Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #226 Page 15

  Bullington's anti-heroic brothers gleefully play with their nasty characters, like a Nick Cave book or song. Dancing through the grotesque and shit-stained beauty of the medieval, this story cavorts in its possibilities. Once the reader gets past the brothers’ overblown acts of violence, for Bullington uses the grotesque to enable them to escape being caricatures, they turn into eternal anti-heroes. There is a simplicity in the brothers’ appearance and acts, unlike characters such as Martyn or Al-Gussur who have both taken on false identities or created their own selves and, as such, do not exist in the same way as the brothers do and consequently fade way from the ending.

  Bullington's book expresses joie de vivre throughout, as well as giving periodic knowing winks to the reader. It reminded me of my initial excitement at reading China Mieville or Jeff Vandermeer and the possibilities that they outlined for the reader. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart asks the reader to continually question what they are expecting from different varieties of the fantastic, in the same way that any of the post-modern fantasy writers have done, whilst also being an engrossing read.

  Copyright (C) 2010 Iain Emsley

  * * * *

  THE NEW SPACE OPERA 2

  Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan, eds

  * * * *

  Reviewed by Ian Sales

  When Wilson Tucker coined the term “space opera” in 1941 to refer to “the hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn", he can't have imagined the sub-genre would still be going strong sixty-nine years later. Or indeed that it would be considered one of the more successful forms of science fiction. That's not to say that the “outworn space-ship yarn” no longer exists. There are plenty of examples of it being published in the twenty-first century. Some of them are even space opera.

  According to David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer in The Space Opera Renaissance (2006), space opera never went away and merely evolved over the decades into the form we now call New Space Opera. Which is, of course, to completely ignore the British re-invigoration of the sub-genre in the 1980s and 1990s. Before there was New Space Opera, there was New British Space Opera. Of the nineteen authors in The New Space Opera 2, only three are British. Since this anthology is a successor volume and its publisher is American, this is not unexpected. Likewise the fact that eleven of the authors are from the US, with only three Canadians and two Australians. Science fiction is a US-dominated genre.

  But is space opera?

  It is, if you extend its definition to include some of the stories in The New Space Opera 2. Because from this anthology, the only possible conclusion is that the new space opera has not only morphed back into the old space opera, but it has also expanded to include a great deal more of science fiction. How else to explain the stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch or Elizabeth Moon in The New Space Opera 2? Both are the sort of sf C.J. Cherryh was churning out by the yard in the 1980s. Or Mike Resnick's spoof tale, which may riff off Tucker's original definition, but seems to miss the point of new space opera. While John Scalzi's ‘The Tale of the Wicked’ may be space opera, inasmuch as it features spaceships, AIs and humanity at war with an alien race, it has neither the vigour, scale, nor inventiveness of new space opera. And Bill Willingham's ‘Fearless Space Pirates of the Outer Rings’ is pure pulp sf, although its ending does drag it into the twenty-first century.

  Perhaps this is the way of things. A new movement injects vigour into a moribund genre, and is then subsumed by it. Which is not to say that science fiction was entirely moribund, nor that it has been wholly re-invigorated. There is still a whiff of corruption from some areas of sf.

  Happily, The New Space Opera 2 is mostly a good read. With contents provided by, as the back-cover blurb has it, “some of the most beloved names in science fiction", the stories are readable and mostly entertaining. But naming any anthology after a movement—however arguable its definition—is a hostage to fortune. There are some good stories in The New Space Opera 2. There is some new space opera in The New Space Opera 2. There is even a small overlap between those two groups. But there are a significant number of pages which do not belong in either group.

  The New Space Opera 2 scores best at presenting a snapshot of science fiction in 2009. It is not an all-inclusive snapshot—for that, one of the many ‘best of the year’ anthologies is needed. The New Space Opera 2's contents lean in a specific direction. But the good stories in it show what's been good in sf during the past couple of years—those stories, for example, by Robert Charles Wilson, John Barnes, John Kessel, John Meaney, Justina Robson, Sean Williams and Bruce Sterling. No anthology will ever be perfect, no matter how “beloved” its contributors. The New Space Opera 2 improves its chances with its titular theme. For most readers it will have a higher than average hit-rate. But as part two of a manifesto for new space opera, its title does it few favours.

