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  • Reynolds, Alastair
  • Rogers, Carl
  • Russo, Richard Paul
  • Alastair Reynolds Alastair Reynolds' homepage: http://members.tripod.com/~voxish/index.html
  • Absolution Gap
  • Century Rain
  • Chasm City
  • Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
  • Pushing Ice
  • Redemption Ark
  • Revelation Space
  • Absolution Gap ============== The human worlds are under attack from the Inhibitors - ancient machines dedicated to the destruction of any space-faring species. Ranged against these "wolves" is an uneasy alliance of refugees - settlers from the doomed world of Resurgam, hyperpigs led by the resourceful Scorpio, and the technologically advanced Conjoiners. The situation seems hopeless, but a potential solution is discovered - on the remote icy moon of Hela. ================================================================================ Having read - and hugely enjoyed - the other books in the Revelation Space sequence, I was curious to find out how the author would tie up all the ends that remained loose at the close of Redemption Ark. By and large, I think he has done a good job, although (as usual) I have some reservations. First, the stuff I liked. The spooky dilapidated old starship Nostalgia for Infinity is as delightfully run-down and gothic as ever. The Quaichist society on Hela - with those marvellous nuclear-powered cathedrals crawling over the ice - is brilliantly described, and I'll bet Reynolds enjoyed working out all the details in his imagination. Another very nice touch is the depiction of extinct body-part-swapping alien species the Scuttlers. Also there is the reappearance of good characters from the previous books - the war-weary Clavain, the ghostly Captain John Brannigan, the awesomely nasty Skade. And there are space battles. I'm a sucker for these - the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned. Some things could have been better, though. The Inhibitors don't get much coverage, compared to some other elements of the story - basically, we don't learn much more about them that we didn't know by the end of the last book. Some of the better characters have disappeared by the halfway mark, leaving others somewhat overexposed (much as I like Scorpio, I felt he was given rather too much to do and say.) I found the ending somewhat abrupt, considering the length of the novel and also the fact that Reynolds is wrapping up the entire story and has just introduced a new mystery alien species (the "conch makers"). Maybe he could have found a way of rolling the stories of Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap into one book, although admittedly it would have been a bit of a stretch and he would have needed to eliminate or reduce a lot of material. Possibly he would have needed to re-think the whole story, not a task to be undertaken lightly. Now the Inhibitors sequence is well and truly over, what I would like to see is a new collection of short stories set in the Revelation Space universe. The two novellas Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days showed that there's a lot more mileage to be squeezed out of it. I would like to read more tales about the Ultras, about the worlds of Yellowstone and Sky's Edge (isn't there another world called Grand Teton, which we never get to see?) and about the Pattern Jugglers and the Shrouders. Maybe there will be a story about the early days of the Nostalgia for Infinity under Captain Brannigan; that would definitely be on my wish-list. Alastair Reynolds' new book Century Rain is out in hardback now, and I shall be reviewing it shortly. It's a different kettle of fish entirely, being a sort of detective story set on a parallel Earth (haven't finished it yet.) As they say, watch this space... © Alex Cull, 27th January, 2005 Century Rain ============ An American in 1950s Paris, Wendell Floyd is facing a number of problems. Not only is his two-man detective agency struggling to stay afloat, but a promising murder investigation is generating more mysteries faster than he can solve them. In addition, there is something terribly wrong with his planet... ================================================================================ Century Rain is something of a departure for Alastair Reynolds, whose previous books can best be described as wide-screen space opera. This new novel manages to combine the themes normally covered in time travel/alternative history/parallel universe stories without actually falling into any of these categories precisely. It's clever and fast-moving stuff. The novel has a number of strengths - the ideas are great (as I would expect from an Alastair Reynolds story), and the settings are wonderfully rendered. In addition the characters are strong - ex-pat detective and jazz aficionado Floyd is terrific, as is the determined and resourceful archaeologist Verity Auger. The author introduces us to the future universe of the Slashers and the Threshers, where scientific and technological achievements are off the scale, yet where humanity is beset by the same old problems - war, political rivalry, and the kind of pride that comes before a bruising fall. The novel is in part about nanotechnology (one of my favourite topics), and the related theme could be summarised as "when nanotech goes bad". (NB. Is there a novel where nanotech runs like clockwork? I can't think of one, off-hand.) This is not the sanitised future of Star Trek, but a troubled, strife-torn era like the ones we've always known. In contrast to all the high-tech wizardry is Floyd's version of Paris in the 1950s. The city is evocatively described in loving detail, with a sort of wonderful mid-20th century drabness that makes it all feel intensely real. You can practically smell the coffee, hear the clatter of the Metro and see the Parisians all going off to work with their coats and umbrellas. But this, as you have probably gathered, is no ordinary detective story. I've heard it said before by others, but never quite appreciated it until now - Alastair Reynolds has a gift for writing passages that would be not out of place in a work of horror fiction. There are moments in Century Rain when he manages to convey a sense of menace that is masterly. These take place in the first half of the book, as the remainder is mostly straight SF/action, but they are memorable. If the author ever gets tired of spacecraft, wormholes and nanotech, he could do worse than try his hand at a work of supernatural fiction - I'm sure it would be very well received. © Alex Cull, 3rd February, 2005 Chasm City ========== Tanner Mirabel is a man with a mission, crossing light years to carry out an act of vengeance. However, his destination, the Yellowstone system, has been struck by a disastrous plague in the meantime. His quarry has vanished without trace. Lastly, as if he did not have enough problems, his own identity is under increasing threat. ================================================================================ Chasm City is set in the same universe as Revelation Space, although it is not a sequel, and fills us in on a lot of the background to the first book, for instance about the impact of the Melding Plague, and also the origins of war-torn Sky's Edge, the world where Ana Khouri was a soldier. The narrative contains three stories, which converge at the end - the first is Tanner's quest to hunt down his enemy Reivich amid the chaos of Chasm City. The second is the story of what happened to Tanner, his employer and his employer's wife back on Sky's Edge, and the third is the hitherto untold story of Sky Hausmann, criminal and planetary founding father, revealed to Tanner via a most unusual viral infection. On the plus side, Chasm City is a terrific creation, a sort of organic, mutated cousin of the city in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Like an urban rain forest the city has an elevated Canopy, from which the bored predatory upper class descend on their periodic manhunts, and a chaotic Mulch, seething with low- lifes including genetically-engineered hyper-pigs. There's plenty of sharp action, as Tanner becomes a target for the hunters and fights to stay alive, forming alliances and working hard to stay a few steps ahead of his enemies. On the minus side, the sub-plot concerning the origins of the wonder drug Dream Fuel seems at times a rather awkward addition to Tanner's story. Also, there is the whole question of the motive behind Tanner's quest, which Reynolds might have worked harder to make less contrived. Overall, rather than being character driven, the story relies a lot on plot twists to keep it moving and I found that the minor players generally lacked conviction. On the whole, though, Chasm City is top-notch entertainment and kept me turning the pages; in particular the Hausmann narrative provided some good motivation to find out what happened in the end. Roll on, Redemption Ark. © Alex Cull, 15th April 2004 Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days ============================ In the novella Diamond Dogs a motley team of adventurers attempt to solve the gruesome puzzle of Blood Spire, which dominates the desolate landscape of planet Golgotha. In its companion novella Turquoise Days a community studying the enigmatic alien Pattern Jugglers, on the remote world of Turquoise, is about to receive a dramatic visit which will turn their way of life upside down. ================================================================================ The two novellas which make up Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days are both set in Reynolds' Revelation Space universe, but are not directly connected to the main narrative which links the novels (i.e. the Inhibitor storyline.) If the titles sound familiar, that's because they are also the names of vintage pop songs, by David Bowie and Echo and the Bunnymen, respectively. I enjoyed these a lot, but the stories were short and I wanted more. Diamond Dogs could almost have been co-written by Clive Barker, as the story has a visceral and claustrophobic quality redolent of horror rather than SF. The lengths to which Roland Childe and his assorted comrades go, in order to discover