fisher by Olivia Lasky, concerns a man who did not take up fishing till he was over forty but nevertheless gets himself all the correct gear. He never catches anything (apart from one whopper.) This story could quite easily be read as having no speculative content at all – except for perhaps one sentence.

Heather Country by Jakob Drud is set in a world after what is always referred to as the impact, in a Jutland run by the NeuroClan a pair of whose investigators (both mortgaged to the Clan’s system of debt of body parts) stumble across a threat to the production of fuel from the local genetically modified heather.

The Traveller Girl by Lene Kaaberbøl, translated from the original, Rakkerstøsen, by the author, again has only a tangential relationship to the speculative. A man hoping to inherit land by marrying the landowner’s daughter is startled by the humanity he finds in the gypsy girl he encounters one day. Her group comes there so that their horses’ foals may be born on land that confers on them strength, sturdiness and speed.

The Faroe Islands:

The Abyss by Rakel Helmsdahl, translated from the Faroese, Dýpið, by Marita Thomsen, as a story, seems to be a metaphor for Limbo as our narrator climbs up and down and traverses across a never-ending series of iron bars too rigid and close-set to pass through, before deciding to fall into the abyss of the title and further adventures.

Iceland:

The Dreamgiver by Johann Thorsson. A child’s nightmares are relieved by a dreamcatcher hung up by her bedroom door. One night when our narrator, the child’s mother, carries out the daily task of emptying it she is startled by the Dreamgiver, who is not best pleased that his dreams are being discarded.

Hamraborg Babylon by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmson. Translated from the Icelandic Sódóma Hamraborg by Quentin Bates.

This Hamraborg is a tower dominating its city, Kópavogur. A woman penetrates its nightmarish depths in search of her brother. The story doesn’t quite deliver on the promise of its first two pages.

Norway:

As You Wish by Tor Åge Bringsværd. Translated from the Norwegian Som du Vil by Olivia Lasky. Brageson works in Mine-Blue 4 on the planet Nova Thule where the company provides all its workers with an idunn. Created from local crystalline sources these are not-quite-android simulacra of women with a highly developed sense of imitation. Their signature question is, “How do you want me?” –  a question which haunts Brageson as he struggles to accept his idunn’s presence in his life.

The Cormorant by Tone Almhell has more than a few similarities to Scottish Folk Tales. Not surprising really, given the same harsh northern climate, the salience of fishing as a means of earning a living and the overbearing presence of the sea. The story sets its stall out early when the narrator says she is a cormorant and if she spreads out her wings death will follow. She has been brought up without her father, who had mysterious origins anyway, and lives with her secretive mother on an island across a stretch of sea from the town of Grip. The townspeople view both her and her mother with suspicion. Possibly with good reason.

The Day Jonas Shadowed His Dad by Thore Hansen. Translated by Olivia Lasky. Jonas, whose mother has died, is intrigued by the vagueness with which his father describes his work, so decides one day to follow him. In a cottage in the woods he descends into a tunnel which leads to somewhere brighter and, to Jonas, more intriguing. Overall, though, this is a little underwhelming to regular readers of SF and Fantasy.

A Lion Roars in Longyearbyen by Margrét Helgadóttir. Global warming and migration have led to Longyearbyen becoming a destination city for its December light festival. One of the (unheard number of two) lions in its zoo – thought to be the last actually born in the wild – has gone from its cage. In the midwinter darkness a human hunter prepares to stalk it.

Finland:

A Bird Does Not Sing Because It Has an Answer by Johanna Sinisalo. A human monitors an extremely slow moving avatar suit overseeing the nesting site of a pair of (by now incredibly rare) flycatchers while not being supposed to intervene in natural processes. In the meantime, Central’s coordinating AI is decoding the meanings of birdsong. The story’s last word is devastatingly apposite.

Elegy for a Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi. In a world where most humans have disappeared into some sort of upload heaven, once and would-be poet Kosonen roams the woods with his talking bear Otso. Both like booze. He is visited by an avatar of his former wife who wants him to retrieve an object which fell into a firewalled city dominated by plague gods. Their lost son also happens to be in there.

