Science Fiction

I’ve read the first few books in Lois McMaster Bujold’s long-running Vorkosigan Saga and reviewed them in the the last couple SF Book reviews. In short, I’ve really enjoyed them, and now I’ve read five more books in the series.

At this point, it’s hard to talk about the series without giving a little background info to start with. This, by necessity, means some spoilers, which I’ll try to keep at a minimum (if you’re sold on the series and want to get started, just skip to the last paragraph of this post). Here goes: In Shards of Honor, Cordelia Naismith of Beta Colony meets Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar, and they get married around the time Aral becomes the Regent of Barrayar (the planet is ruled by a military class called the Vor, which consists of an Emperor and a bunch of Counts. A Regent is appointed when the current Emperor is not yet old enough to take the throne). Barrayar is a largely feudal society, so there’s lots of Machiavellian scheming going on, and thus Aral’s Regency was not unchallenged. An assassination attempt exposed the pregnant Cordelia to a teratogenic gas. All survived, including the fetus, but the baby was born with several birth defects, including most notably brittle bones.

That covers the first two books in the series (in a really frighteningly abrupt manner that leaves a ton of important stuff out!), and in The Warrior’s Apprentice we are introduced to Miles Vorkosigan, who has grown up in a world that hates and fears “mutants” like himself. Unable to depend on physical prowess, Miles instead relies on his powers of observation and quick-thinking wit. He doesn’t give in to the urge for self-pity, but he isn’t one-dimensional caricature of a man driven by demons either. Bujold tends to write his stories from his perspective, so we get lots of visibility to what’s going on in his head, and he’s always thinking ten steps ahead (as is required of him). In The Warrior’s Apprentice, he fails to get into the Barrayaran Military Academy due to his physical infirmities, after which he stumbles into a military conflict involving mercenaries, eventually improvising a mercenary fleet of his own (called the Dendarii Free Mercenaries) and foiling a political plot against his father. His mercenary fleet only knows him as Miles Naismith and does not know of his connections to Barrayar, which is a good thing, because Miles and his father propose making them Barrayar’s secret army. Impressed, but given few options, the young Emperor pulls strings to get Miles accepted into the Barrayaran Military academy. Whew. That took longer and was probably more spoilery than I intended, but it gives you the appropriate background (I assure you, Bujold is much better at explaining all this! Read the first three books!)

• The Vor Game – The novel opens with Miles Vorkosigan graduation, followed by his assignment to the Barrayaran equivalent of an arctic outpost (i.e. not a very desirable position). It turns out that the commander there (General Metzov) is rather insane, and a confrontation leads to a career wrecking scandal for Miles. His only option at that point is to work for Barrayaran intelligence, but of course, his first mission there goes belly up as well, forcing him to take command of the Dendarii Mercenaries (again) in order to help save his Emperor. Oh, and there’s a Cetagandan invasion fleet on its way to Barrayar too. Yes, it’s difficult to describe this plot, but it’s an excellent novel, and Bujold deftly maneuvers around various pitfalls and tropes.

  Bujold does a particularly good job with the initial confrontation with the mad General Metzov. Miles has been ordered to participate in a massacre that is most probably illegal. However, disobeying orders isn’t exactly a good option either. Miles isn’t just a newly minted soldier. He’s a Vor Lord, a member of the military caste, son of the Prime Minister (and former Regent) and cousin of the current Emperor. And he’s faced with an impossible choice here. Participate in an atrocity, or potentially ruin his life, maybe even taking his father with him and soiling the family name. What do you do when all the available options are bad? It’s a recurring theme in these books – and Miles can’t just make decisions for himself, he has to constantly consider the political, social and cultural ramifications of his actions.

  Later in the book, he runs across the errant Emperor, where Bujold has steadfastly declined to give in to cliche. Emperor Gregor has been in the series since he was a little boy, protected by Miles’ parents during an attempted coup. Miles and Gregor grew up as playmates (inasmuch as the Emperor-to-be could have playmates) and in the hands of a lesser writer, Gregor would have grown into a tyrant that would be the flip-side of Miles’s honor. Or something. But Bujold avoids that temptation without going too far in the opposite direction. Gregor is, in himself, a most interesting character. He’s got his flaws and some major problems, which we see in this novel, but he’s not a tyrant either.

