Special Circumstances

Ceres Storm by David Herter

Daric is a clone. One of many of a great Leader who ruled the Solar System, thousands of years before he was born. He is a child, taught daily by his pillow and chaperoned by his Shade, who lives in his mind. He lives with Jonas and Grandpapa, both of whom are himself: older clones. As the novel opens, Daric's journey begins. Before the end of it, he will uncover his ancestors' history, the strange future he inhabits, all while meeting new forms of himself along the way.

There are many science-fiction books set on Mars, ranging from pure fantasy to hard science-fiction. David Herter's first novel, "Ceres Storm" starts off in Mars, but it is not as easy to characterize. It is a startling debut attempt to create an original universe for a space opera. Herter takes the reader to a richly textured far future, thousands of years from now, where terms like human are not easily applied to the characters in the novel, and where descendents of man, sometimes transformed by strange symbiotic relationships with aliens, interact with those who remain in our Solar System. The main populations remaining in Mars and Triton and other smaller groups spread out in the outer planets and asteroids. One of the few easily recognizable plot elements in this novel involves an Earth that has been ravaged by nanotech storms and remains inhabited only by the artificial sentience abandoned there.

Herter does not provide overt explanations for an environment that has to be strange to be interesting. Concepts like century roses, starlines, cusps, Myiepan spores, among others which become clear by the end of the novel. One has to pay close attention to the writing and pick up on cues that are far from obvious to discover the underlying workings of the devices used, and the hidden politics of the realms that are traversed. There are no shining flags for the heroic (indeed it could be said that there are no heroes at all in this novel) neither is it obvious who the `bad guys' are. The plot is a clever mixture of a coming of age for the main character, Daric, as well as a caper (participated in non-volitionally by Daric).

A word of warning is that this book is probably one of a series since several loose ends are kept as such in the end. Although, even without a sequel, the novel would remain a rewarding read.

%T Ceres Storm 
%A David Herter
%I Tor
%D 2000
%G ISBN: 081257110X (pb)
%P 255
%K science-fiction

Review written: 2002/04/08

Crystal Express by Bruce Sterling

This is an assorted collection of short fiction by Sterling. The stories are organized into three groups based on a loosely unifying themes.

The first five stories are set in the Shaper/Mechanist science-fiction universe created by Sterling which was also the setting for his long novella "Schismatrix". In this universe, humanity has divided into two factions: The Shapers have "reshaped" themselves through genetic engineering, adopting such enhancements as superior intelligence, longevity and odor-free perspiration. The Mechanists, on the other hand, prefer to gradually replace their mortal flesh with prosthetic limbs and artificial organs. Both factions have colonized the solar system and most of the actions takes place off-earth on the various orbital conglomerates.

These stories were recently published along with this novella in a single collection called "Schismatrix Plus", so if you are only interested in the Shaper/Mechanist stories that is a better value. In this set of stories, "Swarm" and "Spider Rose" are the most ingenious and are placed right in the beginning (you might find more a more detailed description of these stories in the separate review of "Schismatrix Plus"). "Cicada Queen", "Sunken Gardens" and "Twenty Evocations" gain value by being placed in a thematic collection like this one. By themselves, they would not be as interesting to read.

The next three stories are not in set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe: "Green Days in Brunei" is the most successful as a slice of life adventure based in the future of an isolated, monarchist and not-so-rich-anymore Brunei. "Spook" has some fun with futuristic assassination devices but is a bit too trite to be interesting. "The Beautiful and the Sublime" has some half-hearted ideas about the end of science wrapped in a comedy of manners set in a future aristocratic society which mostly missed its mark for me.

