Special Circumstances

Child of the River by Paul J. McAuley

Not many science-fiction authors can spin off a great first chapter which is gives you a disquieting, grim gradual revelation of being in a completely alien environment. Paul McAuley pulls this off. However later chapters are more sloppy and less inventive (at some point one of the characters mentions the word `democracy' which should be a meaningless word in McAuley's constructed universe). The ending resolves many of the issues raised in this book but mostly serves as a setup for the next book in a trilogy. Reading this book did not impel me to pick up the remaining installments.

The setting and the plot is not particularly original involving the ubiquitous `Chosen One' plotline, but the hard-sf details and the comfortable fantasy atmosphere can conspire to make it quite a enjoyable read for a lazy summers day.

Paul McAuley walks a thin line between fantasy and hard-sf. Occasionally reading this book reminds you of Gene Wolfe, and then in the space of a few pages you get some hard-sf scientific speculation.

One minor point: the setting for this novel, Confluence, has a rigid caste system, the learned class resemble the Brahmins and there are other hints that the dominant religion is some mutated form of Hinduism. However, the name of the protagonist is Yama, the name of Death personified in Hinduism. The etymology in the book is that Yama is short for Yamamanama which means `Child of the River'. From what sources I could access, the real Sanskrit etymology of the word Yama is from the verbal root `yam': to subdue, control. This is not particularly egregious, except that unimaginative fantasy or sf writers usually pick up some classical works to simply use the unusual names. I hope that McAuley's intentions were not as shallow and it is unclear whether we should attribute these and many other discrepancies to a higher purpose or to the author's ineptitude.

%T Child of the River
%T :the first book of Confluence
%A Paul J. McAuley
%I Avon Books
%D 1997 
%G ISBN: 0380975157
%P 306
%K science-fiction

Review written: 1999/08/17

Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy by Kip S. Thorne

The search for the nature of space-time after Einstein's contributions in this area forms the main topic of the book. Kip Thorne describes for the layperson the details of the many discoveries about gravitation (mostly related to the properties of black holes), and quantum physics (as it relates to the measurement of gravity waves) made by physicists in the second half of the twentieth century.

Kip Thorne embeds the details of these topics in a historical context, documenting the usual conflicts, camaraderie and sense of wonder that exist among all scientists. The different personalities are almost as interesting as the science itself. Ranks as one of the most interesting popular science books I've read. Some of the attempts at presenting a `science fiction' viewpoint of a particular phenomena mostly fall flat pedagogically but these instances are few and far between.

Kip Thorne has co-authored with Charles W. Misner and John Archibald Wheeler a seminal textbook about gravitational physics called "Gravitation". He is the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at CalTech.

This book is somewhat similar in content but far greater in scope, the details covered and in readability when compared to "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

%T Black Holes and Time Warps
%T :Einstein's Outrageous Legacy
%A Kip S. Thorne
%I W. W. Norton and Company
%D 1994
%G ISBN: 0393312763
%P 619
%K science, cosmology

Review written: 1999/07/10

News from Tartary: a Journey from Peking to Kashmir by Peter Fleming

This book describes a trip made in 1935 by the author from Peking to Kashmir through Xinjiang or Chinese Turkistan (what used to be called Tartary). This is a book for those interested in `Great Game' history where Central Asia was the place of intrigue between Russia and the British Empire. There is some interesting political information, often missing from history books, embedded in this travelogue. The uneven writing can perhaps be attributed to the fact that Peter Fleming had to fund his trip by sending regular dispatches to newspapers in London.

Circumstances early on dictate that he has to travel with Ella 'Kini' Maillart, a young Swiss journalist. Kini's addition makes the story more interesting, not only because neither of them wished a travel companion preferring their own company, but also because she was a woman traveler and journalist in a time and place when this was not common. One desire I was left with after reading this book was to read her account of the same trip (published in 1937 as "Forbidden journey: from Peking to Kashmir"; Translated from the French by Thomas McGreevy).

Most of the early part of the book is spent describing the struggle with the `inscrutable oriental' bureaucracy. Since their trip was contingent on the deception of the authorities it wasn't clear to me that the obstacles the various Chinese officials placed in their way was of healthy spite or knowledge of their deception which they could hardly be happy about.

Peter Fleming when he is successful at his writing reminds me strongly of authors like P. G. Wodehouse (who he mentions favorably in this book). Here is an example:

I have travelled fairly widely in `Communist Russia' (where they supplied me with the inverted commas): and I have seen a good deal of Japanese Imperialism on the Asiatic mainland. I like the Russians and the Japanese enormously; and I have been equally rude to both. I say this because I know that to read a propagandist, a man with vested intellectual interests, is as dull as dining with a vegetarian.

Despite his protests to the contrary, Fleming is anti-Russian (a common British sentiment at the time) and shows naive surprise that some of the natives treat the British along with the Russians and the Japanese as equal imperialist threats. In my view, there is little to distinguish British aggression from Russian in this region, although transgressions by the Russians have been more faithfully recorded by historians. He is also virulently abusive to his Uighur guides complete with a great deal of racist invective which is quite jarring with his otherwise debonair attitude.

Peter Fleming is Ian Fleming's older brother; less famous than Ian now ever since the James Bond movie franchise took off, but considerably more famous than Ian when he wrote this book. For more on Ian and Peter Fleming, read Ian Fleming's biography.

For more information about Ella (Kini) Maillart

%T News from Tartary
%T :a Journey from Peking to Kashmir
%A Peter Fleming
%I The Marlboro Press/Northwestern
%D 1999
%D :originally published 1936 by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
%G ISBN: 0810160714 (pb)
%P 384
%K travel

Review written: 2000/01/02