Tor, 2024, 396 p. £10.99. Reviewed for ParSec 13.

Arton Daghdev was once a professor of ecology. (No-one can pronounce his surname. Don’t worry about it: he doesn’t.) We first meet him when he’s emerging from suspended animation and plunging from a disintegrating spaceship to the surface of Imno 27g, one of the eleven exoplanets humans have so far set foot on. It is known as Kiln and is thirty years from Earth. That’s how long the voyage took and how long it would take to get back. Arton is not going back. That ship was a fragmentation barge: deliberately designed to break up on arrival. He is a convict at the end of a one-way voyage and hopes to avoid being Acceptable Wastage either during the drop or once (if) he survives it.

Back on Earth he had taken part in a plot against the Mandate which rules there, an autocracy which brooks no opposition and wants black and white answers to complex questions, everything sorted into predetermined boxes. He had managed to escape capture for a year before being betrayed.

On arrival on Kiln he can’t help noticing the strange ruins, obviously built artefacts, which dominate the landing site’s surroundings. Brought to Commandant Terolan, his first question is, ‘Who built them?’ Prisoners with scientific expertise are prime candidates for trying to find its answer. But this is still a prison camp. That interview plus his year’s delay in arrival compared to his fellow conspirators means he will be subject to extreme suspicion by his fellow inmates. They can’t know if he betrayed them; or he if they betrayed him. Transportation to Kiln is above all a punishment. (It can’t be hell without fellow sinners to suffer amongst.)

Only Staff on Kiln have the best of what is on offer. The prisoners are divided up into Dig Support, General Labour, Excursions and Maintenance and supplied with only the products of shoddy printers, and recyclers processing just about everything, to sustain and protect them.

Excursions have the short straw, three-day sojourns into Kiln’s interior to investigate other ruins sites before being extensively and painfully decontaminated on return. Kiln’s biology is invasive and possibly deadly, a riot of parasitism and symbiosis run rampant, evolution on show in real time, adept at picking the locks of human biology and prising a way in. The howls of Ylse Rasmussen, infected by Kiln and kept in a cage like the mad woman in the attic, are warning enough to take care. Though with superficial resemblances to Earthly counterparts, organisms on Kiln are scarcely taxonomisable, latching on to each other as and when needed to perform any required function. “Kiln tissues spread throughout the body, with less reliance on discrete organs.”

Arton’s voice, self-deprecating, knowledgeable, humane, is a crucial part of this novel’s success. His tale is interspersed with ruminations on his situation and the Mandate’s justifications. “Human history is full of social conventions designed to salve the consciences of the mighty and curb the ambitions of the small. So we invent philosophies to tell us we were right to do what we did and we’re allowed to do what we want. Science, the science they” (the Mandate) “choose gives them their legitimacy.”

Arton will have none of that. He believes “Science, as a creed, should care about truth. It shouldn’t be bent for political aims. No group of people is naturally inferior, none has an innate ability to lead. We share the vast majority of our genetic inheritance with mushrooms.”

Arton’s fall from grace with the Commandant sees him deployed on Excursions and disaster strikes – as we knew it must sooner or later. His group is forced to trek back to the camp for days subject to whatever Kiln can throw at them. In the alienesses here there are faint echoes of David Lindsay’s Voyage to Arcturus and Ian McDonald’s Chaga but Alien Clay is – unlike the creatures on Kiln – a thing only unto itself.

The infiltrations of Kiln biology into his group, the changes those bring about, cause Arton to reassess what he thought of evolution before he got there. It isn’t a boxing match, with the bigger and stronger prevailing: because you need everything else in order to survive. That’s how biology works. On Kiln evolution has demonstrated that.

Alien Clay is Science Fiction doing what it does best. It necessarily has overlaps with other tales set in a penal colony – or any colony – but its resolution absolutely depends on its Science Fictional element.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- intermittent sprinklings of USian among British usages; eg ‘handed my ass’ but then ‘the maths’. Otherwise; “the welcoming committee are keen,” (strictly, ‘is keen’,) “the main body of my admissions class are being shown the ropes” (strictly, ‘is being shown the ropes’,) “the hoi polloi” (x 2. Strictly, since ‘hoi’ means ‘the’, it’s just ‘hoi polloi’,) “A knot of people shove” (a knot shoves,) Parrides’ (Parrides’s,) “had showed me” (had shown me,) “regular spiders” (they did not occur at intervals, they were conventional; similarly with ‘a regular fire, cave man style’, the fire did not go on and off on its own.) “There are a handful of” (OK it’s idiom, but strictly, ‘There is a handful’,) “there are a range” (there is a range,) “the tech team are working” (is working,) “None of us are” (None of us is.) “Everyone in the camp holds their breath” (breaths.) “None of us have any solid way” (None of us has any.) “When pause to eat” (When I pause to eat.) “None of them particularly want to go” (None … wants to go.)

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 Maheedah Reza, another author new to me.

Once again my post contained books from ParSec magazine.

This time they are:-

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky and

Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto.

