Hyperion

Hyperion by Dan Simmons. This book and its sequel, Fall of Hyperion, are combined in the Hyperion Cantos. Neither book is short so the Cantos is a veritable tome. Given this fact I'm dividing my review into two parts one for each of the books. One other thing to note, I've read both books before. I generally don't reread books but I enjoyed Hyperion the first time and it's been awhile since I've read it. It's one of the better sci-fi books out there so I feel a responsibility to share it with the public.

Dan Simmons does not mess around when he creates a universe to play around in. Hyperion and its sequels feature: teleportation, time travel, the cyberscape, AI, post-humans, and biological starships. As much as I respect the grand old sci-fi tradition of focusing on one or two future technologies I prefer this 'everything and the kitchen sink' approach to sci-fi. You don't get a carefully nuanced, multi-faceted exploration of what each technology means for humanity. For example, time travel plays a large role in Hyperion without really any text wasted on moral and philosphical implications of tampering with the past. But the technologies in this series aren't really what Hyperion is about.* It is, at its core, just interested in telling a complicated enjoyable story. This is a focus that many sci-fi books could stand to share. 

Hyperion is broken into six short stories with an overarching story serving as a framework between the stories. The master plot itself manages to be a compelling story in itself- seven strangers on a haunting trip through an alien world- a world on the brink of apocalypse. Each story details how each of the seven ended up on their doomed pilgrimage. Hyperion lives and dies therefore on the quality of these six stories. And for the most part the six vignettes are successful.

Each of the six stories have their own little sub-genre. The first is a story of religious horror, it is probably the strongest of the bunch. It's been a long time and I could still remember most of it. Other genres of the stories include cyberpunk, military sci-fi, and a sentimental tragedy. Most of these stories I could remember the gist of- they were quality tales. Two of them are a bit weaker (the cyberpunk story didn't do it for me at all) but overall there is something for everyone here. The entire book features quality writing and the characters are all interesting flawed creatures.

Pictured: the Shrike and his tree of thorns

Some mention needs to be made of the Shrike. The Shrike gets built up a lot- he is the God of Pain, Angel of Atonement. The Shrike is the boogeyman, Satan, and the Horseman of Death all rolled into one. That... is a lot to live up to. In my experience when you have this level of build up the actual thing is sure to disappoint. It is a testament to Dan Simmon's writing skill then that the Shrike truly is as horribly awesome as he is meant to be. The Shrike is one of the best literary monsters in my humble opinion. Like Dracula and werewolves the Shrike taps into some pool of elemental human fear. 

So do I recommend Hyperion? Of course I recommend it fool, haven't you been reading the review? It is not a flawless book. There are times when it could delve a little deeper and times when the mysticism of the stories can be obnoxious. But these are truly minor quibbles. This book is what sci-fi is all about. Small personal stories with universe shattering implications set in a wild and weird future.                                        7 out of 8 torchships

*although it should be noted that one particular technology is explored this way: the farcasters. Farcasters are doorways that can open to any other farcaster anywhere in the universe. It is the key peice of technology of the setting and all of society is shaped by the fact that nearly every human world is basically physically linked through these doorways. The farcaster system is a brilliant commentary on our own world where globalization is still transforming all societies and environments.

Lost Fleet: Fearless

Lost Fleet: Fearless by Jack Campbell, is the second in a ongoing Lost Fleet: adjective series. It is a straight up, no nonsense military sci-fi book. I deliberately sought out a military sci-fi book to read after the disappointments of Fledgling and Rollback. They were low action books and particularly in Rollback's case simply too dull for me to really enjoy. I've always maintained that any story can be improved by a bitchin' helicopter or maybe a motorcycle that shoots rockets. I actually set out to find a Warhammer 40K book as 40K is probably the best source for modern military sci-fi. Because a vast range of different writers have worked with the intellectual property I'm sure like most brand books (IE Star Wars Extended Universe) the quality of 40K stories varies quite a bit. But I really liked the one Warhammer 40K book I've read and the 40K universe is a vast and deep setting. But I've begun to ramble, lets circle back to Lost Fleet. Lost Fleet was attractive to me for two reasons- it had an original setting and it had bad cover art (the herald of good sci-fi is shitty art).

From the back of the book: "The Alliance has been fighting the Syndics for a century - and losing badly.  Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory.  Their only hope is a man who's emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he had been heroically idealized beyond belief .  Captain John "Black Jack" Geary's legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild.  Revered for his heroic "last stand" in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead.  But a century later, Geary miraculously returns from survival hibernation and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics.  Appalled by the hero-worship around him, Geary is nevertheless a man who will do his duty.  And he knows that bringing the stolen Syndic hypernet key safely home is the Alliance's one chance to win the war.  But to do that, Geary will have to live up to the impossibly heroic "Black Jack" legend."


So there you go. It's kind of Battlestar Galactica-esque in that it's a battle fleet cut off and travelling through enemy territory. The Fearless is written from the perspective of Jack Geary as he deals with mutiny and trying to strike and an enemy stronghold system. That is the plot. I haven't read any other books in the series and I could follow what happened easily enough. There were certain plot points that weren't entirely clear (How exactly did a man out of time qualify to take over as Admiral?) but for the most part you can read this as standalone. Ideally you should read the series in order though. 


