Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes
James S.A. Corey

Leviathan Wakes is a smashing debut novel that made numerous Best of 2011 lists, but isn’t actually a debut. I have no idea why an amply published author and a famous author’s assistant, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck respectively, chose the Corey pen name, or, having chosen it, made no attempt to pass said Corey off as a real person, but I am sure there is a very good reason for it all. Authorial semantics have no bearing on the quality of the book however, which deserves all of the praise it received. Most of the commentary I have seen on Leviathan can be compressed into the phrase, “gritty throwback space opera,” though what exactly this means and whether or not this isn’t just a contradiction in terms gets my thinker thinking. (Yes, rather than reviewing a book, I am pondering a review of reviews of a book. This may just be grad school coming back to haunt me.)

“Gritty” is currently my favorite Power Word in book and movie world. (For those who aren’t up on Mormon sarcasm and my unilateral expansions of it, Power Words are terms that, by some unexplained consensus, have to be used all the time in whatever discourse one is involved in. For example, one does not say “rain” in the Mormon world, but “moisture.” Likewise, nobody “sends an email” at work, but “reaches out.” These are Power Words.) I’m not sure how we selected grit as something to be quantified and described in our books, but there it is, and it has nothing to do with books being published on sandpaper. Leviathan‘s paper is just as smooth as any other book. It does, however, involve numerous descriptive narratives of character demise, at least one anti-hero variation, moral conundrums, and scenery with a certain level of trash and pollution. I propose the following equation to measure grit: sg(bk+gr)/sr=GI where the Grit Index (GI) equals the sum of bloody killings (bk) and garbage and rust (gr), multiplied by the number of shades of gray in the story (sg), all divided by successful romance subplots (sr), because we all know that true love isn’t gritty. Bonus George R.R. Martin points for killing off popular characters.

Leviathan would score fairly well on the GI, but most especially for the settings. There is a certain amount of Jetsons style futurism, and one imagines that the military spaceships are by necessity clean and shipshape, but the asteroid settlements, mining freighters, and Belter ports of call are pleasingly crusty. This is definitely the science fiction aesthetic one sees in the Alien movies, rather than Star Trek. It carries over into characterization as well, with a ragtag assortment of cops, miners, Belter revolutionaries, and slimy corporate types populating Corey’s Solar System. There’s something to be said for noir-ish griminess of the cop storyline and the held together with spit and duct tape mining world of the other.

The “throwback” part is the most puzzling. When I was reading reviews and comments that talked about how Leviathan reminded them of classic SF from the 70s, I nodded my head and agreed. Thinking later about it, I’m not entirely sure what that’s supposed to mean. Obviously, Leviathan isn’t much like Golden Age SF, but I’m not sure what about it feels like the 70s rather than now. The book’s attitudes about race, gender and society are much more in tune with now; the characters aren’t all competent white men acting in Adam Smith approved idioms. I suppose Leviathan is what some might call “good, old-fashioned storytelling,” but what does that really mean? Telling stories hasn’t gone out of style, unless one is willing to forget John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, S.M. Stirling, and countless others who put the story before science, or at least next to it. (Heresy!) And if we’re talking about experimentalism, didn’t the 70s involve New Wave, Dick, Delaney, Ballard, and lots of other crazy stuff? So while I find the assertion that Leviathan is somehow bringing something back that has been lost in whatever it is that’s going on now superficially appealing, I really can’t figure out what that something might be. If one were to name a specific author and call out influence and homage, I can accept it. The whole of an era, though, is more complex than basketball players putting on short shorts, Converse All-Stars, and replica uniforms for a night.

Finally, this term “space opera” makes an appearance. Everyone is calling Leviathan a space opera, so I am too, but I think I need to define for myself what space opera really means. Leviathan feels rather like a space opera, with its semi-epic narrative, heroic characters (warts and all), and large scale conflict. But when I think more about it, the setting pushes me towards “General SF.” Leviathan takes place in that slightly awkward time in between brave pioneers exploring the Solar System and humanity spread throughout the stars in some form of empire(s). The system-wide society is well thought out and worthy of in-depth storytelling.  Though I have a certain fondness for near-space tales, my image of space opera tends towards galactic conflict, aliens, cursory views of multiple planets with an unreasonable number of suns or moons, and making the jump to light speed. Then I remember, say, Buck Rogers, and have to revise my estimates yet again. (Some of the franchise is better taken as pulp, but the SSI Gold Box games are Solar System space opera through and through.)

I wonder too about the nature of the action. Leviathan has an intricate, wide ranging plot that covers murder mystery, abandoned space hulks, conspiracy, system-wide politics, revolution, vomit zombies, Mormons, and possible alien incursion. (Some reviewers have made a big deal of the zombies. I kind of rolled with it, since they seemed to flow well with the rest of the plot.) There are space battles and large armadas, but the action stays focused on a small group of people. No admirals surveying their array of capital ships or vast alien menace, which seems like it should be required or the subgenre. I will give credit for excellent use of Mormons though. One of these days I’m going to produce the definitive survey of Mormons in SF, but not today. So what do I think about space opera? Hard to say. I am inclined to file this more under General SF, but that’s something open to much debate.

Whatever the book is, I’m looking forward to the sequels. I like the world building, most of the characters, the vague threat of alien menace, and even the vomit zombies. I’m excited that a large part of the book takes place on what is basically the Reno, NV of outer space. Some of the pacing and organization felt a bit off, but considering the scope and ambition of the book, I’m not sure I can think of a better way to handle it. Definitely a top read from 2011.

Rating: Manchester City of the same year. Not quite immortal, but the pieces are in place for a memorable run.

