Sibilant Fricative

Adam Roberts
Sibilant Fricative

NewCon Books, 2014

[The first draft if this review was titled Adam Roberts, Yellow Blue Tibia]

Not only books should entertain, but also book reviews. If the criticism is boring and dull, there is not much sense in reading it, even if it reveals any hidden meanings of reviewed work or points to the book’s strengths. Boring criticism can always be replaced with not so boring prose.

Brit Adam Roberts at first glance (in the literal sense - look at the cover) is far from what might be called an entertainer. Roberts has an academic background, he teaches at the university, and also writes science fiction. Overall, not a clown or a stand-up comedian. But Roberts-critic and Roberts-reviewer (perhaps it is this side of Roberts is responsible for this book) both entertain the reader with reviews populating this collection.

The collection could well use the title Punkadiddle, so was called now closed blog, where the reviewer over four years posted his reviews on books and movies. Best from this blog, as well as reviews from online venues, and became part of Sibilant Fricative, a collection which has taken the title of another, new, Roberts’ blog.

For me, who has been following Roberts’s publications on the Internet, Sibilant Fricative became an occasion to re-read and recall the most memorable reviews (it’s a pity that the book, as opposed to the internet, is limited in size, and the collection did not include much of the rest). Since the book was published by a genre publisher collected, reviews on books and movies have also been limited to one genre (in fact, the book is divided into two parts, «Science Fiction» and «Fantasy»). Limited print run (while the digital version is available) is unlikely to help the promotion of book and, most importantly, the author's name to the masses.

And that’ll be loss for the readers. Roberts is definitely among the top five British reviewers, stuck somewhere between the genres. He can read the dullest fantasy, and can casually review Booker short list in its entirety. He is always looking for something new in the literature, but not disgusted by musty space opera. Roberts is a heir to John Clute and a colleague of Paul Kincaid, but will compete with Adam Mars-Jones, with whom they shared Guardian pages, Roberts has not yet made it to London Books Review.

Speaking of newspapers. Roberts almost has not been published in the newspapers, only in his blog (blogs) and SF online venues. Was he rejected or just doesn’t want it himself? Rather, the latter. Newspaper frankly will be too tight for Roberts. It's not just the space. The book contains either very tiny reviews and detailed reviews in several parts. The critic will be constrained by the form but not the space. What other reviewer in his sane mind will review all parts of Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, or will write a twitter review, or even choose to review not in the prosaic form, but poetic? Such liberties Guardian, or Locus (for example) would not stand.

Sometimes experiments with form have negative consequences. For example, from a review of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi written in the mocking form of a poem by Robert Browning you hardly will have an impression of the novel, just will applaud to Roberts’ creative abilities. And sometimes these experiments seem pampering and splurge: I can do this and that. And I can write a review with a glossary. Which, of course, does not negate the author’s talent.

If Roberts wrote only entertaining, he would have remained at the same level with a million Amazon reviewers. Roberts is well-read and educated. He can place any book in literary context, not just say is it good or bad, Roberts-academic gets in his reviews in the form of an abundance of quotations and references. Roberts is capable of almost chapter-by-chapter analysis of an unpublished Tolkien, with his heavy vocabulary, as well as lightweight or moronic thriller\space opera. Roberts can pick in a book, can dissect a book - and this is a quality that I value very high in the criticism.

Having written all this, I must now answer two questions. First, and whether you want to buy this book, given that the paper edition is not cheap (but digital one is)? My answer is positive. On paper these reviews are read more carefully than on the net, and has another advantage: while reading the rest of the Internet is not distracting you. In addition, the blog where reviews were posted from the collection, is now closed (and not everyone, as I have, at one time has saved the posts from the blog to his HDD).

The second question is what statement actually gives this book? Those who wanted, has long ago discovered, read and appreciated Roberts’ writing. And now still can read him on the Internet.

Sibilant Fricative release secured Adam Roberts’ status of an important British critic (ie, just critic, not just the genre critic) - that is the importance of this book. Prior to the release of the collection Roberts was one of, but not much more. Now, with the book of reviews under his belt, the world officially has to acknowledge Roberts-reviewer, as previously acknowledged Roberts-writer and Roberts-academic. Not every reviewer has published the collection of reviews. Even Adam Mars-Jones has not.

