When a private envoy of the queen and member of Lord Carmichael's discreet service goes missing, Balfour and Meriwether are asked to look into the affair. They will find a labyrinth of dreams, horrors risen from hell, prophecy, sexual perversion, and an abandoned farmhouse on the moors outside Harrowmoor Sanitarium. The earth itself will bare its secrets and the Empire itself will tremble in the face of the hidden dangers they discover, but the greatest peril is the one they have brought with them...
***
In recent years, the adventures of Balfour and Meriwether have been a rare yet redolent pleasure. Daniel Abraham's dashing duo have appeared in only two tales to date — 'The Emperor's Vengeance' and 'The Vampire of Kabul' — both of which I reread this week, the better to be ready to review what is certainly their best and most complex quest yet.
I really needn't have — happily, no prior knowledge is required by The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs — though it was a pleasure to immerse myself again in said secret histories, and this novella's revelatory resolution did prove particularly potent on the back of those stories.
Again per the precedent set by its predecessors, there is the sense that The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs is but an episode in the larger canon of Balfour and Meriwether's collaborative careers as agents of Queen and country. Here, however, the episode is essentially supersized; to wit, Abraham is able to expand his narrative and develop his characters in a fairly fascinating fashion.
To mark the paperback publication of his newest book, Hide Me Among the Graves — a sequel of sorts to his classic 1989 novel The Stress of Her Regardwhich has been described as "Dickens as directed by David Lynch" — in addition to the re-release last week of Last Callas one of Gollancz's new-fangled Fantasy Masterworks, it's my pleasure to welcome the one and only Tim Powers to The Speculative Scotsman, to talk about nothing less momentous than how steampunk started.
***
If you ever find yourself thirsty in Orange, California, you could do worse than to stop in at a place near the Orange Circle called O'Hara's Pub and order a pitcher of beer. Sit at one of the booths right across from the bar, and you're right where Steampunk started in about 1976.
Of course lots of books that we now recognize as Steampunk were published before that — Harry Harrison's A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! and Michael Moorcock's Warlord of the Air, and Keith Laumer's Worlds of the Imperium, to name just three — but it was K. W. Jeter who coined the term that made the subgenre distinct, and Jeter was sitting in that booth in '76, along with James Blaylock and me.
The three of us were, or had recently been, English majors at a local college, and all three of us wanted to write science fiction and fantasy books. Jeter and I had in fact recently sold novels to a very low-paying publisher called Laser Books, and my own plan had been to go on writing books for Laser and live on two-thousand dollars a year... but Laser folded, and the three of us were left to while away the afternoons over endless pitchers of beer at O'Hara's.
Mornings too — I remember standing with Blaylock outside of O'Hara's before the place opened, and quoting Omar Khayyam:
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted - "Open then the Door!
"You know how little while we have to stay,
"And, once departed, may return no more."
And I'm sure I quoted Coleridge about passing "through taverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea."
But luckily Laser had not been the only light that failed — the editor at Laser had told us that a British publisher wanted a series of novels based on the idea of King Arthur being reincarnated over the centuries to save the West from various catastrophes, and we had got busy writing them — but eventually the British publisher had become disenchanted with the notion, and all three of us were left with books about reincarnated King Arthur and no publisher.
Jeter, fortunately for us all, had chosen Victorian England as the setting for one of his — Morlock Night, which was eventually published in 1979 — and he found, and told Blaylock and I about, Henry Mayhew. Mayhew was a journalist who wrote in painstaking detail about the lives of all sorts of poor people in Victorian London, honest and crooked, and two collections of his work, Mayhew's London and London's Underworld, were in print. Presented with such a near-infinite source of research details, all three of us proceeded to write science fiction and/or fantasy novels set in 19th century London. And we managed to sell them.
I believe Blaylock had actually seen London, if briefly; Jeter and I had not. And all three of us were writing about a London that existed more in our heads than it ever had in reality, largely derived from Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle. The books we wrote about it are now three decades old, and I must admit I look back at them, and the times in which we wrote them, with fondness. And when Jeter, Blaylock and I are sometimes credited with having started Steampunk, I politely don't argue.