The Algebraist

The Algebraist
Iain M. Banks

The M in Iain M. Banks is very important. Without it, he is a successful and critically lauded author of contemporary literature. With the M however, he is instantly disreputable, a writer of not only science fiction, but of the dreaded Space Opera (threatening brass chords here). He is also one of the early leaders of the British SF Invasion, which is every bit as pervasive and influential as a couple of other British Invasions, but involves neither red coats nor screaming teen girls. The Algebraist is the fifth Banks book I have read, all by Iain M., but it is the first to grace the hallowed Attic walls.

While I won’t go so far as to call Banks “polarizing,” I suspect that his writing is something one either likes or dislikes heartily. Love and hate are probably too strong, but there seems to be a decent-sized gap between those that dig his stuff and those that shake their heads, wondering why they just can’t get into it. The Algebraist is not part of The Culture, Banks’ usual stomping grounds, but is unmistakably his work. Nominally Space Opera in the sense that it involves galaxy-spanning adventures and space ships blowing up, the book is marinated heavily in his usual mix of zaniness, political commentary, and left field, odd angled quirks. Like most, but not all, Banks tales, it is also sprawling and barely contained, with ideas whizzing off left and right, often never to return. More than the weirdness or politics, it is the latter that seems to cause the most trouble for SF readers.

The book is split roughly into three parts. In the extended introduction, Banks lays down the overlapping and sometimes unrelated plot lines: Seer Fassin Taak (our august hero) is sent on a quest for a priceless object that will save the day, the comically evil Luserferous sets off to conquer Taak’s home system, and a young Taak and his friends have a misadventure that ends tragically, sending repercussions throughout the rest of the story as his friends come to terms with it. The last is only vaguely related to the first two, the second is more or less responsible for the first, but ends up being rather tangential, and the first, while superficially run of the mill, ends up in a psychological space that Umberto Eco would fervently endorse. (This is difficult to explain without rampant spoilers to multiple novels, but let us just say that people who grumble about the end of The Algebraist probably don’t like The Name of the Rose or Foucault’s Pendulum either. There is a resigned cynicism in books like this that will not resonate with everyone.) The introduction also jumps back and forth in time, laying out in broad strokes many thousands of years of galactic history. Banks has obviously put the time into creating a massive world, even if this story only occupies a small part.

In the second part, the plot begins to resolve many of the early questions. Taak moves deeper into his quest and the invasion plays itself out. Just when it appears that things will proceed more or less smoothly to the endgame, Banks starts tossing out twists and reveals. Here it may be a dark secret from a character’s past, there a bit about aliens. Someone will say something to turn the reader’s view of an organization inside out, only to follow it up with a comment that tips an opposing group over sideways. It’s almost enough to get whiplash from all of the “Wait, what?” moments. Finally, once most of the major plot points are out of the way, the story winds itself down and starts to close out all of the remaining questions. Like many of his books, things get mired down a bit towards the end, as the narrative momentum plateaus. I’m not sure why this happens as often as it does, but there’s almost always a lull in the last quarter of a Banks book.

The best part of The Algebraist is unquestionably the Dwellers, a species that lives in the gas giants of most of the known universe and has a lifespan of millions of years. They have been around since near the beginning of time and maintain a complex, impenetrable society that Seer Taak is studying. The Dweller’s long perspective of history keeps them aloof from the frenetic doings of short-lived races like humanity. This all sounds very serious and pompous, but two Dwellers in conversation is a bit like John Cleese and Graham Chapman pretending to be foppish British Lords, if the Monty Python crew was capable of periodically whipping out incomprehensibly advanced technology. While Taak is frantically trying to save his planet from a hostile space fleet helmed by a diabolical man with diamond teeth, the Dwellers are gearing up for a Formal War (much more absurd than it sounds) and gambling on yacht races across storms akin to Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot. If this book were nothing but Dweller conversations and exasperated humans, it would still have been nominated for a Hugo.

On the more troublesome side is Banks’ editing and economy of prose, or rather the lack thereof. Banks is capable of writing tightly executed books (Player of Games, Use of Weapons), but this is not one of them. Frequent readers of Two Dudes will naturally assume that someone who routinely sings praises of spare, efficient writing would be offended by the word explosion that is The Algebraist. Indeed, most reviews I have seen fall somewhere between irritation and wrath that the tone of the book is rather like listening to my young children talk: “and then, and then, and then” piling up on each other in breathless excitement. To my surprise, however, it bothers me less than most. I would probably enjoy the book more if the pacing was better controlled, especially in the end game. However, I’m less offended by the uncontained storytelling than I anticipated.

To make a music comparison, there are those who feel that a live performance should be as close to perfect as possible, and that the best way to ensure this is for the musicians to remain within themselves at all times. There is another faction, especially in jazz, that considers a safe performance to be stale and detached. They would argue that the true excitement in music comes from the risk, that pushing everything to the very edge, no matter the audience, is the only way that music can be truly alive. Anyone who has seen me play, or even just seen my CD collection, knows which group I belong to; this is probably why I feel affinity for Banks, even as his books careen joyfully out of control. The sense of dangerous fun inherent in his writing compensates for the organizational failings of the book.

Rating: Arsenal of the early 2000′s. A team built on intellect and elegance in a league full of speed and power, Arsenal could be alternately sublime and entirely too clever for its own good. Never, however, dull.