Given all this, you do have just not one reason to avoid reading this important and necessary book.

The Land of Decoration

Grace McCleen
The Land of Decoration

Chatto & Windus, 2012

Imagine a book written from the point of view of a girl, whose mother died in childbirth and whose father a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. This will be this novel by Grace McClean.

Ten-year old Judith Maclean creates in a room in the house where she lives with her father John, The Land of Decoration. The girl builds in the room improvised miniature city in the image and likeness of one, which she lives in. Judith is building houses, roads, animals and people. It is the end of the summer, and the girl has to go back to school and she does not want that. She imagines there will be heavy snow, and throws a toy snow to the Land of Decoration. In a day really heavy snowfall begins in the city.

Father of Judith is a sectarian. He and his daughter regularly go to meetings, read and discuss the Bible, make all the instructions, give up all life pleasures, and often go from house to house, handing out leaflets and urging people to change cheir minds until the end of the world begins. Judith, too, believes in God, but because she is still a child, she does not understand many things and asks many questions. When the same way snow fall again with her desire, Judith begins to think that she has a gift and God uses her to perform miracles. When a girl tells her father about it, the father is angry and tells her she to not invent incredible things. A few days later, the girl for the second time causes the snow. She truly believes that she has made a miracle, but the father does not want to hear about it. Judith seems that her father does not love her. He really does not hug his daughter, does not walk with her, holding hands, does not to say that he loves her. John is still traumatised by the death of his wife, who agreed to give birth and save a child and give up on her own life.

Judith soon begins to hear a voice in her head. That voice is none other than God. God asks her to help him to become his instrument on Earth, and Judith, of course, agrees.

The choice of the protagonist in the role of a ten years old girl has allowed the author to kill two birds with one stone. Actually, this choice and keeps the whole novel. It is extremely entertaining to get inside the family of sectarians. The naive child, while blindly believing in God and at the same time calling into question many of the seemingly obvious to all adult things related to religion, lives with her father, whose way in religion is similar to the way of her daughter, at the end of the novel casting a voice of God out of her head. They both eventually realize that religion entangles the human mind and requires a person to adapt to the faith, and behave not as a life situation demands, and both of them refuse to religion. To behave with dignity is possible without religion.

We see how the girl thinks that she creates miracles, and this creates additional suspense: the reader almost til the end can only guess whether this is her gift or just a series of coincidences. Cut off from the outside world in large part because of religion, Judith replaces the real world so that she created her own. Judith, in essence, is a god herself - the god of the toy city, as to confirm that later in the book, she begins to hear God's voice in her head.

In «The Land of Decoration» by the end takes place the transformation of the two main characters. It's real people, not pale shadows of people. The girl’s father, John, repents, that all this time he has been trying to bury his grief after the death of his wife in God, not paying enough attention to his daughter. Judith in a little time in her life has become aware of many adult things including her father’s life: she’s thought that he did not love her, but his life was just so damn hard to him.

The novel is written not without humor. The author makes the reader smile in those cases when little Judith faces the world of adults and does not understand anything in it.

A memorable light novel.

Between the Assassinations

Aravind Adiga
Between the Assassinations

Atlantic Books, 2010

Booker winner Adiga in his second novel (though it seems, “Between the Assassinations” was written before "The White Tiger") makes the main character fictional town Kittur, and builds the plot as a series of almost unrelated stories - seven days of life of the town.

Despite the fact that between the chapters there are not even through characters that appear in one part and then another, and every day in Kittur’s life is a complete story with its beginning and end, "Between the Assassinations" still looks solid product, at least because the city in each chapter is a full-fledged member of stories to tell. Here in the finale ends don’t meet in a melodramatic ending, as, for example, director Iñárritu, and this is understandable: if there had been all the heroes of all chapters of the novel in one place at one time, they simply would not know what to do with each other and unlikely to find a common language.
India of Adiga has not Bollywood colors. The language of his prose is simple and even beggar from the outside like most of his heroes, but with a powerful energy inside: «He was an overweight man entering the final phase of middle age, he breathed through his mouth, and a thicket of hair poked out of his nose. The centerpiece of his body was a massive pot belly, a hard knot of flesh pregnant with a dozen cardiac arrests. To walk, he had to arch his lower back, tilt his head, and screw his brow and nose together in a foul-looking squint. "Ogre," the boys chanted as he passed. "Ogre! Ogre! Ogre!"»

