Quoth the Scotsman | Kim Stanley Robinson on Seizing the Day

This week, instead of catching up on all the reviews I've abandoned in the to-do queue, or playing Mass Effect 3, say - which we'll talk more about shortly - I've been reading 2312, the forthcoming space opera from that setter of standard, Kim Stanley Robinson of Red Mars renown.

As I said on Twitter after the first night I spent with 2312: it's been incredible, obviously.

And it's continued as awesome. I haven't been able to set aside as much time as I might like to devote to it this week - with everyone's exams either here or nearly, the tutoring has gotten all serious all of a sudden - but those moments I have had to spend with 2312 have basically, if you forgive me the hyperbole, blown me away.

I should have a full review of 2312 ready for public consumption well ahead of the book's publication in late May, but for the very moment, I wanted to share at least this little snippet with you. It's excerpted from from an early chapter, so never fear: there are no spoilers in sight. All you need know is that Wahram - one of our impetuous protagonist's co-conspirators - is considering how to keep things interesting in the midst of a long interplanetary voyage:

"Habits begin to form at the very first repetition. After that there is a tropism toward repetition, for the patterns involved are defenses, bulwarks against time and despair.

"Wahram was very aware of this, having lived the process many times; so he paid attention to what he did when he traveled, on the lookout for those first repetitions that would create the pattern of that particular moment in his life. So often the first time one did things they were contingent, accidental, and not necessarily good things on which to base a set o habits. There was some searching to be done, in other words, some testing of different possibilities. That was the interregnum, in fact, the naked moment before the next exfoliation of habits, the time when one wandered doing things randomly. The time without skin, the raw data, the being-in-the-world. 

"They came a bit too often for his taste. Most of the terraria offering passenger transport around the solar system were extremely fast, but even so, trips often took weeks. This was simply too much time to be banging around aimlessly; doing that one could easily slide into a funk or some other kind of mental hibernation. In the settlements around Saturn this sort of thing had sometimes been developed into entire sciences and art forms. But any such hebephrenia was dangerous for Wahram, as he had found out long ago by painful experience. Too often in his past, meaninglessness had gnawed at the edges of things. He needed order, and a project; he needed habits. In the nakedness of the moments of exfoliation, the intensity of experience had in it a touch of terror -- terror that no new meaning would blossom to replace the old ones now lost.

"Of course there was no such thing as a true repetition of anything; ever since the pre-Socratics that had been clear, Heraclitus and his un-twice-steppable river and so on. So habits were not truly iterative, but pseudoiterative. The pattern of the day might be the same, in other words, but the individual events fulfilling the pattern were always a little bit different. Thus there was both pattern and surprise, and this was Wahram's desired state: to live in a pseudoiterative. But then also to live in a good pseudoiterative, an interesting one, the pattern constructed as a little work of art. No matter the brevity of a trip, the dullness of the terrarium or the people in it, it was important to invent a pattern and a project and pursue it with all his will and imagination. It came to this: shipboard life was still life. All days had to be seized." (pp.50-51)

I bet you can imagine why this passage spoke to me so. If not, consider the epic holiday I just had, and the soul-crushing feeling that often accompanies coming home. I only wish I'd read these words a week or so sooner.

2312 is magnificent, incidentally. Already one of the year's best in my book, and I'm still not quite finished... a situation I aim to remedy this evening.

Seize the day yourselves on May 24th!

The Scotsman Abroad | True Lies Untold in The Drowning Girl

At long last, it's time to talk about one of the best books of the year!

We'd have hit it somewhat sooner - excepting a couple of corrections, the review was good to go more than a month ago - but what with all the incredible guest blogs and everything else, by which I mean buckets of beer, I hardly had the opportunity to attend to it during my American absence.

Tell you what, though: six or eight weeks on from my initial read-through of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, the latest from Caitlin R. Kiernan - and I do believe the final novel of its kind to come from the aforementioned author - has lost none of its power. If anything, it's gained certain shades in my imagination.

You could call The Drowning Girl: A Memoir a ghost story and not be terribly far off the mark, but it's a ghost story only Caitlin R. Kiernan could have written. She's among the most unique voices in genre literature today, and I am, I confess, more than a little mixed in the feelings department to hear that she means to appeal to the YA market with her next novel, Blood Oranges.