  In the end, it’s easy to see why this got the Hugo award for best novel. I don’t think it’s Bujold’s best, but it’s definitely a great novel and well worth a read.

• Cetaganda – One of the great things about this series of novels is that Bujuld doesn’t stick to one type of story for all the books. The series is primarily comprised of Space Opera stories, but there are a number of books that stray from the path, and this is one of them. Miles and his cousin Ivan (who is Miles’s cousin and something of a foil, usually referred to by Miles as “That idiot Ivan.”) are sent to represent Barrayar at the Imperial funeral of the dowager Empress, mother of the current Cetagandan Emperor. The Cetagandans are generally the villains of the Vorkosigan universe, so you can imagine that when Miles gets into trouble (which happens almost immediately upon arrival), things get hairy pretty quickly. In essence, this novel takes the form of a murder mystery, with some espionage and political wrangling thrown in for effect. The Cetagandan empire has a multi-tiered aristocracy, along with numerous castes and an almost inconceivable list of customs, traditions, and ceremonies. Like the best SF, Bujold keeps the info-dumps to a minimum, letting us infer the details of all this from the context of the story. Of course, Miles is in-over-his-head almost immediately, yet he manages to pull it out (that’s not really a spoiler, right?). Indeed, given his earlier career (as discussed above, along with the fact that his exploits with the Dendarii Mercenaries can’t be trumpeted), his success on Cetaganda proves almost politically embarrassing! This is actually the most recently written book of the ones listed in this post, though it is placed rather early in the actual chronology. I guess this is getting a bit repetitive, but it’s a good, fun read, handled with wit and care, like all of Bujold’s work.
• Ethan of Athos – Perhaps the most unusual of the novels in the series in that it does not feature Miles (or anyone from his family) at all, instead focusing on Dr. Ethan Urquhart, from the planet Athos – a planet entirely populated by men. It’s an isolated and reclusive planet that does not seek any real outside contact. They reproduce using uterine replicators (something mentioned often in the series, actually), basically technological wombs where children can be grown. However, they do require certain genetic materials, which means that someone has to go out into the big bad galaxy and secure some new biological samples. Ethan is their man, but he’s quickly embroiled in a galactic conspiracy. He is helped in his task by Commander Elli Quinn of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries (which is one of the ways in which this book connects with the rest of the series). When we last saw Quinn, she had her face blown off during a battle in The Warrior’s Apprentice, but she has since had reconstructive surgery, and is now quite the beauty. Given that Ethan has never had contact with women, this makes for a somewhat interesting dynamic. The bulk of the action takes place on a space station and it takes the form of an espionage thriller. This was actually among the first books of the series to be published, and I think you can see that, but once again, it’s a really good story, and provides you with some background information on an important character (Elli Quinn) and obliquely connects with a couple other books in the series. Another good read.
• Borders of Infinity – Ah, this is the book that causes a great deal of confusion for those of us seeking to read the series in chronological order. It’s basically a collection of three 100 page (or so) novellas, with some connective tissue provided in the form of an interview conducted by Simon Illyan, who is the head of the dreaded Barrayaran Imperial Security Service (basically an intelligence organization). However, the confusion comes in because each story takes place between other books in the series. I tried to read them in the appropriate order, but kinda messed up because the connective tissue takes place after Brothers in Arms (which is the next book below). No matter, because these are three of the best stories in the series.

  The first story, entitled “The Mountains of Mourning” is particularly effective, and it even earned Bujold a (well-earned) Hugo award for best novella. It’s another of the murder/mysteries, but it takes place in the backwoods of Barrayar, allowing Bujold to explore certain Barrayaran prejudices – especially for their intolerance to birth defects or “mutants”. This is particularly impactful because Miles is, himself, something of a mutant, and he has a lot of political considerations to make during this investigation.

