The Black Sun

The Black Sun by Jack Williamson reads like a classic sci-fi story. It has the bland characters, stolid prose, plodding pace that are the hallmarks of the golden age of science fiction. The Black Sun was actually written in 1997 though. I think we can excuse the datedness of book since Jack Williamson is in fact one of those golden age writers. He's still going after seventy years of writing!  I was confused by the praise for The Black Sun inside the cover. But how could reviewers slam a Jack Williamson book? Jack Williamson created the term "genetic engineering"! What have you done with your life!? Nothing!

So anyways, The Black Sun is not very good. As I implied above, it's characters are simple constructs: generic good guys, cartoonish bad guys, adorable moppet children/creepy possessed children.  I'll give Williamson credit where its due, he creates tragic pseudo-literature style backstories for everyone. The problem is these poignant flashbacks are delivered in an artless expository style that failed to connect emotionally with me. One gets the sense that the author is really trying to create interesting complicated characters, but something tells me this isn't a Williamson strength. But The Black Sun's problems go beyond the flat characters.


The plot has issues too. The main one being that Black Sun's story is one that has been told many times in science fiction- and with more verve. Tell me if this sounds familiar: a group of space explorers, trapped on a mysterious dead alien world, within the cyclopean catacombs comes the stirrings of something deadly.  The most recent example of this story comes in the form of the movie Prometheus. As in Prometheus, sometimes the characters react in bewildering ways. Prometheus had a xenobiologist run away upon discovering a dead alien as opposed to wanting to study it. The brave space pioneers of The Black Sun immediately assume a rainbow beacon from aliens is some sort of warning and attempt to avoid contact at all costs (their idea of exploring alien ruins is to drive up to buildings and then freak out and run away like eight year olds daring each other to go into an abandoned house).

The setting of The Black Sun.

So no, I cannot say I enjoyed The Black Sun too much. It has its moments, and towards the end it starts being straight up compelling. But it was too little, too late.  If you are a fan of golden age style sci-fi then The Black Sun may be for you. But for the rest, you guys can safely give this a miss. The Black Sun receives 4 out of 7 strange black beads.

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Spoilers for the end of the book follow.
The end of The Black Sun presents an interesting scenario. The surviving colonists form a sort of alliance with the psychic spirits that haunt the planet. The author presents this partnership as a happy ending. But it is in no way an equal relationship. The alien spirits seem to feel free to possess humans whenever they like. The spirits don't tend to have much regard for their host bodies either. An alternate reading of the ending, one that goes against the authors intent I'm sure, is that colonists are/will be slaves of the alien spirits- convenient bodies for them to inhabit. There are some details in the text to support this reading as well.

Excession

I thoroughly enjoyed Iain Banks novel, Excession.  It's packed with fun, interesting ideas and theories.  The characters are all weirdoes, and the plot is unpredictable. On the flipside, Excession isn't for everyone. It is a meandering book more interested in world building than any action. So, a dilemma. I think the best solution is to describe the book, its strengths and weaknesses, and let you, the reader, decide it's overall merit.

Excession is part of a loose "series" called The Culture. It is not so much a series as a setpiece- the only thing Culture novels have in common with each other is the setting. I didn't have any problem with Excession as a standalone book. I should note though that I had skimmed the Wikipedia entry on the The Culture before hand, so I had at least some familiarity with the setting. Excession is very much a book about the galaxy bestriding civilization called The Culture. To such a degree that ones enjoyment of the book is directly linked to ones enjoyment of The Culture. So what is The Culture?

Essentially, The Culture is the Federation from Star Trek. Simple as that really. They have similar levels of technology- transporters, replicators, forcefields. Both the Federation and the Culture are post-scarcity multi-species utopias (so no money, no real property ownership, society bound together more by empathy than physically enforced laws).  As utopias, each civilizations' overall striving are now directed outwards; having solved all their internal problems, they seek to solve the problems of other civilizations.  Star Trek's Federation places a greater emphasis on exploration, the Culture places the emphasis of its expansion on fostering progress and enlightenment. Both civilizations pride themselves on having the moral high ground.

Blood brother to Excession?

So how can Excession be about an entire civilization? Two ways. First is that the titular Excession is one of those classic sci-fi 'mysterious alien artifacts of immense, but unknown power.' It's discovery sparks off a Culture wide crisis. So the main plot is about how the Culture reacts to an unprecedented danger/opportunity. Basically, shaking the civilization and seeing what drops out of it. The book is a series of interwoven short stories from a multitude of perspectives- each at least tangently related to the main plot.  The characters in the Excession are meant to represent the Culture as a whole- there is a broad variety of them each illustrating a different facet of the Culture. In this way Excession manages to portray the overall civilization.

I loved this stuff. The writing was smooth, the book moves along at a steady clip. And the world of Excession is just a lot of fun. It didn't bother me that Excession is also incredibly dense, loosely plotted, with many a one-note character. Who cares if a character is cartoonish, if that character is a conspicuously ghoulish vigilante who just so happens to be a sentient dream-stealing spaceship?  That is awesome.  Actually, there is plenty of humor in the book (I particularly liked the names of the Culture warships).  I heartily recommend Excession, unless all the stuff I described in my review seemed lame to you in which case I don't recommend it.  8 out of 11 stars or 4 out of 9, if you don't think it sounds good!