The Sam Gunn Omnibus by Ben Bova

Tor Books, 704 pp; $29.95 HBK (US RRP); ISBN 978-0765316172; pub. Feb 2007

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As the title suggests, the The Sam Gunn Omnibus is a fix-up novel that collects all of Ben Bova’s stories about the eponymous hero, written for and published in the US science fiction magazines of the late 1980s and early ’90s.

So, who is Sam Gunn? He’s the boom-bust entrepreneur incarnate, an embodiment of laissez faire capitalism in space exploration who names spaceships after free-market economists and sees a profit in every problem, large or small. He’s also a reincarnated Huck Finn in a space suit; a tireless braggart and womaniser; the natural enemy of rules, regulations and corporate methodology. If it wasn’t for his redeeming habit of helping out his friends en route to his next pile of riches, you’d have to hate him on principle – and most people already do.

And that’s as far as it goes for character development. Gunn is an avatar, a plot device through which Bova explores and exploits the solar system using scientifically plausible methods that governments and corporations have so far refused to use, for various reasons. As such, these tales of the first businesses, hotels and habitats in orbit should be hugely relevant in this era of nascent space tourism operations, inspiring grandiose dreams of a brighter bolder future for our species.

And they might still have been, if the stage wasn’t hogged by the overbearing and improbable Gunn. The other characters are no better - a roster of crude geopolitical stereotypes and caricatures - and it is probably the attitudes implicit in these characterisations that most clearly date these stories as relics of a bygone era. The life of Sam Gunn reads like an apologia for greed and misogyny, and even readers sympathetic with Bova’s yearnings for the human race to escape the gravity well may find themselves tiring of the same successful-underdog plot continually reiterated against a slightly different backdrop.

Perhaps I’ve just missed the point, even though Bova’s introduction suggests that there is no point to miss. As pure escapist wish-fulfilment, the Omnibus succeeds, but the reader in search of true sensawunda may wish to search elsewhere.

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[This review was originally published in Interzone some time early in 2007; the precise issue number currently escapes me. It is offered in lieu of more substantial and original content during this particularly busy week.]

My review of Philip Palmer’s Debatable Space is now online at Strange Horizons:

“Writing an entire novel in the first person is a stylistically brave and challenging exploit to undertake, particularly for one’s début, and in the sections set in the “present” of the multiple viewpoint characters, Palmer doesn’t do too badly. But Lena’s thought-diary sections fall foul of two cardinal sins of novel writing; one general, and one specific to science fiction.”

That’s me off Orbit’s Christmas card list, I think.

The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr - W. W. Norton & Co, Feb 2008; ISBN 978-0393062281

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The Big Switch is tech journalist Nicholas Carr’s attempt to peer a very short way into the future where, instead of a World Wide Web, we will have a World Wide Computer.

It’s a brisk and engaging book, ideal for anyone interested in technology and its interactions with our culture, society and economics.

But in addition to that, it’s written in an almost science fictional mode. Carr is playing the classic game of science fiction writing - the game of “what if this carries on?”

Hence The Big Switch is a great read for sf writers, especially those interested in Mundane SF* and the near-future scenarios familiar to readers of Stross and Doctorow, among many others.

Carr is a respected journalist, but unpopular among the computer industry for making claims that they don’t like. His previous book Does IT Matter? postulated that perhaps the modern business focus on “IT first, everything else second” isn’t the essential path it is often made out to be - probably not the best way to endear yourself to the tech evangelists.

Like its predecessor, The Big Switch turns a critic and skeptical eye on the development of this World Wide Computer, or “The Cloud” as Carr refers to it (a name I would like to claim to have been the first fiction writer to steal and use in context**). The Cloud is the ultimate end-point of web-based applications like GMail, Picnik and so on: software as service; a ubiquitous cloud of computation.

Carr’s central thesis is that computing is becoming a utility. Like electricity before it, computing is a technology that completely revolutionises economic paradigms on a global scale, and Carr samples liberally from the history of electrification to lay the foundations for his arguments in the first third of the book - the whole of which is soundly rooted in simple economic principles.

The idea that we are approaching a world of ubiquitous software-as-service is not what Carr is out to challenge, however. Indeed, he seems to consider it a given, as do most of the detractors he quotes later on. What they and Carr are questioning is whether it will produce McLuhanville, the shiny happy global electronic village that the blue-sky thinkers would have us believe awaits us just around the next corner.

For change is inevitable, but comes with consequences. The increasing penetration of electricity into daily life - both at work and at home - brought greater convenience and a reduction of drudgery, but it also reduced workforce sizes at the same time while replacing many skilled jobs with more menial tasks in service to the more efficient (and tireless) machines, not to mention producing a whole slew of new household tasks that were never considered essential before.

