Analog SFF, September 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  This month we start with two books that are very definitely idea-dominated stories.

  * * * *

  Hylozoic

  Rudy Rucker

  Tor, 336 pages, $25.95 (Hardcover)

  ISBN: 978-0-7653-2074-2

  Genre: Singularity/Transhuman

  Series: Postsingular 2

  * * * *

  Reading a Rudy Rucker novel is like entering the dreams of a more-than-slightly mad genius, or going on the Alice in Wonderland ride in a theme park designed by the likes of Stephen Hawking. There's no fighting it or making sense of it; just relax and enjoy the ride. You're in the hands of a master.

  By the end of Postsingular, the physical world was infected by nano ... constructs (one can't really call them machines) called silps, which imbue every object with consciousness, personality, and a form of telepathy. At the same time, human beings gained a number of abilities, including telepathy, teleportation, and integration with the worldwide emergent intelligence Gaia, affectionately known as the “Big Pig."

  And that was all in the prequel.

  Hylozoic picks up shortly thereafter, in this newly awakened world. “Hylozoism,” according to a helpful epigraph, is a doctrine that “every object is claimed to have some degree or sense of life.” None of this, by the way, is magic: it's all nanotechnology, quantum entanglement, and the emergent properties of molecular computers.

  The cast of Postsingular returns in Hylozoic. Newlyweds Jayjay and Thuy, along with their friends, have turned their lives into a hit 24/7 telepathic reality show called Founders. As the book opens, Jayjay and Thuy are putting up a cabin in the woods—a process that involves gaining the sympathy and co-operation of the silps that control rocks, trees, the ground, and a petulant local stream. When all is right, the couple (with a little help from their friends) teleport their already constructed cabin from San Francisco to the prepared spot in the woods. Then everyone parties late into the night.

  Except, of course, Jayjay, who follows a sentient pitchfork down a surreal beanstalk ten tridecillion levels into subdimensions, where he discovers an alien entity that promptly takes control of his mind.

  It seems that Earth, in becoming a postsingularity world, has attracted the attention of all kinds of alien beings from various planets, dimensions, and other-universe branes. Some aliens are helpful, some are amused, some want to make what profit they can off of Earth, and others are really malevolent. It's not at all easy to tell which is which, but Jayjay and Thuy are going to have to if Earth has any chance of controlling its own destiny.

  Along the way there's the painter Hieronymous Bosch (who just might be an avatar of yet another godlike alien), an enchanted harp, runes of power engraved on individual silicon atoms, and adventures on a parallel Earth called the Hibrane ... and then it starts to get truly weird.

  If you've never read Rudy Rucker before, by now you're probably shaking your head and furtively looking around for the egress. So, undoubtedly, were the hapless Victorians who first followed Alice down that rabbit hole. And you know how much fun that journey turned out to be.

  Rudy Rucker is this generation's Lewis Carroll, and if you can have enormous fun if you relax and put yourself in his more-than-capable hands. Rucker plays with the frontiers of quantum physics and cosmology with his tongue firmly in his cheek and a manic grin on his lips. Don't think about it too hard; like any good dream, the whole thing falls apart once you try to makes sense of it. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. And above all, keep your hands inside the car at all times.

  * * * *

  Buyout

  Alexander C. Irvine

  Del Rey, 319 pages, $14.00 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-0-345-49433-7

  Genre: Psychological/Sociological SF

  * * * *

  Buyout is a different kind of idea-dominated story. In Hylozoic, the ideas fly fast and furious, breeding and mutating before your eyes like so many unruly microorganisms. Buyout is a more classic, more familiar form in which the author brings one big idea onto the stage, then builds a whole show around it. In this case, the idea is social rather than scientific, and probably even more plausible today than when the author started work on the book.

  In the all-too-familiar California of 2039, the prison system is overloaded and taxpayers are going broke paying to house and feed the hordes of life inmates. So here's the idea presented by Scott and Jocelyn Krakauer, an entrepreneurial couple who have made their way up through the world of finance to the highest levels of the insurance business: the life-term buyout. Prisoners serving life without parole are given the choice to be executed, in return for a payment of several million dollars to family, friends, victims, or charities. The deal winds up being cheaper for taxpayers, and allows a murderer to take care of his family, ease the suffering of victims’ survivors, and do some good for society. As Scott and Jocelyn present the notion, it's a win-win situation.

  Enter Martin Kindred, middle-aged insurance salesman for a failing company, in a deteriorating marriage. Scott and Jocelyn choose Martin as their point man, the one who will sell eligible prisoners on buyouts. If he takes the job, Martin will become the public face of the life-term buyout. In return, Martin will receive substantial bonuses for each buyout deal he closes. If Martin declines the job offer, he'll be unemployed.

  Opinions in Martin's family vary. His wife is against the idea. His father and brother, former and current cops respectively, are in favor of buyouts and support Martin's choice to take the job. His best friend Charlie, a private eye, is doubtful about buyouts ... and also concerned that Martin won't be able to handle the pressure. In fact, Charlie takes on a job with Martin's company so that he can help his friend.

