Analog SFF, June 2009
Page 21
“You're taking the line that it's an authentic Vermeer?”
“Well isn't it? Same hand, same eye, same spirit. We have much to learn from it. I'm doing an article for Art Directions celebrating the appearance of a new Vermeer in our world. Why not? The music world doesn't have these prejudices. And I heard there's a project afoot to get another play out of Shakespeare.”
“It'll open the floodgates.”
“About time.” Elphinstone finished his drink and looked around for a waiter.
“Look,” Peter said. “I think Kimberly's going to make a statement.”
They moved with the crowd to get closer. The 3D-cameramen were jockeying for position and reporters were shouting questions that were lost in the noise.
Kimberly got them quieted down. She was stunning in the jet-black mourning pants suit that her designer had whipped up for her overnight. The cleavage was tasteful and covered with a wispy mesh. Tiffany's had provided an approximation of the pearl earrings in the painting.
“Shhh!” Peter shushed a reporter who was trying to get a quote from Elphinstone.
Kimberly was doing the somber bit as well as she did everything else. She had toned down her natural vivacity, and even managed to have a tear trickle down her cheek, fortunately without damage to her waterproof makeup.
“Thank you all for coming. You've all heard about Harry's tragic end in the seventeenth century, where he gave his life to bring art and beauty to this world of ours. It's truly a tragedy that he can't be here with us to share this moment of his triumph. But he's buried in Delft, a city that he came to love, though it's a Delft in another universe. The painting that I brought back with me is Harry's legacy to this universe and does honor to his memory.”
She dabbed at another photogenic tear. “It's a legacy that will always keep Harry Brock's name alive in this here and now, and I will always be faithful to the memory of that dear, dear man.”
In another time, flashbulbs would have been going off, but as it was, the ambient light suddenly intensified all at once as the photographers made the most of the moment.
Kimberly's trademark liveliness returned without a skipped beat, and she said, “Now you'll all want to see the world's newest Vermeer masterpiece. A note to the press: the painting will be on display to the public for the next two weeks here at the gallery.
White-gloved attendants were removing the velvet ropes in front of the alcove, and there was a rush to be the first in line. Peter passed up the opportunity to take advantage of his position, and got in line with the rest. Out of a sense of noblesse oblige, he let Elphinstone get in line ahead of him.
When it was his turn, he stood in front of the painting for most of the allotted minute. It was his first chance to get a good close-up look. He'd watched the portrait taking shape day by day for months, but he'd always been standing well to the side. And then, in the excitement after the mysterious intruder had been led away by the hound beaters, he hadn't thought to examine the canvas. Vermeer had had it wrapped up in a trice, it had been borne away by Kimberly, and he hadn't seen it since.
It was beautiful, otherworldly. The woman in the picture was unmistakably Kimberly, but it was a Kimberly that transcended reality. Peter let out his breath, and in his remaining seconds turned his attention to the curved mirror in the background, where Harry's scrambled image was trapped for eternity.
Ignoring the attendant who was telling him his time was up, he turned around to see what Harry's image looked like in the real curved mirror on the opposite wall.
It wasn't Harry.
There, with a decidedly lubricious expression on its face, was the image that Vermeer had painted of himself.
Copyright © 2009 Donald Moffitt
[Back to Table of Contents]
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Reader's Department: THE REFERENCE LIBRARY
by Don Sakers
The Walls of the Universe
Paul Melko
Tor, 384 pages, $25.95 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1997-5
Genres: Adventure SF, Parallel Worlds/Other Dimensions
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Every so often, a young man receives a strange gift or develops an unusual ability, and then goes on to adventures that explore some classic idea in SF. It happened with Kip Russell and alien invasion in Robert A. Heinlein's Have Space Suit, Will Travel; with Daniel Eakins and time travel in David Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself ; with Davy Rice and teleportation in Jumper by Steven Gould, and to various other heroes of classic Heinlein and André Norton juveniles.
Meet John Rayburn, and prepare for an action-packed tour through parallel universes.
John, a high school senior, is minding his own business on his family's farm when he encounters a surprising visitor: himself. Or rather, an alternate version of himself from a parallel universe, John Prime. Prime has a portable device that allows him to travel between parallel universes, each of which is numbered (John's home universe is 7533). Prime has a get-rich-quick scheme, and he wants John's help. Rubik's Cube, familiar to Prime but unknown in John's universe, will make them a fortune. Countless other universes must contain countless inventions that could be exploited.
To prove his fantastic story, Prime offers to loan John the transfer device for 12 hours, so John can travel to a few other universes and then return. John agrees, and jumps into universe 7534. And that's when things start to go wrong.
When the 12 hours are over and he tries to return to 7533, John learns the awful truth: the device is broken. It only counts forward, not back. Prime lied to him, took over his life, and exiled him from his home universe.
John soon learns that parallel universes are dangerous places. Some are tantalizingly familiar, others completely alien. He encounters vicious beasts, merciless police states, and the nightmare danger of materializing inside a marble wall or buried in the ground, immobile and forever unable to reach the button that activates the device. Further, he discovers that there are other cross-universe travelers out there: some high-tech societies routinely exile their criminals and troublemakers to lower-tech universes, where they prey on the inhabitants.