Carr argues that computing-as-utility is already having a similar effect and will continue to do so, and it’s hard to claim he’s wrong. That said, I think he’s overstating some of the problems.

For instance, he worries about the shift among younger consumers to online news sources, where every page has to be monetised on a pay-per-impression basis, leading to an increase in sensationalist stories that may have little relation to neutrality and objectivity, especially in the case of local media.

Which leads me to assume that local media in the US must have been of an infinitely higher standard than ours here in the UK - which has always been exactly the sort of hype-laden fact-free eyeball saccharine that Carr seems worried web media will make ubiquitous. I suspect (and quite understand) that Carr may be unconsciously repeating the fears of an industry he has long been a part of.

The death of investigative reporting is of far greater concern. But it seems curious to me that Carr - a man who uses economics as the engine of his arguments - doesn’t believe that the desire for investigative reporting will create a market for it.

Sure, the old business model of the newspaper ads paying for the bold scribe to head off to the warzones or poke around in the soiled innards of evil corporations and governments is probably finished.

But there is still a significant section of society that wants to learn those things, as well as a section who will want to be the people who find the story and spill the beans. The payment channels will emerge somehow; the market will find a way … though I’m not so ignorant of economic principles as to suggest that there won’t be any blood on the carpet in the process.

But what if the web, instead of bringing us into the global village of mutual communication, actually enhances the societal rifts that already exist? Carr cites studies of political bloggers (left and right) in the US that suggest the vast majority of them read and link strictly within their own spheres of belief, rarely linking to dissenting views. Which is almost certainly true - but there’s wiggle room in that interpretation.

It doesn’t seem to take into account that people blogging on politics are generally the sort of obsessive axe-grinders who had no interest in dissenting views before the internet arrived***. It also skips the fact that the hypothetical “clean slate” reader (if such a person can even exist) can get both sides of the picture if they so choose, from the same screen using the same search engine**** - something that no newspaper has ever enabled before.

Carr’s concerns are justified - but overemphasised, perhaps. Only time will tell. But enough of my opinions - I’m no economist, nor a politician. The point of the above paragraphs is to indicate that this is the sort of book that gets your brain working overtime. By suggesting potential futures, Carr makes you test them, examine them, poke them with metaphorical sticks - and come up with your own in response.

And as such, The Big Switch is a great book for science fiction writers and readers who like to adventure beyond the stories and into the technology from time to time.

I mean, come on - if even ten years ago you had suggested that one of the world’s most respected technology journalists would write a book in which he not only declares that the CEOs of the world’s biggest computing company are obsessed with turning that company’s infrastructure into a huge artificial intelligence, but also claims that he thinks they have a good chance of achieving it***** … well, you’d have filed it under sf straight away, wouldn’t you?

Times change, quickly - The Big Switch lets us look at what might be around the next hairpin.

Meanwhile, there’s a brief interview with Carr at Wired, and his blog Rough Type is a good addition to the RSS collection of any genuinely open-minded futurist.

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[* If it's not an oxymoron to be interested in Mundane SF, as some people claim.]

[** Though some bugger has doubtless beaten me to it decades ago in a story I've never read.]

[*** Political blogs generally tend to horrify me, regardless of the side of the spectrum they are written from. And if the writers are scary, the commenters often make me ashamed to be human.]

[**** Although here the spectre of search engines voluntarily self-censoring for oppressive regimes does raise its head, but that's a very complicated issue.]

[***** Not quite the way we think of AI, granted, but close enough.]

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# Full disclosure - received my ARC of The Big Switch from Nicholas Carr’s publicist after applying for one in a giveaway at Rough Type (Carr’s blog). I was under no obligation to review it, and have only done so because I genuinely believe it will be of interest to my readers here at VCTB. #

I expect many of you will have already noticed that the guys at SF Signal were short of more erudite commentators, and hence decided to ask me to contribute to their new “Mind Meld” feature. The question was:

“From your point of view, how has the proliferation of online book reviews affected the publishing world?”

The responses are very interesting, actually - quite harmonious in many respects, though with everyone playing their own little melodic riffs on the theme. Go take a look, leave some comments over there.

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While we’re on the subject of the effect of the web on genre fiction, here’s an intriguing thinking-out-loud post from Jeremiah Tolbert, who’s wondering where he should be submitting to build up his short fiction career:

“For a while, I decided that I would only submit my work to places that would take electronic submissions. I was making so little off of the sales that I did make that it wasn’t worth the cost of postage and envelopes. I haven’t decided whether I should change that policy yet or not, honestly. So many ‘zines do take electronic submissions now. Which don’t? F&SF, Asimov’s, and Analog. The so-called “Big Three.”