  At first, things are fine. Half a dozen buyouts go well, and Martin makes a good deal of money. There is some resistance in society, most notably a fringe group called Priceless Life. Yet all is not well; Martin's marriage slides toward divorce, his school-age daughters show signs of stress, and Charlie gets more worried.

  Then a famous film producer is sentenced to life in prison for killing his girlfriend, and he agrees to a life-term buyout. Suddenly, Martin is in the bull's eye of publicity.

  In the wake of this case, Martin finds himself of the trail of a mystery. For buyouts are not as simple as they seem ... and Martin and Charlie soon uncover a conspiracy leading to personal danger and the requisite surprising revelations.

  The suspense/conspiracy story gives the book a workable plot. Martin, Charlie, and the others are credible characters. But the real test of an idea-based novel is how well it does at exploring the main idea.

  All in all, Buyout does a fairly good job of investigating the ramifications of it main idea. Life-term buyouts raise a number of moral, philosophical, and legal questions, and Irvine examines many of them. How to go about establishing life-term buyouts, the best candidates for the first buyouts, handling negative publicity—Irvine rings the changes on the idea in a satisfactory way. And at the end of the book, the reader is left with plenty to ponder.

  One test for an idea-based novel is whether a reader is still thinking about the idea a week or two later. Buyout passes that test.

  * * * *

  Flinx Transcendent

  Alan Dean Foster

  Del Rey, 398 pages, $26.00 (hardcover)

  ISBN: 978-0-345-49607-2

  Genres: Animal Companions,

  Galactic Empires

  Series: Humanx Commonwealth,

  Pip & Flinx 15

  * * * *

  Alan Dean Foster made his name by writing movie novelizations. There was a time when just about every sf or fantasy movie that hit the big screen was accompanied by an Alan Dean Foster novelization. (One of my all-time favorite cartoons appeared in 1984, when the unlamented DeLaurentiis version of Dune was released and Frank Herbert was still very much alive. The cartoon shows a Hollywood producer on the phone, Dune posters on the wall behind him, and he's saying, “But Frank, baby, Alan Dean Foster writes all our
novelizations.” But I digress.)

  Anyone who uses those novelizations to dismiss Foster is making a big mistake. There's a reason he was the go-to guy for novelizations: he's a great storyteller. And nowhere is his storytelling ability better demonstrated than in his decades-long saga of Pip and Flinx.

  Flinx (Philip Lynx) is a redheaded, green-eyed human with psi abilities; his companion Pip is a miniature telepathic flying dragon. Across fourteen previous books Pip and Flinx have had various adventures throughout Foster's larger universe, a multi-species hegemony known as the Humanx Commonwealth.

  This time around, Flinx is on his biggest mission, working to prevent a threat called the Great Evil from destroying ... well, everything. To foil the Great Evil, Flinx and Pip will have to travel across the Commonwealth and even beyond the universe, revisit elements from their past, and convince disparate and hostile species to work together. Along the way there are plenty of wonderful sights to see and action enough for any summer movie blockbuster.

  In a well-constructed series, any particular book can be read out of sequence. That's certainly true of the Pip and Flinx books. If you've never had the pleasure, or if you've missed some volumes along the way, don't be afraid to dive into Flinx Transcendent. Foster gives you everything you need to follow the story.

  For the reader who's followed Pip and Flinx all along the way, this book is even more of a delight. All the strands of Flinx's life come together (he even revisits the Tar-Aiym Krang from the very first book) delightfully.

  The Humanx Commonwealth, and the Flinx series in particular, is a great example of the multi-culture, multi-species galactic society that Star Trek thought it was portraying. Fascinating aliens, diverse planets, exotic cultures—they're all here. In fact, in this book Flinx himself states what could very well be the overarching theme of the whole Humanx Commonwealth universe. Another character speaks wistfully of a time “when people were confined to one world and believed it constituted the whole universe ... [t]hey never had to worry about the survival of a civilization composed of dozens of star systems and species.” Flinx disagrees: “...they also worried that shape, or smell, or language differences or belief systems were important. They didn't know that all that matters is sentience and sensibility."

  Flinx Transcendent is billed as Flinx's last adventure, and it does wrap up things in a satisfactory package. If it truly is the last Flinx book, readers who have come to know and love the duo will be disappointed. But I wouldn't worry: if there are two things you can count on in science fiction, they are the fact that no one ever really dies, and no popular series ever really ends while its author is alive. And sometimes, not even then.

  * * * *

  The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction,

  Volume Three

  Edited by George Mann

  Solaris, 406 pages,

  $7.99 (mass market paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-84416-599-5

  Genre: Original Anthology

  * * * *

  Solaris and George Mann continue to provide a venue for some very good science fiction. Volume Three contains fifteen stories ranging from steampunk to love stories to alternate history to good old dystopian futures. The contents page is heavy on Brits, which may say something about the state of American sf (or maybe about the ease of transatlantic communication). Among the Big Names are Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Paul Di Filippo, Ian Watson, and Ken MacLeod.