***
Thank you a thousand times for the insight into steampunk's early years, Tim, and for taking the time to stop off at The Speculative Scotsman. If you're looking for more from the man, then to begin with there are his books — every one of which I've read I'd recommend — but be aware, as well, that "Taverns Measureless to Man" is just the latest in a line of great guest posts he's put together for a few of my favourite blogs, including Fantasy Book Critic, Falcata Times, A Fantastical Librarian, SF Signal, Civilian Reader and Fantasy Book Review. Plus he'll be propping up Pornokitsch all of next week, I believe.
And it's actually not bad - other than the cold, that is - to be back. The week the other half and I just spent in Malta made for a more modest holiday than our month in North America earlier in the year, but I think there's something to be said for the self-contained. I mean, we saw everything we wanted to see, ate all the food we could, drank some truly awesome cocktails, and had plenty of time to relax in the between-times.
There was even some reading! :)
Of the books I brought along, I read The Ravenglass Eye, Osama and - on my Kindle - In the Tall Grass by Stephen King and Joe Hill, as well as the final volume (finally) of The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham — which was without a doubt the most heart-breaking novel I've read in 2012. I admit to some bubbling.
Reviews of some, if not all of the above will be forthcoming here on The Speculative Scotsman.
Add to that lovely lot the proofs which were waiting for me at my local post office. Amongst others, these included the sequel to The Emperor's Knife, the three Anno Draculas released to date, London Falling by Vertigo author Paul Cornell,and - last but not least - a long dreamed-of look at the new Warren Ellis: Mulholland Books are publishing Gun Machine in early January, and I can't bloody well wait.
However, one package in particular exited me, specifically because of its tinkling. My first thought was that someone had sent me a Christmas bauble... but no!
From the local Tor team, the following:
That's Boneshaker by Cherie Priest on a festive bed of straw, complete with scissors, gin and some other some vaguely steampunky stuff.
Here's a closer look at all those lovely little trinkets:
But damn, I'll be drinking that!
Now those of you who've been with me since the blog's beginning might remember that I've already read and reviewedBoneshaker, as well as its successor, Dreadnought. I didn't much enjoy either, neither. Be that as it may, this box was so lovingly put together that I'm tempted to give the series another shot.
Who knows? Perhaps the third time's the charm.
One way or the other, we'll see soon enough, because here in the UK, Tor are planning to publish a Clockwork Century novel every month through the fourth volume in the series' release next February. I'll give The Inexplicables a good going-over around then.
Have you ever wondered just how much stuff you could fit into a single film?
Evidently Zack Snyder has. Sucker Punch is like the entirety of The Lord of the Rings trilogy - the Extended Editions, of course - meets The Matrix, by way of Devil May Cry, Onimusha, and Alice: The Madness Returns, with Hermione from Harry Potter running about in a close-fitting miniskirt the whole time, shooting dudes and gyrating to show tunes, presumably because Baz Luhrman is behind the scenes somewhere, and since she's dressed to impress... well, why not?
Sucker Punch is a mouthful of a movie, make no mistake, and a lot of it falls flat on its ass; enough to ruin any other single film. But at the same time, I think the latest from the writer/director who made his most lasting mark with 300 has been quite unfairly maligned. It's certainly not all bad, and not a minute of it is terrible. You might say some moments are even entertaining. And from first to last, it sure does look good.
Sounds alright, too. Boy can Baby Doll sing!
But Baby Doll: there's as good a place as any to start. Before Baby Doll was Baby Doll, see, she was an older sister, and an alluring prospect for the abusive monster of a man she has for a stepfather. This she tolerates, because what other choice is there for an orphan girl like her? But one night Baby Doll-to be watches her stepfather sneak into to her little sister's room. She uses her imagination... and snaps. Or does she finally see sense?
In any event, the result is the same: her stepfather has her locked up in an exclusive asylum for virginal young women, which just so happens to double as a harem for high rollers like Don Draper from Mad Men. He's coming to do what he will with this beautiful new blood in five days, incidentally, but Baby Doll doesn't mean to take this latest cruel twist of fate lying down either. Rather, she resolves to escape this utterly corrupt institute whatever the cost, and so sets out to enlist the assistance of some other pretty young things, namely Rocket, Sweet Pea, Blondie and Amber, in exactly that order.