Subspace Explorers and Triplanetary

Subspace Explorers
Triplanetary
E.E. “Doc” Smith

Doc Smith’s Lensman series always comes up in discussions of SF classics and/or early space opera. It’s been on my list to check out for quite some time, but I never seem to get around to it. Half-hearted efforts have, however, scored me copies of Subspace Explorers, the first of a series I probably won’t finish, and Triplanetary, which claims to be the first Lensman book but is nothing of the sort. If nothing else, these provide a clear window into science fiction before the invention of minorities, feminism, or the color gray. Doc Smith: Where the heroes are white and strong, the women are weepy and helpless, and the bad guys twirl their moustachios and probably have small weenies.

First on the psychiatrist’s couch is Subspace Explorers. Immediate point against: psychic powers. As I have written before, I just don’t like psychic powers, psionics, mind-reading, clairvoyance, or anything of the sort. Any book that uses psionics has to use them carefully, or I am instantly turned off. (Unless said powers are used to break men’s wangs, in which case all is forgiven.) Further point against: psychic powers turning up at random and convenient times to move the plot along when no standard trick will do. “Wait, you’re important to the story, and hey, what do you know? Turns out you’re a psychic too and we didn’t know it til now! Great!” By the end of the book, all of the good guys (and their mostly superfluous girls) are psychics, reading each other’s minds, finding hidden treasures, confounding the bad guys, etc.

Next point against: good guys and bad guys. This is probably endemic to the age, and apparently to Smith’s writing in general, but I quickly tired of the Brave and Pure Capitalists. I can understand pinko commie Russians being the bad guys – the Cold War was pretty all-encompassing for me too back in the mid-80s and lots of SF has bad Russians. I get more tired of reading about how liberals, unions and labor are misguided fools while Big Business is full of benevolent, superior beings who just want what’s best for us. Think John Ringo mixed with 1950s TV. “Look Beav, that tree hugging alien has a ray gun! Jeepers!” So not only are the good guys all suddenly psychics and mind readers, they are also large business owners who have only the good of America on their minds, but are constantly thwarted by labor. If I were a Koch brother, I would probably love this book.

My rantings aside, however, Subspace Explorers is what they call a ripping yarn. When I wasn’t gnashing my teeth at the painful dialogue or offensive worldview, the action was amusing. It was good enough that I finished it quickly and still want to read the Lensman books. It wasn’t good enough, though, that I’m diving into the sequels.

Triplanetary is a little more troubling. I only checked it out because the cover said it was a Lensman book; of course it was completely unrelated. Instead, it contains three or four short stories and novellas, the details of which have since departed my memory. I suppose this means they were suitably pulpy, without being excellent. The one thing I do remember is a quote where Smith writes, “And then he comforted her as only a man can comfort a woman.” Double entendre aside, what on earth is that supposed to mean? He watched football and had a beer? He tried to fix her problems instead of just listening? He left the toilet seat up? Back and ear hair? SF is far from perfect on the gender equality thing, but at least we’ve made some progress.

Anyway, E.E. Smith is one of those things we read to appreciate our heritage but then forget about, like Leviticus or something. Some of his stuff is probably memorable, but it’s certainly not Triplanetary. Subspace Explorers is better, but I wouldn’t put it high on anyone’s recommended reading list.

Rating: Uruguay in the 1950s. The original World Cup winner, Uruguay was good at the time but would be torn apart today by better athletes and technicians.

Debatable Space

Debatable Space
Philip Palmer

While prepping for the Halting State review, I came across a short piece in The Guardian that talked about both that and this book. It was the first I had heard of Philip Palmer, even though The Guardian thinks he’s a major new voice in SF. He’s also from the UK; anyone keeping tabs on the current scene will know that a frightening proportion of the newest, hottest SF is coming from across the pond. (Apparently science fiction is yet another thing we don’t make here anymore. The US has kept epic fantasy production at home but is outsourcing space opera. I would demand a Congressional investigation if so much of the British stuff wasn’t so good.) Since I’ve been on a tear lately of reading brand new stuff, or at least reading old stuff that is new to me, I bumped Mr. Palmer’s book to the top of the list. (It’s about time to settle down with something old and familiar. Asimov perhaps, or a cookie cutter fantasy trilogy.)

If nothing else, Philip Palmer is utterly fearless. He mixes New Wave with the Space Opera Renaissance, adding a dash of Hard SF and creating a saga that starts out small, but opens up layer after layer until it spans a millennium of future history. But he does it, much like Frank Sinatra, His Way. There are wild technologies, gargantuan space battles, bizarre aliens, and all of the usual stuff that one would expect. There is also some avant-garde literary experimentation. But unlike most science fiction, none of the former is the centerpiece of the story. Instead, Palmer is most interested in getting inside the heads of his characters, which he does through a shifting first person viewpoint, and seeing how they react to the situations surrounding them.

Palmer immediately calls out Ringworld in his afterword; like Niven’s Known Space, Debatable Space is full of whimsical and crazy stuff on a foundation of hard science. But he doesn’t linger on the aliens and the technology like Niven, instead leaving just tantalizing glimpses. Likewise, any reader expecting the space battles to be intricate tactical affairs, ala David Weber, will come away disappointed. Crap blows up in ungodly amounts, but the space battles aren’t really the point. One bit of technology does stand out: the question of how to communicate across a galactic empire. Even when FTL is finessed one way or the other, there remains the problem of just how people talk across the light years.  The answer in Debatable Space makes it fairly clear by the middle of the book what will have to happen before Captain Flanagan gets what he wants. In this way, I was reminded more of Dan Simmons than any other author. In fact, the more I thought about it, Debatable Space has more in common with Hyperion than perhaps any other book. Palmer never mentions Simmons, and I haven’t searched interviews to see if he does elsewhere, but both have the same Full Speed Ahead mentality, doing insane things basically because they can. In both books, the authors take no prisoners, brook no dissent, and all but dare the reader to put the book down.