Whether it's the last of its line or not, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir is a truly virtuoso piece of work. A masterful feat, even considering Kiernan's standard caliber. If indeed it is time for her to move on, from one world to another, then I can't conceive of a book that better represents all that she's achieved since Silk. 

In any case, Strange Horizons published my review of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir yesterday, so here's a snippet of it:

India Morgan Phelps — Imp to everyone she and we come to care about over the course of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir — is insane. Probably. Maybe. Possibly. But in any case "there's crazy and then there are crazy people who believe in mermaids and werewolves and unicorns and fairies and shit" (p. 228), a decent distinction which, indecently, leaves Imp doubly damned, because she's a disorganised schizophrenic from a longish line of asylum attendees, tormented in the interim by lunatic visions of a spectre in the skin of a girl.

So what's her word worth? In all likelihood, not a lot. Perhaps nothing. Or else, equally, everything. Assuredly it's all we have to go on in the ninth novel from one of dark fantasy's most masterful artists. This is Imp's memoir, after all — her suggestively subjective account of certain incredible events — and though there are other characters sewn into the road of needles she takes, she is the author of each and every one; we only ever see them through her uncanny, meandering eye. Thus, the question is, was, will always be: is Imp's fly-by-night narration enough to unpick the enigmas within this eminently telling text?

The simple fact is, it isn't. But the truth is, it is.

(continue reading)

You can read the rest of my review over at Strange Horizons, and I really would urge you to. If you're a fan of fine dark fantasy - and amongst us, who isn't? - The Drowning Girl: A Memoir is not a book you can afford to overlook.

Meanwhile, on The Speculative Scotsman tomorrow, we'll touch on another of the early year's best. I don't want to give the game away as to its identity just yet, but if you've been paying attention to my tweets this past week... you'll have an inkling, I think.

Cover Identity | The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra R. Clarke

I've had call to talk about Strange Chemistry on a couple of occasions already. For those of you net in the know, it's an up-and-coming imprint of Angry Robot Books with a specific focus of speculative fiction of the YA variety. So obviously, I'm interested in it.

It doesn't hurt that friend of the blog - and friend of the me - Amanda Rutter (formerly of the gone but still not forgotten Floor-to-Ceiling Books) is leading this particular charge. I'm very keen to see, finally, some of what she's got in store for us all, be we young or old.

As of an email from Amanda a couple of days ago, one contender has roundly risen above the others in my eyes. That would be The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra R. Clarke, and not - or not solely - because of Amanda's description of it as an experience alike The Arabian Nights as written by Scott Lynch or Throne of the Crescent Moon's Saladin Ahmed. Though in this case, with a new author, that sort of comparison certainly helps.

As does cover art as appealing as the image embedded above. All sorts of purdy, isn't it?

Truth be told, though, it was a couple of info-nuggets in Cassandra's bio that served to excite my interest. Firstly, foremostly, it was the mention of the author's attendance at Clarion West in the summer of 2010. In the past these star-studded workshops - instructed by writers like George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Roger Zelazny and Gardner Dozois - have given an incredible array of literary talent a real leg up in the industry. Amongst the other alumni of Clarion West: Kristine Katheryn Rusch, Rachel Swirsky, Margo Lanagan and Daniel Abraham.

So Cassandra R. Clarke has a lot to live up to!

By now you must be wondering: what's the other thing, then? Well I'll be the first to admit my reasoning here is a bit silly, but Cassandra hails from Houston, Texas, and of all the places I stopped off in during my month in America, I was - entirely to my surprise - at my happiest in Houston.

Oh, for another night out in the Heights...

In any event, what's The Assassin's Curse all about? Well here's a bit of blurbage:

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan. But that only prompts the scorned clan to send an assassin after her. And when Ananna faces him down one night, armed with magic she doesn’t really know how to use, she accidentally activates a curse binding them together. To break the curse, Ananna and the assassin must complete three impossible tasks — all while grappling with evil wizards, floating islands, haughty manticores, runaway nobility, strange magic, and the growing romantic tension between them.

The bad news is that The Assassin's Curse isn't due out till the other side of the summer - most of you will have to wait till October to get your grubby paws on it - but would you believe I've got good news, too? At least I do for those of you based in the UK.