Which is all perfectly sensible, give or take some early incoherency. Sucker Punch only goes off the deep end when Baby Doll and her attractive associates take to shared hallucinations in order to recover five MacGuffins which will somehow enable their happily-ever-after exit to stage left: fire, a map, a knife, a key, and one other thing; a sacrifice sure to cost these dancing queens dearly.
It's all very video-gamey, needless to say. The search for mostly meaningless objects to move the plot along is rarely so thinly-veiled in film, and it's strange to see it foregrounded in this fashion. Yet I could see past that. I even reached deep and found it in myself to not gawp for altogether too long at all the skimpy fetish gear Zack Snyder's deemed it appropriate to dress up his barely post-pubescent cast in, which I gather has been quite the issue amongst many of Sucker Punch's most vociferous critics.
Leaving aside the fact that there's quite a bit of skin on show here, and there is - apologies if you came expecting some impassioned argument about the propriety of such titillation in cinema; I've seen a lot worse done a great deal less professionally - if you ask me, Sucker Punch's greatest obstacle is its own boundless ambition. Because it's not enough that it wholesales borrows all the most distinctive tropes of steampunk, science fiction and fantasy - never mind gun porn, hellish Nazi horror and the superhero movie - it also feels the need to be a bit of a musical, too; also an extravaganza of apparent girl power, a pseudo-Shakespearian tragedy, a visceral visual feast, and I could go on. That's maybe a third of all that Sucker Punch is, or aspires to be.
The thing of it is, even if fully two thirds of everything in Sucker Punch ultimately comes to nothing - and there is so much to take into account here that it would be beyond tedious were I to endeavour to do so; these broad strokes are I think in everyone's best interests - even then, there is enough left that does work, that does thrill and excite and amuse, to fill five lesser films than this, the biggest, brashest, ballsiest movie I've seen all year.
On the one hand, I couldn't wait for Sucker Punch to be over. It's absolutely exhausting, and it does go on... oh yes. On the other hand, however, I wouldn't take back the experience of seeing it, and hearing it - it's worth mentioning that the soundtrack is one of the most memorable since Underworld - for a single, solitary moment. It looks, then, fantastic; it sounds simply superb; the ensemble cast put on a solid song and dance - certainly everyone seems game for a bit of fun; Sucker Punch feels, finally... just fine.
For good or for ill, it is truly a movie like no other. Too much of one, if anything. But I wholeheartedly applaud Zack Snyder's grandiose ambition; his inimitable and impeccably rendered vision. Even if you never want to see another hint of it henceforth.
Come inside and take a seat; the show is about to begin...
Outside any city still standing, the Mechanical Circus Tresaulti sets up its tents. Crowds pack the benches to gawk at the brass-and-copper troupe and their impossible feats: Ayar the Strong Man, the acrobatic Grimaldi Brothers, fearless Elena and her aerialists who perform on living trapezes. War is everywhere, but while the Circus is performing, the world is magic. That magic is no accident: Boss builds her circus from the bones out, molding a mechanical company that will survive the unforgiving landscape. But even a careful ringmaster can make mistakes. Two of Tresaulti's performers are entangled in a secret standoff that threatens to tear the circus apart just as the war lands on their doorstep. Now the Circus must fight a war on two fronts: one from the outside, and a more dangerous one from within.
***
There are fantasy novels I love, space operas I adore, and horror stories that will haunt me till my dying day; there are tomes of magic and myth and mystery I don't expect I'll ever forget. Long story short, I'm an undiscriminating reader of speculative fiction -- and that's a fact I take heart in.
But.
(You must have know there was a but coming...)
Among the many, one sub-genre - though perhaps I should rephrase, for I do not presume to have read of each and every one - one sub-genre among the many I've experience of, then, has left me cold on every occasion I've spent time with a book of its oeuvre. Perhaps I've just been reading the wrong books... perhaps it's as simple as that. Yet I began to suspect that I'd finally met my match: that steampunk and I were simply, sadly, never going to get on.
