Books: August 2005 Archives

Perhaps you have to be a big celebrity blogger like Neil Gaiman to get away with this, but he's posted the first track from the new Anansi Boys audio book on his blog.

Perhaps I just haven't found them but I haven't heard of many authors/publishers doing this, and yet it seems an emminently sensible idea.

Oh and the book is read by Lenny Henry (best known in the UK as a comedian), [interesting fact for the day] who grew up not far from where I did.

I've just stumbled upon Paul McAuley's really amazing short story Gene Wars online. And funnily enough it's on Paul's website.

A full transcript of Kim Newman and Paul McAuley 2005 Hugo Award Ceremony Script.

The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (UK/US) is a love story of a man and a woman, where the man is a time traveller.

I must admit that I was very sceptical before reading this book. It had been marketed as a mainstream novel, it had even been recommended by Richard and Judy. Yet it was clearly SF, one of the protaganists is a time traveller! So I had pretty well set myself up to hate it and moan about mainstream novellists doing SF without knowing what they were doing and saying how everyone should read Slaughterhouse Five instead. But there was a doubt to this, the book had been nominated for an Arthur C Clarke award in 2005. And after reading it I agree. It is indeed a wonderful book. But aside your preconceptions and dive in.

The book starts in a fantastic disorientating swathe of diary style entries, switching times and viewpoints. The entire book is written in first person point of view, diary style, alternating between Henry and Clare. Each new chapter has dates to help you get orientated on the time frame quickly. The technical aspect of the time travelling story telling is very well done, mixing it up, yet staying consistent, foreshadowing, teasing and finally revealing.

However what won me over most of all was the characters and their realism and the way I came to love them despite their failures. The writing is wonderful, sucking you into Henry and Clare's lives and making you care.

My only criticism is that the third quarter of the book seemed a bit slow and the novel wouldn't have been less without it. However it recovered in the last quarter and finished in a wonderfully satisfying way.

Is it Science Fiction? I would say yes. The time travelling is essential to the story. There is no technobabble and paradoxes are dismissed in a wonderfully offhand manner, but it is a story based on a great SF cliche. And one that succeeds. I recommend it.

john@SFSignal has a nice review of Finding Serenity (UK/US), which is a collection of essays about Firefly and a book I was unware of. It sounds interesting but I'm not sure I'd pay £9 quid for it, maybe one to get out of the library?

If you're not a Firefly fan yet then buy it!

I missed the Hugo winners last week. It seems like a lot of good choices (I say "seems" because I haven't read everything). Interesting that a fantasy novel (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) won. I'm reading it at the moment and like it but I think I'd have voted for River of Gods, which has been the best SF novel I've read this year.

Nice that Battlestar Galactica won one too. Oh and The Incredibles too, I love that film.

I finally got around to becoming a BSFA member and received my first magazine issues just the other day.

Matrix is the BSFA's news magazine. It looks like a fan kind of production, not the big, shiny magazines we're used to in the shops. It is however very professional and thoroughly enjoyable. I found all the articles (which ranged from recent film reviews to Stephen Baxter talking about the influence of WWII on various SF authors) well written, often witty, easy to read and entertaining. Worth picking up id you see it at a con.

Vector is the BSFA's critical journal, full of reviews and with a nice black and white shiny cover featuring Michael Moorcock over a typewriter. I've just started reading it, very interesting, much more intellectual.

BTW the Matrix website is quite nice, Vector doesn't have one and the BSFA site is pretty dreadful. I know it's done by volunteers so I hate to be critical, but....it looks a bit crap.

If you can cope with the wird Flash page which they use instead of just text (WHY?!) The Herald has an article entitled Mind over matter. It spends a lot of time explaining why Christopher Priest doesn't call himself a SF writer anymore but prefers the label Slipstream, and then tries to explain slipstream.

Never mind, it's quite interesting.

And come off it Mr. Priest, we all know you write Science Fiction!

Mr. William Gibson has started work on a new novel. Hoorah.