The characters of the novel - the seller of books, a university teacher, bus conductor, a gardener, an editor, a loader, - whatever they might be engaged in, equally aware that to live in India heavily, that caste continues to exist and determine the development of every man, that corruption is large, but they also realize that nothing can be done. And at the same time, all their thoughts are about their country. The professor from one of the parts comes into the theater, sees cracks in the walls and chairs with holes: "The simultaneous advance of decay and decadence: the story of this theatre was the story of the entire country".
And Adiga himself with his characters is sad about his country seeing how poverty and injustice suppress India.

This is a good novel, but it lacks, as the characters are filled in it, self-confidence, a bomb the student in one of the chapters planted in a classroom for his teacher. Adiga is a good observer, but he had problems with the drive. He would, indeed, add the assassinations in the book.

Let's see what will be his third novel.

Lane`s and Moore`s books from Nightjar Press

‘When the Door Closed, It Was Dark’ by Alison Moore

‘Black Country’ by Joel Lane

Nightjar Press, 2010

The next two books from Nightjar Press continue to please fans of small form of fiction (there are not enough books for all fans, though: limited edition is only 200 and 300 copies). In this double both stories turned out to be good evidence that the small prose is alive and well, and one of the stories contains a little surprise.

Lane's prose is more elegant, but it also is required by the story itself. In the "Black Country" a policeman returns to the town where he grew up. The city itself, however, no longer exists: it is gradually deserted, destroyed, until it finally became a suburb. A policeman does not recognize home places: people are not familiar, old houses are gone, everything is absolutely strange. The case itself is quite a trifle, but with strangeness: it all started with a series of unexplained injuries to children - broken fingers, dislocated arms, but no children were not touched, they slept, and woke up already with injuries. Someone entered the newsagent, but except comics, nothing taken. Someone stole toys in a toy shop. Local police in confusion: all rowdy is children obviously, but children are always visible, everyone always knows who was capable of, no even clues. The protagonist seems to know what it was immediately on arrival in the Black Country. But he does not hurry with the investigation: drinking in bars, resting in a hotel, playing the harmonica among other musicians.

Lane in the story is a singer of the town, but the notes of his song are alarming. You can live without the past, rarely remember the past, but the past itself is capable of returning to the man. And often such a return will not be anything good.
The story «When the Door Closed, It Was Dark» by Alison Moore is not about memory but about fear, loneliness and misunderstanding. The beginning of the story is as the seed of Euro-horror: Tina, a maid, not understanding the language, comes to a certain country to work in one of the families. She has first taken care of the child: the boy has no mother, but the family has Father, Uncle and Grandmother. Getting to the house where she will live and work begins with a scene that you are waiting when the story becomes a slasher: the father of the child wrestles a pig out in the bathroom, then ordering the girl to remove bloodstains. The story, however, does not become slasher (and for the better, perhaps), but the goose bumps still will run for a short time while reading the story. Moore’s prose is angular, and this is explainable: such language would be used to tell a story of a person who does not understand the language of others, but trying to catch some words, but mostly read by others.

There is a surprise in this particular story: from Nightjar Press you could wait genre stories, but in «When the Door Closed, It Was Dark» there is nothing supernatural. If the author would give a country, where Tina arrives, the fictional name, the story would have passed into the category of horror, but without specifying any concrete names, the story, in fact, remains realistic. It should still say that it reads nevertheless not even like horror, but rather like a fantasy.
Two more books from Nightjar Press: We look forward to the next portion.