It wasn't that the idea of steampunk didn't do it for me, either. Quite the contrary: the notion of worlds and people remade according to anachronistic laws and technologies delighted me. The thought of pitching the irreversible crawl of progress via industry and enterprise in another direction entirely appealed on a level precious few premises tend to. That the idea of steampunk excites the reader in me I am not at all ashamed to admit, but in practice... alas. Till now, all the steampunk I'd given the time of day to felt more about the tech and the time than the tale or its texture; all cogs and wheels and divots where there should have been characters to care about, arcs to invest my interest in.
Then I read Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine, and all that changed.
The company has been travelling for what feels like forever. Perhaps it has been -- after all, "the circus makes an enemy of time." Led on a lazy circuit around a world of "children raised up on roots and scrounge-meat" where some far-distant day there may again be merit in a school - a vast continent of countless governments at war with one another and themselves - if the Circus Tresaulti and its machine/man/animals acts are not welcomed in every place they pitch their tents, then at least they are free to come and go with little outside interference, for "a circus always finds a home; everyone wants a show."
And theirs is a show like none other, such that the very "life of a city flickers and trembles when they are near." The circus' enigmatic ringmaster Boss - an ageless woman whose ability to breathe new life into tired old acts by way of leftover metals is both a gift and a curse - has made sure of that, embellishing those waifs and strays who come to Tresaulti to escape the forever war raging around them with such parts and roles as to make new people of them. "Their real names don't matter; no one in the circus is real any more," so they are Bird and Stenos and Elena and Ayar; the Grimaldi Brothers, Alto and Altissimo; the aerialists Ming and Penna and Ying; Big Tom and Big George, the living trapezes; and Little George - just George at the last - who tells the tale.
That is, Little George tells the tale insofar as any one character does. As it happens, Mechanique is a tale told in the first and the second and the third person, in tenses past, present and future. Stylistically, and so narratively, Genevieve Valentine's astonishing debut can be a challenging thing -- hard to get a handle on, especially at the outset, when spread all around the reader there is a staggering array of such sights and sounds as to practically overmaster one's imagination. But through it all, Little George is our foothold; chronological and largely uncomplicated, his is certainly the most traditional path of narrative through the events of Mechanique, though I do not know if it is the most powerful, for those fleeting glimpses we are allowed of Bird and Boss are haunting... breathtaking... beautiful in a way very few voices could capture.
In any event Valentine seems to have little interest in tradition, in the art of storytelling as we have been given - perhaps mistakenly - to understand it. She comes at things from a million angles, with an attitude wholeheartedly her own, and at a pace I expect some readers may take issue with. Mechanique will be their loss. It is true that Valentine takes her sweet time setting the scene and arranging the stage for the entertainments to come, but one's introductions to all and sundry in the company are a redoubtable delight, and the Circus Tresaulti a thing of blistering, black-blooded wonder.
Perhaps there's something to the fact that the Circus Tresaulti began its whistle-stop tour in several short stories published in Fantasy Magazine and Beneath Ceaseless Skies (all of which you can read for free here). Assuredly the sense of the episodic carries through the first half of Mechanique and in some senses beyond, and so too does the self-containedness of many of the eighty-odd chapters speak to the abbreviated origins of this far grander narrative, but though Valentine communicates her debut's essential character in an unusual way, her weaving together of all these assorted strands is a supermassive success; her carefully-wrought words and workings so fine and precise as to guarantee it is not merely some happy accident that Mechanique works so very well.
Whether Mechanique is a collection of loosely connected episodes in the life and times of a travelling circus and its oddment of performers, or a single story with a fistful of distinct threads enmeshed together, I would argue it matters little. And there can be no disputing that the ringside seats Valentine arranges for us around this unforgettable parade of "clockwork coquettes" and strongman machines are a marvel. We are so close to the action as to scent the mingled stink of sweat and sawdust and sweet treats in the air; to hear "the sound of feathers singing" as every bone in the wings sewn to the spine of Alec the flying man arrives at an impossible harmony; to gape up at and around and through every last incredible act, as if we were ourselves a part of them.
Truly, madly, deeply, readers: this first full-length Tale of the Circus Tresaulti moved me immeasurably. Here's to many more where it came from -- which is to say, from the mind of one of the most promising new voices in all genre fiction. Not since discovering the work of Catherynne M. Valente have I been so excited about a second novel; that for her first Genevieve Valentine has conjured such a masterpiece of measure and imagination as this - the performance of a lifetime! - speaks volumes as to why I may finally have fallen for steampunk.
