During the lockdown, London has become a fictional place to me

I live in London, but for the last few months I might have lived on the edge of any medium-sized to large settlement in the UK. The pandemic has reduced my horizons to my street, my local park and my local branch of Aldi. This has meant my experience of the world is not that of a Londoner, but of the resident of any middle-class suburb.

London still, theoretically, exists beyond these horizons, but there’s no point in visiting. It’s all closed and I’m too nervous to use public transport right now. London - the London most people think of when they say London, the London of Trafalgar Square, Tower Bridge, Kings Cross Station and the National Gallery - is psychologically so far removed from me it might as well be a mythical place.

London is a place that I now relate to via fiction, just like I relate to places that I have never been. Places such as Tokyo, Timbuctoo or Olympus Mons are more concepts in stories than they are real places to me. Now I experience London via stories instead of by first-hand experience. This led me to think of the stories that sum up London the best.

Rivers of London

Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series have always felt quintessentially London. The novels are (largely) set in London and follow the adventures of Peter Grant, a trainee detective and apprentice wizard at the branch of the Met Police that deals with magical crime. In his adventures, Peter meets the spirits of London’s rivers, talking foxes, people who live secretly in tube tunnels and other magical denizens of London.

Aaronovitch said that he imagined the books as a mythology of London. His writing captures how there is something magical about this city that lives amongst the crowded tubes, overpriced drinks and constantly sprouting blocks of luxury flats. The books (eight of them so far, plus two novellas, several short stories and comics) are set all over London and Aaronovitch always finds a way to intertwine his magical London with the London we experience.

The books contain the old London of Old Father Thames, a Roman who has lived here for over 2,000 years, and the new London of the young goddess of Beverly Brook, Peter’s girlfriend and PhD student in flood management. All of London is drawn into Aaronovitch’s story, its geography and its history. The novels capture the diversity of London and contain within its huge cast of characters the different people that make this city.

Neverwhere

A secret or hidden London is a common theme of urban fantasy novels set in London. Probably the best and most well-known example of this is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, a novel about Richard Mayhew, a young businessman in London, who helps a mysterious woman called Door and falls out of his London into the world of London Below. Once Richard crosses this boundary he is in a magical alternative London populated by the Earl of Earl’s Court and the Angel from Angel Islington and cannot go back to his old life.

What struck me about Gaiman’s novel is how accurate it is. There really is a secret London, that no one sees, which has a life of its own. This isn’t the magical world of the Floating Markets and monks who live at Blackfriars. It’s the London of the cleaners on zero-hours contracts, the people deliver the beer to the pubs, the people working in the coffee shops and bus drivers. All the people that the middle-class Londoners like me take for granted.

There’s also the London of the homeless and the poor that we don’t see. There is an entire hidden world of poverty, precarious housing, back-breaking labour we don’t see in the London of craft beer, casual dining and art galleries. Although even for a middle-class Londoner - like Richard, like me - if we lose our jobs we’re only a paycheck away from falling into that other London, perhaps never to return.

The City and the City

Of course, there are more than two different Londons, the rich and the poor. There are many experiences of the city. There’s the London of Michelin starred restaurants, Knightsbridge shopping and auction houses. There’s the London of clubs, bars, pills and booze. There’s the London of immersive theatre, underground exhibitions and fashion influencers. There’s the London financial transactions, property speculation, coffee and cocaine. These Londons are stacked up against each other, sharing the same geography but separate.

China Mieville’s novel The City and the City explores this concept. The novel is set in the fictional cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma, two cities that inhabit the same space, even the same streets, but their occupants ignore each other. The people of Besźel and Ul Qoma go through their lives without acknowledging people who they are separate from but are still close enough to touch. 

This novel could be a metaphor for many cities with a divided community such as Belfast or Jerusalem. I believe this novel is a brilliant metaphor for London because there isn’t one London, there are many Londons. You can share the same street, the same tube car, the same shop with people who have a completely different experience of London. They share the same physical space as you do, but everything about it is different.

This difference might be due to different race, class, cultural background or could be that what they want from London, the establishments they frequent, are different. For one person London means Wetherspoons and for another it means cocktail bars. Hackney can mean craft beer and music festivals in parks for one person or resisting gentrification for another.

Experiencing London in fiction

All these novels tell us a story about London that helps us understand the city. The stories of the books mirror the story that is our own experience of the city. London is more than just the London anyone of us sees. It’s different things to different people.

The books I have chosen were all written by white men, this most likely reflects my experience of London as a white man. It’s also probably a sign I should try and read a more diverse range of writers. I would be interested to hear what other writers and stories reflect London, this most diverse of cities.

I enjoy being able to take a walk through a place via fiction that I cannot experience personally. Maybe because it’s far away or maybe because it doesn’t exist in our world. While I’m stuck at home, it helps to be able to experience the city I live in as fiction if I cannot experience it first hand.

Trapped In The Bargain Basement

How do you follow up a successful crime novel? With sequels, of course. The crime genre naturally lends itself to a series of novels, as there will always be more crimes to solve. This is especially true of detective novels, where new cases are constantly arising. As a reader it is great to find a detective novel that you like, as further adventures are very likely to come into print.