the secret of the tower, are a comment on the contortions humans will willingly submit themselves to in the service of curiosity and greed - it's certainly fascinating but makes for uncomfortable reading. I liked the sly references to Indiana Jones and to the underrated 1997 horror film Cube. The narrative of Diamond Dogs starts off in Chasm City (the place) on the eve of the Melding Plague, making it roughly contemporary with Chasm City (the novel) in the scheme of things. Turquoise Days is not as fast-paced as Diamond Dogs, at least at the beginning, but picks up speed as it nears its climax. It's also lighter in tone, although not without drama and conflict, as Reynolds explores the explosive consequences and pitfalls of mixing scientific research and politics. I found the Pattern Jugglers (which are mentioned first in Revelation Space) interesting and wanted to learn more about them, but the story then focusses on the humans, a shift that I found mildly frustrating. After the quirky menagerie of Diamond Dogs, I found the characters in Turquoise Days rather bland and not particularly memorable. All in all, these two are fine, but I wanted at least one more story to flesh out the book a bit. In fact, it would be good to see a proper collection of Reynolds' short stories in paperback, at some point. Until then, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days is the next best thing. © Alex Cull, 19th April 2004 Pushing Ice =========== The crew of spacecraft Rockhopper are busy doing what they do best - mining comets - when they receive some startling new instructions. Their new mission (should they choose to accept it) is to rendezvous with Janus, one of Saturn's tinier moons, which is on the move and is actually not a moon at all. ================================================================================ As soon as I started to read Pushing Ice I was reminded of the Arthur C Clarke 1973 classic Rendezvous with Rama (I was feeling a bit smug about making that connection, then read a bunch of reviews where others had done the same. Oh well.) There are some similarities, the main one being that the story involves an encounter with a Big Dumb Object, as they call it in the trade. However, there are important differences between the two novels. Rendezvous with Rama is a product of a more innocent, optimistic age, when space explorers could investigate the wonders of the universe without having to bother about messy human politics, commerce or personality clashes. Those were the days. Now, of course, things are different. Giant corporations are expanding their operations into the solar system, and the folks out there are more your average white and blue collar working joes and jills than the scientific/ military types of yore. In keeping with most large organisations there are plenty of opportunities for interpersonal strife, and for the crew of the Rockhopper there is the additional stress of hazardous unscheduled exploration. Plus aliens, of course. I enjoyed Pushing Ice and think that Alastair Reynolds, in his post-Revelation Space phase, has made a pretty decent go of a first contact novel. The technology is interesting (I particularly liked the idea of the pseudo-living flexies) and the characterisation is mostly sharp and convincing. The aliens are well depicted - sometimes behaving in ways that humans find comprehensible (e.g. trading, negotiating, jostling for power), sometimes remaining enigmatic. And the scale of it all is impressive, with some truly, mysteriously, mind- bogglingly immense artefacts to explore. The characters are mostly well developed, with a few exceptions. Chinese astronaut Wang, I feel, should be a more central character than he actually is; it would be nice to have more of the story from his viewpoint. I did feel rather dismayed (although not particularly astonished) at all the bickering and strife that takes place during this epic space journey. How is it possible for a falling-out between a couple of people to last for centuries? Also, how is it possible for everyone else to put up with two characters who behave like tinpot empresses to the detriment of the community, for so long? Having said that, however, I'm sure that if everyone at the company where I'm currently working were somehow transported aboard a spacecraft and sent on a thousand-year journey to the ends of the universe, there most likely would be major ructions. Some sort of horrible war would probably break out between Marketing and Finance, for a start, and everyone would blame IT for anything that went wrong. Space - where no-one can hear you whinge about work stress... Where was I? Oh yes, Pushing Ice is well worth a look, more proof (if any were needed) that for Alastair Reynolds there is life after the Inhibitors. I'm now looking forward to reading his short story collection Galactic North, due out in October this year, (plus another collection Zima Blue which may well be out sooner than that.) And I'd still love to read a horror novel by him, if he ever decides to write one. He would be good. © Alex Cull, 31st May 2006 Redemption Ark ============== In the troubled Yellowstone system, two human factions - the Demarchists and the Conjoiners - are at each other's throats. However, looming over this local fight is a menace which threatens to engulf all of human space. The Inhibitors, ancient machines inimical to uppity new spacefaring civilisations, have now become alerted to the human presence and are about to start cleaning up. ================================================================================ The zombies and the spiders are at war... Redemption Ark marks a welcome return to the dark, conflict-torn universe of Alastair Reynolds, and the continuation of the Inhibitor storyline that started with Revelation Space. In this novel we learn more about the Inhibitor menace as it starts to gather pace; we also learn a lot more about the Conjoiners, the mysterious hive-mind faction of the human race, who are the providers of the Conjoiner Drives that power the "lighthuggers" that fly between the stars. In fact we learn about the controversial technology that enabled the Conjoiners to obtain the stardrive knowledge in the first place. There are lots of things for me to like about this book. I found the collectivist Conjoiner society interesting, sophisticated and well-described (they are similar in some respects to the Borg from Star Trek but with better personal hygiene.) Reynolds does not paint them (or any other of the factions) as villains, which is one of his many good points as an SF novelist. The main protagonist in the novel is Clavain, a centuries-old ex-Conjoiner war hero (or war criminal, depending on your point of view) a well-drawn character with depth and complexity. My favourite character, however, is Clavain's pursuer and erstwhile colleague Skade - ruthless and fanatically resourceful, she goes one further than the self-truncating adventurers of Reynolds' novella Diamond Dogs in her struggle to beat Clavain in the race to Resurgam. Best of all, we meet some old friends from Revelation Space, hard-bitten cigarette-smoking Triumvir Ilia Volyova, and gothic monstrosity of a starship Nostalgia for Infinity (now in an even more fantastically warped and decayed condition, if that can be imagined.) Oh, and there are also massive space battles, gigantic planet-destroying doomsday weapons, and a very spooky future technology that can do far worse to its victims than merely kill them. All very good reasons to read this book. Having said that, it would be best to read Revelation Space first (and read Chasm City too, while you're at it) as you will not get the full benefit otherwise, and may find it somewhat confusing at times. And don't expect much of a grand finale - without giving much away, I can say that the ending has "to be continued" written all over it. And continued it was. Next stop Absolution Gap. © Alex Cull, 28th April 2004 Revelation Space ================ On the distant planet Resurgam, archeologist Dan Sylveste is attempting to find out why a race of winged aliens called the Amarantin were wiped out many centuries ago. In the meantime, assassin-for-hire Ana Khouri is lured aboard the seriously creepy starship Nostalgia for Infinity as a replacement for a crew member who went psychotic. Her mission - a secret. The starship's destination - Resurgam. ================================================================================ Now this is the sort of stuff I like. Alastair Reynolds' universe is dark indeed, very chilly, very noir. Centuries from now, humanity has gone out into interstellar space and colonised other worlds, but in the process has become fragmented, splintering into mutually unfriendly factions. There are a few alien races but these are mysterious entities that keep a low profile, and this is for a good reason. They are survivors of an unimaginably ancient and violent conflict known as the Dawn War, and there are signs that certain very dangerous mechanisms from this war are still active... There are some very nice touches in Revelation Space. I loved the spaceship Nostalgia for Infinity, a gothic monstrosity of a vessel awash in slime and crawling with rats (I kid you not) as well as being equipped with several "hell-class" weapons. I liked the individualistic spacefaring Ultras with their customised body parts. I also liked the fact that nothing can go faster than light, as the lack of hyperspatial short cuts always makes the universe a bigger and more awesome place in SF. Some readers disliked the characters and have commented on the slow pace of the story. The pace didn't bother me, I found myself enjoying the build-up and being generally entertained along the way. I'd describe the characters as edgy, driven, un-heroic and all the better for it. Oh and I also liked the fact that the super-technology is all scuffed, beaten up and realistic, much like the scuffed, beaten-up, realistic not-so-super-technology we're all using now. Alastair Reynolds' universe is not really a cosy, feel-good sort of place - you wouldn't want to actually live there, but it's tremendous fun to visit vicariously. Well, you get the picture - basically I liked Revelation Space a lot. And this is a trilogy - two more books to come. © Alex Cull, 2nd October 2003 Top Carl Rogers
