Tag: Strange Horizons

Strange Horizons: 2012 in Review

2nd January 2013 / / 0 Comments

I have a little piece in today’s 2012 in Review feature on Strange Horizons, talking about my speculative fiction highlights of the past year. The books I chose to talk about won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who’s seen my favourite reads of 2012 list; but I have tried to tie everything together in a way that makes a larger point:

…the key opposition in the field right now is not between genre and mainstream, but between texts that play into genre conventions and those that go their own way.

I’ll be looking for more of those works that “go their own way” over the months ahead.

(Incidentally, I was especially surprised – and pleased! – to see three other mentions for Hawthorn & Child: not bad going for a novel that isn’t, technically, speculative fiction.)

Adrian Barnes, Nod (2012): Strange Horizons review

21st November 2012 / / 0 Comments

I have a new review up at Strange Horizons today, of Adrian Barnes’s superb debut novel, Nod. I read it shortly after contributing to the debate on freshness in works of the fantastic, and it struck me as just the sort of thing I wanted to see.

In Nod, most of the world’s population loses the ability to sleep, which leads to psychosis within a few days – to the point where people’s perceptions can be manipulated with a word. Barnes tells of the power plays – the literal war or words – that goes on in a corner of Vancouver.

What interests me most about this novel is its pervading sense of unease at a situation which is all-consuming for its characters, yet is explicitly temporary. It makes for a fascinating read.

Click here to read my review of Nod in full.

This book has been shortlisted for the 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award. Click here to read my other posts on this year’s Award.

Harry Karlinsky, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects (2012): Strange Horizons review

24th October 2012 / / 0 Comments

Strange Horizons have published my review of The Evolution of Inanimate Objects by Harry Karlinsky. I was talking yesterday about creative approaches to the material of sf, and here’s one — a pseudo-historical biography of Charles Darwin’s (fictional) son Thomas, who applies his father’s theories of evolution to the development and classification of everyday items.

This is a playful concept, but Karlinsky’s novel is more than a diversion: it’s also an effective character study, and a reflection on science and how it progresses (see Alan Bowden for more on that point).

Click here to read my review in full.

Lucy Wood, Diving Belles (2012) – Strange Horizons review

30th March 2012 / / 1 Comment

Would you like to hear about the best book I’ve read so far this year? Here it is: the debut collection from Lucy Wood, a set of contemporary stories inspired by Cornish folklore. Wood is clearly going to be a name to watch out for in the future; to find out why, I’d invite you to read my review of Diving Belles, which is up on Strange Horizons today.

Click here to read the review.

Further links
Video interview with Lucy Wood
Wood reads from ‘Notes from the House Spirits’

Changes are being rung…

4th January 2011 / / 0 Comments

There are some changes underway at a couple of the blogs I visit regularly, which I’m going to mention here.

Niall Harrison recently stepped down as editor of the BSFA’s journal, Vector, and became editor-in-chief of Strange Horizons — so now he’s changing blogs. Niall is handing the reins of Torque Control over to his successor, Shana Worthen (and Vector‘s reviews editor, Martin Lewis), and beginning to post at the Strange Horizons blog. Good luck to all, and I look forward to seeing how both blogs develop.

Elsewhere on the internet, Scott Pack has started a project to read and blog about a different short story on every day of 2011. That should yield some good recommendations. Check out Me and My Short Stories to see what Scott has read so far.

Strange Horizons: 2010 in review

3rd January 2011 / / 0 Comments

Strange Horizons is kicking off the year with a look back at the previous one, as the site’s reviewers each contribute a few paragraphs on their favourite fantastic reads of 2010. That includes a contribution from me, which features some  books from my general list of year’s favourites, and some others that were bubbling under.

Read the full article on Strange Horizons here.

Robert Edric, Salvage (2010): Strange Horizons review

5th November 2010 / / 0 Comments

Today, I make my debut as a reviewer on Strange Horizons. SH is, in my view, pretty much the best place to go online for reviews of speculative fiction, and I am very pleased to be contributing to it.

The book I’m reviewing is Salvage by Robert Edric, a novel set one hundred years into the future, when climatic disruption has displaced many and new towns are being built to house them. Edric’s protagonist, Quinn, is an auditor sent to examine the development of one such town; what he finds is, to put it mildly, not encouraging.

But, already, I’m going over ground covered in the review itself, so I’ll stop there, and invite you to read my Strange Horizons piece by clicking this link.

Vandana Singh, ‘Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra’ (2010)

3rd September 2010 / / 1 Comment

Trying to untangle this week’s selection for the Torque Control Short Story Club (published here at Strange Horizons) is not something I’m going to be able to do completely, and perhaps not even in large part, for ‘Someadeva: A Sky River Sutra’ is like a kaleidoscope of story: tales within tales, refracting as far as the eye can see.

To start with the history: Somadeva was an 11th-century CE Brahmin who collected and retold the tales of the Kathāsaritsāgara for the queen Sūryavati. In Singh’s story, his personality and memories are recreated centuries later by a woman named Isha, who has read the Kathāsaritsāgara, and wants to collect the stories belonging to the peoples of her galaxy, Sky River. Isha’s hope is that she may discover her origins, all knowledge of her past having been erased from her memory.

The structure of ‘Somadeva’ mirrors that of the Kathāsaritsāgara, in that it consists of a number of interlocking stories, some embedded within others (Singh also writes herself briefly into the story, as the authors of some texts did and Somadeva here wishes he had). One result of this is to make it more-or-less impossible to tell for sure whether Somadeva is in the future with Isha, or in the past telling all this to Sūryavati, or perhaps somewhere else. It’s handled elegantly by Singh, the effect is not so much disorientation as a satisfying recognition of the shape of the whole.

One of the main themes of ‘Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra’ is the extent to which stories can – or should – be pinned down to one definitive interpretation. Isha is excited to discover that a tribe named the Kiha tell stories that can be interpreted as describing fundamental scientific processes; it’s an appealing way to read them, but then Somadeva reminds us that those tales could just as easily be read in other ways – none necessarily invalid.

Perhaps, following on from this, it’s best to leave one’s interpretation of this story open. But there is one thing I think I can say with some certainty: at the start of the tale, Somadeva says,’ I was once…a poet, a teller of tales’; by its end, he’s declaring that he is those things. Whatever else stories do, they bring Somadeva to life.

Elsewhere
Vandana Singh’s website

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