FSF, May-June 2010

by Spilogale Authors

  Straub does a wonderful job juggling the two time periods and the voices of the characters at different ages. Their stories are told in deceptively simple prose that builds in a slow burn to the conclusion.

  Literate? Yes, but is it such a bad thing to have an author who knows how to use language to its best advantage?

  Not immediate enough? Sorry, but Straub takes us deep into his characters, so that even the ones we don't necessarily like, we can at least understand. And the story is told in such an engaging manner that you just have to keep turning the page.

  If you've ever been one of those readers with reservations about trying Straub's books, A Dark Matter is an excellent entry point. And the great thing is, once you fall in love with his writing, there's a whole library shelf of his earlier works that you can catch up with.

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  Powers: Secret Histories, compiled & edited by John Berlyne, PS Publishing, 2009, UK 40 pounds.

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  I made a joke in the last installment of this column about how authors Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett must have had too much spare time on their hands because of the meticulous detail in their book Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel. I could make the same joke about John Berlyne and his incredibly detailed bibliography of Tim Powers's work. But the truth is, while it might seem obsessive to track down and chronicle all this material, in the end Berlyne is exactly the sort of person who's needed if we're to hold a treasure such as Powers: Secret Histories in our hands.

  This is what all bibliographies should be. Not dry lists of titles and dates that go on for pages, but the same information presented in a lively fashion with anecdotes, commentaries, and profusely illustrated with photos, book covers, and art by the author, all preserved on good, glossy paper stock to show off the illustrated material in its best light.

  Berlyne's introduction is fun, especially when he details how he first became acquainted with Powers's books and his subsequent long search for copies of the Laser editions of the first two. It adds a human face to the proceedings. But really, it's the amazing hoard of Powers material that makes the book such a success.

  Not only does it have everything you might expect from a profusely illustrated bibliography, but more than half the book is the equivalent of a DVD's bonus features: notes, outlines, poetry, even a generous portion of an unpublished 1974 novel, To Serve in Hell. Add to this contributions by Dean Koontz, James P. Blaylock, John Bierer, China Miéville, and Karen Joy Fowler, and you have a wealth of material that will keep you reading for weeks.

  And it looks so good: from the clever cover where Powers's face morphs into a drawing of Byron, through the overall design of the book.

  There's also a three-book slipcased edition featuring a facsimile of the entire original handwritten manuscript for The Anubis Gates and an incomplete early attempt at a novel, The Waters Deep, Deep, Deep.

  Check with PS Publishing as to its availability (store.pspublishing.co.uk).

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  Thresholds, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Viking, 2010, $15.99.

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  This is an incredibly sweet book, and before you start rolling your eyes, listen up. There's nothing's wrong with sweetness. And I don't mean Thresholds is all saccharin and unicorns dancing in rainbows. I just mean there's an underlying goodness to the characters and story.

  The book's aimed at younger readers—middle grade rather than older teens—but it's been a while since the publication of a new Hoffman novel, so I couldn't resist.

  Maya Andersen and her family have just moved to a new town. Maya hates having to move, but at least she finds the people living in the apartment building next door interesting. They wear clothes that are a little different from the norm, speak an unfamiliar language, and keep to themselves. They try to keep Maya at bay, too, but circumstances arise that push her smack into the middle of their extended families, and she discovers the new neighbors aren't just a little different, but literally out of this world.

  The characters are quirky and quickly defined, and the plot is relatively simple, though no less interesting for that. But more importantly, the book offers up a huge sense of wonder: fantastical beings, a magical and strange house, and the Threholds of the book's title that lead ... pretty much everywhere.

  If I'd discovered Thresholds when I was ten or eleven, Hoffman would have immediately become my favorite author. I know it's not for most adult readers—it reads a bit younger than I'd normally choose—but if you have any young friends or family in your life, I urge you to pick this up for them. You might well be starting them on the road to a life-long love of reading in general, and fantasy in particular.

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  Horns, by Joe Hill, William Morrow, 2010, $25.99.

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  Ignatius Perrish wakes up to what might be the worst day of his life. It starts with the horns he discovers growing from his brow, then gets worse when everybody he meets tells him the terrible things they'd like to do (the girl he's living with, the nurse at the clinic he visits to see what's wrong with him, other patients in the clinic) or what they think of him (his parents, brother, his grandmother). None of it's good, but it doesn't get better. Because then he discovers that if he touches their skin he also learns every awful thing they've actually done.

  He feels like he's going mad.

  But it's not the worst day he's ever had. That day was the morning a year ago when he woke up to be arrested for the brutal murder of his childhood sweetheart. We know he didn't do it, but everybody else believes he did. They think he just got away with it, and treat him accordingly.

  Perrish has been away from town for a while and he's not really sure why he came back. Or why he got so drunk the night before he wakes up with horns and went to where his girlfriend was murdered, desecrating the memorial that's been set up for her there. Or why he falls into investigating what actually happened on the night of her death.

  But all the while, the horns keep growing longer, he keeps changing, and nothing is what it seems to be.

