Recommended "Light" Reading

If Starship Troopers had been written by the love child of Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick, the

Kameron Hurley's latest
novel is one of her best.
(Image via Simon&Schuster)

result might be something like The Light Brigade.

It may seem grandiose to compare Kameron Hurley to three legends of the field, but her latest novel — her seventh so far — might just be worthy. The Light Brigade solidifies her emergence as one of the most important voices in recent science fiction.

Set against the backdrop of a corporatist dystopia that has completely abandoned any pursuit of the public good, The Light Brigade begins in a manner that is fairly typical of military science fiction. Humanity is attacked without provocation, and an idealistic youth joins the army to become a hero.

This time the prospective hero is a young woman named Dietz, whose family was killed when the city of Sao Paulo was destroyed. However, Hurley slowly turns the standard military science fiction paradigm on its head, peeling away the layers as Dietz discovers truths about the nature of the conflict, about the corporation she’s fighting for (Tene-Silvia), about Earth’s economic reality, and about her own temporal misplacements.

In this war, the six major corporations of the Earth are at war with the free peoples of Mars, who have developed a distinct culture, given their long-term estrangement from the rest of humanity. Hurley uses this setting to explore the dehumanization of adversaries via political rhetoric. For example, Earth leaders describe “Martians” as something other, something lesser, than people.

We are reluctant to reveal too much about the Martians, and about the politics underlying the conflict, because the main character’s shifting understanding is one of the great joys of the book.

Hurley does not shy away from the dark and intertwining complexities of political power, but explores this human condition in a way that will speak to a wide range of readers. Her ability to put forward political arguments without being didactic reminded us of Heinlein at his best.

Over the course of the book, Dietz becomes unstuck in time, leaping to different points in the war like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. In the hands of a less-skilled novelist, this nonlinear narration could have been aggravatingly confusing. But the clarity of Hurley’s prose, and the way her protagonist slowly begins to understand what’s going on is entertaining and engaging.

Using temporal dislocation as a metaphor for the alienation many soldiers experience when returning

Hurley at Worldcon 2017.
(Photo by Henry Söderlund,
who is an excellent photog.)

home from war has been a recurring theme in military science fiction, notably in Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. Dietz struggles with relationships, is constantly trying to figure out who knows what about her, and unsure of her role within her organization at any given moment.

This narrative was put together so thoughtfully — it made me want to go back and see how the story might unfold when pieced together in chronological order, rather than in the order experienced by Dietz. Reading the narrative as a straight chronology reveals both attention to detail and internal consistency.

Two years ago, this blog highly recommended Hurley’s previous novel The Stars Are Legion despite occasionally finding the narrative bewildering due to the protagonist’s amnesia. Happily, The Light Brigade includes the strengths of that previous work and exhibits few of its flaws.

While The Light Brigade does invite comparisons to several classic military science fiction novels, it is a wholly original work that pushes the boundaries of the subgenre. It is a page turner that feels fresh and modern, while being knowledgeable in conversation with decades of the genre’s legacy.

In 20 years, when people talk about the classics of military science fiction, we are willing to bet that the conversation will start with Starship Troopers, The Forever War, Old Man’s War, and The Light Brigade. Yes, it is that good.

Embers of War - Review

While it’s constructed in the style of a classic military science fiction tale, and could easily be read as

Gareth L. Powell's work has lost none
of its engaging action, but has gained
depth and nuance.
(Image via TitanBooks.com) 

nothing more than a visceral high-octane adventure, Embers of War is a novel with some depth.

Set in the wake of a bloody war that almost ripped humanity in two, Gareth Powel’s latest novel follows the crew of a rescue ship that is sent to investigate the disappearance of a starliner in a star system filled with massive alien artifacts. 

The crew – and the sentient ship’s AI – served on different sides during the conflict, and have to come to grips with both what they did during the war, and with each other’s culpability. 

These simmering resentments and regrets strengthen the story, and offer some intellectual heft. Like its intellectual forebearer The Forever War, this is a military science fiction novel that philosophically rejects conflict, and chooses to grapple with its aftermath. 