Last year I read and enjoyed The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf by debut author Nick Bryan, and I was similar entertained by the sequel published earlier this year, Rush Jobs, so I was very pleased to discover that a third volume, Trapped In The Bargain Basement, would be coming out in October.

Like its two predecessor ‘Hobson and Choi’ adventures, Trapped In The Bargain Basement is a gritty detective drama with a dash of Bryan's sarcastic humour on top. Bryan is not afraid of tackling serious issues - the previous Hobson and Choi adventure looked at the effect of gentrification of Peckham – and book tackles the problem of London's homeless.

Rising homelessness is a serious problem in London, and Bryan approaches the issues with intelligence and sensitivity. Trapped In The Bargain Basement acknowledges that homelessness does not just mean street sleepers, and that the term also covers those in temporary or insecure accommodation, something which is frequently overlooked in the homelessness debate. In this novel, Hobson and Choi encounter a group of people squatting in the basement car park of an up-market shopping centre – people without secure homes of their own who live in accommodation not fit for human habitation, which is often the reality of homelessness. These people are frequently the victims of abuse or people who have been evicted from private rented accommodation. With the soaring cost of renting in London, this is becoming a growing problem.

The main homeless character in the book is Camille, a French runaway who is hinted at having a history of abuse from a family member and whose job as a cinema usher will not cover renting in London. This is subtle way to explore the realities of homelessness for many people through the medium of a comedy/crime novel.

People like Camille are the unseen side of homelessness. They are hidden away in temporary accommodation or accommodation unfit for human habitation. These are the people we are oblivious to as we go about our lives, but they are frequently the victims of exploitation and crime, as this book explores.

Camille works in the cinema at the trendy East London shopping centre of the EastVillage, which is run by the exploitive manager Allan Ballart. Seasoned detective John Hobson and his teenage work-experience placement Angelina Choi are brought in to investigate a series of muggings that have taken place in the EastVillage. They quickly discover Camille and the community of homeless people living beneath the shopping centre, but when Hobson and Choi start asking too many questions about who really benefits from the crimes taking place, Camille is framed for murder and Hobson and Choi need to discover the real culprit.

The plot of Hobson and Choi's investigation takes twists and turns which keep the novel interesting, and the characters are written in a humorous and compelling way. The reader gets a sense of their lives outside the case which are developed enough to seem realistic. Hobson is having an awkward affair with the receptionist of his building and has newly acquired a dog that he is uncertain how to look after. Choi is taking her first steps in dating, as well as wondering whether she wants to continue with Hobson after her work experience ends. However, as interesting as the plot is, it does lack tension. There is not a great sense of peril for the main characters. The reader grows attached to Camille and we do not want to see her go to prison, but our main focus is on the detectives, who are not in a great deal of danger.

Bryan uses comedy to relieve what could be a very depressing story, whilst the darkly sarcastic nature of Bryan's humour matches the tone of the plot. The frequency of the jokes means that this is a story which does not take itself too seriously, and this makes it easier for the reader to digest the serious points made about homelessness, abuse, exploitation and murder. Trapped In The Bargain Basement is a dark story, but the sarcastic humour keeps it from being unbearably bleak.

The Hobson and Choi books are grounded in the realities of life for most Londoners. As well as the story of the case we get a lot of insights into Hobson’s and Choi's lives outside work. Choi lives on social media, Hobson is suspicious of it. Hobson eats at Subway, whereas Choi prefers a trendy pop-up pizza place in Brixton. The scenes from outside work for both characters are realistic and familiar to reader from our own lives, which is what brings the characters to life. One of the best scenes in the novel is Choi's date with returning Hobson and Choi character Will. Bryan portrays the early stages of a teenage romance without sensation and with his trademark witty sense of humour. We all remember what those early awkward dates were like and recreating these sensations with these characters gives them a life beyond that of the iconic roles of detective and assistant.

Trapped In The Bargain Basement is a very entertaining read and it lives up to the promise of the previous Hobson and Choi adventures. This is my favourite outing for the comedically mismatched pair of detectives, because it has a compelling story, tackles important issues in an intelligent way and has a sense of humour based on everyday life that brings the characters to life. I am glad that the Hobson and Choi series, which started so well, continues to produce great books. I am looking forward to their fourth adventure, Blood Will Stream, next year.

Science fantasy books

Readers often think of science fiction and fantasy as two separate but related genres. They both rely on creating unusual worlds and telling stories that explore them. Sci-fi and fantasy overlap - there are common tropes, archetypes, stories, etc - but most readers divide novels into one genre or the other. However the line between sci-fi and fantasy is blurry and there are some stories that cross over from one genre to the other. These are science fiction fantasy books.

China Miéville is an author whose work exists in this blurred territory. He has written urban fantasy novels like King Rat and science fiction like Embassytown, but some of his books, like The Scar, use both sci-fi and fantasy concepts. The Scar has magic (thaumaturgy in this universe) and vampires as characters, but there are also spaceships and aliens in the novel. Miéville’s writing borrows from the iconography of both genres, and he fits into neither.

