Asimov's Science Fiction: December 2013 (25 page)

Shrue quickly learns that he has one especially fierce rival in the quest for Banderōz's stash of lore and spells: Faucelme, a magician whose obscurity has hidden what turn out to be extraordinary resources. At the same time, Shrue finds himself in the company of an old acquaintance, Derwe Coreme—a legendary warrior woman whose career began when she was kidnapped by Cugel the Clever in
The Eyes of the Overworld,
one of Vance's original "Dying Earth" sagas. Shrue and Derwe strike up an informal alliance, giving him the protection of her group of Amazons.

Simmons builds the contest between Shrue and Faucelme with all the twists and ironic reversals one would expect in a novel inspired by Vance. At the same time, he does a very credible job of capturing the style and tone of the "Dying Earth" series, which many readers would consider the primary charms of that body of work—and that should not be taken as slighting in any way the inventiveness of the plot or characters. Also, as is often true in Vance's own work, readers looking for a nice moral distinction between "good guys" and "bad guys" may find that Shrue and his companions are not so easily sorted out—although most readers will have little trouble in deciding with whom to sympathize.

There are lots of little touches to like in this story. Simmons pays a particularly nice homage to Vance in a scene late in the book where Shrue and his various traveling companions—who by this point are an extremely heterogeneous lot—enjoy a formal dance, with a variety of music. Vance is one of the very few authors in whose work music is portrayed in a way that actual musicians find convincing.

Strongly recommended.

EARTH THIRST

By Mark Teppo

Night Shade Books $15.99 (tp)

ISBN: 978-1-59780-445-5

There's a segment of the genre readership that reacts to vampire novels as if they somehow degrade the entire enterprise of fiction. Well, I may not be the biggest fan of the subgenre, but really, guys, it doesn't all suck. (Rimshot.)

Teppo gives us a hard-edged protagonist, Silas, whom we meet as a member of what seems to be a commando team aboard a ship in the South Pacific. We also meet Mere, a journalist who is following him—what for, we don't know at first. The ship's mission, it emerges, is to prevent a Japanese ship from hunting whales; those aboard will interpose themselves between the ship and its prey. But Silas's group is onboard for a purpose of its own—one having to do with the motives they suspect are behind the whaling expedition.

Things rapidly go haywire, as the Japanese whaler turns out to be a decoy for some far more sinister purpose, cutting loose with unexpectedly heavy weaponry as Silas and his teammates approach them in small boats. Silas is left to find his way to land—and the others appear to have been killed. By an apparently superhuman effort, he makes it to Australia—and in the process, it becomes amply clear that he is not human, after all. He is, for all intents and purposes, what we think of as a vampire. More than that, so are all the members of his team—and a good number of others.

There the story picks up momentum, as he learns that the other passengers of the ship he was on have come to the same port—and that they're being kept in a remote hospital. He builds up a new identity, drawing on a network of those like him, and goes to the hospital to free Mere—the one person he trusts to help him find out what is really going on. From that point, he's a hunted man—but at the same time, he's on a hunt of his own. He's picked up a clue as to who's behind the whaling operation, which he is fairly certain was a trap meant to catch him and his fellow vampires.

Taking a plane out of Australia, his first stop is Easter Island—with Mere tagging along. There they find a secret laboratory, which leads them to the next leg of the journey—South America, where they encounter the real enemy. Teppo keeps the reader in page-turning suspense. But the interesting part is his extrapolation of the consequences of an established society of vampires.

At the same time, the story takes on a dimension of commentary on the impact of industrialization on the planetary ecology. The mission to stop the whaling expedition is just the start of a theme of preserving Mother Nature. Teppo works in the primal theme of vampires "sleeping" in their graves to restore themselves with a theme of their ancient connection to the environment: a spin-off of the Gaia trope, in one sense. There's a contrast of urban landscapes and unspoiled natural settings—and natural settings manipulated for the purposes of the megacorporation that turns out to be the main adversary to Silas's drive for survival for himself and those like him.

