Tag: alternative history

Permafrost – Alastair Reynolds

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Time wasn’t a river, she said, and it wasn’t a circuit-diagram. Nor was it a tree with multiple branches. It was a block structure, more like a crystal lattice than any of those old dead-end paradigms. It was a lattice that spanned the entire existence of the universe, from beginning to end. There were no alternate histories, no branches where the Roman empire never fell or the dinosaurs were never wiped out. Just that single lattice, a single fixed structure. We were in it, embedded in its matrix.

The novella by the praised Welsh author Alastair Reynolds explores the theme of time traveling, looking at retro-causality (an effect precedes its cause in time) and grandfather paradox (a cause is eliminated by its own effect and so preventing its own cause). The world is on the brink of disaster in 2080, due to a virus that gradually infects different species of insects, killing them. The effect is the fall of crops and collapse of environmental chains. In this life-ending world, humanity desperately tries new, dangerous solutions, the main project being time-traveling. However, the limits of what can be done in the past are well understood and limited by the traveling technology itself.

While only a short story, the book is grappling the reader with its immersive plot and, as usual from Alastair Reynolds, the science is well-researched. There is no magic bullet or perfect protagonist. This makes the story credible, mature and thought-provoking.

Alastair Reynolds is a prodigious author and scientist, with a PhD in astrophysics from the University of St Andrews and worked for the European Space Agency. His books are dealing with science fiction, particularly a branch of the genre called hard scifi, meaning a concern for scientific accuracy and logic.

The title of the book is slightly misleading in my opinion, as the concepts explored in the book are not really dealing with a world of ice, but with time traveling, forced as a potential solution by an ecological disaster.

Nevertheless, overall, a good, thoughtful, grappling short book by a master of hard scifi.

The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, book 1)

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There is something magic about takeoffs. I know people who are afraid of flying who say that the takeoffs and landings are the only hard parts, perhaps because that’s when the act of flying is most apparent. I love the way you get pushed back into your seat. The weight and the sense of momentum press against you and the vibrations from the tarmac hum through the yoke and into your palms and legs. Then, suddenly, everything stops and the ground drops away.

A meteorite hits Earth in the 1950s and, in its aftermath, the planet will gradually become uninhabitable. Humanity realizes that it is in danger and looks for stars. Under such entertaining context, the book follows Elma York, a female pilot and mathematician, and her struggle to be accepted in the space programme, as astronaut.

The story is well narrated and the little news headlines at the beginning of each chapter, showing the worsening of the situation on Earth, offer a nice background. The book is overwhelmingly composed by the dialogue of the protagonist and various personages. It nicely presents the prejudice that women had to bear at the time.

The book was a huge hit, with awards from Hugo, Nebula and Locus prizes. It developed into a series called “Lady Astronaut”. It is well written and has an engaging background. The first 100 pages of the book are a marvel.

On the other side, there are some attributes that make the story less convincing. The protagonist has all the cards possible in her hand: father is a general, she is a genius with a PhD in mathematics, her husband is the best rocket scientist in the world, at the exact moment that this science become the most important thing, she is an ace pilot, well-connected and beautiful. In a bit of cliche, she fights sexism, racism and religious discrimination (she is a Jew), and wins.

Nevertheless, an interesting, engaging, well written and multi-awarded book.

Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke

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Man was, therefore, still a prisoner on his own planet. It was much fairer, but a much smaller, planet than it had been a century before. When the Overlords abolished war and hunger and disease, they had also abolished adventure.

Childhood’s End is a good scifi from the accomplished author Arthur C Clarke. It starts with a sudden arrival of some aliens, just after the second world war. They bring peace and prosperity, but never disclose their reason to come to Earth. The book ends somewhat surprisingly, into a kind of transcendence for humankind.

childhoods-end
Quality scifi writing

Although written in 1953, the book keeps pace with current development and innovations, which shows the, what proved to be correct, vision of the author for the future.

The plot has several twists, a couple of stories being intermingled, but the narrative is kept straight and easy to follow. The anchor of the book are the aliens and the slow progress towards the inevitable end. It reminded me of the more recent series of Harry Turtledove (Colonization – also on this website).

The book is an easy read and imaginative enough to be an entertaining scifi almost 70 years after writing.

While I enjoyed reading the book, I think it could have explored more the excellent plot lines developed. A solid reading overall.

[Featured picture by ITU Pictures]

Colonization: Second contact – Harry Turtledove

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Atvar was glad to return to Australia. It was late summer in this hemisphere now, and the weather was fine by any standards, those of Home included. Even in Cairo, though, the weather has been better than bearable. What pleased him more was how far the colony has come since his last visit.

“Then, all we had were the starships,” he said to Pshing. “Now look! A whole thriving city! Streets, vehicles, shops, a power plant, a pipeline to the desalination center-a proper city for the Race.”

“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” his adjutant replied. “Before very much longer, it will be like any city back on Home.”

This is the first book that I review after an exchange of books with a friend.

The book presents an alternate fictional history on Earth in the 1960s, when the world, finally at peace, is divided between a species of lizard-like aliens and several human world powers. The World War II was interrupted by the alien invasion, leaving the Third Reich, the Soviet Union and the United States as the leading human powers on Earth. Instead of fighting each other, they had to fought the aliens, loosing all the South, including Australia, South America, all Africa and parts of Middle East.

The book is the first in a series (Colonization), that follows a very successful tetralogy (Wordwar) where the fights between human powers are the aliens are described, during the World War II.

In Second Contact, the alien colonisation ships arrive, in the hundred of millions, creating a huge challenge for humans. Some revolt, but only the United States seems to do something, in space, which will find out in the second book of the series.

ColonizationSecondContact
Are we alone in the universe?

The author patiently develops the stories and the characters, which come from all the regions, races and powers. Here we can see the Fleet Lord Atvar, the alien traitor, the life of a Jew in Alien-occupied Poland, the struggle of the communist Chinese for liberty against the Aliens and many other interlinked stories. While the stories and characters are numerous, they are easy to follow and understand. Turtledove beautifully reconstructs life after war. The pace of the book is slow, with many dialogues and character development situations, and the plot moves accordingly, leaving the impression that not much is happening. It seems that the book mostly prepares the ground for the series, rather than presenting a story, because many of the plot lines remain open.

An entertaining book to read for the fans of alternative history; definitely not-action packed, but carefully written, with good historical research.