The Wings that Slice the Sky by Emmi Itäranta. Translated from the Finnish Taivasta silpovat sivet by the author. Judging by the Author’s Note this seems to be a take on the Finnish epic Kalevala. Louhi, a woman with magical powers, marries into the well to do family which lives in Pohjola in the north. One day she rescues a shipwrecked man from the south and nurses him back to health. In return for a horse to take him back south she asks for a Sampo, a device which will ensure Pohjola will never again want for anything. The bargain is also to include one of her daughters. He sends a blacksmith to forge the Sampo but he in turn spreads the fact of Pohjola’s existence and soon many visitors arrive. Men being men – even (especially?) with magical powers – things don’t end well.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- some of the translations are into USian. Otherwise; Fin (Finn.) “None of these alternatives were appealing” (‘None …. was appealing’ and, strictly, there can be only two alternatives, not three,) “hockey cards” (being set in Sweden these would more likely be ‘ice hockey cards’,) Janosz’ (Janosz’s,) laying (x 2, lying,) “a wee bit of sarcasm” (a wee bit? The author must have spent time in Scotland.) “None of them were armed” (None … was armed.) “The only movement along its streets were those of plastic bags and battered tin cans” (The only movement … was …,) “to such a prophesy” (prophecy,) smothes (smooths,) Douglas’ (Douglas’s,) “the less electromagnetic emissions the better” (the fewer … emissions the better.) “She sat down …and swung its legs” (either, ‘It sat down …and swung its legs’ or, She sat down …and swung her legs’,) sprung (sprang.)

Gollancz, 2024, 312 p, plus 2p Author’s Note.    Reviewed for ParSec 12.

In the future universe this novel describes people live in kinds of utopias where they don’t bother to learn many languages or even to read and write, delegating translation to AIs and work to machines, an existence which in effect renders the typical specimen of humanity, to a degree, infantile. Nevertheless, two different modes of faster than light travel dubbed α and β have been developed. The first utilises simultaneous time and space dilation and is (fractionally) slower than the second, which deploys extremely rapid spacetime bubbling. (Not that this is important. Any putative FTL technology is only ever a handy device for getting characters from A to B.) The α and β spacecraft types in which their passengers travel are called startships (note that second ‘t’,) which are essentially hospitals; space travel, of any sort, is dangerous, a spaceship’s passengers require protection. And the ships themselves, contrary to some earlier imaginings, are not transplanted marine vessels since a spaceship doesn’t need a rigid framework nor corridors. Here, instead, they consist of woven clusters of moveable Meissner tetrahedra linked together by smartcable. Utopias, though, need to be escapable or conflict will arise. And escape from a spaceship is difficult.

As to the story, we begin with two startships, Sα-Niro and Sβ-Oubliette, sent to monitor the black hole HD 167128, aka QV Tel. Niro’s Captain Alpha Raine comes to believe there is an intelligence communicating with him from inside the black hole. The other members of both ships’ crews of course dismiss this out of hand. After all nothing can escape a black hole. Raine then sets about murdering them all.

The focus then switches to a historian named Saccade on the Masqueworld. She specialises in twentieth century serial killers in fact and fiction and so seems perfect to interview the since captured Raine. Rather than in person she meets Raine in a sim where his appearance shows all sorts of disfigurements even though he ought to have no control over it.

Raine calls the black hole dweller the Gentleman; a personage who alludes to himself with references to Sympathy for the Devil. Prior to this our narrator has addressed the reader of our century directly and the text is littered with (apparently misremembered from our time) mangled lyrics to popular songs (“we all live in a yellow sunny scene”) and film titles such as Two Thousand and One Odysseys or Surfing Private Ryan, along with references to the empire of Ancient Room and a description of nightmares as angsttraum. Roberts is clearly enjoying himself throughout here by dropping these nuggets. SF buffs will also recognise allusions such as, “‘My God,’ said Li, ‘It’s full of tears!’”

Raine says the Gentleman was imprisoned in QV Tel, presumably by the universe’s creator. We are, then, delving into the realms of religion and philosophy.