A provocative new take on one of the longest-running themes in the genre. Teppo looks to be a writer to pay attention to.

THE DARWIN ELEVATOR

By Jason M. Hough

Del Rey, $9.99 (mm)

ISBN: 978-0-345-53712-6

Hough makes his SF debut with a big, ambitious novel of alien contact in a post-apocalyptic world. At a first approximation, it lies somewhere between Arthur C. Clarke's Rama books and the Mad Max movies. And it's the first of a trilogy.

The protagonist is Skyler Luiken, who scavenges useful items—often on a custom order basis—from the ruined world outside Darwin, Australia. It's a tough job, primarily because the ruined world is inhabited by former humans, victims of a disease that turns them into vicious predators who turn against any normal human who falls into their midst. Worse yet, the disease is extremely contagious, and an unprotected human venturing outside the one known safe zone—the area around Darwin, Australia—will quickly contract it and join the ranks of the "subs," as they are called.

Luiken has an edge, though—he's immune to the disease. Better yet, he's recruited a crew of other immunes, so he can travel lighter and operate with fewer restraints than the competition. But his way of making a living, dangerous as it is, is about to get caught in complications beyond his control.

We learn that the city of Darwin is not only safe from the plague, but the site of a space elevator built by aliens who delivered the automatic hardware by robot ship, letting it set itself up without any direct communication with humans. The elevator connects with an elaborate structure of habitats far above Earth's surface, where scientists and researchers live—getting their supplies from Darwin. And the rulers of Darwin, thanks to their location on the interface between the ground and space, have a unique position of power. In fact, as the novel opens, several of those rulers are about to move to increase their power. The ensuing struggle turns nasty quickly, and of course Luiken, whose skills are useful to all parties, is quickly caught up in it.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tania Sharma, one of the scientists employed on the elevator, is working on a project for her superior, Neil Platz, who was among the first humans to explore the potential of the elevator—and who became incredibly rich as a result. Tania, the daughter of one of Platz's original colleagues, is fascinated by the data Platz has fed her, but frustrated by the slow pace at which she is being allowed to proceed with her investigations. She hooks up with Luiken when it becomes necessary to retrieve some scientific data in a Japanese astronomical observatory. The visit there turns into a nightmare as a large group of subs attacks. That is also the first clear evidence that something has changed the status quo; the subs are more aggressive and more organized that anyone has seen before, and the party does not manage to escape without losses. Even worse, the safe zone around Darwin no longer seems impenetrable to the plague or its victims. Something serious is changing— and the survival of what's left of human civilization may depend on figuring it out before things deteriorate to the point of no return.

In the process, we get to see life on the various levels of the space elevator, portrayed in convincing detail. Hough has thought through the way his "upstairs," scientifically oriented, society is organized, just as he has worked through many of the details of the more chaotic ground-based society in which Luiken operates. When the characters from the one begin to move into the other, the results are especially interesting, both on the plot level and in what they reveal about the world and its characters.

Hough builds plot twist upon twist as the story progresses, and introduces several strong characters even as the body count among those we've already met increases. This is the first of a trilogy, "The Dire Earth Cycle," being issued in three consecutive months by the publisher. Fans of hard-edged adventure SF with a good scientific foundation will find this one very much their meat. If you're among that group, you'll be glad to know there's no waiting (well, next to none) for the sequels.

TIME TRAVEL:

A Writer's Guide to the Real

Science of Plausible Time Travel

By Paul J. Nahin

Johns Hopkins Press, $24.95

ISBN: 978-1-4214-0082-2

Time travel is impossible. Or maybe it's just very hard. Just maybe, there's some wrinkle in relativity or string theory or someplace that allows you to do it.

Depending on which side of this proposition you take your stand, time travel is either plausible science fiction or outright fantasy, full of entertaining paradoxes and twists of logic, but fantasy nonetheless.

