Gollancz, 2018, 324 p, plus ii p Acknowledgements.

That I have read Newman’s Planetfall sequence in the wrong order (3,4,2,1 to be precise) doesn’t really matter that much as they can all be read as stand alone titles. Here, we are in the years after an expedition to another planet under the guidance of a woman called The Pathfinder in search of God. On landing the expedition’s members found what is now called God’s city. This is an “organic citadel” like a “huge forest of baobab trees tangled round one another,” and, when hot, grows tendrils to manage the heat.

The story is narrated by expedition member Renata Ghali (Ren,) the settlement’s 3D printer engineer, whose later revelation to be a hoarder whose home pod is piled with rubbish stolen from the settlement’s recycling machine, the Masher, is an indication of possible unreliability. She is troubled by fellow expedition member Cillian Mackenzie (Mack,) whose resolve held the community together after the Pathfinder did not return from a foray inside God’s City, saying she was “communing with the creator,” and telling them all to await her return. What has evolved in the colony in the years since is in effect a cult.

Some time after The Pathfinder’s disappearance, other members of the original expedition were lost elsewhere on the planet. Plot kicks in when a lone outsider called Lee Sung-Soo, a survivor of those lost colonists, who is also The Pathfinder’s grandson, turns up at the city.

Ren’s obligations to Mack take her inside God’s city, a strange unsettling place where perspectives shift and passageways can suddenly change orientation. Her explorations lead her to wonder whether the colonists are the first or if there have been previous visitors to the planet; visitors who could only have been alien.

As things unfold we discover what actually happened to The Pathfinder inside God’s city, the revelation of which to the colony has ramifications for Ren, Mack and the settlement as whole.

Newman’s writing is not in question. She is particularly good on Ren’s mental disintegration.

The integration of religious elements with an SF setting is a little awkward though.

Pedant’s corner:- Printed in USian, bacteria (the word is treated as if it’s singular – but that would be bacterium,) outside of (x 2: just ‘outside’; no ‘of’,) “none of them satisfy me” (none of them satisfies me,) “in the opposite direction of God’s city” (it’s ‘opposite direction to’ not ‘opposite direction of’.) “None of them were looking at me” (None of them was looking at me.) “None of them are good” (None of them is good.) “None of them are paying attention” (None of them is paying attention,) “neither of them say anything” (neither of them says anything.) “None of them are listening” (None of them is listening,) “our species’ capacity” (species here is singular; so ‘the capacity of our species would be better.) “None of them are familiar” (None of them is familiar.)

I recently sent off to Parsec magazine my review of Solstice by Ruth Aylett and Greg Michaelson, a book which I picked up* at the first Pictcon in Perth a month or so ago. A very successful first con it has to be said. Pictcon focuses on the Scottish SF and fantasy scene.

Editor Ian Whates has chosen to run it so that review will not appear here for a while.

Meanwhile he has sent me Reality Rift by Fred Gambino, a follow-up to that author’s first novel Dark Shepherd.

*By picked up I mean “blagged with the promise of a review on the blog and the chance of ParSec running it.”

The latest book I have received to review for ParSec is Exiles by Mason Coile.

This was one of only two SF books in the most recent list of upcoming publications up for review.

I have not previously read anything by the author.

However, the accompanying blurb tells me Mason Coile is a pseudonym of Andrew Pyper, award winning author of William and ten other novels. These seem to be works in the thriller or horror genres. William was published as by Mason Coile, though.

Sadly, the blurb also says Pyper died in January 2025.

Andrew Pyper: 29/3/1968 – 3/2/2025. So it goes.

MacMillan, 2025, 347 p. Reviewed for ParSec 13.

Twenty years ago the Soundfield appeared overhead. Ever since, temperatures have continued to soar, UV radiation makes going out in daylight all but deadly, food is short, parts of the world up to and including Italy are devoid of humans, and refugees are countless. People in Britain now sleep during the day and carry out whatever business they can at night.

Hannah Williams lectures on genetics at a college but her life is complicated by her son, Isaac, who cannot speak, only sign, must be kept occupied and also looked after by someone else if she is busy.

They are living in a dystopia. The Government is essentially authoritarian, dissenters can be shot, (refugees have been in the past when trying to come ashore,) agents of the Atavism Programme are ever vigilant, looking for children who connect with the Soundfield’s constant hum and its occasional musical calls. Isaac’s tendency to sing at these moments is why Hannah is so protective of him. She does not wish to lose him to the Programme. (How Isaac can sing when he can’t speak is unexplained.) The ongoing story of their lives in this harsh world has its menace heightened by the author’s use of the present tense. The passages where Hannah remembers her past life, before the Soundfield and when she was part of the first investigations into it, are in the past tense. Hannah’s part in that investigation was carried out in collaboration with a team led by Elias, a physicist, with whom she had a relationship.

Examination of the field showed it to contain the components of air, in the normal proportions, but also small dust particles, inert minerals and silica, some bacteria and fungi, “as if a microscopic layer of the ground had been scooped up and held in suspension thirty kilometres up, creating a dome that sealed the Earth.” Video footage revealed it to be moving, like waves. “A thin taut membrane that vibrates thousands of times a second.”

Hannah’s lectures centre on the FOXP2 gene. This is usually invariant and has been for millions of years – except for the (relatively) recent two changes which coincided with the development of language in humans.