The three fantasy stories that close out the collection are not as compelling (Bruce Sterling never really wholeheartedly branched out into fantasy writing. Update: but his recent "The Blemmye's Strategy" is quite appealing). In fact, while they are labeled as such, they are not really fantasy stories in the genre sense. "Telliamed" could have been entirely a science-fiction story in terms of the ideas it represents, but the devices used are clearly fantastic. "The Little Magic Shop" contains a common device of eternal youth and adds little new to the old ideas. "Flowers of Edo" refers to the various fires that devastated parts of Tokyo (back when it was called Edo) and it is successful as an amusing and insightful look at some intriguing characters including a look at early pulp `manga' illustrations like `Kasamori Osen Carved Alive by Her Stepfather'. And finally, "Dinner in Audoghast" is a well-written slice of life set in a doomed city in North Africa which is visited by an unlikely soothsayer.

%T Crystal Express
%A Bruce Sterling
%I Ace Books
%D 1989
%G ISBN: 0441124232 (pb)
%P 278
%K science-fiction

Date written: 2000/09/11

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

He had not noticed, before, the sheer maddening profusion of the place, each person seemingly an ethnic group of one, each with his or her own costume, dialect, sect, and pedigree. It was as if, sooner or later, every part of the world became India and thus ceased to function in any sense meaningful to straight-arrow Cartesian rationalists like John Percival Hackworth, his family and friends.

The Diamond Age of the title refers to the widespread use of nanotechnology that has transformed society, making the use of diamonds as a building material as common as wood. This is a complex book with at least three intertwined plots which unfold in a South China of the next century where a neo-Victorian society is at the forefront of the science of nanotechnology. Each plot is very deliberately paced to interact in a rousing finale. One plot involves the use of technology in the upbringing of an otherwise disadvantaged girl, Nell. The second plot follows the journey of a gifted nanotech engineer, John Percival Hackworth. He does not know his own role in the construction of the most powerful distributed computing device which will result in the further transformation of a society already remade by nanotechnology. The third plot while without a central focal character is the most important thread: the coming of the Second Boxer Rebellion in China.

When it comes to eloquent descriptions of future technology and unabashed head-candy, Stephenson is in his element. This skill is enough to recommend this novel. However, when it comes to deeper ideas about culture and science and their interaction, the ideas are unsatisfying. Like any good sf book, however, there are so many ideas sprinkled throughout the book that even if a fraction are new and interesting, which is certainly true in this case, the book becomes worth reading.

While "Snow Crash" seemed to be a caricature of previous cyberpunk novels, in this novel Neal Stephenson succeeds in inventing a new future universe with special idiosyncrasies. While it still uses stock sf extrapolations like nanotechnology, virtual reality and an ubiquitous computational network, the particular devices are realized in great detail and consistency with the knack of someone who cares about the future growth of such technology. The story, the plotting and the characters all fall behind this primary goal.

Without giving too much away, if you happen to read through to the end of the book, you will get a glimpse of the strangest computing device that Stephenson, or anyone in recent memory, has had the audacity to invent. It's strangely repulsive (or perhaps titillating to some tastes) and compelling at the same time.

The writing style is wildly uneven and changes throughout the novel, sometimes intentionally, but not always. Stephenson introduces important characters, follows them for a few hundred pages and discards them without ever returning to them. Certain ideas are described but Stephenson hedges on the details (which is the forte of a good hard-sf novel), especially in the case of the Drummers. A section about Turing machines and the Turing test goes by without any mention of the concept of the Universal Turing Machine (perhaps too much to expect). There are many other nitpicks, but these are the ones that mystified me the most.

There are several parts of this book that prefigure portions of his later work, "Cryptonomicon".

%T The Diamond Age
%T :or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
%A Neal Stephenson
%I Bantam Books
%D 1995
%G ISBN: 0553573314 (pb)
%P 499
%K science-fiction

Date written: 2000/09/11

The Tarim Mummies by J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair

Early European explorers of the Silk Road like Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin found some astonishing mummified corpses buried in an elaborate ritual style in the Tarim Basin. The ancient oasis cities that skirt the Taklamakan desert have such dry weather that ancient bodies buried in the desert have preserved perfectly for thousands of years.