And so, when one goes into this expecting a pirate story and finds himself deep in the head of an old, psychotic, self-centered, hot woman, what is there to do but press on?

I haven’t yet come to terms with Debatable Space. It is eminently readable – brisk and engaging. I plowed through 200 pages in one day’s commute, which is higher than my average, and kept reading compulsively even when I was scratching my head. The characters are strangely sympathetic, despite not being Good People. Flanagan is no doubt the crowd favorite, since everybody loves heroic blues musicians, but he also chops people’s heads off. His best friend is a sentient ball of fire who loves bad jokes and soap operas. The other characters get weirder from there. Also, this book has possibly the foulest mouth of any I have read, which is saying something.

The plot is the best part of the story, I think, though to describe it here in any detail would remove half of the fun. It starts out simple, but quickly grows into something much larger and wilder than is ever hinted at during the opening act. Things are propelled by, not twists perhaps, but revelations that unlock layers of increasing complexity. There are also long, detailed passages where we learn why these people are as crazy as they are, but that don’t directly drive the plot.  This, I suppose, is where my own questions come in. Were I to write the story, I would spend less time delving into a batty old woman’s psyche and more time on exploding spaceships, but then it would be just like all the other books that blow up countless spaceships. Palmer made his choices, we either go along for the ride or find something else to read.

It’s difficult to boil all of this down into a one paragraph recommendation. Readers looking for safe, familiar fare may want to stick with the US mainstream. Readers who don’t like New Wave, aren’t interested in psychology, or don’t want to explore nooks and crannies of crazy people heads should probably stay away. However, someone looking for new, high-risk high-reward stuff should definitely pick this up. I can’t guarantee that it will be anyone’s cup of tea, but it will certainly be a new experience.

Rating: Paris St. Germaine. PSG was purchased by oil sheiks who have brought in expensive, skilled players in a bid to revitalize a boring team in a boring league. (Not to say that SF is boring, but I hope this gets my point across.)

The January Dancer

The January Dancer
Michael Flynn

The Monthly Picks section of the local library never fails to have something intriguing. I’m not sure who chooses the books, I guess it’s just an assortment of whatever new paperbacks have come in. I’ve grabbed several things at random however, when I recognize a name. These tend to be sudden additions to the reading list and are hit or miss. In this case, it was a promising book cover involving spaceships and a name I hadn’t read since he co-wrote Falling Angels with Niven and Pournelle lo these many years ago. Flynn also won a Seiun Award this year, so I figured there must be something worthwhile in the book and took The January Dancer home with me. I must also confess that the blurb on the back sucked me in. It’s natural for books to have little happy reviews from peer authors or well-known critics, but this one skipped that and went straight to brazen self-promotion. January is “as thrilling a yarn as any ever in the history of SF,” according to itself. Who could say no? I’ve read quite a bit of SF in my day; I’d better not miss any yarn that is historically thrilling.

First of all, I must confess utter ignorance of Michael Flynn. Because I have read only this solo effort, I can’t place it in any sort of context or comment on the evolution of his style. All the observations to follow may be painfully obvious to longtime Flynn fans, but it’s all undiscovered country for me. To start with, Dancer is a bit of a genre mashup. It starts in a tavern, in a questionable part of a port town. A wandering minstrel walks in, plays some tunes, then starts talking to a mysterious scarred stranger about some wild story. There’s a lot of bombastic fantasy prose and pretty much everything one would expect in the sort of tavern that starts off an epic tale. It switches gears, though, as soon as the scarred stranger begins to talk, turning into much more straightforward SF prose. (Still a bit purple, but nothing like the intro.) The book keeps the story within a story structure right up to the end, with the main tale being SF and the minstrel’s end staying epic fantasy-esque. Does this work? I suppose that’s up to the reader. I prefer the main plot to the encapsulating plot, both in terms of story and prose, but some may feel differently. Oddly enough, the trope mixing reminded me most of Resnick’s Santiago, though that is a Western in space and Dancer is heroic fantasy. There are echoes of something else in the book, but I just haven’t been able to put my finger on what they are.

The story itself is a MacGuffin Hunt. One Captain January finds a mysterious relic, later named as The Dancer, and mayhem ensues. People chase after it, pirates invade planets, fleets attack each other, rival empires start grinding the gears of war, and of course various individuals find adventure, romance, danger and tragedy. To his credit, Flynn makes The Dancer slightly more engaging than a briefcase that is never opened. It felt a bit like an interstellar riff on the One True Ring, but not excessively so. Mostly though, the MacGuffin provides an excuse for Flynn to take us on a tour of the universe he has created. To his credit, it is a universe worth exploring and deserves the spotlight he shines on it. I don’t have any factual basis for this speculation, but the universe feels modeled on Europe in the Age of Empires. The major planets are generally ports on one or another of the superluminal superhighways, realities of time and distance preclude any sort of unified government, pirates infest the galactic backwater, and of course there are the aforementioned wandering minstrels. It’s a nice place to visit for those who like their Italian city-states mixed with starships. The book suggests that there are other tales to be told, which I would be happy to read.

There is one downside to the book. The enthusiastic book cover that claims, “It ends, as all great stories do, with shock and a beginning.” Flynn winds up the tension, hints at dire happenings, has his characters track down The Dancer across the galaxy, lets them double and triple cross each other, and then … it fizzles. Things quietly tidy themselves up, the stranger and the minstrel have one last flowery exchange, and the book ends. This wasn’t a toss-the-book-in-rage kind of ending, more of, “Oh, ok. Well, uh, what’s next?” I guess there was a little bit of shock – shock that things ended without a bang. It’s not a fatal quirk, but it was unexpected considering the high flying adventure that preceded it.