John finds a universe not unlike his own and determines to settle down and devote his time to trying to understand (and possibly fix) the transfer device. In the process, he accidentally introduces pinball to his new universe ... and soon, he has attracted the attention of some mysterious bad guys.
This sort of book usually includes a coming-of-age story, and The Walls of the Universe is no exception. John faces serious questions of morality, starting with the temptation to trick another John Rayburn like Prime tricked him—and culminating with the inevitable moment when he holds Prime's fate in his own hands.
All in all, the story of how John triumphs over his various difficulties is fun and exciting. The Walls of the Universe is definitely recommended.
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City at the Edge of Time
Greg Bear
Del Rey, 476 pages, $27.00 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-345-44839-2
All the Windwracked Stars
Elizabeth Bear
Tor, 368 pages, $24.95 (hardcover)
Genres: Dying Earth, Far Future/Clarke's Law, Science Fantasy
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As usual, it started with H.G. Wells. In The Time Machine he presented a far-future in which everything had worn down: the Earth, the human race, even the Sun. John Campbell's “Twilight” and Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night further explored these cold, cheerless eras, where advanced science became decadent magic, and science fiction was all but indistinguishable from fantasy. It fell to Jack Vance to produce the book that would give this subgenre its generally accepted name: The Dying Earth.
Dying Earth novels have been out of favor in recent years. In fantasy, the subgenre devolved (what else?) into generic sword-and-sorcery; in SF, it seemed that Michael Moorcock's “Dancers at the End of Time” series had said everything there was to say.
N
ow, two writers named Bear have blazed trails into this long-unexplored territory, and they've come back with some pretty compelling visions.
Greg Bear's City at the End of Time begins in the present day with three dreamers: Daniel, Ginny, and Jack. Each, in his or her own way, is cast adrift in time; each, in his or her own way, is linked with a city in the unimaginably distant future. This city, the Kalpa, is the last crumbling refuge against the final night. And before the end comes, all three dreamers have their parts to play.
Elizabeth Bear's All the Windwracked Stars starts with the desolate aftermath of a battle, the defeat of the Children of Light on the Norse-flavored world of Valdyrgard. Two survivors of that battle find each other: Muire, the last Valkyrie, and Kasimir, a winged steed.
Curtain falls, rising 2300 years later. Human civilization on Valdyrgard, once risen to tremendous heights, has fallen; one decrepit domed city remains, ruled by the despotic Technomancer. Muire walks the city in search of something she never expected: another surviving Child of Light.
These are two very different books, but they share some of the same sensibilities: grand expanses of time, epic events, technology so advanced that it's magic, powerful heroes and implacable villains, and the constant presence of entropy and despair so palpable that they might as well be characters in the story. This is science fiction taken to the level of mythology. If that sort of thing appeals to you, this is one Bear market you don't want to miss.
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Steal Across the Sky
Nancy Kress
Tor, 336 pages, $25.95 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1986-9
Genres: Alien Beings, Other Worlds,
Psychological/Sociological SF,
Religious/Philosophical SF
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I don't think Nancy Kress can write a bad book.
Aliens land on the moon and place an ad on the Internet (it's the best way to reach a lot of people in a hurry). Calling themselves the Atoners, they claim that ten thousand years ago, they wronged humanity, and now they're looking for volunteers to visit seven planets to “Witness.” The Atoners won't reveal the nature of their foul deed, nor will they show themselves in person.
Cam, Lucca, and Soledad are the team of Witnesses dispatched to the Kular system. As Steal Across the Sky opens, they arrive and survey the two inhabited planets. Lucca takes a shuttle down to Kular A, while Cam descends to Kular B. Soledad stays behind in the mothership to coordinate communications and handle emergencies.
Both Kular worlds are inhabited by humans, descended from seed stock the Atoners stole from Earth ten thousand years ago. As Lucca and Cam play amateur anthropologists in the fascinating, pre-industrial societies of their respective worlds, they have no clue what they're looking for: the Atoners have only told them that they'll know it when they see it.
Kress spends the first half of the novel carefully and artfully revealing the big secret; I'm going to blab it in the next paragraph. If you don't want to know ahead of time, stop reading this review and go enjoy Steal Across the Sky with my blessing. The book is well worth your time.
Still here? Eventually it develops that the people of Kular A (but not Kular B) seem to be able to see and converse with the recently dead. All humans once had this ability; the crime of the Atoners is that they removed the associated genes from the human race. They set up Kular A and B (as well as seven other pairs of inhabited planets) as laboratory experiments: altered humans on one world, control groups of unaltered humans on the other.
Another writer would spend the rest of the book exploring the implications of this idea: the meaning of death, the nature of the afterlife, the impact on human religion, philosophy, and science. It's a huge theme, with repercussions for all of humanity. But Nancy Kress is no ordinary SF writer, and she knows that sometimes world-altering events can best be approached through their effect on individual people. She chooses to follow the Witnesses back to Earth, and in the second half of the book she unravels their own very personal responses to what they've experienced.