Thanks to Amanda, I have a single ARC to give away in early May, which is to say soon, and all you need to do to stand a chance of winning it is riddle me this:

Which popular author will be bringing the

fight to the club at Clarion this summer?

Please send your solutions to thespeculativescotsman [at] gmail [dot] com and mark your subject headers appropriately. I'm going to give you till this time next week to get your answers in.

Good luck, everyone!

Coming Attractions | Railsea by China Mieville

So here's something to get excited about.

Railsea is almost here!

Specifically speaking, it's not more than a month out, wherever in the world you are... that is assuming you're either in the UK or the United States, where Railsea will be released on May 24th and May 15th respectively.

In the unlikely event that you're wondering what Railsea is - why it's only the new novel by our man Mieville! - here's a bit of blurbage to whet your appetite:

On board the moletrain Medes, Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarpe hunt: the giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one’s death and the other’s glory. But no matter how spectacular it is, Sham can’t shake the sense that there is more to life than traveling the endless rails of the railsea – even if his captain can think only of the hunt for the ivory-coloured mole she’s been chasing since it took her arm all those years ago.

When they come across a wrecked train, at first it’s a welcome distraction. But what Sham finds in the derelict — a series of pictures hinting at something, somewhere, that should be impossible — leads to considerably more than he’d bargained for.

Soon he’s hunted on all sides, by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters and salvage-scrabblers. And it might not be just Sham’s life that’s about to change. It could be the whole of the railsea...

Doesn't that sound superb?

Railsea is YA, as I understand it, and while that mightn't be the most optimistic of omens - the consensus seems to be that Mieville's only other YA effort, Un Lun Dun, is his weakest work to date, and truth be told I don't know that I'd disagree - but while that mightn't be the most optimistic of omens, as I was saying, I'm still hella hopeful. Mieville's been on a winning streak ever since that Gaiman-esque digression, and last year's Embassytown stands among his best books yet.

Add to that: this tantalising new novel looks to touch on the selfsame subject matter as Iron Council, and I dare say it may have a whiff of The Scar about it as well. That's already a damn sight more Bas-Lag than I'd expected. And the more Bas-Lag the better, yes?

Not to speak too soon, but I haven't had an advance copy of Railsea yet myself, so we're all in the same boat this time. Or else the same, uh... train.

*ahem*

In any case, besides my enthusiasm for anything and everything Mieville, the material reason I opted to blog about Railsea today was this excerpt, published on Tor.com late last week. It features the prologue and the full first chapter of the book, and needless to say, it floated my goat.

So off you go, folks! Read it. Weep that there isn't more. Meanwhile we'll compare our notes a little later...

Science Faction | Why Do Old Books Smell So Good?

Despite my initial resistance to books, the new breed, I do actually own an e-reader. We've talked about it before. In point of fact, it's a tablet in disguise - the original Transformer, if you must know - but after a period of experimentation with Aldiko and several other alternatives, the increasingly full-featured Kindle app has served me very well.

Well enough that these days, the ratio of my reading habits - which is to say the number of e-books I read versus the number of tree-books - is fast approaching 1:1. That said, if I love a book, I'll buy the hardcover, regardless of whether or not I already own an electronic copy. This has become something of an issue in itself... but it's not the issue I want to talk about today.

What I want to talk about today is why I still tend to buy tree-books over e-books. There are many reasons, really, but whenever I have to rationalise my fondness for physical copies, one of the first factors I look to is, oddly, the aroma of a beloved old book. The savoury scent of printed paper. The musty wonders of something second-hand. The way that a simple smell can take you back years - decades, even - to the time you first read through a particular book. A favourite, say.

Speaking of which, I have a mind to spend a minute sniffing my first edition of The Scar, but for the sake of this bitty blog post - already many weeks in the making - I'll resist.

Now I'm not a complete idiot. I don't lead with my nose in altogether too many of my decisions, but when it comes to books, the smell of an old paperback means a great deal to me. Or rather, it did... before I watched the short video embedded below, which aims to explain some of the starter science behind that marvelous musk.

Fair warning and all: this clip has taken the wind out of my sails somewhat, so watch it at your own peril.