In later years, Chinese archaeologists have discovered many such burial sites and recovered an amazingly large number of mummies from various sites. For example, the Qizilchoqa cemetery was discovered by Wang Binhua in 1978. Victor Mair, on noticing the strangely Caucasoid appearance of the well-preseved bodies embarked on the pursuit of an answer to their origins and whether they had any contact with prehistoric Chinese civilizations, a topic close to his academic life. The search would be most effective if it involved the fields of archaeology, historical linguistics and genetics. To this end, he enlisted the efforts of J. P. Mallory, a noted scholar in the study of the hypothesized Proto Indo-European language and Paolo Francalacci who assisted in the DNA analysis of the mummies. In the end, the most promising clues of DNA analysis could not be applied since they were able only to analyse and report results on a single specimen. Hence, the focus of the book is mainly on the archaeological and linguistic facts.

The astonishing Chinese discovery of wonderfully preserved four-thousand-year-old human bodies with clothing in perfect condition in the Tarim Basin of western China is fully described by Mair and Mallory in this fascinating and well-researched account. They reach the daring, and perhaps provocative conclusion that these were `the first Europeans in China' -- a view certain to prove controversial.

Colin Renfrew

I'm not aware if the authors had anything to do with this quote being at the back of this book. But this blurb encapsulates the kind of writing style that made the first half of this book exasperating for me. This notion of `the first Europeans in China' is belied by the conclusions they they reach as the most plausible at the end of the book (reproduced below):

1. The earliest Bronze Age settlers of the Tarim and Turpan basins originated from the steppelands and highlands immediately north of East Central Asia.
2. These colonists were related to the Afanasevo culture which exploited both open steppelands and upland environments employing a mixed agricultural economy.
3. The Afanasevo culture formed the eastern linguistic periphery of the Indo-European continuum of languages whose centre of expansion lay much farther to the west, north of the Black and Caspian seas. This periphery was ancestral to the historical Tocharian languages.
4. By about 2000 BC the Afanasevo culture, which was at the time being absorbed by the Andronovo culture from its west and other cultures in the Yenisei region, pushed southwards and came into contact with settled Indo-Iranians to the northwest of the Tarim Basin. ...
5. Many of the Bronze Age mummies preserved in the archaeological record of East Central Asia may be assigned a probable (Proto-) Tocharian identity.

There are few more conclusions that are drawn, but even from these points it can be seen how incorrect the blurb at the back of the book is and it shows the hype used to promote this book is mostly misplaced. It does not detract from the actual findings, but it seems that even in academic writings the notion of truth in advertising is slipping away.

By `Europe' (when used with or without quotes in this book), they mean the European (sometimes called Eurasian) Steppe, and usually the easternmost part of the so-called Western steppe which forms one part of the overall plain. The Western steppe extends from the grassy plains at the mouth of the Danube River along the north shore of the Black Sea, across the lower Volga, and eastward as far as the Altai Mountains. In this book they seem to place the origins of the mummies as the north-west shore of the Black Sea. In other words, hardly `Europe' as most laypersons would understand the word.

In fact, from the above conclusions the truth is actually even more complicated. The origin of the Caucasoid mummies is placed most plausibly in the steppes immediately north of East Central Asia. Hardly Europe, but despite their own conclusions the first half of this book is littered with hints that the origin of the mummies has to be European.

And here we must face the frequently ignored asymmetry of the Indo-European space-time continuum.

And then there's the goofy style of presentation. For a book aimed at the pedantic audience the authors far too cavalier at several points where you reasonably expect some precision in the writing. The authors spend interminable amounts of text explaining historical details which in the final analysis are completely irrelevant to final conclusions. They take us through their (understandably) tangential thought processes in their search for an answer to the puzzle of the origin of the mummies. They include discussion of Herodotus and ancient Chinese legends. Inspite of this, they fail to introduce to the reader in the earlier chapters the prehistoric Afanasevo and Andronovo cultures from the northern part of East Central Asia which forms a crucial part in their final answer. Also, they change the focus partway through the book to only the prehistoric mummies, ignoring the mummies from later periods (4 B.C to 400 A.D.). However, in earlier chapters they take great pains to explain the environment of the entire known history of the Tarim Basin, even the complex history during which it served as part of the Silk Road.