  In “Labyrinth”, Bujold tells a somewhat less plausible tale, but it is one which connects with Ethan of Athos and Cetaganda a bit, and it is quite an enjoyable read. I’m kinda curious as to whether or not the character Taura will make another appearance in the series (it would certainly be a welcome development!) The third and final story, “The Borders of Infinity” starts a little strangely, but it quickly escalates, and Bujold manages a few interesting twists in what basically amounts to a prison-break story. It ends on a bit of a tragic note, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

  Like a lot of short story collections, this one doesn’t quite work as a whole as much as a single novel would, but that’s to be expected, and each individual story is truly excellent. Indeed, I would put “The Mountains of Mourning” up as one of the best stories in the series, and the other two aren’t too shabby either. If you’re looking at reading the series and think it’s ok to skip these because they’re “only novellas”, think again – these are really fantastic and should not be skipped. I believe they’re better integrated into the omnibus editions that are now in print, but that’s probably a topic for another post someday.

• Brothers in Arms – One of the things I’ve always found somewhat improbably about this series was that Miles would be able to lead an entire fleet of mercenaries without anyone noticing that he was one of the most famous Barrayaran noblemen in the galaxy. In this book, Bujold solves that problem rather handily. If I tell you how she did so, well, it will sound ridiculous. And it kinda is. In the hands of a lesser writer, it might have fallen flat, but Bujold does an excellent job executing her solution here. It’s almost comedic, though she never quite goes that far (if you just accept the premise and go with it, you’ll find yourself laughing). However, by the time of the time you reach this novel, she’s laid all the groundwork, and it actually fits rather well. The story itself is more of a political espionage tale, and quite a good one at that. Elli Quinn makes another appearance here, and the story ends at a point that leads into the whole connective tissue parts of Borders of Infinity. I expect to see more of a few of these characters in later books as well.

Yes, I’m completely hooked by this series. The only reason I haven’t devoured the 8 remaining books is that I’m deliberately trying to prolong the experience, as I will no doubt experience a bit of withdrawal when I finish the series. Of course, the most recent installment was just published last year, so more books are not out of the question.

I heartily recommend the series. If you’re interested, I would start with Shards of Honor (or the omnibus edition called Cordelia’s Honor, which features Shards of Honor and the hugo-award winning Barrayar) which primarily deals with Miles’s parents, or The Warrior’s Apprentice (which is probably easier found as part of the omnibus called Young Miles, which features The Warrior’s Apprentice, “The Mountains of Mourning” from Borders of Infinity (another Hugo winner), and The Vor Game (yet another Hugo award winner)). Actually, I think those two omnibus editions are an excellent deal, and will give you a significant amount of the series with just two purchases… Well worth it, if you ask me.

So the last book queue I posted at the beginning of this year had 12 books on it, and I’ve made great strides against that list. Only 4 remain, and I’m halfway through one of those. I’ve also read at least 7 other books that weren’t on that list (mostly Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga books, of which only the first was on the original list). With only 3 books remaining, I’m looking to fill up the immediate queue again.

Holdovers

The four remaining books from my last queue…

• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond: It’s been a bit of a slog. Two weeks of reading, and I’m still only about halfway through it. However, it’s gotten better as I’ve read. It still hasn’t quite overcome the bad first impression, but there is at least some interesting stuff going on now. I plan to nail it down this week.
• Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville: I admit, this is getting ridiculous. This has been in the queue, even sitting on my shelf, for years. I will definitely get to this one this year.
• Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter: I’m making such good progress this year, but I have a feeling that if I start this, even if I’m reading every day, it will take me a long time to finish it off. It’s a 900+ page book, with small type and dense material that I’m sure I’ll really enjoy, but which will totally break the momentum I’ve built up this year. Definitely in 2012 though!
• Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon: Trashy noir novel by Pynchon? Sounds awesome (also apparently being adapted by Paul Thomas Anderson for the screen, so I want to read this before that movie comes out). This one hasn’t even been on the list that long though, so it’s not a big deal that it’s a holdover. Will definitely get to it this year.

