A Fall of Moondust

Pat Harris is the captain of Selene, the only tour bus on the moon. Every day he and his stewardess, Sue Wilkins, take passengers on a trip across the moon’s Sea of Thirst. This crater filled with moondust seems similar to a lake on Earth, and Selene, like a motorboat, smoothly skims across its surface. By the light of Mother Earth, Selene’s passengers are entertained by glorious views of the moon’s topography, including the impressive Mountains of Inaccessibility.

Pat Harris loves his job. Selene is an excellent dust cruiser, Pat enjoys skimming along the dust and delighting his passengers with the moon’s views, and he has a secret crush on his stewardess. But Pat’s and Sue’s wits and characters will be severely tested when an unexpected moonquake shakes the Sea of Thirst and Selene sinks into the dust. Communications are cut off and nobody knows where they are. Now Selene’s crew and passengers must work together to try to save themselves while scientists and technicians from Earth and the moon are frantically trying to locate them.

Arthur C. Clarke’s A Fall of Moondust is a science fiction thriller which was first published in 1961 and was nominated for a Hugo Award. I like Clarke’s dramatic stories and his no-nonsense writing style and I love both SF and survival fiction, so I knew A Fall of Moondust would be a winner for me.

At only 224 pages (trade paperback) and 8 hours in audio, this was a short fast read with plenty of nail-biting tension and psychological drama. Plus, as Clarke fans will expect, lots of scientific ideas and hypotheses, too. Character development is a bit lacking, since the book is so short, but the insights we get about Pat Harris and Sue Wilkins, as their characters are tested in an ongoing life-threatening situation, are rewarding, and I was really rooting for them by the end of the story.

I read Brilliance Audio’s version of A Fall of Moondust which was narrated by Oliver Wyman. This was the first time I’ve heard this narrator and I thought he was perfect. He did a great job with all the characters and his reading was enthusiastic without being overdramatic. He sucked me right into the story and I listened nearly straight through, finishing the novel on the day I started it.

A Fall of Moondust probably isn’t for everyone, due to its quick pace and focus on survival rather than world-building or character development, but readers who like hard SF and survival stories will be very pleased.

Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat is the second (and probably best-regarded) of her VAMPIRE CHRONICLES. The Vampire Lestat is probably the seminal work of vampire fiction since Bram Stoker. Much of what was implied in Interview with the Vampire is made concrete here as Rice broadens and deepens her mythology, all the while creating one of the archetypal figures of the genre. The first thing one should say about The Vampire Lestat in comparison with Interview with the Vampire is that if you spent the first novel sighing to yourself that all of this was rather good, but Louis was a whiny sort of fellow who liked to talk more than to act, you shall be overjoyed with this installment. Lestat is the vital, charismatic hero that Louis was not. If he loses some of Louis’s tragedy and philosophizing, he makes it up in the simple fact that he is from the first page a more relatable character. The narrative style of Lestat’s book is faster-paced and more direct than that of Louis’s, but leaves ample room for Rice’s trademark sensual imagery and dense characterization… Read the rest.

Hailey lives in the Grove with her mother. The place scares her, because she is not accustomed to it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but her father lost the family’s money and committed suicide, and now they’re stuck living on as best they can. Hailey yearns for a place she can be on her own, and for someone, or something, to save her. She often heads for the Needle, the abandoned skyscraper in the middle of the Grove, for some private time. It isn’t exactly a pleasant place, being filled with trash and unpleasant smells, but it’s a place she can grab some time for herself. One day after school, she happens upon a flock of hummingbirds in the room she usually frequents in the Needle. She is enraptured, especially because hummingbirds are not native to England; she’s never seen one before. But these hummingbirds seem to be messengers of a sort, from a literal grove that existed before the Concrete Grove existed, and right there, in Chapter One, unpleasant things begin happening.

McMahon quickly introduces us to another viewpoint character, Tom, who likes to run to keep in shape, but also to escape from his wife. It’s an especially sad marriage. His wife is a paraplegic, having been in a automobile accident while on her way to a tryst with a paramour. She no longer makes the slightest effort to be a wife in any way, not even leaving her bed any longer, simply eating herself to death. One day – that same day Hailey had her encounter with the hummingbirds – Tom is out running near the Grove when he comes across Hailey, crumpled by the side of the road. He rescues her from what appears to be a faint, and takes her home to her mother, Lana. Lana and Tom have an immediate physical attraction to each other, an attraction that they refuse to deny.

But the Grove has something to say about that, and things continue to get darker as this very black novel continues. We learn that Lana is in deep with the Grove’s resident loan shark, who is as brutal – no, actually more brutal – than one can imagine.  McMahon does not spare his readers, but he doesn’t need to overwhelm us with gory details.  He tells us just enough so that our own imaginations soar into a darkness we never thought lived there, seeing in our mind’s eye what he only hints at. It takes a true master to make a reader paint the picture after he has merely drawn the outline.

McMahon hints at a deeper story than the horrific picture he draws, though, and the reader is left wishing that he had filled in more of the details. One guesses that he is attempting to use the trope of an oak grove as the home of ancient powers that are insensible to humans, seeing them, if at all, only as tools.  The Concrete Grove seems to be built over one of these old places of power. It transforms the older grove rather than replacing it, and McMahon seems to want us to see that the transformation has warped those powers. This would have been a better story if McMahon had done more with the deep background. Desperation, frustration and terror lurk in the pages of The Concrete Grove, and one wishes for an explanation. Publicity for the book states that this is the first novel in a trilogy, so maybe we’ll learn more as the trilogy goes on.