One Witness, refusing to believe in life after death, withdraws into seclusion. Another becomes a media superstar, preaching the gospel of the Atoners in revivalist style. Yet another accepts government relocation, trying to rebuild as normal a life as possible. Meanwhile, the Atoners go silent, retreating into their sealed moonbase and saying nothing.
Ultimately, the fates of all the Witnesses come together and all questions are answered, including the biggest one: what are the Atoners up to?
Thought-provoking and powerful, Steal Across the Sky is a book that will stay with you long after your reach the last page. Highly recommended.
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The Unincorporated Man
Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin
Tor, 480 pages, $25.95 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1899-2
Genres: Future Worlds, Psychological/
Sociological SF
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In science fiction circles, it is an article of faith that anything can be a subject for an SF story. Politics, sex, violence, slavery, cannibalism, religion: nothing is too controversial or too obscure to be the basis of an SF novel.
In The Unincorporated Man, the subject is economic theory.
In the twenty-fourth century, everyone is incorporated, and nobody gets anything for free. From birth, individuals sell shares of themselves: to parents, teachers, even the doctors who attended one's birth. As a result, the average adult spends half a lifetime buying back shares in an attempt to gain majority control of one's own life.
Into this world comes Justin Cord, a twenty-first century billionaire who was secretly put into suspended animation after his death. By now, resurrecting and curing Cord is trivial; the big problem is that he is the only unincorporated individual in the world. And this erstwhile tycoon is a poor match for the utopian society into which he's awakened.
It's an interesting and compelling idea; unfortunately, the Kollin brothers don't succeed in turning the idea into an equally interesting and compelling novel.
Let me be perfectly clear, I am making no judgment on the idea, just the execution of the story. The characters never really come alive: they are merely placeholders in the authors’ exploration of their world. Even Justin Cord, who was obviously meant to be the most sympathetic and appealing character, is nothing more than a cardboard mouthpiece.
Science fiction writers always have the challenge of introducing background information to the reader. One common pitfall is the infodump: an indigestible mass of data that brings the story to a crashing halt. The Unincorporated Man is filled with infodumps, many of which would be more at home in Corporate Investing for Dummies or a similar book.
Another technique is to introduce a naive observer, such as a traveler from another place or time. As the observer learns, so does the reader. Nancy Kress deftly uses this technique to great effect in Steal Across the Sky, as her Witnesses learn about the worlds upon which they've landed. In The Unincorporated Man the same technique is awkward and disruptive. Justin Cord is always learning about his new world in long expository passages that don't fit and serve to slow down the reader.
The plot of The Unincorporated Man is mainly an excuse to get Justin Cord touring the world so the reader can learn about the underlying economic theory. The villains are bad not because of any underlying human motivations, but because, well, you need to have some bad guys. If this future world has any serious flaw, it's that life is too perfect. In the fullness of time, Justin inspires revolution throughout the Solar System, the bad guys are defeated, and all is well.
The Unincorporated Man comes accompanied by breathless publicity proclaiming it to be groundbreaking and important, and quotes likening it to Heinlein. Treat these claims as hyperbole. Heinlein at his best was an exceptional storyteller; the storytelling here is, to be generous, pedestrian.
If you're looking for a good novel, I would counsel you to look elsewhere.
So who w
ould like this book? Among your circle of friends, look for the hardcore libertarians—those who think that all roads should be toll roads, or that the greatest evil in the modern world is the income tax. Or those who can quote Ayn Rand chapter and verse. Recommend The Unincorporated Man to them, and they'll be eternally grateful. And if you don't have anyone like that among your circle of friends, you need to get out more and make more friends.
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Death From the Skies!
Philip Plait, Ph.D.
Viking, 326 pages, $25.95 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-670-01997-7
Genre: Popular Nonfiction
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Philip Plait is a professional astronomer and runs the popular-science website www. badastronomy.com. In Death From the Skies! he's produced a fun yet factual book that should be of interest to just about any Analog reader—or writer!
In nine chapters of easy, informal prose, Plait examines and explains many different astronomical phenomena that could result in the end of the world. From asteroid impacts and solar flare-ups to crashing galaxies and the heat-death of the universe, Plait educates his readers in modern astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Along the way he touches on supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, stellar evolution, mass extinction events, the history of the universe, and even the possibilities of alien life.
Plait's style recalls the playfulness of George Gamow and the sense-of-wonder of Carl Sagan. There's plenty of humor here; the first sentence is “The universe is trying to kill you.” What's not to like?
By the time you finish Death From the Skies! you will learn something, even if you start with the average Analog reader's familiarity with modern astronomical knowledge. And you'll certainly know a few more ways to destroy the planet. (A helpful appendix lists 24 nearby stars that will eventually go supernova.) When you're done, you can give the book to a bright child or other science enthusiast in confidence that they will enjoy it as well.
Copyright © 2009 Don Sakers
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