Raven Stratagem

Yoon Ha Lee, 2017

(February 2018)

Less “Wow!” shock-of-the-old than its predecessor, but a better story. Somehow manages to avoid Middle Volume Syndrome, giving a whole, self-contained narrative while still holding back enough juice for the final installment. Lee’s only getting better as a writer, and the best news is that Revenant Gun comes out very soon indeed.

A Man of Shadows

Jeff Noon, 2017

(January 2018)

Nocturnal noirish nonsense with Noon. I still remain enamoured of the Noon of Pollen and Vurt I read in my late-teens, the dislocation of the familiar that seemed so startling when one first encounters it, which means I can forgive him a lot. I do find myself agreeing with this Strange Horizons review, however, in that the atmosphere is brilliant, but I’m not quite sure what the point of the rest of it is. I’ll still be buying the sequel, though.

The Stone Sky

N. K. Jemisin, 2017

(January 2018)

Wrapping up another trilogy as the New Year dawns. (Dawned). I think don’t think it’s an understatement to say that Jemisin’s Broken Earth will eventually come to be seen as significant as Gibson’s Sprawl. While not perhaps the strongest entry of the series (it lacks The Fifth Season’s tripartite trickery and The Obelisk Gate’s almost claustrophobic development of character) it’s nonetheless an excellent climax for an outstanding series. I’ve read a fair number of SFnal three-parters over the last few years, but this is easily the best of the decade, and I can’t see anything coming close to challenging it.

Mona Lisa Overdrive

William Gibson, 1988

(January 2018)

The last of the Sprawl trilogy and, ironically, a rather contained affair. Though I am writing this a couple of months after reading, and my memory isn’t what it was. It all takes place in a derelict factory and the wider fields of cyberspace, which I suppose is the point—the disconnect between the physical and the virtual.

It’s not one of Gibson’s stronger works, to be honest. All the loose ends seem to get wrapped up rather too neatly, to the point where the reappearance of certain characters seems to verge on fan service. Which reminds me that Molly Millions plays a significant part and that, actually, quite a lot of stuff happens in London and other cities so my opening line was touch unfair. Still and all, it does eventually boil down to a guy on a gurney wired into the matrix, so I wasn’t all wrong.

Infomocracy

Malka Older, 2016

(December 2017)

The first of Malka Older’s Centenal Cycle, the last of which comes out this summer. Given all the other trilogies I’ve still to catch up on, starting a new one seems like a bit of a leap of faith, but I’m very glad I did. The “relate it to what the reader knows” tagline would be something like “Snow Crash meets The West Wing,” in that Older takes the almost throw-away concept of micropolities from Stevenson’s book and then explores that through the slightly melodramatic viewpoints of young political operatives working behind the scenes. The two main PoV characters are Ken, a fixer for the broadly progressive Policy1st party, and Mishima, a security chief for Information.

Following a worldwide conflict of some sort (Isn't it always?), the world's governance has been reconfigured into a kind of global first past the post system. Each constituency is an even 100,000 people, which obviously mans that they're packed very tight in urban areas and cover large swathes of wilderness. In major cities the laws thus change from block to block, à la Snow Crash. There are global elections once every decade, and campaign for the third such is in full swing. These are policed by Information, which is essentially Google with its own police force, and the closest thing this world has to a global bureaucracy.

Amatka

Karin Tidbeck, 2012 [2017]
(August 2017)

Reviewed, after much delay, over at Strange Horizons.

Crossfire

Miyuki Miyabe, 1998 [Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki, 2005]

(December 2017)

I'm branching out! (Slowly.) I've a guest review of this over at Rachel Cordasco's excellent SF in Translation site. It was an interesting, if often flawed, read. The book. Not the site, which is excellent. Did I mention that?

Bookmark Six

Having made a sort of peace with the state of the world (or, at the very least, having developed better coping mechanisms for dealing with the Ongoing Shitshow), I was able to read something that approached a decent number of books this year.

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005

(November 2017)

Gyah. What a singularly frustrating book. What, to be more specific, a singularly frustrating narrator.

The Prey of Gods

Nicky Drayden, 2017
(July 2017)

Reviewed over at Strange Horizons. Fun, in a kind of slapdash, puppyish way.

Heathern

Jack Womack, 1990

(June 2017)

A lot of life has intervened since I read this book, as it has a wont to do. From what I can remember, Heathern fills the chronological space between Random Acts of Senseless Violence and Ambient, and so it was kind of an odd experience reading it prespoiled, as it were. Still entertaining enough, certainly, but lacking the linguistic virtuosity of the former of the ludicrous satirical anger of the latter.

Central Station

Lavie Tidhar, 2016

(June 2017)

  

Central Station is a mid-future cyberpunkesque novel comprised of a dozen or so chapters, many of which were originally published as stand-alone short stories. They’ve obviously been reworked fairly carefully (or, more generously, were originally written with a very clear eye on the big picture), and for all that there is something of a central plot running through the book, its focus is very much on these interlinked vignettes exploring migration and belonging, faith and memory.

The Glorious Angels

Justina Robson, 2015

(June 2017)

Justina Robson is a novelist whose scope of imagination frequently leaves me in awe, but whose plotting just as frequently leaves me scratching my head trying to work out exactly what’s going on. In this regard Glorious Angels, somewhat counterintuitively, seems to do slightly better than those of her other books I’ve read.

Asura Girl / A Clockwork Orange

Otaro Maijo, 2003 [Stephen Snyder, 2014]

Anthony Burgess, 1962

(May 2017)

Japanese ghosts will fuck you up.

Izanami's Choice

Adam Heine, 2016
(November 2016)

Reviewed over at Strange Horizons. Robots and ronin. Solid action, but not much else.

The Stars Are Legion

Kameron Hurley, 2017

(February 2017)

Very good, very meaty (figuratively and literally), but I also read this with an increasing sense of déjà vu.

Babel-17

Samuel R. Delaney, 1967

(February 2017)

Working my way through the canon. Slim book, fat (if not entirely watertight) ideas. Thinking of collating a Linguistics in SF list. There’s this, Embassytown, Snow Crash, and of course 1984. Any other ideas?

Too Like the Lightning

Ada Palmer, 2016

(January 2017)

I enjoyed this book. In places I enjoyed it very much indeed. Please bear that in mind, as I’m going to spend most of what follows talking about its many faults. Though to be honest, they’re all really manifestations of one fault. It is all, appropriately enough, just a little too… a little too.

Ninefox Gambit

Yoon Ha Lee, 2016

(January 2017)

I think I’m becoming more nostalgic in my middle age, and especially so when it comes to my reading. More and more I find myself harking back to the things I read as young(er) adult, not so much conceptually but emotionally. Part of this is the natural passage of time and experience, I think, but the more comparators you have for something the harder it becomes for it to raise its head above the herd.

Ammonite

Nicola Griffiths, 1992

(January 2017)

Space opera of a sort, despite the fact very little of it takes place in space. Marge Taishan is an anthropologist charged with investigating the planet Jeep. Unknown generations ago it was settled by humans, whose society has long since reverted to pre-industrial modes. An attempt at recolonization failed once it was discovered that he planet harbours a virus which kills all men (and a good proportion of women), leaving the planet isolated and the survivors quarantined.