But then, perhaps the lack of a reason is all the reason for the horror McMahon means for us to see for now. Hopelessness emanates from every page; no character seems to have a way out of the awefulness in which he or she lives. McMahon’s horror is existential as well as experiential, and it’s hard to say which is the more terrifying.

City of Dragons

City of Dragons is the third volume in Robin Hobb’s RAIN WILDS CHRONICLES, set in the same universe as many of her other books. In my review of Dragon Haven I wrote, “I’ve begun to wonder over the course of Hobb’s recent books if she is exploring just how much plot she needs in her novels to actually have a ‘story.’ There is a lot of action in her earlier books, such as the FARSEER TRILOGY (and subsequent FOOL’s books) and her LIVESHIP TRADERS group. Then, in the SOLDIER SON TRILOGY, there is almost none; it is primarily a slow study in character and culture (or culture clash). THE RAIN WILDS CHRONICLE seems to be a middle ground between the two. It’s almost as if she’s feeling her way to as quiet and minimalist a style (in terms of action, not language) as possible.” In the end, I thought Dragon Haven rewarded the reader despite its lack of “action” and its slow pace. City of Dragons is, if anything, slower and less action-oriented until the very end. I’d also argue that it is overall less successful, though it did hold my interest for most of its length… Read the rest.

Harbinger of the Storm

Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard‘s début novel and the first book in the OBSIDIAN AND BLOOD series, was one of the most interesting books I’d read in a while… I enjoyed her depiction of the pre-Columbian Mexica (Aztec) empire a lot… I found Harbinger of the Storm to be a worthy successor to what I consider to be a very successful début. The emphasis in this book has shifted a bit from a murder mystery to political intrigue but the setting hasn’t lost any of its appeal in the process. The novel zooms out a bit to allow room for more religious and political aspects of Aztec society to slip into the story. Despite my preoccupation with the historical aspects of the novel, Harbinger of the Storm is mostly a race against the clock to deflect a supernatural attempt to end the empire and the world. De Bodard works a great sense of urgency into the story, making it a fast read. She has once again managed to deliver a very interesting book. I’m looking forward to reading the third book in this series, Master of the House of Darts. Read the rest.

The Heretic

Joseph Nassise’s THE TEMPLAR CHRONICLES series features a modern-day Knights Templar organization that battles the supernatural bad guys of the world. Its hero, Cade Williams, is a member of the Templars but has an uncanny reputation among the order for his psychic abilities. The Heretic is the first in the series and revolves around a cabal of sorcerers who is attacking Templar commanderies, slaughtering the members, and desecrating the cemeteries in search of a holy relic. Cade and his unit are assigned to the problem. The Heretic could be described as urban fantasy by way of a paramilitary/religious thriller. As is apropos for a thriller, The Heretic includes a lot of action and tough-guy heroics. There’s also a great deal of gore, so the weak of stomach need not apply… The Heretic is not a horrible book; it just isn’t for me. It could be a 3-star or 4-star book for a very different type of reader. This is a novel about manly men stoically getting the job done, with little in the way of stylistic or emotional frills. If that appeals to you, give this book a try. But for my own part, I must confess I like my frills. Read the rest.

George Dower’s father was a watchmaker, but he didn’t just make watches. Some of his special customers knew he was a genius with all sorts of gear work. When his father died, George inherited the watch shop. Unfortunately, he didn’t inherit his father’s genius. He can sometimes manage to fix a customer’s watch if he sees that a part has worn out, or something else obvious is wrong, but that’s about it. He’s completely flummoxed when a strange brown man brings in something he’s never seen before — something George’s father made. George has no idea what this infernal device does, but when he agrees to help, he’s soon embroiled in a wild adventure that involves a secret London district with fishy-looking citizens, the Royal Anti-Society, the formidable woman who heads up the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice, a robot doppelganger, and a man and woman who speak 20^th century American slang. George is starting to realize that his father may have been involved in some rather shady business.

K.W. Jeter’s Infernal Devices: A Mad Victorian Fantasy, first published in 1987, has been reprinted by Angry Robot because of the recent resurgence of Victorian literature. In fact, K.W. Jeter was the man who actually coined the term “Steampunk.” As he explains in the forward, he meant it as a joke (referring to the term “cyberpunk”) but it stuck.

As promised, Infernal Devices is indeed a mad steampunk fantasy; it’s filled with flying machines and other mechanical devices, Victorian moral and scientific societies, 19^th century fashion and music, anachronistic technologies, and even some Lovecraftian monsters. The prose, dialogue and humor also feel appropriately Victorian, and Jeter’s London atmosphere, with its clean shop fronts and grimy back alleys, feels authentic.

Though there’s a lot going on in Infernal Devices, it’s light. There are no deep themes, moving relationships, profound insights, or brilliant images, but there are plenty of surprises and laughs. The protagonist, mild-mannered and bumbling George Dower, is not particularly interesting or dynamic, but I felt sympathetic towards him anyway. The other characters are amusing, but they’re rather two-dimensional. This novel is a good example of “Mad Victorian” — it’s just fast chaotic fun. And it’s a classic of the steampunk genre, so I consider it a must-read for serious SFF fans just for that reason.

I listened to Brilliance Audio’s version of Infernal Devices, which was read by Michael Page, who’s got the perfect English accent for this novel — he sounds slightly fanatical and frenzied. I loved his narration. The audiobook also includes a foreword by K.W. Jeter and an afterward by Jeff VanderMeer who explains the importance of the novel in the history of the steampunk genre.