So, a final verdict. I’m not sure this is as thrilling a yarn as ever. I’m not ready to bump Dune, Hyperion, or The Book of the New Sun off a pedestal just yet, but I enjoyed The January Dancer.

Rating: Arsenal. Flowing, stylish football that makes everyone believe they’re mounting a serious title challenge, before flaming out in the end and backing into the Champion’s League.

Space Battleship Yamato

Space Battleship Yamato

Best to get the anime disclaimer out of the way first, as I press forward in my quest to experience the pillars of Japanese science fiction. Yamato is the second of the Holy Trifecta of Japanese SF Anime, the others being the original Gundam and Macross series. Yamato is the oldest of these, predating even Star Wars. Savvy anime veterans will know that Yamato blew through the US as Star Blazers back in the day. Like a lot of Japanese creations, this enjoyed life as a TV series, a movie, and a manga. And, like pretty much every Japanese export, I missed the boat as a youngster. I am addressing the movie in this review.

I have mixed feelings on whether to recommend the movie condensation of this story, or push readers to invest the time in the whole series. Here, at least, my decision was influenced mainly by the contents of the public library: Star Blazers was available as an English dub, but to get Japanese language I was restricted to the movie version. Movie it was. (Also, the time commitment required for a 40+ episode series is more than I was comfortable with. As it is, the movie is long at three hours.) I suspect that, if language and time are of no concern, the full series may provide a more emotional experience. Language may not be a problem anyway, as I think I saw Yamato on Crunchyroll somewhere.

First, a quick summary and review. Earth has been pounded into submission by the evil Gamilas. The only survivors live in underground cities that are threatened by radioactivity from the surface. A spacecraft crash lands and gives humanity a message: build a ship with the enclosed plans and travel to the planet Iscandar. The mysterious Stasha awaits there with technology that will save the Earth. The lucky humans dig up the real-life Battleship Yamato (sunk during WWII) and retrofit it with new technology, at which point it flies off into the stars to save everything.

What works about this? As a stylized space opera, this is good fun. The bad guys are nefarious, the crew of the Yamato is plucky, the fate of all humanity hangs in the balance, etc. Also, seeing a WWII-era battleship flying through interstellar space and firing its wave cannon is awesome in a crazy kind of way. There are twists and turns in the plot to keep viewers engaged. There is a kind of fake complexity and moral ambiguity that gives the impression of watching something challenging and profound, without actually being taxing in any way. I was happy at the end, when (spoiler alert) the good guys save the day.

What doesn’t work so well? Many of my complaints might be a result of seeing the movie rather than the series. The characters are a big problem for me in the movie – only one of them has any real impact (the captain), while the rest flit in and out of the story without ever distinguishing themselves. Two characters fall in love at some point, but those scenes must be on the editing floor somewhere, because I never saw it happen. I would also question some other editing decisions, as aspects of the plot that seemed important were skipped over quickly, while side stories that could have been addressed in five minutes, if at all, bogged down the main story arc. Beyond that, my complaints are rather predictable. This is, after all, a story whose target audience includes boys in upper elementary school grades. While I don’t expect total plot coherency or an absence of incredibly random problem solvers in my cartoon space operas, it would have been nice.

What really grabbed me, however, was not the story or the canonical importance of Yamato, but the relationship of the events on-screen to Japanese history. I’m uncertain if the creators were conscious of this, but Yamato is basically re-fighting the end of World War II. The parallels are far from iron-clad, but within the first 30 minutes similarities were leaping off the screen. The Gamilas reign radioactive death from the skies, launch from a forward base taken from Earth and now beyond the reach of Earth’s ships. Humanity fights bravely, but is ultimately helpless in the face of superior technology and production and reduced to suicide attacks. The battleship Yamato, originally launched (and subsequently sunk) in a hopeless attack against the invaders was Japan’s last gasp in the naval war. For those not up on Pacific War history, this would be roughly analogous to, in order, be the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Okinawa, and the end of the war in general, when the full might of US industry was bearing down on Japan.

Miraculously, the story somehow tucks this into the narrative without ever addressing more controversial (from Japan’s point of view) circumstances surrounding the war, or caving in to nationalist cliché. I don’t mean to imply that Matsumoto Reiji and the other creators are trying to rewrite history in Yamato, indeed I am uncertain if the parallels are even intentional, but I couldn’t ignore the possibilities inherent in this kind of tale. Even if it is just a reflection of the history embedded in Japanese culture at the time, the reference to the war is fascinating.

What is my final verdict then? I’m still not sure. Yamato is worth seeing as a part of the canon, as a cultural artifact, and probably as a way to relive Star Blazers if one is so inclined. It is not without faults, so I can’t give it a whole-hearted recommendation. My feelings on compilation movies vs. TV series are mixed; Macross could certainly stand to make a quarter or so of its episodes vanish, but Yamato loses a lot by cutting out so much character development. I felt more invested in Macross when it ended, even if I was gnashing my teeth every time Minmay started talking. Yamato never irritated, but never provided that final catharsis either. In the end, I will give it a rating just this side of lukewarm, with the caveat that increased time put into the TV series may generate increased emotional rewards.

Rating: The Carling Cup. Drama to be had, if one is into that sort of thing, but nothing compared to a full season of play.

