Book Review: Superb Hard SF from Katharine Kerr

Haze, by Katharine Kerr (ARC Manor)

Katharine Kerr is one of the most versatile writers of speculative fiction. Although many readers know her best for her long-running “Deverry” fantasy series, she also writes superb urban fantasy and hard science fiction, with such works as Polar City Blues and Freeze Frames. Now she returns to a far future when interstellar civilization depends on travel through hyperspace stargate shunts. Kerr’s universe is richly detailed, enormous in scope of space and history, replete with ancient grudges between sapient races, current politics, and plots-within-plots. And a mystery: the shunts are supposed to be permanent, anchored at each end to nearby planets, but something—or some ONE—has accomplished the impossible and destroyed a shunt. Which vital route will be the next target?

We are drawn into the story through Dan, an immensely talented starship pilot capable of linking with a ship’s AI to navigate the shunts. Like other pilots, he uses the drug Haze to blunt his craving for the transcendent experience of hyperspace when he’s not working. But Haze is highly addictive, and Dan’s use of it has gotten him cashiered out of Fleet, destitute, and turning tricks on Nowhere Street on a backwater planet to feed his habit. When Fleet offers him a way back to his old job, under the care of his former lover, Devit, and enough Haze to keep him functional, Dan doesn’t have a choice. There’s a reason he’s refused treatment for Haze addiction, a secret he guards with his life. Disguised as merchant traders, he and his new crew begin investigating the disappearance of the shunt. And that’s when things start to go seriously wrong.

Kerr’s use of Dan as an initial viewpoint character who introduces us to this world is brilliant. He’s at turns fallible, aggravating, and heart-breakingly attractive. The offspring of a noted film beauty, he’s been genetically modified to be sexually irresistible to both men and women, and to unconsciously respond to their advances. Devit has been the only person in his life to care about him as a person, but at a terrible cost. In this society, both bisexuality and polyamory are widely accepted, but relationships like theirs are fraught with challenges. Anyone who’s ever loved a person with substance abuse issues knows how painful and impossibly difficult it can be. As Devit grows closer to legendary cyberjock Jorja, their problems and the choices both must face become more urgent.

As the mystery unfolds, with a nuanced pacing of plot reversals and surprises, layers of both human and alien cultures emerge. One of the more fascinating of these is the relationship—sometimes symbiotic, often sullenly adversarial—between human pilots or cyberjocks and the AIs that run ships, stations, archives, and more. Scholars find themselves at cross-purposes with the military that is supposed to protect them. Old feuds between species simmer just below the surface. The revelation at the end is highly satisfactory, meticulously plotted, and a fresh surprise.

It's hard to list the strengths of this remarkable novel because there are so many. They include exceptional world-building, social systems and relationships, hardware and AIs, and most of all, the characters. People find themselves trapped with no healthy way forward, like Dan and Devit. They try new strategies and alliances, not always successful. As they confront new situations or old ones come back to haunt them, they struggle to move beyond the past. Wounded, recovering, and scarred, their lives can never be the same. In other words, Kerr’s fully rounded characters change and grow in ways that drive the story forward.

Award-worthy and highly recommended for lovers of space science fiction.

Short Book Reviews: A Cold-War Era First Contact Story

 Three Miles Down, by Harry Turtledove (Tor)

 At the height of the Cold War and on the brink of the 1974 Watergate scandal, the US discovers a sunken Soviet submarine…and something they didn’t expect. Something they want to keep even more secret. Under the guise of harvesting undersea manganese nodules, they recruit a team of experts, including marine biology grad student and aspiring science fiction author, Jerry Stieglitz. After being sworn to secrecy, Jerry learns the secret-inside-the-secret: the Soviet sub is sitting on top of an alien spaceship. They want Jerry not only to bolster their disguise when Soviet warships come to check them out but to use his writerly imagination in interacting with the ship and its inhabitants, both dead and in suspended animation. His insight (derived from the scene at the doors of Moria, “speak friend and enter”) opens the door to the ship, for example. Of course, all does not go swimmingly. These are the days of anticommunist paranoia, an increasingly embattled POTUS, and paranoid intelligence agencies. The stakes for Jerry are not just being kicked off a lucrative and historic mission, but survival itself.

Turtledove is a terrific writer, combining sfnal First Contact elements, humor, the unfolding domestic political drama, and human interactions, whether it’s Jerry’s friendships with the others on his alien-spaceship team or his difficulties with his fiancée when he goes missing for months. All this is highly enjoyable, fast reading, but what I found most delightful were the many homage-to-science-fiction touches, like a love letter to fans. There’s even a guest appearance by a well-known hard science fiction author (I won’t divulge who!) that had me laughing out loud at how brilliant the portrayal was. (I’d met the guest-appearance author and yet, that’s exactly what they’d say!)

Book Reviews: Alien Messages from Space

Shadows of Eternity, by Gregory Benford (Saga)

Gregory Benford is an accomplished, seasoned writer and as usual, he offers a treasure trove of fascinating ideas. In this novel, set two centuries from now, humans have set up a base on the Moon to house a SETI library whose mission is to decipher and comprehend the many Messages received from space. As Benford points out, the immense distances involved would almost certainly mean that these civilizations are now long since extinct. So why would they broadcast Messages for a future intelligent race to receive? As a record for posterity, a boast of their prowess, a plea for help? What about the alien AIs, who have aggressive agendas of their own? Fascinating possibilities abound!

The story begins when Ruth, a trainee Librarian, is accepted into the program, her work is to analyze Message texts and eventually converse with the AIs. She finds her feet in the byzantine hierarchy of the library, makes friends and discovers romance, and embarks on studying the Messages and interacting with the alien AIs.

After Ruth’s initial integration into the Library culture and her first few AI encounters, the book loses much of its forward momentum and takes on an episodic quality. To be sure, there are occasional references to earlier events—for example, a present-day alien race seeks her out because of her role in deflecting an existential threat to Earth, a result of her bargain with one of those AIs. I kept looking for a sense of rising tension, the inexorable progression of one crisis building to an even greater one, and not finding it.

Eventually, I gave up. The book is really long, and I kept having the experience of beginning again. Information that is usually presented near the beginning of a novel appeared a third or a half through. This circling back to “Go” reminded me of television programs of the 1950s and early 1960s, where episodes could be shown in any order because no matter what happened, all the characters and pieces ended up right where they started. (In contrast, programs of the 1970s and later tended to have story arcs that lasted several episodes, and then Babylon 5 blew them all out of the water with a five year story arc.) Upon reflection, if the book had been presented as, “These are the ongoing adventures of Ruth, Librarian to Alien Cultures,” my expectations would have been more in line with my experience.

All that said, Benford is a highly skilled writer, and many readers will relish the length and slow build of this novel, as well as the richness of the ideas.