After this encounter Saccade, too, develops murderous tendencies but is nevertheless allowed, under observation, to travel to the planet Boa Memória where a flamboyant adventurer called Berd is planning to be the first human to walk on the metal core of a planet. This requires not only a heat-insulating suit but also a device to bend the angle of gravity and so obviate the crushing pressures to be encountered.

This device is really the core of the novel. Its construction may have been necessary to the universe in order to preserve information that would otherwise be lost when black holes evaporate. It is conjectured that the reason for the evolution of intelligent life was so that Berd’s device could be invented. But if deployed at the event horizon of a black hole…. What might occur? What might escape?

The rest of the novel is taken up with a race to QV Tel to prevent Saccade reaching there with the device and the various arguments among the characters as to whether the Gentleman exists and how or if to deal with him and Saccade both.

This is a fairly dense though intermittently playful novel brimming with ideas, enough to fill many a novel, but none of its scenes really evoke SF’s famed sense of wonder. And, though Matr Guunarsonsdottir, a self-centred physicist with a Trumpian attitude to reality – whatever she says she instantly believes even if it contradicts something she said before – is a recognisable type, nor do the characters really convince. (Except the Gentleman of course. The Devil always has the best tunes.) There is something perfunctory about many of their interactions. But Roberts has given himself a get-out clause here, these humans have been cosseted throughout their lives, they are immature.

The ideas are what make the book though.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- 10^20 (10²⁰. Is superscription some sort of lost art in typesetting? It can’t be. The ^ appears to be superscripted,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech (x 3,) “Choe Eggs’ suggestion” (Choe Eggs’s,) coliseum (in our world, Colosseum, but this future universe has forgotten our spellings,) grotesquenesses (grotesqueries.) “She turned to face him four-squarer” (four-square?) siriusphis tree (I have no idea what that meant,) focussed (x 2, elsewhere – and correctly – focused,) annex (annexe,) crafts (craft,) “the milky way” (the Milky Way,) “in visible spectrums” (the plural of spectrum is spectra: but, in any case, there is only one visible spectrum,) profondimetre (it was a depth-measuring device; so, profondimeter,) miniscule (minuscule,) Joyns’ (several times; Joyns’s – which appeared once,) span (spun,) “believe rather than it emanates from” (that it emanates,) “on behalf of” (context demands ‘on the part of’,) hiccough (hiccup,) “effecting her emotions” (again context demands ‘affecting’,) shuggled (usually – certainly in Scotland – ‘shoogled’,) neurones (neurons,) “she was laying in the darkness” (lying,) sprung (sprang,) “the only thing that really mattered were …” (the only thing that really mattered was…,) shrunk (shrank.)

Issue number 13 of ParSec magazine is now on sale.

As well as the usual fictional delights this one contains my reviews of:-

The Queen by Nick Cutter

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto

The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen

and The Quiet by Barnaby Martin

Newly arrived for review for issue 14 is a Luna novella from Luna Press, Orphan Planet by Madeehah Reza, another author new to me.

Head of Zeus, 2024, 567 p.  Reviewed for ParSec 11.

A lot of fantasy takes as its societal template a mediæval setting, with kings, nobles, church, and so on clearly based on the feudal model. Very few, if any, have employed a late mediæval background based on the Italian city states. That, though, is what Bacigalupi has opted for here: a refreshing choice, and one which offers plenty of scope for intrigue and skullduggery, not to mention vendetta.

The family central to this story, though, is not descended from nobility. For three generations the di Regulai have built up their banking business in the city of Navola, using their money to thwart the encroachment of the nearby Empire of Cheroux on the city. That bank now has branches in every land with which Navola trades, its power and worth dependent on the bedrock of financial stability – not its gold but its promises. By its ever-growing influence through the years, its head, narrator Davico de Regulai’s father Davonico, is the de facto leader of Navola, its nominal ruler, the Callarino, sidelined, the ancient nobility’s domination of the forum of government, the Callendra, diminished, with rights granted to the ordinary people known as the vianomae.

The tone in which the book is written could easily be mistaken for a work of historical fiction, albeit history disguised, were it not for the fact that we start with a fossilised dragon’s eye. An eye with feather-like but sharp-edged tendril-like nerve remnants, an eye which sits on Davonico’s desk and draws attention to itself, seeming to follow you about the room with its gaze. Davico feels the eye’s power, and that of the dragon consciousness within it.