  • The Carl Rogers Reader
  • The Carl Rogers Reader ====================== Edited by Howard Kirschenbaum and Valerie Land Henderson, The Carl Rogers Reader is a collection of articles by Carl Rogers, spanning most of his career and covering a variety of subjects that touch upon the field of person-centred psychotherapy. ================================================================================ I started reading this book after watching the famous 1965 film Three Approaches to Psychotherapy, featuring a young woman called Gloria, who is interviewed by Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls and Albert Ellis, and thus exposed to three very different flavours of psychotherapy. I was curious about what happened to Gloria after this film was made, and was wondering if she was still alive (or not, as one rumour has it.) I had also heard that she had corresponded frequently with Carl Rogers and his wife Helen, and wanted to confirm this. Well, I did not find answers to these questions within the pages of The Carl Rogers Reader. But what I did find was a treasure trove of articles by Rogers, which I found fascinating, illuminating and occasionally very surprising. Organised into sections covering such topics as the therapeutic relationship, the helping professions, education, theory and research, these articles reveal a lot about Carl Rogers the therapist and pioneer, as well as Carl Rogers the man. They have helped bring him into focus in my mind, as an optimist, a scientist, a theorist and an all-round pleasant, sincere and highly-motivated person. He was a person who believed that the world could be changed for the better, and who in his eighties was still engaged in bringing people together to create this better world. Certain of these works, in particular, stand out in my memory. In the section entitled The Therapeutic Relationship Rogers debates the use (and misuse) of the word "reflection" in a therapeutic context. He makes (and beautifully illustrates) the point that a process that from the therapist's point of view is a patient and sensitive search for ever more clarification, can appear, from the client's point of view, as a mirror-like representation of his or her own feelings and ideas. In the sense that the counsellor holds up a metaphoric mirror to the client, what the counsellor does can be called "reflection". Of course, for this to work properly the mirror has to be as clear as possible, which is where the counsellor's patient, constant search for clarification comes in. There is a wealth of other interesting items in this book. Rogers's basic optimism about human nature always shines through, for example in the section entitled A Philosophy of Persons, where he refutes the Freudian notion of humanity's underlying drives as being fundamentally destructive. At every stage, we encounter Rogers's belief in the goodness of people and the possibility of personal growth. And there are some surprises. I had not realised that Rogers changed his views on psychic phenomena late in life, following certain events connected to the death of Helen, his wife. I also had not realised that Rogers was so determinedly against the notion of accreditation for counsellors - which completely contradicts a lot of what organisations such as the BACP in the UK stand for. If you, like me, are interested in person-centred therapy and in the life and thoughts of Carl Rogers, this book is definitely a must-read. However, this still leaves me not knowing what happened to Gloria. If anyone reading this does know, could you send me an e-mail? Thank you. © Alex Cull, 11th May, 2006 Top Richard Paul Russo
  • The Rosetta Codex
  • Unto Leviathan (Ship of Fools)
  • The Rosetta Codex ================= Heir to a powerful dynasty, young Cale is left for dead after a spacecraft crash - raised in a brutal wilderness zone, he makes a discovery that has tremendous implications for the universe. ================================================================================ I thought Russo's earlier novel Unto Leviathan (aka Ship of Fools) not bad at all, so was looking forward to this one. The title was intriguing, reminding me of something by either Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown; however, this is not about conspiracies, ancient or modern, but is a rather straightforward science fiction adventure. On the plus side, the story is fairly fast-moving, with few bits that drag or are redundant. It is not burdened by excessive descriptions; the action, when it occurs, is brisk and competently handled. Like Russo's earlier book, The Rosetta Codex is easily assimilated and makes few real demands on the reader; I sped through much of it on a couple of train journeys and while sitting in a hospital waiting room. The characters are adequate but tend towards the two-dimensional. The counsellor in me found Cale enigmatic and rather frustrating - he never seems to emerge from his traumatised boyhood. I wanted him to get angry but he