Nurse Mercy Lynch is elbows deep in bloody laundry at a war hospital in Richmond, Virginia, when Clara Barton comes bearing bad news: Mercy's husband has died in a POW camp. On top of that, a telegram from the west coast declares that her estranged father is gravely injured, and he wishes to see her. Mercy sets out toward the Mississippi River. Once there, she'll catch a train over the Rockies and - if the telegram can be believed - be greeted in Washington Territory by the sheriff, who will take her to see her father in Seattle. Reaching the Mississippi is a harrowing adventure by dirigible and rail through war-torn border states.
When Mercy finally arrives in St. Louis, the only Tacoma-bound train is pulled by a terrifying Union-operated steam engine called the Dreadnought. Reluctantly, Mercy buys a ticket and climbs aboard. What ought to be a quiet trip turns deadly when the train is beset by bushwhackers, then vigorously attacked by a band of Rebel soldiers. The train is moving away from battle lines into the vast, unincorporated west, so Mercy can't imagine why they're so interested. Perhaps the mysterious cargo secreted in the second and last train cars has something to do with it? Mercy is just a frustrated nurse who wants to see her father before he dies. But she'll have to survive both Union intrigue and Confederate opposition if she wants to make it off the Dreadnought alive.
Boneshaker, remember? Book one of The Clockwork Century series by Cherie Priest... nominated for a Hugo, one of genre fiction's most prestigious awards - and for best novel no less. You might know it as Steampunk in Seattle. Ringing any bells yet?
Of course it does - forgive my dubious attempt at humour. All I mean to say is: as fine a time as I had with it then, a year on from Boneshaker, I'm sure finding it tough to remember. As a matter of fact, I thought it sort of forgettable then, too, particularly after all the early word I'd heard praising it to the nines. Rather than the "hollering, stamping, crackling thing" Warren Ellis and an assortment of other names I respect indicated, I found it a flat and largely ill-considered thing only made worthwhile by an admittedly rollicking last act.
Dreadnought touches down near-enough a year to the day of Boneshaker's release, and it's evident from the outset that not a lot has changed. Forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious, but if Boneshaker wasn't for you, nor will this be - though I should say, it's at least the equal of that narrative. Take that as you may. Priest conjures up another Strong Female Character: this iteration's Briar Wilkes is Vinita 'Mercy' Lynch, a nurse who gives up the grind to shed her blood, sweat and tears on a missing man. In Dreadnought, that's Mercy's absent biological father, Jeremiah Swakhammer, who after his heroism in Boneshaker seems to be on the way out. Lately bereft of her soldier husband, news of whose death in the civil war which rages across the heartlands of The Clockwork Century's alt-America has only just reached her, Mercy means to reconnect with her daddy while she still can - or perhaps she simply needs direction. As she admits "to the small piles of money, and the new stockings and gloves and toiletries laid out across the bed, 'I guess now that Phillip's gone, I just don't have anywhere to go. Or, at least,' she amended the sentiment with a catch in her throat, 'I don't have anywhere I've gotta be.'" (p.120)
After rather a lot of faffing, Mercy takes passage to the very other end of the continental United States on a behemoth of a train: massively armoured, heavily defended and carrying a need-to-know cargo, time is very much of the essence, and Dreadnought is her only hope of getting to her daddy while the getting's good.
The ride's a bumpy one in more ways than one. Early readers of Priest's latest have brought to light certain issues with the time it takes Mercy to hitch from Richmond to Tacoma. Let me say this: I could care less. Improbable distances are travelled - fine. In the interests of pacing, the disparity is hardly a show-stopper. But surely there are more noteworthy incidents for Priest to recount along the road than those she does. Dreadnought seems a narrative in search of some driving force for the larger part. For one thing, Mercy takes a long-ass time getting onboard the titular train; for another, both before, during and after she encounters an array of characters who come and go (would that they would only go a little quicker) with absolutely nothing of note to say for themselves - nor to add to the grander narrative, such as it is.