  Copyright (C) 2010 Ian Sales

  * * * *

  * * * *

  ARS MEMORIAE

  Beth Bernobich

  * * * *

  Reviewed by Peter Tennant

  In the world of Beth Bernobich's novella, which I understand is part of a cycle of stories, Ireland has deftly avoided the bane of English rule and, under the name of Eireann and ruled by a fiery red haired queen, is one of the main players in the great game of politics.

  Commander Adrian Dee is sent to the Balkans where, as ever, trouble is brewing between various factions, his mission to establish the truth behind rumours that Anglians have secured foreign backing for their cause, with a revolt against Irish rule imminent. There is however more to the case, a suspicion that somebody at the Court of Queen Aine Lasairiona Devereaux is behind these claims and pursuing an agenda of their own. Dee can trust no-one, not even himself as he is having mental problems of a kind, with fake memories of the death of people close to him twined in and around his own memories. These tie in with theories as to the nature of time, a matter touched upon by several of the characters. Dee travels through Europe in a variety of disguises, eventually coming to the Balkan state of Montenegro after assorted frying pan and fire episodes along the way. There he learns the truth behind the supposed Anglian conspiracy, and that an even greater threat is waiting in the wings, a plot to destabilise the Balkans and plunge the world into war through the use of a time device.

  In her Introduction to this book, Kage Baker writes that the ‘genres of steampunk and alternate history complement each other', and makes a case for Ars Memoriae being the latest in a long line of successful fusions of the two. Baker talks a good game, name dropping such worthies as Verne and Wells, Phileas Fogg and Professor Challenger, with references to ‘remarkable machines whose every surface would be covered with intricate decoration’ and how such devices ‘would enable us to have wonderful adventures, rather than imprisoning us like maggots in a giant cheese'. It's stirring stuff no doubt, but little here makes it onto the pages of Bernobich's novella. There are references to airplanes and Dee travels to Paris by passenger balloon, but these are just window dressing in a labyrinthine tale of political intrigue and only at the end do you feel that alternate or steampunk science is really at the heart of things.

  Which is not intended to detract from Bernobich's achievement, as this is a gripping adventure story from first word to last, chock full of incident and set in a world that is a convincingly detailed distortion of our own. And, as ever with alternate history, much of the fun is in guessing at points of departure and seeing how famous characters from our past fared in this reality. There are tantalising hints, places where events seems to overlap or reverberate—echoes of the Irish Troubles, and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand—but Bernobich is too canny to be pinned down on specifics, and so we are left to our own imaginative devices. And if we don't get scientific romance as such, there is romance of the more mundane though no less glorious kind, as Dee forges an alliance with a lady scientist, who has the potential to be so much more to him than fellow righter of wrongs.

  More than any
thing else this book, with its Machiavellian twists and turns, reminded me of Moorcock's novel Glorious Albion, with the added bonus of a narrator who, if not exactly unreliable, is subject to lapses in memory and confusion. Of course this is an occasion where the reader knows more than the protagonist, in that we suspect Dee's false memories are but echoes of some other reality, just as his world is an echo of our own, wheels set within wheels.

  Copyright (C) 2010 Peter Tennant

  Peter Tennant writes the Case Notes book reviews feature in our sister magazine Black Static.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  BLACK AND WHITE

  Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge

  * * * *

  Reviewed by Vikki Green

  Black and White was something of a surprise to me as I has wondered whether superheroes could support a novel rather than a graphic or short story format. What we have here turns out to be a complex and compelling conspiracy thriller. The main themes the stories dealt with are good and evil, and who decides what is good and evil? How far should a person rely on their own conscience and ideals to decide on what is good or evil? Which definition is the right one and how can a person choose between them if they are brought up in a milieu that encourages one viewpoint over any other? Both the main characters are flawed in their views, but they are the products of over a century of manipulation and brainwashing. One takes the ‘orthodox’ view, the other the ‘unorthodox’ line. They hate each other, but the roots of that hatred lie in the manipulation and deceit that have surrounded them from childhood.

  Black and White is set about a century into the future and concerns two extrahumans who are apparently on opposite sides of the law. The first, Iridium (also known as Callista Bradford) is in the middle of a robbery when we meet her and is apparently dedicated to a career devoted to crime. The second main character, Jet (Joan Greene), first appears in the midst of an awards ceremony dedicated to her efforts to save New Chicago from the forces of criminality. On the face of it, Jet is the textbook superhero who protects the innocent.