I’m kind of curious to see if I can build a reputation for myself without appearing in those markets. They don’t pay that much better than anyone else, and their circulation isn’t spectacular (although it may be better than just about everyone except Escape Pod). It’s kind of weird, but for the purposes of building an audience, I think making reprint sales to Escape Pod might be the best thing I can do for myself.

That’s a very weird situation, and really represents the state of the industry.”

The man has a point. Your thoughts?

Well, the Readercon panel on book reviews seems to have generated a lot of dicussion around the issue … kind of the inverse of the Eastercon panel, which took place after the worst of the smoke had cleared from that particular salvo.

But here’s the inestimable Paul Kincaid, hitting the nail on the head and describing my own standpoint on how and why I review books almost exactly:

“My own credo is simple. A review should be honest (any reviewer who allows her opinion to be swayed by friendship, bribery, peer pressure or whatever, is not worth reading), defensible (I don’t mind if people disagree with my judgement, I am quite used to being the only critic to hold a certain position, pro or con, on any particular book, but I want to be sure the readers can see why I reached that particular judgement), and, so far as I am able, well written (a review is also an entertainment, the reader should be rewarded for taking the time to read the piece). This credo, it should be noted, is an aspiration; I have no idea how close I ever get to achieving it.

Notice I say nothing about reviews being good or bad, positive or negative. It is part of the honesty of a review that if you don’t think a book is any good you have to say so. It is also part of the honesty of a review to recognise that very very few books are entirely wonderful or entirely terrible, and the job of a reviewer is to identify and note that balance. Because of that I do not believe I write positive reviews, or negative reviews – but I hope I write honest reviews.”

Result. Paul Kincaid is one of my newly-inherited reviews team at Interzone, which - given his pedigree and experience - is quite bizarre, because by rights he should be the person editing me. Though I doubt he wants the administrative headaches that come with the post - another indicator of his native common sense!

He and I (and others) are keen to see what comes from Jonathan’s plans for Son of Scalpel, too. This debate - for better or for worse - probably has a good few years mileage in it yet.

Of course it’s a Clute review - look at the evidence:

“Inside the world of a Gibson novel, under the terrible Symmes sun that brands from within the skins we used to wear, readers and utterands tend to express a kind of meat-puppet digitalis, like marathon dancers unable to stop until the music kills them.”

One of a kind reviews one of a kind. I love the smell of genre in the morning.

It looks like Penguin are going to use cyberspace to promote the man who coined the phrase (but doesn’t like to talk about it), too. [Cheers, Ariel.]

“Dark Space” by Marianne de Pierres (Book 1 of The Sentients of Orion)

Orbit Books, May 2007; 432pp, UK PBK; ISBN-13: 978-1841494289

Reviewed by Paul Raven

WARNING: This critique can be considered to contain ’spoilers’.

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The strapline reads “Dark space is not really dark. Neither is it empty.” Twisting this to refer to the book itself, it’s half right: Dark Space is certainly not empty. It is, however, very dark. Unflinchingly so; it’s a complex and exciting novel, almost devoid of cheap sentiment and comfortable vindication. It’s not a cheerful read, but it is a very rewarding one.One of the established modes of science fiction is the story that asks “what if this carries on?” With Dark Space, de Pierres is performing a variation of that mode, which we might choose to describe as “what if this happened again?” Having created a world that draws heavily on the politics (and to some extent the language and other trappings) of the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, de Pierres is able to examine societies and interpersonal relationships from feminist and Marxist angles without seemingly having any particular axe to grind other than that of general progressiveness – though a more coherent agenda promises to reveal itself over the course of the series.

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If you want to read my entire critique of de Pierres’ “Dark Space”, you’ll need to pop over to T3A Space, of course. I know, I’m such a tease …

Charles Stross - The Jennifer Morgue - Golden Gryphon Press, November 2006 (US), ISBN 1930846452

Charles Stross is probably best known for his singularity-flavoured science fiction, exemplified by the fix-up novel Accelerando (which netted its author an award from the World Transhumanist Association, as well as nominations for more conventional sfnal plaudits). However, he’s unafraid to trek off into different pastures, as The Jennifer Morgue demonstrates - there are sf tropes, plus fantastic and Lovecraftian horror elements, all wrapped up in another genre tradition that Stross has openly expressed his affection for - the classic British spy thriller.

Naturally, Stross being Stross, there-s more than a soupcon of dry humour involved. So we have as our hero one Bob Howard, who is employed as a computer expert (read as “hacker”) by The Laundry, a branch of the British Secret Service devoted to keeping a lid on multidimensional manifestations.