In order to find out what exists between the two genres, we should look at the difference between them. The commonly accepted distinction is that science fiction should have some scientific explanation for the imaginative concepts that the author has invented for the story. For example, the novel the Andy Weir's novel The Martian is based on what is scientifically possible now and what might be possible in the future, where as there is no scientific explanation of the origin of the Discworld. These stories are easy to classify as one genre or the other.

Dr Who is a good example of a TV show that is both sci-fi and fantasy. Although a lot of Dr Who is based upon what we know about science, there are a lot of Dr Who stories that do not stand up to scientific analysis. Time travel is probably not possible; neither can a child crying on Christmas Day defeat a homicidal snowman. The Daleks and the Cybermen make sense when looked at from a scientific point of view, as they are imagined along the lines of possible developments in cybernetics, but when Amy wishes the Doctor back from the dead it is not scientific and neither are the means by which the Weeping Angels turn to stone when looked at. These devices can be used to tell emotionally engaging stories, but they do not stand up to scientific scrutiny, so Dr Who sits in the space between sci-fi and fantasy as it has elements of both.

A book can be in both genres not just by borrowing from both: a writer can approach non-scientific concepts in scientific way. For example, the time machine, from HG Wells’s novel, is a realistic (as was considered possible at the time) scientific explanation of what the future will be like told through a non-scientific means, i.e. time travel. Wells's vision of the future and the people in it makes sense but the science of the machine does not.

Rather than sitting across both genres, a story can move from one to the other. Anne McCaffrey's ‘Dragon Flight’ novels start off as fantasy but then become science fiction as the technology and science behind the setting is revealed. From the characters’ point of view it makes sense for them to explain their circumstances - mainly the existence of dragons - as magic based upon what they know, but their understanding changes as the story progresses across several novels.

The characters' perception of what is magic and what is science is key to the stories that sit on the blurred line between the sci-fi and fantasy genres. In some stories, the explanation is deliberately vague, which makes it harder to tell whether it is scientific or not because according to Clarke’s third law ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’.

In many of the stories the power of technology is shielded in mysticism. In Frank Herbert's novel Dune, the line between science and magic is blurred because of social factors. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and the Kwisatz Haderach are mystical and they have strange abilities, such as seeing through time and having ancestral memories, all of which is unscientific. The protagonist Paul's experience of the world of Dune is more like that of a fantasy novel (understanding strange things as magic) because that is how he sees the world. Paul does not seek scientific explanations to the strange things that he encounters, as we would, because of the different society he was raised in. The reader cannot judge if these concepts are scientific or magic because there is no reason for the characters to ask this question. The reader has to put this novel on the blurred line between sci-fi and fantasy because of how the characters see their world.

Characters see the world of Dune differently to our world because it is set in the far future and society has changed a lot in the intermediate millennia. Star Wars is another similar example where mysticism shields concepts such as the Force from scientific analysis and the characters do not question this. The technology behind the Death Star is based on projections from our science, but the Jedi and the Force is more difficult to explain. Like Dune, the characters do not question the unexplained nature of the Force, so the viewer can never know for sure. Star Wars is set ‘a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away’ and Dune is our distant future, so it makes sense that society’s views on what should be questioned and investigated are different.

There is no hard and fast rule about which genre stories fall into and which ones are in between genres. The further the story is removed from our world, the more difficult it is to classify story concepts as magic or science. The Martian is clearly science fiction, but the science behind a lot of the book is not fully explained. There is no scientific explanation as to how they transported something the size of the rovers to Mars so the reader must just accept this for the story to work, much as they must accept magic in a fantasy story. Whilst there is no scientific explanation to the origin of the Discworld, the ways in which magic works in Terry Pratchett’s novels follows set rules like science does and is investigated in a scientific way at Unseen University. Even these books which appear easy to classify as one genre or the other have elements of both.

Across all of literature, the lines between genres are blurring to tell interesting stories, not just sci-fi and fantasy. As the distinction between genres becomes more vague, it will get harder to classify stories into one genre or the other.

Tintin, modernist science fiction and the moon

The Moon is a powerful symbol in science fiction. It constantly looks down on us, reminding us that the universe is larger than this world. It is the only other body in the solar system that people have visited, and it represents the first step in getting off this world and exploring space. Lots of sci-fi works set in the near future have the moon as the first place colonised by humans, and in many visions of the future the moon is a stopping off point for the rest of the system. Alastair Reynold's Blue Remembered Earth is the most recent example of a book I have read which uses the moon in this way.

There was a time, within living memory, when it looked like our world and science fiction were converging and the limits of human exploration were being pushed back. These were the hay days of the US/USSR space race, which led to the first humans landing on the moon in 1969. This race to the moon has inspired many sci-fi stories set on the moon or around the moon – the Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein or Eon by Greg Bear, for example – but there is one sci-fi story which instantly jumps to my mind when thinking about the moon landing and that is the Tintin adventures Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon. Belgian comic writer Herge first published these comics in Tintin Magazine in 1950, 11 years before Kennedy announced that America would go to the moon in 1961 and 19 before the first landing in 1969.