%A J. P. Mallory
%A Victor H. Mair
%T The Tarim Mummies
%T :Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West
%I London: Thames and Hudson Ltd
%P 352
%D 2000
%G ISBN: 0500051011 (hc)
%K history, archaeology, linguistics

Date written: 2001/02/09

Starfish by Peter Watts

She floods the airlock.

By now the feeling is almost sensual; her insides folding flat, the ocean rushing into her, cold and unstoppable as a lover. At 4 deg C the Pacific slides into the plumbing in her chest, anesthetizing the parts of her that can still feel. The water rises over her head; her eyecaps show her the submerged walls of the lock with crystal precision.

At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is a daisy chain of volcanoes, faults and crustal fractures. One of these segments is the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Near an undersea volcano at the southern tip of this ridge is Beebe Station, a manned maintenance station for a power station that taps the energy produced by hydrothermal vents. This is the setting for this hard-sf novel.

As can be seen in the above quote, humans have to be bio-engineered to live in this hostile environments. They have only one lung used only when breathing air in the station. Outside the station, while swimming on the ocean floor, their lungs deflate and the machines loaded into the rest of their chest cavity take over and convert water into oxygen. Speech is artificially synthesized directly from the larynx, and they wear skin and eyes that are adjusted to life under the crushing depth of the ocean.

In early hard-sf stories about space-faring by humans, there was a lot of discussion about the ideal crew to travel for long periods of time in a small enclosed environment that fosters on its inhabitants feelings of paranoia, guilt, fear, rage and other anti-social feelings. Peter Watts has a new take on this problem, in which the corporation which owns this claustrophobic power station on the ocean floor uses individuals that already display all of these traits, and for whom there will be little adjustment required for a long-term stay in this environment. The crew consists of various perpetrators of domestic violence, child abuse victims and paranoid schizophrenic pedophiles for good measure. It seemed at the beginning, that this tactic would be misused by the author and the characters would remain caricatures, but as the story progresses I was repeatedly surprised at the plotting and characterization. While they are not truly post-human, the characters stay interesting long enough for the hard science part to catch on.

It is difficult to talk about the hard-sf backbone of the story without giving too much away. But rest assured, there is more than just atmosphere and interesting characters in this story (as it should be in a hard-sf novel).

Being a hard-sf purist, I would have preferred the story to be without the marginal use of ESP and the usual Penrose-inspired nonsense about consciousness. Penrose's worst legacy is his corruption of otherwise discriminating science-fiction authors. But this is a minor annoyance, and your mileage will vary.

To top off a successful hard-sf endeavour, Peter Watts has an excellent section at the end of this book which points out all the scientific references for the ideas that were used in this book. As he says, `you might be surprised at how much of this stuff I *didn't* make up.' A couple of the more interesting references are: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) web pages on oceanic vents and an article about an alternative genetic template using pyranosal RNA called `The Origin of Life on Earth' by L. E. Orgel (Scientific American, October 1994). Also visit Peter Watts' web page which has more background details and pictures about this novel.

Update: Peter Watts has written a few sequels to this book. The first sequel called "Maelstrom", I found to be disappointing.

%T Starfish
%A Peter Watts
%I Tor Books
%D 1999
%G ISBN: 0812575857 (pb)
%P 374
%K science-fiction

Date written: 2000/08/26

Tournament of Shadows: the Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac

In the light of history, I think the Game really was a game, with scores but no substantial prizes.

H. V. Hodson, editor (1950-61) of the London Sunday Times

This book is a recent addition to a short list of books that survey the history of the Great Game. The Game pitted Russia against Britain (especially the Indian Raj) for the control of Central Asia including areas now part of China such as Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang) and Tibet. The Game started in the late 1700s after the British secured a foothold in India and when Russia expanded eastwards and finally concluded when the British Empire disintegrated and when Russia's empire collapsed from internal causes for the second time in the same century.