The former is of course a multiple award winner. Ms Yamamoto is new to me. According to the accompanying blurb hammajang means in a disorderly or chaotic state.

The reviews ought to appear in ParSec 13.

The shortlist for the 34th Arthur C. Clarke Award is:

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Last Astronaut by David Wellington

I had been looking for the list for a while but not for the first time discovered it had finally been announced via Ian Sales’s blog.

I reveiwed the Charlie Jane Anders book for Interzone 282 and published that review here on 28/5/20.

The Martine and Serpell I had seen good reviews of. The works of Hurley I have read tend to wallow in violence which I find off-putting. I’ve only read Tchaikovsky’s two Children of Time novels. They were OK but no more. Wellington is new to me (and Ian Sales doesn’t think much of his book.)

Macmillan, 2019, 573 p.

This, the third of this year’s BSFA Award nominees for best novel I have read, is not exactly a sequel but does follow on from Children of Time, Tchaikovsky’s big hit from 2018.

The story is told mostly in two strands, Past and Present. Past describes the landing on an alien planet (soon designated Nod) of an expedition from Earth sent to terraform it for future colonies. There is life there already (of strange radially symmetric organisms) and so the leader decides not to terraform Nod but to utilise another water bound world (Damascus) in the same system for that purpose. One of the expedition’s members, Disra Senkovi, has for a long time been working with octopuses to increase their intelligence and usefulness and so this compromise suits all parties. (Senkovi knows the plural ‘octopi’ – as opposed to octopuses – is incorrect but prefers it because he likes its sound and so, annoyingly, Tchaikovsky uses it in all the sections relating to him. At one point, though, Senkovi states ‘octopi’ is “even more incorrect” than ‘octopodes’ – which his boss prefers. ‘Octopodes’ is not incorrect at all, though. It is the Greek plural.) While in the system all communication from Earth ceases as a result of a devastating nuclear war and the expedition is left to itself. After a few years one of the expedition’s members is ‘infected’ by an organism from Nod, which encodes genetic information by the placement of individual atoms on ‘cell’ walls. This swiftly takes over the members on Nod and in orbit around it and sets out for Damascus where Senkovi’s insatiably curious octopuses have spread in its ocean. The vessel is shot down but lands in the ocean. Senkovi invokes a strict prohibition on the crash site, and on Nod itself. Many years down the line the octopuses have utilised the whole sea-bed and one of them ignores the prohibition. The infection spreads once more and the remnant octopuses are reduced to living in orbitals and spaceships.

In Present, Humans (as distinct from pre-uplift humans) and the uplifted spiders from the Kern’s World of Children of Time have detected radio signals from Past’s system and a mission has been sent to investigate. Much of this strand is devoted to the initial contact between Humans-and-spiders and octopuses, the clash between them over approaching whatever it is on the module left orbiting Nod and what is in Damascus’s ocean, the problems of interspecies communication, and the nature of the infecting organism.

Too much is told, however, not shown and Tchaikovsky doesn’t really inhabit the minds of his characters. (Okay, the mindset of spiders and octopuses, not to mention the Nod creature, may be a bit of a stretch but SF readers are used to alienness. It shouldn’t be a problem. In Children of Time the spiders weren’t.) While Children of Ruin does contain some interesting stuff the chunks of exposition and internal monologues can be hard going. Far from not being able to put this down I had difficulty in staying awake while reading it. And it is not short. I fear others have been swayed in their considerations of Children of Ruin’s merits by the relatively novel nature of its aliens.

Pedant’s corner:- “sixty-one degrees centigrade” (sixty-one degrees Celsius,) miniscule (x2, minuscule,) ‘his subjet species’ world view’ (species singular, so, species’s.) “None of them were” (none of them was,) “polarised Calcium ions” (calcium is not a proper noun, no capital C required,) “hoves onto view” (hove is past tense; ‘heaves into view’.) “A string …. rip through her hull” “a string … rips,) “how authentic the simulacra is” (‘simulacra’ is plural, the singular is simulacrum,) “reacted to different stimulus” (‘to a different stimulus’, or, ‘to different stimuli’,) sung (sang.) “None of the entities … are real” (None … is real.) “”Both of them tries to recruit him.” (Both try to recruit him,) childrens’ (children’s,) “the colours stabilize and compliment each other” (complement, and while we’re at it, stabilise. Please,) “And his are a passionate, mercurial people” (his is a passionate, mercurial people,) “anathema to their mind” (minds,) “a living compliment of one hundred and seventeen” (complement,) “a severe under-compliment” (under-complement,) “materials-salvaging” (was split over two lines despite materials being the first word on its line,) octopusus’s (octopuses’.) “Six-eighths of his cerebral capacity … are bent towards that one end” (six-eighths is less than one and hence takes a singular verb form, is bent.) “Two-eighths … remains” ([on the very next page!] does indeed, correctly, have a singular verb form,) “the females have found the thing containment” (????) “one faction has worked themselves up” (‘have worked themselves up,’ would be internally consistent with ‘themselves’ but ‘faction’ is singular so, ‘has worked itself up,) condusive (conducive.) “None of them pay any attention” (None … pays attention,) smidgeon (smidgin, or smidgen.) “The warship faction are making a” (is making.) “The science faction are singing” (is singing.) “The science faction are going to test” (is going,) “fit around” (fitted.)