  I didn't think I was going to finish this book. I didn't much care for Perrish when I first met him and every character I met after just seemed worse. But the writing is excellent, and then I hit the flashback section with Perrish and the girlfriend who was later murdered (how they met, Perrish's life as a kid) and I was won over—even by Perrish.

  I'm not going to pretend this is a cheerful book. But it is astonishingly good, covering the complete range of human emotion, often in the same character. I was frequently surprised, and while there are many brutal sections, there's also great heart and hope. And I loved the treehouse, of which I'll say no more.

  This isn't a book I'll reread. As I've already said, it's extremely well-written, and that's the problem. The characters and situations feel too real and much of the book is such that I don't want to relive it again. Do I regret reading it? Not remotely, but be forewarned going in. You're about to step onto a real emotional roller coaster.

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  The Future of Fantasy Art, edited by Aly Fell & Duddlebug, Collins Design, 2009, $29.99.

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  With the title in mind as I flipped through this book, my first thought was, if this is the future of fantasy art, shoot me now. That quick flip through made it seem as though all that was to be found in these pages were bikini-clad women (in fur or chain mail bikinis, of course), dragons, warriors, elves, and the like, many of them cartoony rather than realistically portrayed, and lots and lots of garish color.

  Rather than the future, I felt like I was looking into the past—the fairly recent past—or strolling through a convention art show that hadn't been juried.

  But flipping is no way to appreciate an art book. So I went back to the start and was immediately chastised by the frontispiece: an imaginative and well-executed landscape over which are flying what look like monkeys riding long, ribbony shrimp-like creatures, and I was charmed by the incongruous subject matter and skill of the rendering. I can
't find the name of the artist or the title of the piece, but it's well worth seeing.

  As I progressed through the book from that point the art ranged from what I've described in the first paragraph to other paintings as interesting as the frontispiece—in other words, the usual mix you'll get in a collection such as this with so many different artists being represented. Details on the medium and artists’ comments accompany each illustration, as well as their contact information.

  Given the range of art and the contact info, I have the sense that The Future of Fantasy Art is as much a portfolio for art directors as it is a celebration of the art (along the lines of the Spectrum series) and I can see many of the artists producing book covers in the future. So what if a lot of it doesn't appeal to me? If I've learned anything over the years I've been involved in the publishing field, it's that good, effective book covers are not necessarily synonymous with great art, which itself is subjective to a large degree anyway.

  If we consider the proliferation of this sort of art on book covers, current and past, it's not a big stretch to imagine that the style represented here will continue to appear on book covers in the future. And that's not a bad thing, since it does sell books.

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  King Aroo Vol. 1, by Jack Kent, IDW, 2010, $39.95.

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  I've been reading newspaper strips for years and thought I was pretty familiar with the best of them. Even when they weren't contemporary to me (like Krazy Kat or Little Nemo), I've at least been aware of them. So it was a complete surprise when I got a digital copy of Jack Kent's King Aroo to review, because first, I'd never heard of it before, and second, it's just so darn good.

  The stories are set on an island kingdom named Myopia (almost a whole acre big!) with only two humans—the slightly befuddled King Aroo himself and his retinue Yupyop (yes, at different times Yupyop is everything from the Lord High Wizard to the cook, lawyer, gamekeeper...). The rest of the cast is made up of various animals, from dragons and elephants, to kangaroos and fleas.

  It's like Pogo without the overt politics, or Calvin and Hobbes with an older style of cartooning. It has the charm of Mutts, the madcap view of the everyday as seen in Krazy Kat, and the feeling of adventure one could find in the original Donald Duck strips. Kent had lovely loose linework, a terrific sense of design, and a whimsical view of the world that never gets tiresome.

  From start to finish the strips collected here are an absolute delight.

  Completing the package is a short introduction by Sergio Aragones and the first part of a biography by associate editor Bruce Canwell (subsequent parts will appear in later volumes).

  Only viewing the book in digital format, it's hard to say what the production values will be like, but other books I've seen from IDW have always been excellent, so I have no doubt this one will be as good.

  If you're a fan of newspaper strips, do yourself a favor and get acquainted with (or reacquainted with) this enchanting series.

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  Material to be considered for review in this column should be sent to Charles de Lint, P.O. Box 9480, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3V2.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: MUSING ON BOOKS by Michelle West

  Galileo's Dream, by Kim Stanley Robinson, Ballantine Spectra, 2010, $26.

  The God Engines, by John Scalzi, Subterranean Press, 2010, $20.

  On the Edge, by Ilona Andrews, Ace, 2009, $7.99.

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  Kim Stanley Robinson's books have always felt somewhat distant or cerebral to me, which has made many of them both impeccably well-written and unapproachable. I'm therefore uncertain whether or not this particular book is different, or if something in my reading protocols have changed over the years—but I found this book, while possessed of the former, incredibly moving and provocative.

  At its heart is Galileo Galilei. He is both a man entirely of his time, and a man who can think and see beyond it—but only in regards to his beloved science. The book opens on a man concerned with the crowded and financially stressful household over which he presides in Venice, with its workshop, its many servants, the students he's undertaken to teach, and the two illegitimate daughters Marina Gamba bore him. He is, like so many of us, in need of what amounts to a better job in order to meet his many obligations.