  As the story unravels, it becomes clear the Academy, which is responsible for raising the extrahumans, serves merely to brainwash the children into the appropriate superhero line of thinking, and anyone who shows signs of deviating from the party line is sent to Therapy, from where they return much changed. The superheroes who make it onto the street are not the ones with the best crime-fighting ability but the ones who attract advertising contracts and sponsorship deals. The rest get to fly a desk in Ops, and their careers go nowhere fast.

  Both of the main characters have the usual complex backgrounds and are struggling with difficult family circumstances. Iridium's father was incarcerated in Corp Co's extrahuman jail, Blackbird, after becoming a ‘rabid’ criminal. Jet has to contend with the fact that her father went mad and murdered her mother in front of her when she was a child. Apparently the bearers of the Shadow superpowers are cursed to become dangerously insane at some point in their adult lives, and this naturally haunts Jet as she copes with the events that unfold in the book. It also happens to leave her open to manipulation and, ultimately, betrayal.

  On the surface, Black and White seems to be a conventional conspiracy thriller with superhero overtones, but it is a much more complex read than those elements suggest. The lines between good and evil are sufficiently blurred by the time the novel ends to leave room for the characters to develop further in future instalments of the series. There may be a moment in the story where an important plot twist is telegraphed pretty loudly but that doesn't actually detract from the final revelation, and, in fact, serves to complicate matters nicely by allowing a third, wild, element to enter the novel. Black and White's strength lies in its sophisticated young characters: their changing motivations, their moving loyalties, and their reactions to their situation. One is hunted and cynical from the start, whereas the other only slowly comes to realise the extent of the betrayal in which she has been complicit.

  It's an enjoyable page-turner of a novel and it is the first of a new series. There are some interesting loose ends left dangling and it will be intriguing to see how Iridium and Jet counteract the inevitable reaction to the events in Black and White.

  Copyright (C) 2010 Vikki Green

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's DVD/BD Reviews

  * * * *

  Set in Paris, 2010, Pierre Morel's District 13 (aka: Banlieue 13, 2004) was a showcase for daredevil ‘free-running’ stuntmen, gunplay sequences and some cool martial arts, combined into a sci-fi thriller with many exhilarating action scenes. Captain Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli) is teamed up with ‘local hero’ Leito ('parkour’ maven David Belle), on a mission to retrieve a stolen nuke and rescue Leito's kidnapped/enslaved sister Lola (Dany Verissimo) from the hideout of mobster Taha (Bibi Naceri, also co-writer with Luc Besson). Among several obstacles there's giant-sized henchman ‘K2’ (Tony D'Amario), but he's not the only problem for the special undercover operation, as the uber-competent heroes can hardly trust each other, let alone Parisian police or French politicians. If the filmic model for District 13 was Escape From New York, then Patrick Alessandrin's sequel District 13: Ultimatum (DVD, 26 October) cribs its baseline plot (awful warning about dangerous fascism) from a RoboCop checklist, minus clunky cybernaut and satirical jibes, while its key action—for returning heroes Damien and Leito—stems clearly from Walter Hill's The Warriors (1979). Can you dig it? Now, it is three years later in screen-story time and those walled-in ghetto projects have become gangland fortresses run by ethnic warlords. Crooked elite cops, working for almost genocidal military chiefs, perpetrate a crisis, forcing a republican president to consider evacuating and destroying all those inconvenient dens of vice/supposedly verminous residents in unemployment traps. With a noticeable budget increase, this borrows hi-tech slickness of design/style from the James Bond pictures, although, to maintain a distinction from the 007 format, super-cop Damien is first seen in a drag-disguise to get him within striking distance of a wealthy but sleazy villain. Overall, the stunts are grander in scope and more outrageous, but often less realistic or gritty, and yet a hectic pace and infectious energy (which is a signature of Besson's productions) is expertly sustained throughout. What distinguishes these fun French actioners from typical Hollywood sci-fi adventures with lone heroes is that District 13 and this sequel are ‘buddy movies’ in the truest sense. The dual protagonists are synchronised equals, separately proficient in feats of daring skill and bravado, and yet wholly unbeatable if working together for lively comic-book exploits. Honest lawman teamed with athletic activist present a formidable challenge to the villains’ cynical pragmatism of property redevelopment at the expense of citizens locked untidily in poverty hell. As such, and as ever, this is inspiring superhuman fantasy fun about a valiant few winning the day against demonstrably insurmountable odds.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  * * *

  Visit www.ttapress.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.