Pan, 2015, 604 p. (The author’s surname is given as Czajkowski on the copyright page.)

This is this year’s Clarke Award winner. I read it for that reason.

In the last days of the Old Empire it had set up terraforming projects on planets in other solar systems. The plans of the watcher over one of these to seed it with a virus that would exalt monkeys were frustrated by the adherents of Non Ultra Natura, the transfer ship, containing monkeys and virus both, going down in flames. Millenia later the last remnants of humanity, the successors to the old Empire, trying desperately to use its all but forgotten tech to preserve the species by leaving a devastated Earth on the starship Gilgamesh, make an approach to the system and the Sentry Pod housing the watcher, the persona of Avrana Kern. Meanwhile on the planet below, the virus has been doing its work; but on invertebrates. Giant spiders dominate, slowly evolving greater and greater intelligence and cooperation.

Kern’s mission causes her to spurn the remnant humans, warning them off and all but disabling their ship. After an abortive landing an agreement is reached for them to leave for the nearest terraformed planet and never come back. This is a forlorn journey as that planet’s environment turns out to be unsuitable and the commander of the Gilgamesh orders a return.

The chapters set on the Gilgamesh are seen from the viewpoint of Holsten Mason, a classicist (historian) revived from and put into suspended animation at frequent intervals throughout the novel. Those describing the spiders – to whom more or less each successive chapter is devoted – are in a distanced third person. Here sentences like, “Their planet’s oxygen levels are higher than Earth’s,” “Something more virulent than the Black Death,” and, “Hidden in this arachnid Alexandria are remarkable secrets,” are jarring as they relate to things beyond the spiders’ ken. They are there for us, as readers in the twenty-first century. This, I would submit, is poor writing. The use of the same names for the different spiders at various stages of the story (Portia, Bianca and Fabian reoccur frequently) is also somewhat odd, though there is a rationale in that the spiders retain memories of the existence and knowledge of their predecessors through their genetic inheritance.

Avrana Kern has been in communication with the spiders by radio but she is ignorant of the nature of the species which have been exalted until they at last manage to send her a picture. She nevertheless regards them as her children and the remnant humanity on the Gilgamesh as impostors.

That ship’s systems begin to deteriorate badly and Mason witnesses increasing degradation and conflict within the crew as time goes by. However so much of the novel is spent with the spiders that by the time of the final confrontation we have known is inevitable between the two species it is almost they who seem the more human and sympathetic. In this regard the disruptions within the Gilgamesh have rendered its inhabitants less sympathetic to the reader.

The initial chapters were turgid reading with far too much information dumping. While things improved a little later on I could never quite suspend my disbelief at the goings-on on the Gilgamesh. The chapters on the planet were more interesting but even they became overly programmatic (especially Tchaikovsky’s shoe-horning in of arachnid sexual politics.)

I can only conclude that this won the Clarke because of its unusual spidery protagonists. There were certainly at least two novels on this year’s Clarke Award short list that I would consider were better written (as well as one that was considerably worse.)

Pedant’s corner:- The Non Ultra Natura lobby were (the lobby was,) miniscule (x 3; it’s spelled minuscule,) there were a limited number of circumstances (there was a limited number,) species’ (in the singular sense, so species’s, x 2,) loathe (loth or loath, x 2. Loathe in its correct sense of revile is used later,) “it came out more as a plea than he had intended” (as more of a plea?) one antennae (one antenna,) “another handful of her kind are already here” (another handful is here,) “Less than half her infiltration force remain alive” (any fractional value counts as singular so; less than half remains.) “The exploration of Earth’s orbit” (the context implies the solar system not merely Earth’s orbit.) Tiny animicules (usually animalcules,) overlain (overlaid,) “it was as if the human race was unwilling to be freed from their confines” (its confines,) “the host of individual ants reach” (the host reaches,) a host of Paussid beetles are lined up (a host is lined up,) “none …. are familiar” (none is familiar,) “there are a handful” (there is a handful,) the balance are here (the balance is here,) the crew are preparing (the crew is,) some of the crew gather (gathers,) “there were a few” (was,) ditto “there were a handful”, “there were a lot” of looks, “Lain’s tribe have done a remarkable job” (Lain’s tribe has done,) by no ways (either “by no means” or else “in no way” but not “by no ways”,) chromatopores (x 2; chromatophores,) a colony of hundred million insects (of a hundred million.) “The vibrations of the enemy’s approach serves as forewarning (vibrations; therefore “serve”,) “Portia’s band are able to set an ambush” (Portia’s band is able.)

This year it’s Adrian Tchaikovsky for Children of Time. As I mentioned when this year’s short list was annnounced I haven’t read this. The Clarke judges, though, usually choose a worthy winner. Mr Tchaikovsky will need to go on my list.