As the only heir to the di Regulai house Davico is being trained in the essence of banking, the art of governance, the necessity for faccioscuro – explained here as hidden face (though the apposite term in English would be poker face) – as opposed to clear face, facciochiaro. Faccioscuro is the signature trait of the Navolese whose rivals say, “‘The minds of the Navolese are as twisted as the plaits of their women’s hair.’” This is exemplified in the card game cartalegge, which requires a high degree of deception for a player to win. Davonico’s fixer and spymaster, the stilettotorre, Cazzeta, is an adept, as is Davico’s adopted “sister” Celia, taken in by Davonico when he disgraced and exiled her family, the di Basculi, to bring her up as if she were a di Regulai.

Unfortunately Davico has too open a heart to be able to dissemble much, is too burdened with conscience to accept without qualms the occasional need for harsh measures. Celia has a much keener appreciation of the ways of this world. Due to its constraints a woman has to be so much more aware than a man. Fiaccioscuro, she says, is “the weapon of the woman. The sharpest weapon a woman can wield.”

We see Davico’s growth from boy to man, his initial confusion over the feelings puberty invokes in him, his unease at the constant need to play his part in the game of life, all against the backdrop of intrigue, realpolitik and his father’s plans for him and Celia both. The dragon’s eye fades into the background somewhat until Davico’s naming day, when an attack on his life forces him, Celia and Cazzeta to use the secret passage behind his father’s library. Davico’s affinity with the dragon and its perceptions save their lives, but there are still twists to come.

This is an environment in which paranoia is justified. Even with eyes in the back of your head you might still not see danger approach. Fortunes can turn on an instant, loyalties suddenly evaporate. As one character reflects, “We are all flotsam in the maelstrom. To swim at all is triumph.” With the aid of the dragon’s eye Davico learns to swim. But it costs him.

In Navola, Bacigalupi has constructed a detailed image of a cut-throat world which would not be at all comfortable to live in. It is a very good novel indeed.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “I had seen thieves hung” (hanged,) another instance of ‘hung’ for ‘hanged’, “she lay down the black castello” (laid down.) “‘Trust is a vice a women can ill afford’” (either ‘a woman’ or just ‘women’,) “her her” (only one ‘her’ needed,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, another missing at the end of one. “There was a collected intake of breath” (‘collective intake’ is the more usual phrasing,) “that our family, who was so deeply tied to Navola” (our family, which was so deeply tied,) octopi (the singular is not Latinate so; octopuses, or – in the extreme – octopodes.)

Eriu, 2024, 314 p, plus 2 p Author’s Note and 2 p Acknowledgements. Reviewed for ParSec 11.

Sometimes a book just hits the spot, the reader can tell from the first paragraph – even the first sentence – whether the author is one to follow trustingly, whether her book will appeal. Word choices, sentence construction, details of description and subject matter all come into this but the sense of an author in control of her story, doling out information sparingly but tellingly, leading the reader on and in, is more important. Sparks of Bright Matter had me from that first paragraph.

O’Donnell has taken as a starting point here the last true alchemist, Peter Woulfe, and let her novelistic imagination run. Her story of his life, told in a compelling present tense, begins in the London of 1780 before ranging back at various points to Woulfe’s younger days as an apprentice to Mr Sweetnam in 1744, his late childhood in 1739 in Mount Gabriel, Cork, Ireland, and his infancy in 1726. O’Donnell’s Woulfe is an avid believer in the goal of alchemy and its divine trappings but his search for the Elixir is doomed to failure by “want of piety and charitable acts.”

O’Donnell has Woulfe born in Ireland 1726 as a sickly child, helped to survive by the local folk healer, Bridey Leary, a woman with secrets of her own and with whom as an older child Woulfe has a wary friendship.