Dreadnought entertains in all the same ways Boneshaker did, in the end - the denouement is neat, make no mistake, and the climax which anticipates it functions as an exciting and satisfying throwback to Westerns of yore - but as with the first novel of The Clockwork Century series, the getting there can be trying. Improbable situations, perfunctory if not blindingly obvious dialogue and repetition, repetition - golly-gosh the repetition! - leave Dreadnought feeling like a fine novella bloated into a longer thing which does little other than tread water before the good times finally roll.
A masked terrorist has brought London to its knees: there are bombs inside books, and nobody knows which ones. On the day of the launch of the first expedition to Mars, by giant cannon, he outdoes himself with an audacious attack. For young poet Orphan, trapped in the screaming audience, it seems his destiny is entwined with that of the shadowy terrorist, but how? Like a steam-powered take on V for Vendetta, rich with satire and slashed through with automatons, giant lizards, pirates, airships and wild adventure, The Bookman is the first of a series.
***
Orphan loves Lucy. He loves her "the way people do in romantic novels, from the first page, beyond even the end," and when The Bookman kicks off, he's either about to propose to her, or else bed the little strumpet. One way or another, as Orphan admits to Gilgamesh, a broken old poet making ends meet on the street and father-figure to the young scallywag in lieu of his actual parents, "tonight... is the night."
But the only oaths Orphan makes that night are oaths of vengeance. Attending the grand launch of a Martian probe, the Bookman makes his mythical presence felt; his vehement objections to the interstellar expedition in question known. In absentia, he detonates a bomb which destroys the probe and incinerates, in collateral, Orphan's one true love. As soon as he regains his health and his wits, the boy's intent is set. For his campaign of anarchic terror, for his wanton disregard of human life, for taking away the very thing that made Orphan whole, the Bookman must pay.
So begins "emerging master" Lavie Tidhar's first novel, which pits one boy against a conspiracy of - would you credit it? - royal lizards which reaches to the stars and back. Now The Bookman could have been brilliant. During its first third, I fully believed it would be. Tidhar's beguiling short fiction, collected together in Hebrewpunk a couple of years ago, certainly is, but the demands of a short story versus those of a full-length novel are divergent, and Tidhar approaches The Bookman from an odd angle: as if it were a collection of loosely-related shorts rather than a single, cumulative experience, he introduces new characters (cobbled together from the annals of factual, as well as fictional, history) and new concepts (which is to say lazily repurposed steampunk tropes) in every chapter, none of which he fleshes out to any real extent.
The bigger picture is what's missing in The Bookman. Every encounter feels isolated, digressionary at best. It doesn't help that Orphan careens through the narrative like a headless chicken, chauffeured frustratingly unawares - and as we experience the text from his perspective, so too are we - from one conflict to the next by a rotating array of supporting characters. The boy's like a wind-up toy. Tidhar alludes to Orphan being but a pawn in some greater game, and that's fine, but at no point does he strive to rise above the myriad manipulations of the likes of Prime Minister Moriarty and the titular Bookman; he is so at the mercy of his every opponent that one becomes rather exhausted by of the rollercoaster of resolve rebuffed and recovery Tidhar has built for Orphan to ride along.
The Bookman is not without its strengths. Specifically, its beginning will reel you in like a bird on a wire, and on a related note, Tidhar's turn-of-phrase can be quite captivating. His stylistic intervention is, however, regrettably intermittent - prevalent particularly in the early-going and at presumably pivotal moments later in the game. For instance:
"This is the time of myths. They are woven into the present like silk strands from the past, like a wire mesh from the future, creating an interlacing pattern, a grand design, a repeated motif. Don't dismiss myth, boy. And never, ever, dismiss the Bookman."
Purplish, perhaps, but pretty all the same. Lyrical and impactful. Were there more such prose, I would heartily recommend The Bookman to you on account of its style, if not its substance, of which, sadly, there's something of a lack.
***
The Bookman
by Lavie Tidhar
UK Publication: January 2010, Angry Robot US Publication: September 2010, Angry Robot
Do you find yourself enjoying a good conversation from time to time? Wish that you could have one without hosting a tea party and laying on scones and jam for everyone who attends? Have you ever been on your way to work on the underground or the bus or the train, praying that someone kind soul amongst the anonymous, odorous mass would strike up a dialogue about the things you love to talk about?