Pandora’s Legions

Pandora’s Legions
Christopher Anvil

There was a time when my only reliable source of sci-fi was the Baen Free Library. While there is a lot of stuff on there I have no interest in reading, the Library introduced me to David Drake, Eric Flint et al, and got me started on some interesting series. The Library also showcases one of Flint’s lesser known (but very important) side gigs: editing and republishing out of print Golden Age sci-fi. Flint has put two of Christopher Anvil’s books up for download; Pandora’s Legions is today’s subject.

The book itself is a collection of short stories that have been edited together into a novel. The stories track two separate, but related groups throughout, alternately following a group of alien leaders and human mercenaries. The fun in Pandora’s Legions comes from watching Anvil set up a familiar sci-fi premise, then turn it on its head. He runs rampant with expectations, leaving the reader to wonder who exactly we should be cheering for and what it says about us.

As Pandora’s Legions opens, we find ourselves witnessing yet another invasion of earth by superior alien forces. Nothing new here. Within minutes though, it becomes apparent that things are not as they seem. The aliens are in the “Slow and Steady Wins the Race” category mentally, totally at the mercy of the intellectually quicker humans. Not totally, perhaps, since the aliens are from the Centran Empire, which spans the galaxy, and humans are still stuck on one planet, but enough to cause serious setbacks in the alien campaign. The humans, who naturally have our full sympathy, bargain with the Centrans and agree to join their empire after gaining sizable concessions. One particular group of humans agrees to become troubleshooting mercenaries for the Centrans, and the rest of humanity is given more or less carte blanche to roam the empire.

So far, so good. The story splits after this, initially following the mercenaries. These stories are set up to be standard military sci-fi, but it soon becomes clear that it’s much more Golden Age type stuff. The heroes solve the problems by thinking and scheming, not by blowing off limbs and heads. Some of the problems posed were ingenious and the solutions equally so. Those looking for tanks or fighting suits will be disappointed, but the stories are fun puzzles. One could argue that Anvil is subverting expectations here, but I think it’s more an issue of modern readers dealing with Golden Age stories than the author toying with his hapless readers.

Chaos reigns, however, in the other track of stories. The Centran Empire is vast, but it is stable, quiet, conservative, and mellow. Humans … aren’t. Within paragraphs, representatives of our noble race are running amuck, while beleaguered Centran officials compile a hilarious list of scams, swindles, ideologies, political systems and philosophies that sow havoc throughout the Empire. If only Anvil was writing now, he could have included email from Nigerian bank officials, the Bahraini royal family, pharmacies in Mexico, and sundry virility boosters. Instead, we are left with swamp land in Florida and tin pot dictators taking over planets.

At this point, we’re still in familiar territory. Aliens invade, then face defeat at the hands of plucky humanity in plenty of stories (good thing the bad guys in Independence Day used unsecured Macs!), and plenty more have underdog Terrans making their way in a leery, if not outright hostile, galaxy. (David Brin’s Uplift is my choice of these.) Where Pandora’s Legions dumps this trope on its head is the consequences of plucky humanity meeting the rest of the galaxy. The Centrans are convinced that we humans will spice up the Empire a bit, that our unpredictable, madcap ways will stimulate innovation. Instead, the Centrans finds themselves on the defensive almost immediately, with the Empire threatening to blow apart. Giving too many details would spoil the fun, but suffice it to say that most readers’ rooting interests will have flipped 180 degrees by the end of the book.

How to sum up? I found Pandora’s Legions endlessly amusing. It’s Golden Age stuff, so the writing is a bit dated. Not as cringe-worthy as pulps, but not what you’d find on the bestseller list today. Nevertheless, I snorted more than once at the craziness on display. Anvil doesn’t take quite the dim view that, say, Frederick Pohl has about his fellow man, but it’s certainly not all speed ahead for Terra. The book is definitely worth reading for a skewed view of invasions.

Rating: The 2010 Dutch National Team. Long put on a pedestal in world soccer, they suddenly and alarmingly became The Bad Guys against Spain.

The Stars at War

The Stars at War
David Weber and Steve White

“(rank) (name) gazed grimly at the viewscreen, running his eyes over his 73 dreadnoughts, 54 heavy cruisers, 87 medium cruisers, 45 carriers, 675 fighters of all classes, and 17 new model super-huge-blow-the-crap-out-of-anything dreadnought prototypes. He hung his head momentarily, as he remembered the thousands of brave young men and women whom his orders had condemned to fiery cataclysms of horrific death, and he knew that their ghosts would forever haunt his memory. But he also knew that soon the enemy would emerge from the warp point in greater numbers than his own. There was no time to dwell on the fallen; he must concentrate on the coming battle. His own natural courage welled up within him, shining forth from his face in such an unmistakable way that the other officers on the bridge couldn’t help but be strengthened by it. Nevermind the lily-livered, useless politicians back home that clamored for peace in the face of implacable evil, the time for battle had come.”

If your eyes glazed over during the last (self-written) paragraph, you may want to skip The Stars at War (or anything by David Weber). If, on the other hand, your pulse quickened, your palms got a bit sweaty, and you caught yourself day dreaming of the glories of battle, well, have I got a series for you. The Stars at War is some combination of four books, depending on edition, number of volumes, etc. In chronological order they are: Crusade, In Death Ground, The Shiva Option, and Insurrection. In order of publication, Insurrection moves from fourth to first, and the rest stay the same. The books take place in the universe created for Starfire, a tabletop tactical spaceship game that I have not played. In case this wasn’t yet clear, Weber and White’s series is spaceship porn of the highest order.