In 1780, frustrated by his assistant, Mal Burkiss, not keeping his furnaces warm enough he throws the lump of quartz he was holding at the lad and seems to kill him, necessitating the bringing in of Robert Perle to dispose of the body, giving the latter a hold over him. Unbeknownst to Woulfe, and possibly Perle, the boy, however, is not dead and is found naked in the street and revived by Sukie Bulmer, a woman who now collects dog shit from London’s thoroughfares to sell to the tanneries. The pair form an unusual partnership as Burkiss has healing powers and Sukie acts as his procurer, a double act suspect to the authorities.

Back in 1744 Woulfe was tasked by Sweetnam with delivering a mysterious book, the Mutus Liber, to a Baron Swedenborg, but in his efforts he is delayed by an encounter with a streetwalker and misplaces the book. In perhaps a coincidence too far that woman is a much younger Sukie Bulmer who then sets about trying to sell the book, eventually coming to the shop of pawnbroker Shapsel Nicodemus Stein, whose wife Katia she beguiles. The failed delivery of the Mutus Liber is a problem for Sweetnam – and therefore Woulfe – as concealed in its spine was a communication between plotting Jacobites. Many authors would have made this strand their book’s focus, it is 1744 after all, rebellious undertakings are afoot, but to O’Donnell it is merely incidental. Such worldly matters are not Woulfe’s concern. However, the contents of the book are.

In the Mutus Liber Woulfe discerns “a complex, sacred procedure, not evident to the uninitiated, not laid out clear and simple for anyone to understand,” but with time, with work, with prayer, all there to be understood, along with “how the processes, the combination of the materials, the grinding, the careful combining, the firing, the sparks of bright matter will bring his soul closer to God.” Later he realises, “This book demonstrates how to purify and make order out of chaos. How to put things back as they should be.” A life’s work, then. “Surely,” he thinks, “there is something true and beautiful underneath all this chaos … something golden and good that can emerge when things are put in the right order, when the right method is applied, when the divine energy is channelled?”

The book teems with well-drawn characters, Sukie Bulmer when troubled escapes to roofs, Burkiss treats a howling young girl with uncontrollable movements (and whose father has questionable motives,) Shapsel Nicodemus is considerate and fair but also wary, his wife Katia astounded at her response to Sukie, Sweetnam is full of repressed anger, Bridey Leary treads the line between being accepted or persecuted.

Full of gritty detail about Georgian London, street toughs, bawdy encounters and an incident set during the Gordon riots of 1780, the writing is nevertheless tinged with an air of weirdness, of things unseen, never quite delineated, never explicit, ending with Woulfe’s vision on his return to Ireland of a group of young women attending cattle on their journey up to their summer pastures – something that had ceased twenty years before.

Though there are occasional acts of violence in O’Donnell’s story fans of action-packed adventure will need to look elsewhere. For those of a more philosophical bent, interested in character interaction and reflection, Sparks of Bright Matter does the job to a tee.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “of the most discrete kind” (context demands ‘of the most discreet kind’; ie  ‘unobtrusive’, and definitely not ‘separate’.) “He is sure than the young man’s presence” (sure that the young man’s presence,) “laughter of crowd” (of the crowd,) “he crosses to the hearth clears the charred wood” (ought to have a comma after hearth.) “There are a host of characters portrayed” (There is a host…,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, “the dark brown aureole of her nipple (dark brown areola of her nipple.) “He nods at the man the brown coat” (the man in the brown coat,) “carrying Peter bulging satchel” (Peter’s,) “none of the men spare her a second glance” (none of the men spares her a …,) “to dwell on over much” (overmuch,) “eats only a very little of mutton chop” (of the mutton chop,) “sometimes awkward his mouth” (awkward in his mouth,) “taping the compass” (tapping,) spaces missing either side of a dash. “He is not just a boy. He is man” (He is a man,) “four hours, sleep a night” (no comma needed between hours and sleep,) “in a glass tubes” (‘in a glass tube’ or ‘in glass tubes’,) “says in shaky voice” (in a shaky voice,) “that has fallen a from a height” (no ‘a’ after fallen,) “as tight as drum” (as a drum,) “none of the people in the book labour alone” (none of the people … labours alone,) “building to a consuming crescendo” (building to a consuming climax,) “feeling a tightness his in lower back” (a tightness in his lower back,) “the sounds of thousand man and women” (of a thousand,) “the gate way” (gateway.)