You have? Yes, I mean you. Well, for the low, low price of nothing at all, a podcast could be yours right now. And that's not all!
Well, no, that is all, actually, but you can hardly grouch; the price of entry is insignificant enough that a good podcast can more than justify the expenditure, and time is the only currency you have to spend. The thing is, how do you know which podcasts are good and which aren't even worth your bandwidth?
That's what Castmonger's for.
Welcome, everyone, to the third episode. For this week's recommendation, I was going to point you all towards a particularly entertaining weekly movie review, but given how cinema-heavy The Speculative Scotsman has become this past week I've decided instead to balance the scales somewhat by dedicating this latest Castmonger to The Guardian Books Podcast.
Given how incredibly friendly I've found the blogosphere in the brief time I've had to dip my toes in its warm, wordy waters, I don't expect that The Guardian Books Podcast will be to everyone's taste. On some sadistic level, in fact, I suspect I could well be recommending it just to hear how horrified most of you will surely be at the incredible level of cruelty so many Brits pride themselves in.
The latest episode, not coincidentally a look ahead at the literary science fiction landscape in 2010, is a perfect case in point. Introducing the half-hour of entertainment, as if to reassure any listeners tempted to tune out simply by the mention of such scurrilous stuff as sci-fi, regular chairs Sarah Crown and Claire Armitstead intone that "by the end of this podcast, we hope to have convinced you that [science fiction] offers a rich and valuable literature."
They do not, by dint of their comments, seem terribly convinced themselves. At the mention of steampunk, for instance, another gem of incredulity is uttered: "Steampunk? What's steampunk for goodness sake," as if whichever of the ladies says as much can hardly stand to consider it without sneering.
Nonetheless, they get the big names. In the latest, sci-fi centric episode, there's a 10-minute interview with so-called "crossover success" China Mieville in which the master of the New Weird very soberly answers either Sarah or Claire's questions about The City & The City and even laughs politely at a few of her borderline insulting attempts at humour.
Ah, snobs. It's all very BBC Radio 4, in fact. But this is The Guardian's podcast, after all, so it would be for snobs, by snobs and more often than not, about snobs too.
That said, The Guardian Books Podcast, when it's not busy offending my delicate genre sensibilities - really, who am I kidding? - usually makes for an enlightening and unequivocally critical look at the latest in fiction. It's even topical. Last week, at the tail end of two months of torturous snow here in the UK, Sarah and Claire talked about snow in literature. Who'd have thought it?
So. If I haven't managed to put you off, and really, for all my snark, The Guardian Books Podcast is at least worth a listen, follow the links below and share your thoughts with The Speculative Scotsman in the comments.
Until next time!
***
Click here for more information on The Guardian Books Podcast, or subscribe to the podcast discussed in this post via the following links:
... iTunes users, meanwhile, should use this link.
If you'd like to submit your podcast or a personal favourite to be considered for a future installment of Castmonger, simply leave a link and a brief description below.
"At the start of the Civil War, a Russian mining company commissions a great machine to pave the way from Seattle to Alaska and speed up the gold rush that is beating a path to the frozen north. Inventor Leviticus Blue creates the machine, but on its first test run it malfunctions, decimating Seattle's banking district and uncovering a vein of Blight Gas that turns everyone who breathes it into the living dead.
"Sixteen years later Briar, Blue's widow, lives in the poor neighborhood outside the wall that's been built around the uninhabitable city. Life is tough with a ruined reputation, but she and her teenage son Ezekiel are surviving until Zeke impetuously decides that he must reclaim his father's name from the clutches of history."
***
What with strong word of mouth and the exceptional power of a few recommendations from other genre authors, Cherie Priest's Boneshaker has, since its release in 2009, gotten itself quite the reputation. Take Cory Doctorow, Warren Ellis and blogging geek god Wil Wheaton - they all love it.
The Speculative Scotsman, on the other hand, does not. Not quite. For all the choice quotes that adorn its excellent Jon Foster cover, Boneshaker falls somewhat short of the hype. It's not a bad book, let me be clear, not by any stretch of the imagination - in fact, it's a great deal of fun - but Priest's latest endeavour suffers from enough niggling issues that any interested parties would be best advised to understand the nature of this novel before placing their orders.
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