The Tintin stories are rooted in the modernist age and highlight some of the social and technological changes that modernism was exploring. New technological breakthroughs from colour TV to nuclear power are the focus of Tintin stories, and it is Professor Calculus's nuclear powered rocket which takes Tintin and his friends to the moon. The Tintin comics also focus on political changes, such as the Cold War, which shows concern about direction of events in the modern age. The space race was an important part of the modernist age and by looking at the way we viewed the moon, we can tell a lot about that time. This is especially well summed by looking at Tintin.

One feature of modernism was a sense of optimism about the future and a belief that we could build a better world – this was especially present in modernist architecture. For many people, the space race represented this hope for a future where new frontiers would be opened, and we would live in space or on the moon. The moon landing is the most striking image of an expanding future, as it pushed back the boundaries of where humans had been. Many people thought that within a few years from 1969 we would be living on the moon. Today this sense of optimism has faded, and we are frightened by the future. We have also stopped visiting the moon.

This sense of optimism about the future was fueled by a belief that technology would continue to develop at the rapid pace which it had during the 40s, 50s and 60s. In Tintin, this is represented by Calculus’s nuclear rocket, which makes space travel much easier than it was in real life. In Tintin, a single nuclear-powered ship could make the journey to the moon, return to Earth and be reused. If this had been how technology developed, then space travel would be much easier and we would now have colonies in space.

The nuclear rocket in Tintin is as much a science fiction concept as the Enterprise or a Culture GSV. Nuclear power has not become compact enough or efficient enough safely to power a mission to the moon, certainly not with the ease that is shown in Tintin. In reality, to visit the moon we needed several vehicles, connected together, most of which were destroyed in the process of being used. It is nearly 50 years since the moon landing and we still travel to space the same way, i.e. the majority of our crafts are thrown away. This makes space travel very costly and not something that can be undertaken easily.

Technology has advanced since the moon landings (most mobile phones are more powerful than the computers which the moon missions used), but the huge technological advancements of the modernist age – mass manufacturing, electronics, flight, space travel, nuclear power – did not make space travel as easy as it is shown in Tintin. Today there is a feeling amongst many people that we are going backwards and we have lost hope in the future. We got rid of Concorde, we do not go to the moon anymore, and we are worried about the effects of humans on this planet rather than getting off it. The future is a scary place and we do not want to live there. Tintin is modernist as it shows that the future can be a better than the present, in the future we will be able to go to the moon.

The Moon represents some of the goals of modernism because it is about being optimistic about the future and reaching for more than we have now. However, Modernism was also about questioning the narrative of endless progress. The rockets that took us to the moon were not just symbols of hope but also of terror, as they carried the bombs that could destroy the world. New technological breakthroughs during the Second World War made international travel and space travel easier and possible respectively, but it also made devastation on a huge scale possible. During the war, many people had seen the destruction that new technology could create and were frightened that the prospect of a war between the two global superpowers, the USA and the USSR, would be even worse.

The expansion of conflict into new theatres, especially space-based ones, is a key theme of science fiction. In Tintin, the new conflict of the Cold War is represented by the Bordurian attempt to sabotage the rocket and later by Colonel Jorgen, a Bordurian agent, who stows away on the rocket and attempts to maroon Tintin on the moon. Borduria is an Eastern European Communist state that stands in for the entire Eastern block in many Tintin adventures. The conflict with Colonel Jorgen in Explorers on the Moon shows that for Tintin space is as dangerous as much as it is an opportunity. It also shows how the conflicts of the modern world are expanding to new theatres as the boundaries of humanity are pushed back.

The Tintin adventures, Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon, are a glorious piece of modernist science fiction, filled with optimism and fear about the future. In the world of Tintin, new adventures such as travelling to the moon are possible, but also new conflicts are expanding in dangerous ways. The Moon remains as far away to us as it was in 1950; the brief age of space exploration is over, and for now humanity is very much stuck on Earth. At the same time, we have lost the modernist desire to build a better world. Maybe hope that the future will be better than the present will return some day and humanity will turn its head upwards and be excited once again about walking on the moon.

Why the Sad Puppies are wrong

Today the winners of the 2015 Hugo awards will be announced, and whatever happens, the outcome will be controversial because of the nominations. This year's Hugo award nominations have been dominated by a few writers who received the backing of a Gamer Gate affiliated internet group known as the Sad Puppies. The Puppies believe that sci-fi awards have become dominated by a liberal elite who are more interested in rewarding women and writers of colour than good science fiction. The Puppies slate is filled with politically Conservative authors, such as John C. Wright - I have written about this before.

The Sad Puppies want to go back to a fictional past when science fiction novels were about explosions, goodies and baddies, battles and adventure, and not tackling weighty issues from our world such as gender and inequality. Science fiction has always explored issues from both a liberal and conservative viewpoint. I believe that this exploration of issues is fundamental to writing great science fiction. I want an inclusive sci-fi which comments on our world and uses political and social issues to enhance the stories being told. A regression to "white dudes in space" will damage the quality of the science fiction writing produced in the future.

To support this argument, I will start by going back to the early days of my love of sci-fi novels. The X-Wing novels by Michael A. Stackpole were my gateway to reading sci-fi. I loved the Star Wars movies and toys, and wanted more from that universe. A series of novels about daring X-Wing pilots fighting the remnants of the Empire was the perfect fix for my hungry Star Wars habit. The X-Wing novels are great space adventures, heroic rebels, evil Imperial agents and lots of excitement. I owe my love of reading and writing sci-fi to these novels.