  Approached in the market by a stranger, he is told of a glass that can be used to see across distances; intrigued by this, he goes home to experiment with lenses in an attempt to achieve this affect. Mazzoleni is the craftsman at the heart of Galileo's workshop; he hasn't Galileo's mercurial insight—or temper—but he has an instinctive ability to understand exactly what the maestro wants him to build.

  They build a telescope. But the building is a dance of character; in this first on-page endeavor, we see Galileo as he is: driven by the joy of discovery, the frisson of sudden understanding, the almost child-like glee, and the incredible desire to be first, to be significant. Everything else in his life seems subordinate.

  He does manufacture his spyglass; he does present it to the men in power in Venice, and in the end, he does acquire a better job. But this job requires that he leave Venice, and when he does, he leaves his house and its workshop behind. He also leaves his daughters with their mother, for children disrupt his work.

  He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a noble man, and in many authors’ hands, he would be insufferable (and I would be suffused with a longing to kick him across the page in annoyance). But Robinson's handling here makes him human enough that I still liked him while wanting to kick him. I did think he was selfish, self-centered—and he is—but he is also compelling and, in the end, sympathetic. His ego, his sense of his own importance is often the most humorous element on the page.

  So far, so good.

  In novels in which time travel is an important element, I'm not the ideal reader because if the world as laid out to the point of the intervention is strong enough or real enough, I feel the sfnal elements as a break, a change in tone and gravitas. Here, the break in historical narrative is seen entirely through the eyes of a very bewildered Galileo, and it works as part of the mystery of his world.

  Ganymede was the stranger who approached him in the market, and Ganymede is the stranger who, offering him a view into a much better telescope than Galileo himself has been able to build, leads him to the future, in which the moons of Jupiter are populated. What no one—including the reader—understands is why.

  But it becomes clear that Ganymede is politically at war with another faction—or factions—of the council that govern the moons of Jupiter. It also becomes clear that not all of the moon's inhabitants are as impressed with Galileo as Ganymede initially appears to be; Hera, a woman who is not part of Ganymede's faction, is one such; she's polite but she's certainly not deferential.

  After a glimpse of a council meeting, an interruption, and the awe-inspiring sight of the moon itself, Galileo is abruptly returned home to continue with his work—the memories of the event elided by the use of carefully applied drugs. But his work is now guided or encouraged by visits from Ganymede.

  On his second trip to the moons, Galileo witnesses what may be man's first contact with alien life; it is this life, in the seas of Europa, that drives Ganymede to interfere with history. Robinson has done something with his alien life that I think is unique in the genre, although it's hard to talk about it without spoiling significant plot elements.

  In some ways, this book is a biography, and the mystery of the future is, in part due to Galileo's lack of conscious memory, displaced by the weary unfolding of daily struggle, the dream giving way to the waking life. But because different factions in the future have different intents, they allow Galileo access to different things, and he at last is shown his fate: to be burned at the stake as a heretic. Ganymede is attempting to change history subtly, to encourage the adoption of science and scientific principles over religious dogma earlier than it would otherwise happen because he feels it utterl
y necessary for the fate of future man.

  Galileo is not a brave man. He is not a martyr. His sharp and pointed defense of scientific principle is not in conflict with his very genuine Catholicism; in short, he is not a man who has any intention of dying in order to better a future that doesn't involve him anyway. Hera allows him the memory of his own death-by-fire by first depositing him in it, and he hurries back to his life in order to avoid such a death.

  Sadly, he is what he is; his outspoken, angry words are driven by ego and outrage more than by common sense or fear, and in true Greek tragedy fashion, his attempt to ensure that he is not in conflict with the church leads to, well, conflict.

  But conflict continues in the future as well.

  A third party elects to teach Galileo the math and physics that will eventually be derived from his very first experiments; from Newtonian physics to quantum physics, to the physics of the manifold dimensions, of which we can apprehend three. She teaches him the theory of time and the flow of time, to explain how it is he can be here at all.

  It is in the manifold dimensions and our inability to sense more than three that the life at the heart of Europa lies.

  I want to say more about this book. I can't. The climax of the action itself is philosophical in nature, but it is also joyful and astonishing. Humanity, our understanding of what it means to be human, is made moment by moment; it's made by endeavor and understanding and trial; by the alchemy that transforms early experience into wisdom, a wisdom that is earned and not observed. Woven through this is the fate of an individual, the responsibility he has, or should have, to the future, the personal nature of god. And love.

  The closest thing to this novel in feel and in thought is Neal Stephenson's Anathem, but they're entirely different works, and if a book can be said, without pretension, to be profound, it is Galileo's Dream.

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  John Scalzi is known for his wit, his sarcasm, and his offbeat sense of humor. Everything he's written to date has showcased them (this would include his blog). In that regard, The God Engines is a radical departure. It is also his first fantasy, although it's a science fantasy, complete with the spaceships and fleets that are driven by the engines of the title.