didn't. Worse than that, his motivation for resurrecting the Jaaprana is never quite made clear. Maybe his obsession to bring back a race of godlike, technologically superior aliens was a response to the brutality and injustices of his childhood, but I'm basically guessing here. The best answer I can think of for reviving the Jaaprana is: because the plot requires it. And that's not good. The problem is that we readers simply don't know what the implications of resurrecting the aliens will be, because we don't know enough about the civilisation Cale was born into. We know that there are a number of colonised worlds, that there are technological marvels co-existing with poverty and squalor, that commercial power lies with a handful of dynastic merchant families. We know that the Sarakheen, a race of mysterious cyborgs, oppose the resurrection, presumably because they feel they will be under threat from the Jaaprana, also because the Sarakheen are, in some generic way, evil. But we have little to go on. Maybe I'm biased, as I've been re-reading Peter F Hamilton's books lately; I'm not saying that Russo should have gone the whole hog and built a fantastically detailed and lifelike space civilisation on a par with Hamilton's Confederation. But my overall impression of Russo's planets (Conrad's World and Lagrima) is of places created by a sort of by-the-numbers process, with suitably alien flora and fauna appearing in the appropriate places. Civilisation seems to be in decline, with the privileged few enjoying life in high-tech enclaves, surrounded by an infrastructure which seems to be almost medieval. But how did it all get this way? Don't know. In Unto Leviathan this sketchiness was actually a strength. The Argonos was a mysterious ship in a mysterious universe, and it worked. But in The Rosetta Codex, this is not a strength but a liability. Where I expected to find a certain richness and depth (as well as a degree of internal logic to make everything hang together) I found a story that fell rather flat. © Alex Cull, 10th February 2006 Unto Leviathan (Ship of Fools) ============================== The inhabitants of starship Argonos face numerous problems, the greatest of which is a lack of resources to maintain their gigantic, dilapidated craft. Then they encounter a mysterious signal from the colony world of Antioch, which leads them to an unexpected chamber of horrors. ================================================================================ A generation starship which has lost its purpose with a crew who have forgotten their history, a spooky abandoned hulk of an alien structure littered with traps... As an avid SF reader, I have encountered these ideas before quite a few times; however, I still found Unto Leviathan (or Ship of Fools, which is its title in the US) a good read. Richard Paul Russo has a low-key writing style that sometimes comes across as dry, but efficiently does the business of storytelling, and he manages to convey the claustrophobic quality of life aboard the Argonos with understated skill. His characters are believable and well presented - all too human, with flaws and strengths in equal measure. The main character Bartolomeo Aguilera is particularly well devised, being both highly vulnerable (he is disabled and lacks arms), yet strong (both physically - he uses a robotic exoskeleton - and mentally.) What motivated me to carry on reading and get to the end was intense curiosity - I wanted to find some answers. Unfortunately, this is where the novel does not deliver; there is no real resolution of the mysteries presented in Unto Leviathan. In one sense this is acceptable, as it is in keeping with the style of the story; it reminds me of the original 1979 film Alien - at the end of the film we still know nothing about the crashed ship or how the xenomorph eggs ended up there, and it does not matter in the least. But I still couldn't help feeling a bit let down, when I got to the end, and would have appreciated some kind of revelation. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading Unto Leviathan, and others have enjoyed it too (after all, it did win the Philip K Dick award in 2001.) But I think there are ways in which it could have been even better. Apart from the lack of answers, the story could have benefitted from a more hard-SF approach; the ship, for instance, is equipped with some kind of faster-than-light drive, but we learn little about it. One reason that I generally like the novels of, say, Alastair Reynolds, is that he manages to combine plausible-sounding science with a creepy gothic tone in a way that is very effective, and after reading Chasm City by Reynolds, Unto Leviathan begins to look rather sketchy and lightweight. So ultimately, my impression is of a book that is fine in some ways but not in others. It is very readable, has good characters and pace; however, it lacks substance. At the end of the day, I found it was not so much a leviathan, more a smaller sort of fish, such as a herring; a herring is nice and tasty, mind you, but I wouldn't say that it was awesome. © Alex Cull, 7th February 2006 Top