After reading five X-Wing novels, I started reading other works of science fiction. Dune, Foundation and Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep were early favourites. My tastes changed as I went through my teenaged years and discovered other writers. When I went to university, my horizons were broadened and I became more aware of society, politics and history, as well as my own privilege and the importance of diversity. My tastes changed as well to suit this new understanding of the world. When I discovered Iain M. Banks, he quickly became my favourite writer, and this led on to many other social sci-fi novels, such as Ray Bradbury or J.G. Ballard, and eventually to reading Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, the winner of the Hugo award for best novel in 2014.

These books have more nuanced characters, more complex stories and tackle issues from our world. They take the medium of science fiction beyond space adventure to create stories with emotional resonance and insight into the human condition. At the same time as my taste evolved towards more sophisticated novels, I also expanded from only reading novels written by people like me - straight, middle-class, white, western - to reading books by a wider range of authors. I fully admit that I have a long way to go in this regard; I still mainly read books written by white men, but I am making an effort to read sci-fi written by people of different backgrounds whose experience of the world is different to mine.

I feel this is a natural element of becoming an adult, in much the way that my taste in food has developed. When I was young, I only ate bland British food, but now I love Indian, Chinese, Thai and Mexican food. Over time, our tastes and interests become broader and more sophisticated. The Sad Puppies feel that rewarding more sophisticated and diverse writing is just pandering to political correctness and ignoring books that are entertaining in favour of books which tackle issues. However, they only evaluate a book against one criteria, its entertainment factor, rather than looking at a range of reasons why a book might be worth reading.

Why do I consider it natural for our tastes to develop this way? Let's go back to the start to look at this. The X-Wing novels were entertaining to read but the plot mainly revolved around white men having space adventures, like the Star Wars films themselves. We know that real life stories are a lot more complex than this. Any story taken from our own lives has a diverse range of different people in it. We see diversity around us every day - the majority of people I interact with are not straight, white, middle-class, cis-gendered men from the midlands - so when diversity is not represented in the stories we read, they become implausible. Surely the future will be more diverse than the present, and the events of the future are likely to be as complex and nuanced as those of the present.

Take a moment to look at any real life conflict and you will see that there are two sides, two competing arguments - that is unless you approach the world in a very reductive way. The diversity in our world means that real life stories are much more complex than the plot of an X-Wing novel, and the people who populate our world are more nuanced than the characters of the X-Wing novels. The conflict in the X-Wing novels, and Star Wars in general, does not make much sense under scrutiny. One of the reasons why episodes 1-3 are so bad is that they try to explain the politics of the conflict, which is too simple to make sense. Star Wars is a struggle of absolute good against absolute evil, but no real life struggle is that simple.

This is not a criticism of the X-Wing novels being aimed at younger readers. There are plenty of YA novels with a diverse range of nuanced characters and complex conflicts that make sense when examined. The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig is a good example of this, but there are many others. Aiming your novel at a younger audience does not necessarily mean dumbing it down and is not an excuse for having characters and conflicts which do not make sense in a real world context.

The stories that sci-fi writers tells have to be believable and our reference frame for what is believable is our understanding of our world. Science fiction can have imaginative aliens, theoretical technology, bizarre worlds, strange cultures and anything else that a sci-fi writer can imagine but the characters, their relationships and conflicts must make sense to the reader based on their experience of our world. This means being complex and diverse, as our world is.

Conflicts, cultures, societies and relationships will be different in the future from how they are now, but they will evolve out of the present. The conflicts and characters of a sci-fi story should make sense when translated into our world or else they are too simple. For example, Iain M Banks's novel Consider Phlebas is about a struggle for influence and the clash of ideology between two great military powers, very similar to the cold war from our history. Ancillary Justice is about imperialism and would make as much sense in the context of 17th century European expansion. The characters in these stories and their relationships are similar to what the reader is likely to experience from their own lives. Ancillary Justice maybe about the relationship between an AI governing a spaceship and a lieutenant on that ship, but it is a relationship based around love and respect and is nuanced enough to be believable as a relationship. Conflicts and relationships should be informed by our world to make sense to the reader.

A sci-fi writer's work is based on his or her experience of our world and thus the writing is influenced by his or her privileges and the society she lives in. Authors need to be aware of this when crafting their stories. This is especially true when handling issues of diversity. I have said that sci-fi stories do not make sense without diversity, but when writing about diversity the author's privileges need to be taken into account. This is why I like sci-fi that explores issues, conflicts and relationships in our world through a sci-fi prism because they are informed by our world and thus their fictional world is believable. I also like sci-fi stories when the authors are aware of their own privileges and try to comment on them, or least prevent them from clouding the story.

Doing all this requires a certain amount of complex narrative, nuanced characterisation, detailed world building and issue exploration which you do not get in the white dudes in space, goodies and baddies, novels on the Sad Puppies slate. Depth, complexity and a well-informed comment on the real world are essential to good sci-fi writing, which why novels with these characteristics win awards and shallower novels do not. It is not a conspiracy by liberals, women and people of colour to suppress white men, it is the difference between good and bad writing.