Shambling Towards Hiroshima

James Morrow
Shambling Towards Hiroshima

Tachyon Publications, 2009

A successful b-movies star Syms Thorley is at the peak of his career: he stars in films with such titles as "Corpuscula", "Lycanthropus", "Curse of Kha-Ton-Ra" and their many sequels, writes his own script, which is already predoomed to success, and generally has fun life. Hollywood is Hollywood, but that is the early summer of 1945, Japan still resists in the Pacific Ocean, but the military plans are maturing how with minimal losses to end the war. For plan realization they need someone who knows how to convincingly play in the costume of the reptile. This is Thorley. After listening to a plan of U. S. Navy, Thorley could not believe his ears: there is a secret project that America wants to use to intimidate the Japanese without using nuclear bomb. A team of U.S. scientists raised in the laboratory dragon-like terrible lizards, like Godzilla, to release them on the Japanese cities. However, the reptiles were not dangerous than kittens, besides they don’t live long. The plan had to be adjusted: in a secret hangar an exact copy of one of Japan's cities had been built, the delegation of embassy had been invited, and the role of the lizard would have to play Thorley, especially for him the suit of mighty lizard had been stitched. According to the plan Thorley with stage effects would destroy the city to scare the ambassadors so that they would run to the Emperor to beg him to stop immediately the war to save innocent people from the giant reptiles.

If in retelling it looks just funny when you read this book this is very funny. It's not just an ability of Morrow to construct convincing despite its seemingly absurdity and impossibility plot, but that’s Thorley himself. That b-movies star jokes as good as Chandler’s Marlowe, besides he has a dig at Hollywood celebrities of that time (cinephiles will get a special pleasure), Thorley is witty and resourceful.

This brilliantly written short novel has, it seems, only one flaw: for all his playfulness and irrationality, Thorley is too contrite. But without actor's contrition this book which is the longest suicide note in the world as well wouldn’t appear.

Bearings

Gary K Wolfe
Bearings

Beccon Publications, 2010

For nearly 20 years (he began writing his column in 1991), Gary Wolfe is a permanent reviewer of "Locus". In his columns he usually writes about three or four or five books (such reviewing policy is set by the magazine), often finds in even the most dissimilar books something in common, any link. "Bearings" is his second collection of this kind. In the more than 400 pages volume contains his reviews written for “Locus” from 1997 to 2001. In the introduction Wolfe notes that he excluded from the book “year in review” columns, reviews of annual best anthologies, as well as small-circulation academic books, which is now difficult to obtain.

Whoever he wrote about, Wolfe always seeks the roots of modern science fiction writers in science fiction writers of the past, of "Golden Age", "New Wave” etc. He's very good at reviewing classic SF: the critic can not only praise covered with dust and sometimes outdated prose by Sturgeon, Bester, CM Kornbluth, William Tenn, but also give them a place in history, knowing that what was written 70 years ago can not be evaluated as well as what was written ten years ago.

He is equally good at reviews on both the author's collections and novels either. When reviewing the novels he is less than Clute absorbed with plot descriptions, digging deep into the problem, wondering how would a novel look after 5 years, and is there anything to expect from a writer in the future.

Wolfe prefers science fiction to fantasy; he is interested in hard SF as well. Among his favorite writers (judging by the number of reviews, attributable to the writer) are Le Guin, Elizabeth Hand, Sheri Tepper, Baxter, Greg Bear.
If Clute in his reviews builds Baroque performances, Wolfe rather is called a realist: he is persuasive, keen-eyed, trying to be unbiased.

"Bearings" is hardly a guide to all the attractions of fantasy and SF during five years, it is impossible to write a monthly column about all, besides that we need to consider the taste of the critic, but weak books among reviewed in this book almost did not appear - that's for sure: Wolfe simply does not spend their time on them.

Perhaps, there is not enough eccentricity in his text (sometimes reviews are too smooth to be interested), but it already can be attributed to his manner of writing.
That's 20 years of writing about the same theme in the same venue - and Gary K Wolfe didn’t write himself out. It needs a great talent for that.

Locus

Locus

January, February, March 2010

Actually Locus needs no introduction, anyone who has even a very superficial knowledge of science fiction knows that this is one of the oldest magazines devoted to science fiction, but its content is not fiction, but non-fiction. So once again pronounce the obvious and known to all is necessary.