  Among the standout stories are Alastair Reynolds’ “The Fixation,” which is a fascinating take on alternate universes, and John Meaney's “Necroflux Day,” which shows us a fully realized society that's neither past nor future but just different. (The nearest comparison I can come up with is to Cordwainer Smith, not on the basis of style or substance but mainly for pure uniqueness.)

  Reviewing this anthology for Analog readers is a snap. I'm going to assume that if you're reading this column, you like Analog. If you like Analog, you'll like The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three. It's as simple as that.

  We can all hope that Mann is hard at work on Volume Four. n Copyright © 2009 Don Sakers

  Don Sakers is the author of A Rose From Old Terra and Dance for the Ivory Madonna. For more information, visit www.scatteredworlds.com.

  * * * *

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  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Reader's Department: BRASS TACKS

  Dear Mr. Schmidt,

  I absolutely loved your editorial in the May 2009 issue of Analog! You hooked me from the first line and didn't let go to the very last. Voting and elections are such contentious issues in the U.S. but I think you hit the nail on the head: too much is at stake to just give up.

  Thanks!

  Rachel Bexell

  Coon Rapids, MN

  * * * *

  Dear Stan,

  Either “A Story, With Beans” left out some background on the “People of the Book” religious enclave, or author Steve Gould has committed a Biblical boo-boo.

  The story establishes, early on, that the sectarians rely on Bibles (and very few other books) purchased from the outside world. Soon after, though, we learn that the first chapter of the sectarian's holy book tells a story about ten plagues.

  However, the Biblical account of the ten plagues does not appear in the first chapter (or even in the first book) of the Bible. In fact, the ten plagues do not appear in any one chapter of the Bible at all, as the Bible takes several chapters to tell that story. (The first plague appears in Exodus, Chapter Seven. The second through fourth plagues appear in Chapter Eight. The fifth through seventh appear in Chapter Nine. The eighth and ninth appear in Chapter Ten, and the tenth appears in Chapter Eleven.)

  Either Mr. Gould wishes to convey that the sectarians’ version of the Bible discards Genesis, discards the first six chapters of Exodus, and conflates the next five chapters of Exodus into one—or (more probably) Mr. Gould has committed the authorial sin of not actually checking a source before citing it.

  Kate Gladstone

  Albany, NY

  * * * *

  The author replies...

  All perfectly possible interpretations.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr. Schmidt,

  In the May Brass Tacks, you reply to Fred Bushnell's comments on Rocks. You've got it a bit wrong. Pure gravity doesn't cause a decaying orbit since gravity is a conservative for
ce. The decaying orbits we are familiar with are of satellites in near circular orbits about the Earth. During all or part of the orbit the Earth's atmosphere causes friction (a non-conservative force), which causes the orbit to gradually decay.

  A rock approaching a planet from a distance will be on an elliptical or hyperbolic orbit. Usually it will be deflected by the planet's gravity but just fly on by. If it comes close enough to enter the planet's atmosphere it may be captured by the planet. What happens then depends upon its mass. If it is small enough it burns up. If it is larger it (or part of it) will reach the surface of the planet without significant commotion. If it is really massive, it will shove the atmosphere aside producing a really destructive shock wave. In any event, it wouldn't spiral in. Fred's right.

  Yours truly,

  James C. Wilcox

  * * * *

  You're partly right: I did slip and misspeak when I said the atmosphere had nothing to do with it. And Fred may not have been assuming what it sounded like to me, but he was at least mistaken in assuming that the atmosphere would have no effect on the incoming body. If it got close enough to enter the atmosphere at all, friction would have the effect I think we're all agreed on. If it were coming almost straight in, that effect might be negligible, producing an effect much as Fred describes. But at a sufficiently glancing angle, the result would be a gradually decaying orbit in the form of a flat spiral, as I said.

  * * * *

  Dear Dr. Schmidt,

  Thank you for both publishing my letter [Brass Tacks, May 2009] and taking the time to respond to it. After reading your response, I concluded that some clarification of my position might be in order.

  I do not believe we very much disagree with your contention that to be important a book should have “pressing relevance” to the reader. I just wished to point out that it is unlikely to have that relevance unless it reaches that reader. If its readability suffers to such an extent that a reader is unable or unwilling to work through it, how can that person find it relevant? While a duty to make the effort does indeed reside with the reader (which I believe to be your point) a greater duty resides (I believe) with the author. I do not know you personally, so I may be blackguarding you unfairly, but is it not something of the same arrogance as you are accusing the compilers of the list, to assume the failure to find it important is caused by reader laziness in not even trying to understand the content? Above all else, an author is a communicator. Is it not the duty of the communicator to make his communication clear? I do agree with you that it often is not easy. Many of your writers of the Science Fact section do, however, succeed admirably in accomplishing that. I simply maintain that if it can be done it should be done.