I love books like the X-wing novels as they made me love the adventure side of sci-fi and they led me on to more sophisticated and diverse works. I do believe this is an essential process in order to avoid shallow stories, the author's own privileges and a lack of diversity which make stories unbelievable to the reader. If the Puppies want to go back to this kind of writing then sci-fi will become stale, uniform and filled with authors’ unexamined privileges.

Blue Remembered Earth

A good novel has an engaging plot, right? As well as relatable characters and an interesting setting, there must be a plot that the reader becomes emotionally invested in, but what makes a plot engaging? A degree of originality? Twists, turns and surprises? Cliffhangers? All these things can encourage the reader to engage in the narrative, but personally, what hooks me into a story is characters striving to achieve a goal.

I enjoy a novel where the characters have a clearly defined goal which they are actively taking steps to achieve, for example trying to complete a mission, catch a criminal, solve a mystery or steal something. This format provides a logical structure for the narrative and a clear line of progress. It is then entertaining to see characters thrown off this line of progress and struggle to get back on it. I relate to characters who are trying to achieve something, rather than passive characters who are the victims of circumstance.

A good example of this type of plot is Alastair Reynolds' novel Blue Remembered Earth, the first of the Poseidon’s Children trilogy. The plot focuses on brother and sister Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya who are following clues left by their grandmother Eunice to uncover a secret from her past. They are opposed by members of their family who want the secret, whatever it is, to stay buried. Blue Remembered Earth is set in the 2160s, and the fact Eunice was a pioneer of early space exploration means the clues are scattered across the Moon, Mars and Phobos or hidden in trans-Neptunian asteroids.

In Blue Remembered Earth, personal, inter-personal and extra-personal conflict all come from characters trying to achieve the goal of solving the mystery. Personal conflict in that Geoffrey and Sunday begin to doubt how well they knew their grandmother. Inter-personal conflict arises as the quest to find the clues causes a conflict with their cousins who want to keep the secret. Finally, extra-personal or environmental conflict as the clues are hidden in dangerous locations, including abandoned early settlements on Phobos, the Chinese sector of the Moon and an area of Mars given over to violently competitive machine intelligences.

What makes this structure lead to an engaging story is that once the characters and goal have been established, the narrative flows naturally from that point. Personal, inter-personal and extra-personal conflict have the same source, which leads to a well disciplined narrative. The source of conflicts are easily understood by the reader and the motivation of the protagonists, moving towards achieving their goal, is relatable. In Blue Remembered Earth, we become emotionally invested in Geoffrey and Sunday's struggle to solve Eunice’s riddle as the conflict of all types increases. Having an engaging narrative, with characters actively striving to achieve a goal, facilitates this.

This format works well for other books. In Iain M Banks's Against A Dark Background, the protagonist, Sharrow, must find the lost Lazy Gun before she is murdered by a cult. Sharrow is an active protagonist with a defined goal, each choice she makes brings her closer to achieving her goal which leads to an efficient and engaging narrative.

The opposite plot structure to this can be found in many sci-fi books, and that is the character who is passive, a victim of circumstances, usually just focused on trying to survive in a hostile environment. These plots are typically focused on environmental or extra-personal conflict, which is the easiest source of survival drama.

A good example of this is the sequel to Blue Remembered Earth, Alastair Reynolds’ On the Steel Breeze. In this novel, Sunday's daughter Chiku is among the first humans to travel to the alien world of Crucible. They are crossing the vast distance between stars in a hollowed out asteroid. However, the world they are heading to is not as safe as they imagined. Meanwhile, a duplicate of Chiku must survive on Earth while a dangerous AI tries to kill her.

The majority of the plot in On The Steel Breeze focuses on the two versions of Chiku trying to survive in difficult circumstances. Like in Blue Remembered Earth, characters take actions to achieve a goal, staying alive, but there is not a specific goal the character is trying to achieve other than continual existence.

On The Steel Breeze has a fast moving and eventful plot, but it is not as engaging as Blue Remembered Earth as there is a not a clear, tangible goal which a character is striving to achieve. The plot does not have the same accessible format. Giving the characters a clear goal would make the novel more engaging.

Another example of a sci-fi book with this type of plot is David Brin's Glory Season. It focuses on characters trying to survive in their home environment. Maia and Leie are vars (variants, as opposed to clones) on the planet Stratos, which means they are second-class citizens. When they reach a certain age, they have to leave their clone family and find their way in a world that is suspicious of and hostile to people who are not clones. Maia and Leie get mixed up in lots of exciting adventures, including conspiracies, pirates and humans from other worlds, but their story does not have a clear focus and drifts from situation to situation without a clear direction.

I find it is less interesting if the characters’ top priority is survival; I am interested in goals characters are willing to risk or sacrifice their lives to achieve. A lot of stories about characters trying to survive in a hostile environment shift to become stories with a clear goal in the third act. For example, in Glory Season, Maia is willing to risk her life to save Renna, the man from the stars she has met. At the end of On The Steel Breeze, Chiku risks her life to make Crucible a safe place for her children to live. Clearly defined character goals make for dramatic climaxes.