Jack Geary is a complicated character made a little too idealized. He sometimes feels like less than a real man and more like a living paean to strong leadership. That said his character and his orbiting cast of friends/lovers/enemies work well together. There is a problem with the first person perspective though. We have virtually no background on Geary. We have no background on the Alliance he loves and serves. We have no details on the enemy Syndics other than the surmise, based on their name, that the Syndicate is a made up of hundreds of dictatorial super-corporations.   Everything is focused on Navy life and even that lacks detail. Because Geary is a high ranking officer he never actually has any conversations with the common sailors. The reader knows they are there but they are rarely seen and never speak. All information about how the sailors feel about various fleet actions are relayed second hand through ship captains. Thus when the big mutiny goes down it's entirely anti-climactic. This lack of backstory is frustrating in a book that is part of a series. Too much world building can be boring and stifling but Lost Fleet's universe is a threadbare thing. A hastily constructed scaffold to be blasted apart.


Lost Fleet: Fearless works well as a military sci-fi story and not much else. If you have that itch to scratch, that desire to see the hellances boiling through durosteel plate as missile drones flit through the void, then Fearless will keep you happy. But its a flimsy thing and when your finished don't be surprised if the whole thing felt a little empty. Lost Fleet: Fearless hits 6 out of 10 stealth mines.


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Lost Fleet does have several interesting elements that I would like to do an aside on. The first is space warfare. I feel like space warfare would be a natural extension of the sort of 'push button' war that we imagine WW3 will be. Lost Fleet has an interesting twist on this though. Because the distances in ship to ship combat are so vast the speed of light actually plays an important part in fighting. If you launch attacks from too far away the image of the missiles and their vectors reaches the intended target long before the actual attack. Thus ships actually need to close the distance on one another to land any hits. And even then they are going so fast (fractions of the speed of light) that even with computers aiming is extremely tricky. All of this seems a lot closer to what space combat would be like than most sci-fi ever gets. Generally space combat ignores the laws of physics whenever it can. Which can be entertaining but it's nice to see someone has actually put some serious thought into how it might actually work.

Pictured: Not realistic!!!

The other interesting thing is how many damn solar systems are wrecked. Lost Fleet depicts total warfare on a galactic scale. It isn't about taking and holding territory- it's about destroying the enemies ability to make war. In Syndic system after system the Fleet rolls on in and annihilates every war factory, orbital installation, spaceport, and supply depot. Galactic scale sci-fi often features empires and whatnot recovering from apocalyptic wars from centuries past (everything from the Foundation to Dune really). Rarely do we, the reader, see first hand what such a war would look like. This is it though. I imagine by the time this series ends thousands of human worlds will have been blasted back to the stone age.

rollback

Rollback by Robert Sawyer

Rollback is not 'the winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel' as the cover deceptively implies. That's because it isn't a very impressive novel at all. With all the hype for Robert Sawyer (his author bio is page and a half list of his writing awards) I started reading Rollback with pretty high expectations. It was wholly mediocre.

Rollback was surprisingly hard to judge. I felt that it was doing the right things often as far characterization and world building while disliking the book at the same time.  My conclusion then is that the author knows all sorts of good literary tricks but is, in this case at least, too inept to pull them off properly. For example, the main character makes bad puns and jokes throughout the book showing that he is clever and silly. Except that the jokes are so awkward and bad that the reader never thinks of the main character as really having those attributes. Rollback is a small, human-scale story so it's not exactly action packed. The stakes in this novel are high only if you are invested in the characters. Sci-fi can afford to have flat characters and dull settings if the ideas and action are big enough. It's not ideal of course, but it can at least make for an interesting/fun book.  Small scale stories however really rely on their characters and having a truly compelling setting. Rollback suffers from having rather uninteresting people in a bland suburban setting.*

Donald Hailfax is an eighty year old who lives with his wife of sixty years Sarah. Thirty years ago Sarah, a SETI researcher, decoded an alien message and sent a reply. A response from the aliens arrives and a rich philanthropist offers to 'rollback' the elderly couple, returning them to the age of twenty five. The assumption is that the aliens will want to keep talking with the same person as before thus Sarah is too important to die of old age. They go through with the procedure but it only works on Don. The rest of the book follows Don as he puzzles out what to do with his second life.

This book is interested in several things:
-SETI. At one point the book talks about the movie Contact which is bold since Rollback's plot immediately reminded me of Contact. To be fair there's not many different plots you can have about SETI- it really only does one thing, talk to aliens. Sadly in 2011 SETI is not doing well.

-serve as a soapbox for the author. One can argue that every novel does this. But in Rollback there are sections that are simply Robert Sawyer talking philosophy, aliens, or morality. Sure it's put in the form of two characters talking but these little discussions are blatant editorializing. Then there are the references throughout the book to the Atkins diet. Did you know Robert Sawyer was once fat but now, with daily exercise and avoiding carbs, is at a healthy weight? I knew, and I didn't need to do anything more than read this book!

You can see from his jowls this man was once large

-establishing the characters and setting as realistic by having them talk about Seinfeld and Star Trek. Done well I imagine this tactic could work well. In Rollback these pop culture references feel forced every time.

In summary, Rollback is a bland book. Robert Sawyer tried to write a warm hearted character driven story but he just doesn't quite make it. I agreed with many of the authors opinions and Canada of 2048 will probably be just as this book predicts: much like Canada of today except with better TV. So Rollback is actually something I want to like.  But I can't get over way Sawyer forces his (admittedly good) viewpoint on the reader and the beige setting and plot. Rollback receives no response from the aliens of Draconis (that was the rating).

PS- Donate your computer's free time at: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/



*News from 2048: Canada Still Boring