Crusade chronicles the war between humanity (and allies) and the Thebans, a weird race of fundamentalist turtles. In Death Ground and The Shiva Option tell the story of the Bugs, some kind of xenocidal, hivemind spider. Finally, Insurrection is about a civil war in the human realm, some time after the war with the Bugs. The first three are archetypal space opera, while the last is a stab at a more politically complex conflict. All of them feature the usual Baen Books themes: epic battles, death on a grand scale, the meddling of spineless liberal politicians, Honor, and possibly Valor. No surprises here, and even less subtlety.

Since plot summaries can generally be reduced to “dastardly aliens come, crap blows up, giant spaceships wallow in awesomeness, good guys win,” I’ll stick with my reactions to the books. No sense launching into deep textual analysis when the analysis will only yield “planet destroying space battleships are cool.” Crusade is easily the quirkiest of the books, but it was my favorite. The authors even made a nod to it in a later book, describing the whole Theban interlude as “bizarre.” It is. That may be why I have fond feelings towards the book, since it’s not everyday that hyper-religious turtle-like creatures invade, bent on the mass conversion of godless humanity. I had all kinds of fun reading the book, which takes itself very seriously but is actually hilarious. Crusade also owes a debt to Larry Niven or two: the Orions are a carbon copy of the Kilrathi from Wing Commander (or vice versa, depending on which came first), which are in turn taken from the Kzin of Known Space. Also. Weber and White’s grim Russian commander reminded me of Niven and Pournelle’s grim Russian commander from The Mote in God’s Eye.

The Bug books are less weird, more proficient technically, more epic, and a touch less memorable than Crusade. I suspect that opinions vary widely on this, with many preferring the higher stakes and bigger battles. After all, the Bugs want to eat everyone, while the Turtles just want mass conversions. The Bug duology also benefits from more space to grow. The extra 500 pages or so (give or take a hundred) mean more battles, bigger navies, newer technologies, exciting twists and turns, new allies, and better ways to exterminate thousands. It felt a bit paint by numbers to me, but certainly delivered on its promises.

Insurrection is the most difficult to pin down. It’s the first book in the series and is much rougher around the edges than The Shiva Option. It also tackles the most difficult subject matter of the four. A split among humanity leads to civil war, but both sides have much to recommend them. Whereas the earlier books have a pretty black and white set up (the Bugs eat babies!), Insurrection tries to give a more nuanced view. There are heroes and villains on both sides, triumph and tragedy enough for all, and while the authors finally take sides in the end, readers could find themselves landing on either side of the conflict. I have to applaud Weber and White for setting the bar so high, even if I don’t think they flawlessly clear it. In hindsight, I’m not certain how to improve things, but it feels a bit like the pudding didn’t set, if that makes sense.

So to sum up, Crusade was my favorite and a good place to start. Anyone who likes it will probably enjoy the remaining three books. Insurrection is the weakest, but most ambitious of the lot. It’s probably not worth reading to someone who didn’t make it through the other books, but makes a nice epilogue after the grueling narrative of the Bug War. It’s all straight up space opera, with all that entails, and it’s David Weber, with all THAT entails, but stupendous fun.

Rating: The German National Team. It delivers what it promises, not perhaps with flair and artistry, but certainly with efficiency.

Super Dimension Fortress Macross

Super Dimension Fortress Macross

Before diving into the Macross discussion, I should first offer the requisite anime disclaimer. Not only am I ignorant of anime conventions and clichés, I am also not much of a television viewer, so things that are commonplace in long-running TV series are news to me. Both of these are fundamental to the discussion of Macross, because I am forced to deal with it in terms I am comfortable with, not the terms under which it was created. In some ways this may be unfair. My own ignorance means that I judge the series solely as a work of science fiction, not necessarily in the context that one should examine early 80s TV anime. On the other hand, all I really demand is good storytelling.

                Some background for those not up on their anime.  Super Dimension Fortress Macross is the original, 36 episode series in what has become one of three fundamental canons of Japanese SF. (The other two are the Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam universes.) The intricacies of sub-genre and historical background are best left to more specialized sites, but Macross falls firmly into the Transforming Giant Robots in Space field that Japan seems to dominate. (I have no idea why this is so – nothing in my years in Japan gave me any indication why they should like giant robots so much more than we Westerners.) The background I have read paints a confusing picture of the authors’ intent with Macross; it may have started as a satire, and seems to end as a deconstruction of warlike space opera, though I question if the ambiguity of the storyline is an indication of profundity or just too many cooks in the proverbial kitchen. Finally, some readers of a certain age may recognize Super Dimension Fortress Macross as the first season of Robotech. I am snooty, so I watched the Japanese version.

                But I get ahead of myself. I watched all 36 episodes over the course of a couple of months, which adds up to 17+ hours with these characters, minus whatever time I spent fast forwarding through annoying music, clip shows, or the boring romantic bits. I am left with deeply divided opinions on Macross. On the one hand, after 17 hours, I feel an attachment to the world and characters. On the other, there is a lot of stupid crap that goes on in said 17 hours. But on the gripping hand, when Macross really brings it, awesome stuff goes down. Of course, awesomeness and utter banality often clash in the same episode, and even between commercial breaks. Each viewer will have a different tolerance level for this. (My wife hit hers before the first DVD had ended.)

                The story. Actually, this can be one of the weakest parts of the experience. I am guessing that insane discontinuity is due to the vagaries of TV production, as accounts elsewhere describe uncertainty if the first episodes would lead to any more, funding problems resulting to new people getting involved part way, and eventual success requiring more tacked on to the end of the series. None of this is conducive to tightly plotted, consistent material. The core of the story is the conflict between Earth and the Zentradi, a race of giant alien invaders. The source of this conflict is poorly spelled out in the beginning and the series leaves very confusing hints about the backstory. I never really figured it out and finally jettisoned the first DVD from memory because it was interfering with my enjoyment of the middle third. Likewise, the final DVD and then some is an extended epilogue meant to tie up loose ends and end the story pleasantly. The resolution of the final conflict hits somewhere around episode 27. The epilogue is completely unnecessary, but by the time I’d made it that far, I figured I might as well see the whole thing through to the end. This despite the fact that the narrative stopped being fun once Earth and the Zentradi finished blowing crap up back in episode 27.