In each issue of the magazine there are two interviews, one is represented to the front page (very rich and interesting interview with Delany and Crowley in January and March issues), the second is more modest (depending on the author). Sometimes, instead of one interview there is some discussion, seminar etc. Interviews are very detailed, something like the rules of life in Esquire, it has no questions, only answers. Not all of them are equally interesting, but it depends on the author, too.
As the saying goes, meat of the issue is reviews. Reviewers all can (and should) be read. Books between reviewers divide this way: Rich Horton and Gardner Dozois write about short prose, Gary K. Wolfe writes about the best books, Faren Miller is about the fantasy in its pure form (for the hardcore fans of fantasy, although I am not saying that choosing books are the bad ones), Paul Witcover writes about fiction on border (too often it is fantasy), special section Reviews by Divers Hands (there often Tim Pratt and Stefan Dziemianowicz write) is devoted mostly to horror. I like most Rich Horton (I love him for trying to find something new) and Gary K. Wolfe (whose second book of reviews from Locus is out, I hope to write about it soon). Publishers make a lot of books every month, for that many reviewers need to. Everyone will find a favorite reviewer not only by the choice of reviewed books, but also by how the chosen one wrote a review. Reviews is of very high quality.

Reports from conventions, somewhere from Japan, Greece or the Czech Republic, remain me indifferent. But what curious to read is the business news: who sold the new novel, who finished the book, also obituaries section.

Lists of received books and magazines is a useful thing for those readers who either read a lot, or have a few favorite of prolific writers, to make sure that all their books are already in his own library. Sometimes it's funny to dig something unfamiliar to eye out, but most often it is purely bibliophilic quirk. And how much space is killed, eh.

Well, lists of forthcoming books. Also on about 10 pages. I am a person rarely giving (given?) attention to new books and reading basically that ones unsold on the shelves, I only recently realized the usefulness of such lists for yourself. In the U.S. everything is very clear: the February issue had already given list of forthcoming books until December. There is, of course, mainly the most notable things, and from large publishing houses, but it is useful in any case.

Locus is worth subscribing for both international and US readers.

Edison`s Frankenstein: Postscripts 20\21

Edison`s Frankenstein: Postscripts 20\21
(Edited by Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers)