Comparisions of this book with the many works of Peter Hopkirk on this topic are inevitable. This book is both greater and smaller in the number of topics covered than the several books published by Peter Hopkirk on this period of history (like "The Great Game", "Trespassers on the roof of the world", "Like Hidden Fire" and "Setting the East Ablaze"). Some additional topics to be found here are:

• The strange case of Duleep Singh, Victoria's favorite Maharaja: a ruler without any subjects. He spent his life in Britain after the British annexed the Sikh kingdom founded by his father, Ranjit Singh.
• The stories of people like Madam Blavatsky and Nicolas Roerich who exerted a strong mystical influence on people who determined the foreign policy of many Western nations including Britain, Germany and America.
• The story of the American `Panda hunters', Suydam Cutting, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. and Kermit Roosevelt.
• The 1943 OSS mission to Tibet lead by Major Ilia Tolstoy (the grandson of the famous Russian author) and Captain Brooke Nolan. They formed Lhasa's first offical contact with Washinton.
• The secret Nazi mission to Tibet under the direction of Himmler's Ahnenerbe, the SS's `Ancestral Heritage' office.
• The American camp in 1961 located in the Colorado Rockies set up to train eastern Tibetan Khampa warriors to fight a guerrilla war against the Chinese Communists. The Khampas were routed by the Chinese and as is common in such cases were soon abandoned by the Americans.
• The Indian attempt under Prime Minister Nehru to annex the Aksai Chin glacier as an attempt at a `forward policy' which lead to a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962.
• The last chapter is full of subsequent modern repurcussions of the Great Game as it was played out before the Second World War with a parade of interesting characters who all fancied themselves still playing the Game in the post-colonial era.

This is, of course, far from being an exhaustive list of the many historical facts related to the control of Central Asia which are covered in this book. The most important point is that while other books perceive the events mostly as being a power struggle between the British and the Russian empires, this book includes other global players of the Game including Germany, America and Indians (distinct from the Indians who served under the Raj).

One major attraction for Great Game enthusiasts is also the citation of a fairly large number of recently published facts about the Great Game cited in this book. Some published sources are as recent as 1999 (published the same year this book was).

The other major strength of this book is the detail of the research into the historical fact and a more in-depth analysis of the events than what has been previously attempted.

Sometimes the details can change your entire opinion: after reading so much about the daring exploits of Colonel Younghusband in Peter Hopkirk's book "The Great Game", I was quite disappointed to read his `Kit List' reproduced in this book uncovered by his biographer Patrick French. His kit included sixty-seven shirts as well as nineteen coats (a full dress coat, a morning coat, an Assam silk coat, two jaeger coats, a Chesterfield coat, a poshteen long coat, a Chinese fur coat, etc.) plus a shikar hat, a khaki helmet, a white panama, a thick solar topi, and the imperial cocked hat. This sartorial spendor along with tents, a bath, beds, rifles, swords, were crammed into twenty-nine containers and hauled by locally employed porters (most probably Indian) through `mountain passes, through forests and icy rivers, over dry plains where your eyeballs could freeze in the sockets'.

Other differences with Hopkirk's book are also telling. While the story of Stoddart and Connolly and the infamous Pit of Bokhara forms the centerpiece of Hopkirk's book, their story gets a small mention and more surprisingly in this book the motivations and thoughts behind the actions of the Emir of Bokhara get a larger analysis where others like Hopkirk usually explain the Emir's actions as those consistent with the stereotypical corrupt, evil and parochial Oriental potentate. This far more reasoned telling of this story while not as romantic is far more interesting.

%T Tournament of Shadows
%T :the Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia
%A Karl E. Meyer
%A Shareen Blair Brysac
%I Washington D.C.: Counterpoint
%D 1999
%G ISBN: 1582430284 (hc)
%P 646
%K history

Date written: 2000/08/18