                Continuing on the somewhat critical note, I will get my main complaints out of the way here before moving on to positives. This may be par for the course with TV shows, but I found that about one in four episodes was a throwaway. There are at least two clip shows, which I skipped entirely, the first two or three episodes that can be passed up without any lasting harm, and large swathes in the early middle that involve singing, the Miss Macross competition (every bit as horrible as it sounds), lovesick people mooning about, or awkward conversations between people who really should know better than to bulldoze through junior high school mating rituals when there is an alien invasion on.  Suffice it to say that the fast forward button was my friend, as I channeled Monty Python and yelled “Stop that! No singing in my scene!” at the screen.

                As mentioned above, the story tends to be a scrambled mess. There is a coherent backstory that emerges late in the series concerning the origins of the Zentradi and Supervision Army, their relationship with humanity, and the resulting power of the Protoculture. This part is pretty cool, but the bits connecting it to the story of the Macross are wildly confusing. (Maybe they aren’t and my brain was melted by the initial exposure to the theme song, but I honestly have no idea why the Zentradi are fighting or how exactly the whole mess started.) The balance of the plot is littered with holes, weirdness, and head slappers, but basically holds together. A lot of the silliness can be placed at the feet of some awfully dumb characters.

                The review thus far has been somewhat harsh, so now it is time to highlight a few of the reasons why I pushed on to the end (besides having OCD). Despite its failings and incoherence, Macross pulls itself together just often enough for moments of greatness. There were just enough “wow!” moments to pull me through the stupid parts. Several of the characters are engaging and left me cheering as I watched them grow. Two points of the love triangle mature in gratifying ways and manage a far more satisfying relationship than one might expect of a Giant Robot Space War. (The third point, however, remains annoying throughout.) Several of the side characters are also well-portrayed (Claudia, Max, Global, and my favorite: Exedol), though numerous others are nothing but cringe-inducing (the bridge bunnies, Kamjin, and Kaifun, who is the biggest tool ever). Finally, the viewer can never go wrong when, spoiler alert, the Macross literally punches a battleship to death. Spoiler over. Also, Global says, with a completely straight face, “Launch the booby duck.” That won my heart.

                It is the overarching theme, however, that keeps coming back to me. I don’t know if it is a result of residual Japanese ambivalence about war and violence or just the producers trying to think of a hook for the show, but the Macross treatment of war is certainly different. The whole series is a 36 episode examination of how to create peace. The Zentradi are the obvious warmongers, but there are hawks among the humans as well. One prominent character is a vocal pacifist. (He is also a moron and probably a caricature of the Japanese Communist Party.) The hero starts out with no use for the military but finds himself joining up in the face of destruction. Attitudes about the military end up deciding the love triangle central to the story. Again, I don’t know how much of the moral complexity in the series is a result of carefully placed symbolism, how much is a reflection of a culture still trying to reconcile its warlike past with its ostensibly pacifist present, and how much is just too many production companies throwing in too many side stories. Japan’s attitude about war and its military is worthy of books, but suffice it to say that watching Macross in its entirety provides the viewer with a good, if confusing, overview.

                What really sets Macross apart, however, isn’t the shades of gray. Macross offers a solution, not just questions and compromises. (What one makes of the solution and its implementation is another question entirely.) If humanity is to conquer the enemy and win some sort of peace in the Macross universe, it isn’t through arms, valor, loyalty, democracy, or any such thing. The secret weapon in this story is culture. Culture was denied the Zentradi and Supervision Army and culture is the key to ending conflict. In this case, Culture is represented by music, which is heartening to a jazz musician like me. Less heartening is the fact that the music that can turn the tide of battles is crappy Japanese pop, but the Good Lord giveth and the Good Lord taketh away. To look further though, the weapons that turn the tide are not the new fighters, the neat robots, or the hilariously named “Grand Cannon,” but songs, babies and kissing. I won’t argue that these plot points are handled in subtle, sensitive, or ingenious ways, but many of the “wow!” moments that kept me coming back were related to them in one way or another.

                A couple of other random asides before wrapping up. Two main characters, Minmay and Kaifun, are obviously Chinese. While there is an international cast, as it were, I would be very surprised to see any sympathetic Chinese characters in Japanese anime today. Like much anime (I am told), Macross doesn’t pull punches when killing characters. One major death was broadcast several episodes before it happened, but another was totally out of the blue. I can only imagine audience shock at the time. Destruction is also pretty unforgiving – there are a couple of things taken out that I had not expected. Like a lot of things I saw in Japan, romance is handled in the clumsiest way possible. It would be totally unbelievable if I hadn’t seen similar idiocy in real life, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch.

                To sum up, Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a bit of a rollercoaster. The gap between sublime and ridiculous is more of a yawning chasm. I feel some attachment to the world and the characters after investing so much time in the series, though I wish that less of that time was spent groaning and hiding my eyes. There is a lot to recommend, not the least of which is the deconstruction of space opera tropes, but I would caution viewers to have the fast forward button at the ready.

Rating: Sounders-Timbers derbies. Inflamed emotion, frantic running and fighting, rabid partisans on both sides, lots of fun to be had, but a suspect product on the pitch.