So how about now? Still love the smell of old books? Even now you know the aroma is essentially a combination of chemical reactions and rot?

Sniffing The Scar will never be the same again! :/

Video Game Review | I Am Alive, dev. Ubisoft Shanghai

If it is recalled at all - and let me say off the bat that I absolutely believe it should be - I Am Alive is likely to be remembered as 2012's best worst game. It's not a fundamentally broken product, as a few frustrated industry critics have alleged, but it is clunky, ugly and oddly arcadey in spite of its self-professed video game vérité aesthetic. In terms of certain aspects of its conception and execution, additionally, I am afraid I Am Alive looks and feels tragically misguided.

That said, I had a hell of a time with it.

In the first, because it's no small wonder that I Am Alive is alive, in any way, shape or form. Understand, if you aren't already aware, that it was five years in the making under the the care of various different developers working out of several entirelyseparate studios, and that's just going from the information available in the public domain; I don't doubt the whole story is still more sordid. Be aware, also - be very aware - that I Am Alive was scrapped and restarted who knows how many times before Ubisoft Shanghai hit upon the downloadable, Uncharted-esque design let loose upon the Xbox Live Marketplace and latterly the PlayStation Store this Spring.

Thus, the extent of I Am Alive's existence as an actual buyable entity is an achievement in itself. And though some amount of the tumult behind the scenes of this strange game's creation comes through in the final product, as a matter of fact there's less of that than I'd expected. Seems to me the single greatest issue this latest iteration of the core idea animating I Am Alive suffers from is a rush to get it out of the door well before it was primed and polished for public consumption.

Needless to say, I have no inside information here... only the knowledge that I Am Alive plays, in a lot of ways, like a preview build of an incomplete product. Like a game with a couple months of beta testing ahead of it yet. I wouldn't dare to damn the thing in this fashion if Ubisoft - the erstwhile purveyors of annual installments of the Assassin's Creed franchise - hadn't crapped it out in its current state.

But I Am Alive is what it is, and what it is isn't all bad... not by any stretch of the imagination. Speaking of which, there's another thing I Am Alive lacks: imagination. That is, in terms of its narrative, its characters, and the awkward way the player interacts with both and neither. The story, to be sure, is a derivative dreg. A filthy swill of the begged and the borrowed distilled from any number of better, smarter, more exciting apocalypses. The people you meet, meanwhile - you being Adam, a husband and a father separated from his family by the lack of a proper public transport infrastructure in the immediate aftermath of The Event - are flat, uninspired, or outright insipid to a one.

Still and all, I Am Alive is incredible. Or else: it very nearly is.

Much as I might like to, I don't suppose I can overlook all its problems. The unresponsive, generations-removed controls that make simple platforming an almighty chore; the ghastly map which puts paid to any notion of either planning or on-the-fly navigation in the city of Haventon; the frustrating dead ends in the level design, a la Silent Hill's shattered streets but lacking that series' rhyme or reason; the crappy combat. Oh, the crappy combat!

But we needn't get into that, and we certainly won't so late in the game. Like so many of the crude component parts that factor into I Am Alive - like the cheap checkpoints and the fetch quests - once you get your head around how combat works, it... well, it works, and that's all it needs to do, really. I mean, say it had looked or felt more satisfying; presumably players would want to do more of it, and that'd be a complete contradiction of I Am Alive's bleakly unique take on the survival horror genre, which casts you as a half-dead dude instead of some superhuman, with a single bullet in the chamber of your rusted old gun if you're lucky - and only then if you've used your exceedingly rare resources sparingly - or a paltry box-cutter if not. Versus the world.

And what a world.

That's why I love I Am Alive, for all its faults. Because of what it tries to do, and what to some extent it succeeds in doing. Because of the breathlessly oppressive atmosphere it evokes, and the insensible terror the presence of someone who hopes to hurt you invariably brings about. Because of the fear, basically. I love a good scare - don't we all? - thus this last outweighs all else: I have rarely felt so afraid playing a video game as I did in the midst of this inimitable, if shockingly unpolished eight-hour experience.

I Am Alive is essentially the Dark Souls of survival horror. Punishing, practically impenetrable, and resolutely old school. Given its relatively tiny price whatever platform you buy it on, I'd recommend you give it a go. Just be sure to bring spare underwear...