The World Set Free by H.G. Wells
(The MIT Press, 2022)
Reviewed by Paul Kincaid
It is said that Leó Szilárd, who first came up with the idea of a chain reaction, and who was instrumental in the creation of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, was inspired by reading The World Set Free by H.G. Wells. I can see the novel inspiring the idea of the chain reaction, because Wells’s description of an atomic bomb tells us not of one huge blast but of a series of explosions that continue sometimes for years. Wells’s atomic bomb, therefore, is a form of chain reaction. It is perhaps less clear why anyone might be inspired by this novel to go out and create a nuclear weapon. The bomb first dropped, in these pages, upon Berlin has very little in common with the weapon unleashed upon Hiroshima, but its effects, both immediately and long term, are similarly devastating. This is not something anyone might want to emulate.
Continue reading…
Review from BSFA Review 20 - Download your copy here.
Secondhand Daylight by Eugen Bacon and Andrew Hook
(John Hunt Publishing, 2023)
Reviewed by Steven French
This is not your usual time travel love story! It begins with Green, a ‘Pommy’ slacker, living in Melbourne in 1990 who goes to a bar, meets a woman—his ‘possible girl’—has a dance with her and then…finds himself flat on his backside outside, with no idea what just happened. At first, he thinks he’s ‘losing’ time, maybe through drink, or drugs or psychosis but the doctors assure him there’s nothing wrong. Then he starts missing appointments with the company-referred psychologist, as well as days at work, and his best mate’s weekend barbecue and other life-altering events until gradually Green comes to realise that he’s skipping forwards through time, whilst aging as normal. With each ‘time-slip’ becoming longer in duration, he faces the frightening prospect of losing not just friends and family and all the familiar landmarks of his life, but perhaps even passing beyond humanity itself. And so, this half of the book ends with Green in the care of the AI-led foundation that he funded, being told that someone called Zada has jumped back through his timeline, using the ‘Tesseract’, a McGuffin of a time-machine that she helped to develop, in an attempt to discover the reason for his time-slips and stop him vanishing into the future.
Where It Rains in Color by Denise Crittendon
(Angry Robot, 2022)
Lileala is the ‘Rare Indigo’, a title given to the most beautiful woman in the galaxy who is revered for her gorgeous blue-black skin and her ability to produce ‘the Shimmer’, a kind of visible glow. As such, she is about to become a symbolic dignitary and major tourist attraction for her home planet of Swazembi, famed both for its technological superiority and, as a tourist destination, for its misty drifts of electromagnetic colours. With her betrothed, Otto, a respected member of the science-based ‘Pineal Crew’, a glorious future seems to lie at Lileala’s feet.
Celestial by M.D. Lachlan
(Gollancz, 2022)
This is a weird and wonderful slice of ‘alternative history’ set in 1977 about a Buddhist who goes to the moon, overcomes various obstacles, both physical and mental, including her own grief over the death of her much-loved sister and discovers the true nature of consciousness and reality. If that sounds ‘deep’ or ‘heavy’, well it really isn’t, thanks to Lachlan’s deft touch and the threads of humour that he weaves through the narrative.
The Greater Game by Gene Rowe
(White Cat Publications, 2022)
Reviewed by Phil Nicholls
In The Greater Game it is 2179 and humanity has begun the process of colonising space. A scattering of planets around distant stars have been colonised, but the bulk of the action revolves around our solar system. Simmering resentments on Mars about their Earth-based colonial controllers sits at the heart of the political machinations driving the plot. Just as the original Great Game was a colonial-era dispute over Afghanistan that ran for most of the 19th Century, so too is Rowe’s book a sprawling political thriller. One faction of the Martian government is plotting with the corporations who have evolved into effective nation-states. Meanwhile a spy and a UN Peacekeeper are both quickly swept up into the intrigue. Rowe weaves a complex, multi-thread narrative in order to encompass the broad scope of his sophisticated plot. What begins as seemingly disparate threads are then steadily pulled together through the course of the book. Once these plot lines begin to unite, the novel steadily picks up speed to a thrilling climax, which changes one part of the setting for good. I admire Rowe’s ambition for the book. The Greater Game delivers a powerful finale as a reward for the slightly disjointed nature of the early sections of the book where the focus jumps from one thread to another. This is a standard SF story structure, which Rowe uses as a vehicle to deliver a strong finish.