You see, magic is just mathematics, which means that the age of ubiquitous computing has made it very easy for some naive or stupid coder to accidentally invoke a hungry daemon or vengeful demigod, simply by trying to number-crunch the wrong formula. To paraphrase Bob, he’s no necromancer himself, but “he does countermeasures”. Basically, he’s a clean-up artist.

Or at least he used to be - right up until his employers saddled him with some active duty fieldwork, psychically entangled him with a demonically-possessed mermaid-in-mufti, and dispatched him to the Caribbean with instructions to infiltrate the machinations of a megalomaniac corporate uber-villain, complete with gun-toting goons, an immense yacht-fortress and a foul-tempered fluffy white cat.

If that sounds a little obvious, it’s supposed to. In many ways, The Jennifer Morgue is a work of metafiction - a playful, knowing and openly self-confessed deconstruction of James Bond novel and movie plots, mocking them and revelling in them at the same time. Each supporting character is a gag or cliché in his or her own right; for example, Pinky and Brains, a pair of exceptionally camp and gadget-obsessed tech support operatives who furnish Bob with the requisite tools for the task.

And the gadgets themselves, of course; Bob doesn’t get given Bond’s Aston Martin and Walther PPK, but has to make do with a two-seater Smart car and a Treo smartphone that fires silver-jacketed exorcism rounds. Bob’s innate cynicism comes through in the first-person narration, which deflects the outright silliness of the ideas into the realm of tragic comedy and farce and avoids the snake-pit of superficial spoof.

But does it work? Stross chipped into a recent resurgence of internet-based debate regarding the perennial “decline and fall of the genre” meme. In a nutshell, he suggested that one way to grow sf’s readership might be to “pitch for the Slashdot generation”, to write explicitly for an audience of intelligent and geekish outsiders who should (by rights and tradition) be sf literature’s core audience - and would be, if there was more material that flicked the right switches for them.

The Jennifer Morgue seems to encapsulate this demographic targeting, with our hero Bob providing a sympathetic lead to identify with. He hates management, ties and PowerPoint presentations; he shops online for T-shirts emblazoned with internet in-jokes; he is the socially-stunted computer nerd at your office, thrust into an unfamiliar world of deadly intrigue and occult nastiness which he sets about to hack as if it were a defective operating system.

The Jennifer Morgue is a fun book. And it’s funny too, provided you either know the Bond clichés backwards or you�re a paid-up member of the geek-and-proud subculture - probably doubly funny, should you place at the intersection of those two sets. And therein lies the flaw: The Jennifer Morgue is somewhat exclusive, in that a lot of the in-jokes and post-modernist nudges will fly straight past the average bookstore browser.

However, as a naked pitch for the I.T. crowd whose lingua franca is one of irony, knowing pastiche and a lot of acronyms, it fits the bill perfectly. Only time will tell just how hungry that audience really is for long-form written fiction. But if Stross has surmised correctly, The Jennifer Morgue’s place in the padded laptop-bags of the techno-elite is already reserved.

[This review originally published in Vector #250; reproduced here with the kind permission of the editors.]

You may or may not have noticed that today’s Strange Horizons review of Extended Play: the Elastic Book of Music was written by me.

That’s my first piece for SH, and I’m very chuffed to see it there. It’s always a proud moment to see your work appear in a new venue, especially one as respected as Strange Horizons.

Coincidentally, it was probably one of the hardest reviews to write I’ve ever done, due to the wide range of story styles and genres included in the anthology. Let me know if you think I nailed it.

Having been out of town on the relevant evening, I’m late to the field in trumpeting the launch of Scalpel Magazine (although I actually mentioned it ages ago, and let the cat somewhat out of the bag in the process). Most of the genre blogosphere appears to have taken the news of a new reviews and criticism outlet fairly positively, notwithstanding Nick Mamatas and friends. There’s some fine content on there, too. I for one hope it will last the course - and not merely because I want another venue to send my own work to, either.

Pat Cadigan’s guest editorial for Scalpel mentions the decline of book reviews in mainstream print media, which is a hot topic at the moment, especially in the US. I’ve found that the Print Is Dead blog has had some wise things to say on the matter. Meanwhile, the UK’s very own Grumpy Old Bookman has added his dime to the jukebox:

“Finally, however, let us remember one simple fact. However erudite the print reviewer may be, and however exquisite his taste and critical judgement, he is handicapped by comparison with the most humble blogger. Our print man cannot link directly to other sources.

This is, I would suggest, a major problem. Twenty years ago, of course, no one could even imagine it. But now it has to be faced.”

That’s about right, I think. I’m not gloating about the declining relevance of print media (in reference to book reviews or anything else), but nor am I willing to shut my eyes on what, to me, is an obvious and irresistable trend. Selah.