Fortunately for those who have a time travel plan they want to turn into hard SF, Paul Nahin has come along with just the right cookbook for the time travel author. A prolific writer on scientific topics, with a definite emphasis on mathematics and physics, Nahin is just the guy to make sure you aren't talking complete nonsense when you start to explain how your protagonist got back to the Roaring Twenties to kill his grandfather.

Nahin explains in an introduction that time travel, once dismissed by real physicists, is now considerably more respectable. The likes of Kip Thorne, Richard Gott, and Frank Tipler have all pointed out ways it might be achieved without violating the established principles of physics. Even Stephen Hawking, who is somewhat less optimistic about the chance of anyone actually traveling in time, admits that his objections are a matter of "gut feeling" rather than solid extrapolation from first principles.

Nahin also shows a considerable familiarity with how the theme has been handled in SF, beginning with H.G. Wells, who in his opinion "got almost everything right." Wells' key breakthrough, sending his protagonist through time by means of a machine rather than some freak accident (or getting to the future through a long "sleep"), made the theme of time travel a solid science fictional one, rather than a subset of fantasy. Nahin also looks at how time travel was handled in the magazine stories of the Golden Age, showing considerable familiarity with obscure pulp stories. He heaps particular scorn on the use of accident (such as the famous "bump on the head" that sent Mark Twain's protagonist into the past in
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
) as a means to move through the time dimension.

But the real business of the book is to look at real physical mechanisms by which time travel could be done. Unfortunately, some of the best-founded ideas appear to require conditions so extreme as to make the backyard time machine a non-starter.

But fear not; Nahin has plenty of ammunition for the would-be fictional time machine builder. For example, if fasterthan-light travel turns out to be possible, time travel into the past is theoretically possible, as well. And that's the really interesting case, for most of us; we're all going to get to see the future, or a small portion of it, without any special effort. Getting back to an earlier day—so we can save ourselves from some regrettable mistake, or prevent some disaster, or even just to hear Bach playing his own music—is the real dream.

The book, an update of a 1997 publication, is full of interesting looks into the odd crannies of physics, and implications of the big ideas, as well. And while you almost certainly won't be able to build your own time machine when you finish, if you've been thinking about how to make one work in a work of fiction—or if you'd like to understand better how some of your favorite stories do so—this one's a well-written, fan-friendly and thoroughly researched look at the subject.

So many good cons, so little space for recommendations: try FenCon, ConStellation, Archon, Vcon, CapClave (where I'll be), MileHiCon, ConTraFlow, ConJecture, NecronomiCon, and ValleyCon. Whew! Got 'em all in. Plan now for social weekends with your favorite SF authors, editors, artists, and fellow fans. For an explanation of our con(vention)s, a sample of SF folksongs, and info on fanzines and clubs, send me an SASE (self-addressed, stamped $10 [business] envelope) at 10 Hill #22-L, Newark NJ 07102. The hot line is (973) 242-5999. If a machine answers (with a list of the week's cons), leave a message and I'll call back on my nickel. When writing cons, send an SASE. For free listings, tell me of your con five months out. Look for me at cons behind the Filthy Pierre badge, playing a musical keyboard. —Erwin S. Strauss

4—FenCon. For info, write: Box 701448, Dallas TX 75370. Or phone: (973)-242-5999 (10 am to 10 pm, not collect.) (Web)
www.fencon.org.
(E-mail) [email protected]. Con will be held in: Addison TX (if city is omitted, same as in address) at the Crowne Plaza North Dallas. Guests will include: Cory Doctorow, Larry Niven, John Ringo, the Nielsen-Haydens, Amber Benson, Geoffrey A. Landis.

4-6—ConStellation. (256) 270-0092.
www.con-stellation.org.
Huntsville AL. A general SF, fantasy and horror convention.

4-6—Archon.
www.archonstl.org.
Gateway Center, Collinsville IL. David Weber, Vic Milan, Donato Giancola, Lee Martindale, Jan Dimasi.

4-6—VCon.
www.vcon.ca.
Vancouver BC. Dan Wells, John Kovalac, Mur Lafferty, Thryza Segal. "Pirates and Piracy: Sea, Space and Web."