Wayward by Chuck Wendig
(Del Rey, 2022)
This is the post-apocalyptic sequel to Wendig’s pandemic novel, The Wanderers, in which a fungal infection (‘White Mask’) rips through humanity, save for a fortunate few. These include the ‘Sleepers’, who are controlled by a nano-tech based A.I. called ‘Black Swan’ and, together with their protective ‘Shepherds’, are directed to a small town in Colorado where civilization is planned to begin anew. Wayward is the story of how that all goes horribly wrong.
Beyond the Burn Line by Paul McAuley
Reviewed by by Nick Hubble
Beyond the Burn Line defies easy categorisation. It is simultaneously the tale of a far-future post-Anthropocene Earth and a first-contact novel. The first half is a somewhat leftfield quest adventure set in a just-about preindustrial society. The second half is a high-tech thriller, complete with unreliable AIs and action scenes in exotic locations. If this sounds potentially bewildering, have no fear because the novel is such a beautifully written, character-driven and enchanting narrative, that it is a delight to immerse oneself within. I think a key reason for the intense readerly pleasure I experienced lay precisely in the way that Beyond the Burn Line combines so many types of stories that I like and does something meaningful with them.
Nightmare: The Unfolding of a World Crisis by Liz Cowley and Donough O’Brien
(GB Publishing, 2022)
Reviewed by John Dodd
I like disaster films. I like world ending crises. I like the sort of thing where the stakes are so high that the only thing that can justify them is a resolution of equal height. From the read on the background, this wasn’t going to be a disaster along the lines of Armageddon or Resident Evil, but I liked that something that threatened the world might not come along in a large, loud package.
Unfortunately, that was as far as this got…
The Thousand Earths by Stephen Baxter
Reviewed by Dan Hartland
Sleepers have been waking for much of the history of science fiction. From William Morris to Philip Francis Nowlan through to generation starships and Dave Lister, the trope of a human preserved beyond their natural lifespan waking into a transformed future has proven surprisingly stubborn. Of course, it is a usefully direct means of achieving the contrast between tomorrow’s innovations and today’s challenges that gives some kinds of SF their characteristic frisson; but in that utility it is also rather blunt. The awakened sleeper can sometimes seem to lead the reader by the nose.
One of the many things Stephen Baxter attempts in The Thousand Earths is to under-cut our expectations of this hoary old staple of the genre. His John Hackett boards a ramship in a 2154 already overcoming the challenges of our own time and swapping them for others. His mission: to use his “relativity-busting” (p. 581) ramship to travel to Andromeda and back—a five-million-year-round trip from the perspective of Earth, but on his endlessly accelerating ship only a few years of subjective time.
Dice Men: The origin story of Games Workshop by Ian Livingstone with Steve Jackson
(The Book Publicist, 2022)
Reviewed by Stuart Carter
Dare you enter the terrifying world of Dice Men, our new adventure in which YOU are the hero? Follow in the footsteps of fearless knight Sir Ian Livingstone and mild-mannered wordsmith Steve Jackson, the twin creators of Games Workshop—the realm’s mightiest purveyor of pastimes!
You play as a lowly Reviewer with a fierce deadline to beat. To calculate yours, roll one six-sided dice and add 2 to the result. This is your Deadline; if it reaches 0, you have failed in your quest.
Now, take up your notebook and stride forth, noble Reviewer!
Contact Us
Chair@bsfa.co.uk
Treasurer@bsfa.co.uk
Membership@bsfa.co.uk
directors@bsfa.co.uk
Address:
19 Beech Green
Dunstable
Bedfordshire
LU6 1EB