Another reason I prefer stories where the protagonist has a defined goal is that it is more interesting to see characters striving to overcome the status quo rather than support it or restore it. Stories around survival often involve character trying to keep the situation as it is, with them alive. A good example of how this change affects characters is the difference in Katniss between the first Hunger Games novel, where she is focused on her survival and maintaining the status quo, and the last one, where she has a goal of overthrowing the oppressive capital.

Having characters only focused on their own survival can lead to a tense story but also means the story can lack purpose and direction. I prefer to read stories where characters are actively striving to achieve a goal and change something about the world they inhabit.

Sad Puppies and the Hugos

Over the last year and a bit, it has been with some sadness that I watched GamerGate tear through the video game community like a hegswarm attacking everything that is not a hegswarm (that’s an Iain M Banks reference – remember it, I’ll be coming back to it later). Now the same madness is coming to the SFF community in the form of the Sad Puppies, the anti-SJW voting block that have pushed a list of their preferred nominees into every category of this year’s Hugo awards.

The Sad Puppies, much like GamerGate, claim to be against the politicising of science fiction literature and in favour of going back to a time when reading books was fun and not a political statement. They claim that a group of politically correct SJWs have dominated the award bodies and given science fiction’s top prizes to writers who share their political beliefs. The Sad Puppies are an anti-political movement, but being anti-political is a political position in itself. Opposing writers who share a certain political belief is a political position.

Sad Puppies are a political group as much as SJWs are, so let’s look at their political beliefs. They oppose the “social justice-minded community elites” as they call them. The SJW’s main goal is to increase the diversity in science fiction, diversity in terms of writers but also in terms of the types of characters and plots in sci-fi stories. If the SWJs are in favour of diversity then the Sad Puppies are in favour of the status quo, the dominance of straight, white, middle-class, cis-gendered, British and American men in sci-fi publishing.

The Sad Puppies would argue that they are not against diversity, they are against elitist cliques pushing diversity onto sci-fi against the wishes of the fans. Their solution to a supposed SJW elitist clique is to form an elitist clique. An elitist clique is what the Sad Puppies are, as the establishment in sci-fi publishing is straight, white men. For proof of this, look at this article on the number of women who have won Hugo awards, or this article on racism in sci-fi fandom or go to a sci-fi book event and see how it is mostly made up of straight white men.

So the Sad Puppies are supporters of the sci-fi establishment and in favour of the status quo. They are against cliques suppressing writing that does not conform to certain political views, so they have formed a clique to suppress writing which does not confirm to their political views.

All of this reminds me a lot of the rise of UKIP in the UK. The Sad Puppies, like UKIP, claim to be standing up for the silent majority against the overbearing authoritarian left. Like UKIP, the Sad Puppies are from the establishment and are protecting the establishment - a party with a former public school boy and banker as their leader is not against the establishment, just as opposing diversity in a genre dominated by straight, white men is not against the establishment.

UKIP and the Sad Puppies are a radical pro-establishment reaction to the establishment being threatened. Claiming they are fighting community elites and the authoritarian left is just a way to distract attention from the fact that these groups are made up by the sort of people who are in charge everywhere.

I am not against the means by which the Sad Puppies have gone about achieving their goals, they have not broken any rules and have organised themselves efficiently. I am against their politics and against their claims to be anti-political or above politics. There is nothing more political than a straight, white man claiming that their subjective political opinion is object truth and above the petty squabbling of politics.

Diversity is important in science fiction, which is what the Sad Puppies essentially oppose as these are main goals of the SJWs, lefties and feminists – or the forces of darkness as the GamerGate/Sad Puppies axis think of them. Diversity makes sci-fi fiction stronger, more interesting and more fun as a genre.

Diversity also needs recognition from the sci-fi awards bodies. For too long science fiction has been dominated by straight, white, middle-class cis-gendered, British and American men and I say this as a straight, white, middle-class, cis-gendered British man, some of whose favourite books are written by straight, white, middle-class, cis-gendered British or American men. All this stuff is great but diversity is equally important and it is something I am bad at myself but I am trying to be better at.

Years of courageous writers, journalists and fans talking about the appalling lack of diversity within sci-fi was just starting to make a difference with some great books receiving recognition recently, such as Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice. If the Sad Puppies get their way, it will be harder for women, for people from ethnic monitories, for people from the LGBT community, for writers without English as a first language to tell their stories. If the Sad Puppies get their way, authors and fans will be constantly looking over their shoulders to make sure a group of middle class white men are not following them around screaming that they are an oppressive authoritarian clique.

If the Sad Puppies get their way, they will become a hegswarm (hegemonizing swarm), devouring everything that does not look like them. The hegswarms are mentioned in several of Iain M Banks’s Culture novels, but feature most prominently in Surface Detail. They are tiny nano-machines that, due to a flaw in their tiny nano-machine brains, will not stop until they convert all matter in the Universe to be exactly like them. If the Sad Puppies get their hegswarm way, I fear they will turn the entire sci-fi genre into an image of themselves and diversity will be dead forever.

Fortunately, in Surface Detail, there are the Restoria, a group whose job is to contain hegswarm outbreaks. We need to be Restoria against the hegswarm by standing up for diversity and calling out reactionary authoritarian groups pretending to be grassroots fan organizations. It is not too late to register for a supporter’s membership for the Hugo awards and vote for the works not on the Sad Puppies list.