Vorkosigan Saga

I started Lois McMaster Bujold’s long-running series of science fiction novels mostly (but not solely) chronicling the adventures of the physically diminutive but mentally gifted Miles Vorkosigan. So far this year, I’ve read 7 novels in the (loosely connected) series. I’ve got a whole stack of other books just waiting on my shelf now too… and Bujold just released a new one last year, so there’s always the chance of more books in the future! I don’t know if these are the nerdiest books I’ve ever read, but referring to them as the Vorkosigan Saga certainly makes it seem so… In any case, this is what I’ve got left in the series. I’m trying not to read too many of these in a row – I can already sense that I’ll be a bit bummed when I finish the series because I very much enjoy spending time with these characters:

• Brothers in Arms
• Mirror Dance
• Memory
• Komarr
• A Civil Campaign
• Diplomatic Immunity
• Cryoburn

New Stuff

Pretty self explanatory:

• Readme by Neal Stephenson: I’ve already posted about this several times. Stephenson is probably my favorite author, so of course a new novel will immediately jump to the top of the queue (even though it’s a 900+ page behemoth). Comes out in September.
• The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge: I’ve also posted about how much I’m looking forward to this one, another book in Vinge’s Zones of Thought universe (not really a series, though maybe, kinda, sorta). This one comes out in October and will probably jump to the top of the queue after I finish Reamde.
• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi: A science fiction heist story. I am so there.
• Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale: The first in a series of crime novels by Lansdale, whom you may know from his work on Bubba Ho-Tep (a book/movie where a black JFK and an old Elvis fight a mummy in a modern-day Texas retirement home). I’m not anticipating a book that’s quite that crazy, but this series seems to get some good reviews, so I’ll check it out…

So that’s 15 books right there, which should keep me busy through the end of the year. Of course, new books will undoubtedly be added (especially since I’ve just noticed that there’s no new non-fiction on the list) and so on, but that is the way of the book queue.

It’s been a while since I followed up on my book queues (and some of the books on here weren’t even on the queue, they just jumped to the top of the queue – which is probably why the queue is so long).