Postscripts is no more a magazine, now it`s a bi-annual anthology but it will have the same goal is publish high quality science fiction and fantasy.
The double issue of the magazine (published in the late 2009) consists 26 stories from already established writers, as well as relatively newcomers. To write a review on an collection like this with making focus on each story is long, tiresome and unnecessary work, the more important is to point the most impressive ones out. Pieces of fiction by well-known writers somehow will get readers who will love that if even a reviewer didn`t find any memorable and striking places in those stories. Opening story «Edison`s Frankenstein» by Chris Roberson is, perhaps, the strongest piece in this issue (the subtitle of the issue has the same name). Alternative history in Roberson`s story is based on the seemingly small difference from our reality: instead of electricity people use prometheic energy. James Clark Ross, an explorer, returned from an expedition to the South Seas and brought a piece of some broken automaton created by an alien culture. Thus, electricity is pushed aside, and people everywhere are using prometheum. Roberson puts murder in the story but mystery and investigation moves into the background , by the way all is obvious enough (although the author hid something by the end ). The author doesn`t confined himself by just a description of America, industry of which is based on prometheum , although the way he draws the features of Chicago, its large exhibitions, that both areas, and shelter for all sorts of migrants from all over the world, is delighted, and sometimes even makes to forget about the plot, which, basically, develops slow.
Melancholic and nostalgic, Algerian Shaban, translator and bodyguard for his boss, who took Shaban in their teens to the States, is the point Roberson has succeeded in. Shaban remembers how he had lived there, over the ocean, and in his memoirs seems to slip the memory of how might have been looked the world where the electricity dominates, and prometheum were never found.
Edison and Frankenstein in the title are mentioned on purpose: they are two guns on the wall that possible to shoot at the end of the story.
Some more exhibitions appear in an elegant story of Alex Irwin «The Dream Curator».
His exhibition is a collection of strange dreams, and diffident man yearning for a girl from sleep is in charge of the exhibition. Irwin weaves verbal lace in the story not worse than the curator does their exhibition.
«Vampire Electric» by Tony Ballantyne operates two already pretty bored topics: vampires and rock music. A rock band, a pretty lady-vampire (V - so they are called there), the enslavement of people - Ballantyne mixes the cocktail with blood, which is still not too thirsty, however the writer is trying to refresh the vampire problem.
In her «Denny» Keet Reed is trying to show the situation with the murders of the parents by their children from all sides: the father`s, the mother`s and the son`s, Denny. Reed masterfully portrays a complex situation, when no one understands no one, but everyone thinks they do. The only thing that is not entirely clear with this story is its science fiction elements. It differs from a mainstream story with only some hints of not entirely explainable epidemic of the teenage aggression, otherwise it is a great psychological prose.
«Unreasonable Doubt» by Simon Strantzas is initially exciting story about once known candidate for mayor returning to his native town. He is nowhere to go, and he seeks shelter at his old friend Dr. Reilley. However, the middle of the story is not well-written, the characters are behaving abnormally, and the ending crosses everything: ghost story is too made by GOST {State Standard in Russia}.
“Snowman's Chance in Hell” from newcomer Robert T. Jeschonek is a funny story about how people began to sculpt snowmen. Stuck in the memory, but not required reading.
Lavie Tidhar, in his “The Love-Craft” wrote a short script about people abduction by aliens. Cruel, but little interest story.
Another significant story in the magazine is "Tests" by Robert Reed. A chamber story, which nearly consists of conversations only, played on the border between banality about contacts with UFOs and a sad story about how lonely one can be and how important is to believe in the possibility of meeting stranger to each other minds.
Reed is not very well in describing people, but he is master in creation of the situation. Paul Park gave an amazingly light, tricky story to this issue of the magazine.
In “The Persistence of Memory, Or, This Space For Sale” Park made the writer a hero of the story, to whom he gave his own name and add to that some embellishment by his nearly autobiographical details. Everything starts with an auction, where the narrator of the story, science fiction writer, exposes a couple of lots, have won them one can become the character of Park has not yet written story. Flawless humor, charming hero, an unexpected ending makes the story undoubtedly one of the best in the collection. And if it comes to literary games, then do not forget, you can expect anything.
Very short horror story "Time Changes" by David T. Wilbanks is pleasant, unhorror-y and funny, but it could have been in the issue or could not: the detachment would not notice the loss of a fighter.
The story about a trip to Eden length in 10 years, told by Lisa Tuttle in her "Ragged Claws", echoes the old story by Stephen King's, “The Jaunt”.
Really, the flight in King`s story lasted a moment, but if people do not fall asleep at the time of the jaunt, then it lasted for decades, and the traveller during that time even can turn gray (besides, it remains unknown what one sees during the flight). The narrator of the story is a man who tested these flights. During the trip the man lives in a certain box and has the unlimited possibilities within his own consciousness. At the bar, he meets young people: two young men and a girl, and tells them about all that he experienced during the flight. A strong story about the desires and the nature of man.
"Number One Fan" by Eric Schaller is another story that has similarities with the work of King, as if in explanation of his father King`s son, Joe Hill, wrote. Science fiction writer comes to the godforsaken convention, where there is no soul, and his only listener is just a fan number one. Exciting story, which may particularly appeal to those who goes to all kinds of convention.
The culmination of this issue has become yet another alternative history, based, like the story of Chris Roberson, on the change of energy sources, “The Phoebean Egg” by Stephen Baxter. Young man Cedric Stout comes to study in some semblance of Cadet College, the Imperial Academy of the UK in XIX century. Britain, thanks to technology Anti-ice, has a distinct advantage over the world and almost became the ruling power around the globe. Cedric and his friend Merrell and the girl Verity Fletcher suddenly grasp the essence of a conspiracy involving Phoebean egg and beginning a new war. England is though shown here as a global hegemon, yet not cause undue comparisons with the Nazi Germany. Young heroes are smart, passionate and resourceful. Baxter, in addition to well-developed details of the Anti-ice, and even touched on the gender topic: Verity Fletcher in the Academy plays the role of a servant, while only boys can learn and be a mainstay and hope of the nation. But Verity's not a simpleton, and shows itself in the knowledge and ability to fight and achieve the desired even greater than boys .
Definitely a strong collection of short prose, in which everyone will find something to one`s taste, and a few stories from there are worth to including in year`s best anthologies.