Her breakthrough in trying to understand the Soundfield came with studying the EK family, who all had developmental verbal dyspraxia. In them, one of the bases on the FOXP2 gene had reverted to its previous state.

This is an unusual piece of SF as writers in the genre do not usually consider the evolution of language nor its connection to music.  Through Hannah, Martin tells us language and music are combinatorial, made up of individual units that stack together to give new structures, but are also recursive and innate. But as Hannah says to Elias, “We are biologically programmed to speak, but also to listen to and produce music.” She suggests speech and music co-evolved from a musical protolanguage and wonders if that might be what the Soundfield is producing. The publishing of her results, though, is the trigger for the Atavism Programme and Hannah’s present predicament.

The dystopian aspects of the novel are reasonably similar to other works in that vein (autocracies do tend to be similar in their repressions, as are people’s reactions to them) but Martin combines them with a concern for family and relationships. As in all human interactions, though, betrayal and jeopardy are never far away.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- “on his hoody” (usually spelled hoodie, as it is later in the book,) “of the front frow” (front row,) “much more hands-on that it used to be” (than it used to be,) “a man with a short beard wearing a bullet-proof vest” (why would a beard wear a vest? Try ‘a short-bearded man wearing a bullet-proof vest,) “the old stationary store” (stationery store,) “‘what do you parents do?’” (do your parents,) “outside of” (x 2, just ‘outside’ no ‘of’,) “‘there was only once choice’” (only one choice,) “in Elias’ team” (Elias’s – which appears later,) phenomes (the passage was about phonemes,) sat (several times; ‘sitting’,) span (spun,) focussed (focused,) “in the middle of wide, open room” (of a wide, open room,) “‘to make sure your safe’” (you’re safe.)

You may have noticed on my sidebar the cover of The Hamlet by Joanna Corrance. This is the latest book sent to me by ParSec magazine for review.

Corrance is a Scottish writer, based in the Highlands, but I have not read any of her work before.

The Hamlet is short, being novella length. It shouldn’t take me long. To read that is.

I don’t normally do this year summation thing before Christmas (it offends my sensibilities to do such a thing before the full time span has elapsed) but in this case I don’t think I’ll be adding to the total before New Year.

I seem to have read 26 Scottish books so far this year (the definition of Scottish is loose;) 13 by women and 13 by men. Four were Science Fiction, Fantasy or Fable, two collections of shorter fiction, one was poetry and one was a fictionalised memoir. The links below are to my reviews of those books.

World Out of Mind by J T McIntosh

News of the Dead by James Robertson 

The Little Snake by A L Kennedy 

Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides by Kevin MacNeil

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

The Second Cut by Louise Welsh

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan

Solution Three by Naomi Mitchison

Not to Disturb by Muriel Spark

Dust on the Paw by Robin Jenkins

The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett

Queen of Clouds by Neil Williamson

Kitchenly 434 by Alan Warner

An Apple From a Tree by Margaret Elphinstone

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson

Squeaky Clean by Callum McSorley

The Hothouse by the East River by Muriel Spark

The Other Side of Stone by Linda Cracknell

To the Dogs by Louise Welsh

The Changeling by Robin Jenkins

Aunt Bel by Guy McCrone

Conquest by Nina Allan

Xstabeth by David Keenan

Borges and Me by Jay Parini  

The Silver Bough by Neil Gunn  (review to be posted here soon.)

Yesterday, Lake of Darkness, the latest novel from Adam Roberts, was handed over by our postman.

Another one for review in ParSec.

Judging by the blurb it’s a murder mystery involving a black hole.

The cover you will notice features a spaceship.

That ship seems to be streamlined, more like a jet fighter in fact.

I wonder what atmosphere it would need to pass through to make streamlining necessary.

Last week one of British Science Fiction’s stalwarts, Brian Stableford, died.

Of the more than eighty books he published in his lifetime I have a mere eight on my shelves. He also wrote many shorter works of  fiction, being a copious contributor to Interzone over the years.

I see from the BSFA’s obituary in the link above that he also translated over 200 novels of early French SF and Fantasy into English. Prolific doesn’t cover it.

Brian Michael Stableford: 25/7/1948 – 24/2/2024. So it goes.

I saw in Saturday’s Guardian that writer D G Compton has also died (in November. They took their time publishing the obituary.)

His was a familiar name on the British SF scene from the 1960s onwards but his work was always a little out of the SF mainstream.

However looking at my records I only seem to have one of his books on my shelves, Nomansland, published in 1993.

David Guy (D G) Compton: 19/8/1930 – 10/11/2023. So it goes.

These are in order of reading; 18 in total, 9 by women, 10 by men, 8 by Scots (italicised,) 4 translations, 1 SF/Fantasy. The links are to the reviews on here:-

Paradise Reclaimed by Halldór Laxness 

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker 

For the Good Times by David Keenan

The Infinities by John Banville

Wild Geese by Nan Shepherd  

Paper Cup by Karen Campbell

A Would-Be Saint by Robin Jenkins 

Master of the Crossroads by Madison Smartt Bell 

Beethoven’s Assassins by Andrew Crumey  (my review was published in ParSec 8 and will appear here in due course.)     

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell 

The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams

Fishnet by Kirstin Innes 

The Gaze by Elif Shafak

Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell 

O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker 

Cybele, with Bluebonnets by Charles L Harness

Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez

My present read (Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie) may be an addition to this list (but then again it may not.)