• Doomsday Book by Connie Willis – This is one of a notable few SF novels to have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel (technically this book tied with another Kaedrin favorite, Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep, for the Hugo). Indeed, Willis has apparently written a few other novels in the same universe, and they seem to have racked up the awards as well. This particular installment is about time-traveling historians. Young Kivrin is travelling back to the 14th century to observe daily life. Her mentor and father-figure, Dunworthy, is against the trip from the start, as it’s a dangerous era and the further back in time you travel, the less precise the technology becomes. The novel proceeds on two main timelines – One at a futuristic Oxford University, the other at a small 14th century town. This is clearly not a predictive novel – the future Oxford is quite absurd at times (in particular, the lack of communication infrastructure is ridiculous – they don’t even have much in the way of telephones, let alone cell phones or the internets). I don’t know enough about history to say whether or not the 14th century bits are more realistic, but they seem more appropriate. Of course, it doesn’t really matter. The story is effective on its own merits, and it operates according to its own internal logic, which is quite sound. One thing I found refreshing for a time-travel story is that there is no real consideration or recursive examination of paradoxes and the like. There are some off-hand references to the fact that the time travel mechanism won’t let you change the past, but there isn’t much in the way of circular causality events or anything resembling that sort of time-travel pyrotechnics that you see so frequently. Indeed, Kivrin might as well have been traveling to a dangerous alien planet. That being said, the historical section plays out in an interesting fashion. I won’t get into too much detail here, but I will say that diseases are involved (in both timelines) and that Willis is brutally unforgiving. Her style is prosaic, more like classical hard SF, which kinda gave me a false sense of security. But Willis managed to pull the rug out from underneath me – several times. It might not seem like it at the beginning of the novel, but this isn’t a book for the faint of heart. That being said, there is a hint of redemption and hope at the very end of the novel. I enjoyed this and may someday get around to the others in the series, but I’m not exactly in a hurry to do so.
• The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth – Widely considered to be the best SF novel produced by the Futurians – a group of SF fans who eventually turned into editors and authors themselves, often focusing less on hard science and more on sociology and politics. This book is basically a satirical look at advertising and consumerism, and as such, it’s actually still pretty relevant today (even if the specifics of technology are a bit odd at this point). The story follows an advertising copywriter, Mitch Courtenay, who gets ahold of a big new account (Venus!), and all the inter-office intrigue that he has to deal with. It goes some cliched places, but this book probably helped shape some cliches in itself. Stylistically, there’s nothing special going on here, though the pages seem to turn themselves pretty quickly. It’s a short book and a very easy, fun read.
• Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold – Bujold is one of the authors that seemed to pick up the pieces after the whole Cyberpunk thing happened, returning SF to its Cambellian origins. This is a pretty straightforward space opera, though a very well executed one that I probably enjoyed more than any of the other books in this post. The story concerns a Betan scientist named Cordelia and her encounter with Lord Vorkosigan, of the Barrayarans. At first, they are enemies, but they quickly develop into more. And of course, they are surrounded by war and conflict between their two peoples, and during the course of the story, we’re treated to all sorts of deceptions and treachery. This probably makes it sound trashy, and maybe it is, but it’s still great fun. This book is apparently part of a large, wide-ranging series of books. Opinions differ as to which way to read them – in order of publication, or in order of internal chronology. Either way, Shards of Honor is the start of the series (i.e. it’s the first published and the first in the chronology). I’ve already purchased the next two internal chronology books though, and am greatly looking forward to reading them.
• Time’s Eye – A Christmas gift from my brother, and apparently also the first in a series of novels, this particular book starts out with a premise similar to Clarke’s 2001. One day, a bunch of Spherical objects (i.e. objects similar in concept to the Monolith) appear on the planet, and suddenly, the planet is a jumble of times. It seems that each region of the planet (the size of the regions appear to be small, though no definites are given) has been replaced with an earlier version of itself, sometimes stretching back millions of years. As such, most of the planet is now devoid of humanity. This story concerns itself with 5 main groups of people. Two are modern (a 3-person UN Peacekeeping team and a 3-person crew of Astronauts who were orbiting the planet at the time of the event), one relatively contemporary contingent (a British regiment, circa late 19th century, stationed in India), and two ancient powers (Alexander the Great’s Macedonian army, and Ghengis Khan’s Mongolian hoards). If you like the concept of modern folks mixing with historical folks (i.e. what would happen if modern astronauts met up with some Mongolians? And so on…), this would be a lot of fun, and I managed to have a pretty good time with it. Ultimately, there isn’t much in the way of answers here, and I’ve read enough Arthur C. Clarke series to know that it probably won’t be completely satisfying by the end of the series, but it was an enjoyable enough read, and there is an internal struggle between the Macedonians and the Mongols that is pretty compelling. It just doesn’t seem that interested in resolving the various mysteries it set up. Perhaps the future books will delve into that a bit, but I have to admit that I’m unlikely to pursue this any further.
• The Picture of Dorian Gray – I’ve always known that Oscar Wilde was famous for his wit, but I do believe this is the first thing of his that I’ve read (I suppose he’s more notable as a playwright, and you can see that sort of talent in this novel), and I was surprised at the density of witty remarks within the book. It seems like you can’t go a page without getting some wondrous monologue, usually spoken by Lord Henry (a quasi-villain? The book certainly doesn’t have a traditional conflict). You also get a long series of fantastic one-liners, such as “Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” and “Dorian is far to wise not to do foolish things now and then,” and “There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.” and “Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.” Much of this is oxymoronic or nonsensical in nature, but oddly compelling nonetheless. The story is a bit on the thin side, and is really just an excuse for Wilde to run, well, wild, with his witty imagination. I suppose you could say that this isn’t science fiction – it’s pretty firmly in the realm of fantasy – but I’ll make an exception here. It’s not a particularly heartwarming tale, but there’s a lot of thematic depth and as I’ve already mentioned, lots of witty repartee that keeps the pages turning. I wouldn’t call it a favorite, but I’m really glad I read it.

And there you have it! Coming up in the queue are some more Bujold novels, perhaps some Timothy Zahn, and even though it’s probably not SF, some Thomas Pynchon for good measure. I may also need to do a Non-Fiction book review soon, as I’ve been reading a lot of that lately too…