Told in tight, concise chapters that rarely exceed six pages, the story jumps between the perspectives of the ship’s captain Sal Konstanz, the ship’s AI Trouble Dog, the spy Ashton Childe, and marooned passenger of the straliner Ona Sudak.

The brevity of the chapters – and the fact that something important happens or is revealed in each one – gives the story a brisk pace and a lively narrative momentum.

Powell has been quietly building a fair body of work – and developing his craft – since his first short

Gareth L. Powell's work keeps getting
better. We look forward to his next novel.
(Image via the author's Twitter account)

stories were published about a decade ago. His 2012 novel Ack-Ack Macaque earned him a fair following, as did its sequels. He has stepped up his game in Embers of War, offering more fully fleshed out characters and tempering his previous penchant for awkward explanatory passages.

The universe of the book is never fully fleshed out, but it doesn’t need to be. There’s little explanation of the political situation outside of where it directly impacts the protagonists, and little view of the galactic milieu, other than knowing that the crew are working in a disputed region of space. Powell doesn’t take his reader for granted and doesn’t talk down to them in this volume.

It is unfortunate, however, that the ending of the book is based on a deux et machina contrivance that readers will spot coming from a mile away. From the first 20 pages, one guesses that the massive incomprehensible alien artifacts have a purpose, and of course, that purpose is realized in the final 20 pages. This ending is also very convenient for every character involved in the story.

The final chapters felt obvious and flat, which is a shame when the rest of the novel had so many surprises and engaging character moments.

That being said, Embers of War will receive strong consideration on our Hugo Award ballots for 2018. It’s nice when a book that offers so much fun can also provide more than just escapism.

Ninefox Gambit — Book Club Review

Image via Amazon.ca

The horrors of war, sacrifice and a theocratic-fascist society are at the forefront of Yoon Ha Lee’s debut novel, that also happens to be a less-than-typical military science fiction novel.

The novel primarily follows two characters: Cheris, a living soldier with a gift for math, and Jedao, a brilliant, undead general and feared mass murderer. To up the tension between the two, Lee places both characters in Cheris’ body. Together, the two must face a “heretical” enemy that is altering the fabric of reality with “calendrical rot.”

The universe of Cheris and Jedao isn’t well-explained by Lee, who instead throws readers out of the boat to teach them to swim. There isn’t much description of the technology, the different cultures and castes, the boundaries between science and what some of us saw as ritualistic magic (ie. blood sacrifices at holidays), or how seemingly basic things work. Most of our group wasn’t bothered by this approach, and it lead to many comparisons to Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice. In fact, we enjoyed discussing how we came to understand the mechanics of the story’s setting. For example, some of us interpreted the frequent references to “calendar” as a type of math (ie. instead of calculus, it’s calendar), while others saw calendars as a means of creating a uniform collective unconscious or psychic energy able to affect certain technologies.

While maybe a paragraph explaining the meaning of “calendar” in this context would have been welcome, we respected that Lee probably cut down the page count by half with the approach he took. Lee’s efficient prose reflects the militaristic society and the war genre. Lee never shies away from the gruesomeness of war and the remarkable tyranny of the theocratic-fascist society he creates, which elevates Ninefox Gambit beyond the average military science fiction story. In Lee’s universe, war is not to be celebrated or enjoyed; it is awful, brutal and at least two characters recognize that it needs to be stopped. 

Beyond Ancillary Justice, this book opened up a lot of comparisons to some of this year’s other Hugo-nominated books: the absence of variety in species/culture in contrast to A Closed and Common Orbit, the lack of defined gender roles unlike Death’s End, community service as a punishment in the criminal justice system in Too Like the Lightning and the boundaries of magic between science, as seen in Obelisk Gate and our final book club read, All the Birds in the Sky.

While we all doubted that it would win the Hugo, at least one of us thought it was the best novel on the shortlist and we are ready to see where the rest of the series goes.