We cannot let the Sad Puppies get a foothold in SFF fandom the way GamerGate has in the video game community. We are a diverse group and standing up for diversity was going so well until they came along. The Sad Puppies are not a reflection of SFF fandom and they need to know it.

Top 5 interesting aliens

An original concept is what grabs me when reading a sci-fi novel – something clever, insightful and surprising. After reading a lot of science fiction, genuinely original ideas are becoming harder to find but when I do so, it makes a book a much more enjoyable read. The best way for a novel to engage me with an original idea is with a clever, new variety of alien. With that in mind, what follows are my 5 favourite aliens in sci-fi novels.

Affront – Excession

The Culture, from Iain M. Banks’s Culture series, meddle in the affairs of other races to make them more like the Culture. Usually there is a degree of ambiguity about whether this is wise; for example, in Look To Windward the Chelgrian class system seems unjust but in removing it the Culture create a devastating civil war. In Excession, Banks did away with the moral ambiguity of the Culture and created a civilization so awful that they were crying out for Culture intervention, this is the Affront.

The Affront are Banks's dark imagination at its best, they are unrelentingly awful. The Affront are vile and violent creatures, constantly attacking their neighbours, eating their captives and fighting each other. Perhaps their worst offense is their abuse of genetic engineering technology. The Affront have altered the DNA of all the animals native to their home world so that they have a much heighted sensation of fear and pain, and they then hunt them for entertainment.

The Affront are a sick parody of the Culture: the latter is an utopian anarchistic collective, free from hierarchy, prejudice and resource scarcity, the Affront are bigoted patriarchal and violent. They are sick but imaginative creation, the perfect offset of the Culture.

Ariekei – Embassytown

China Miéville is well known for his impressive imagination and many brilliant creations. One of my favourite is the Ariekei from his novel Embassytown. The Ariekei speak simultaneously with two mouths, the cut and the turn, which makes their language complex. What makes them harder to communicate with is that they can only understand language with thought behind it, no recordings or machines. Only special human ambassadors, consisting of cybernetically linked twins, thinking the same thoughts, and speaking the same words, can communicate with the Ariekei.

The novel develops the strange world of Embassytown and the consequences of being the guests of bizarre aliens. When a new ambassador arrives, one whose thoughts and speech are not quite in-sync, and speaks to the Ariekei it turns out their words are powerful drug capable of bringing the Ariekei to their knees.

Miéville is a linguist as well as a fiction author and he uses his knowledge excellently to bring to life a world that could have been difficult for readers to believe. Speech for aliens in a lot of sci-fi novels tends to be similar to humans (thus allowing dialogue to take place easily and the plot to move forwards) but Miéville shows how creative he can be with something as everyday as language.

Hippae – Grass

The Hippae are introduced slowly in Grass, and so when their full monstrousness is revealed it comes as something of a shock. At first the reader assumes that they are beasts of burden, referred to as ‘mounts’ by the inhabitants of the planet Grass, and ridden for sport by the gentry. However, Sheri S. Tepper slowly builds up how violent and powerful they are. When they first appear, it is revealed they are twice the size of a horse, covered in sharp spines and extremely aggressive. They also have eyes that speak not only of great intelligence but also of murderous hatred.

Tepper plays with how alien aliens in sci-fi can be, the Hippae are difficult to understand and harder to sympathise with. At first they appear to be large animals, they do not have tools or cities or anything else we would associate with intelligent life. However, their cunning and hatred are slowly built up along with the novel’s rising tension and deepening mystery.

As the novel progresses, the power of the Hippae is slowly revealed and how they not only hate humans but have a plan to wipe out humans in the galaxy. The pastoral world of Grass is turned from a gentle planet of leisure to a siege, as the humans cannot venture outside for fear of a Hippae attack. Tepper builds the tension to an explosive climax.

Tines – A Fire Upon The Deep

Vernor Vinge has created a number of interesting aliens for his novels, including the Skroderiders and the Spiders. However, a favourite of mine is the Tines from his novel A Fire Upon the Deep. The Tines are very similar to our wolves but a personality is not contained within an individual Tine but across an entire pack, consisting of several members. Packs can exchange members, which alters their personalities.

Through ultra-high frequency, members communicate and build intelligence, and so two packs cannot get too close together or else their thoughts merge. This makes fighting and sex animalistic, and the rest of their time packs keep their distance. There naming culture is also interesting as each pack member has a name and the name for the entire entity is made out of member names. As pack members change, so to does their name to reflect the new make up.

Vinge takes a familiar idea, the wolf pack, that is clearly established in the reader’s mind and produces a very alien approach to this idea. The interesting thing about the Tines is how familiar they are to us but also how very different.

Zōtl – The Last Legends of Earth

There are few aliens in science fiction that are quite so strange as the Zōtl, a spider-like, technologically advanced alien race who feed on the chemicals created by the brains of intelligent beings who are in pain. They capture humans and other intelligent creatures, and torture them to provide nourishment. The few humans who survive become their slaves.

The Zōtl are the perfect villain for a sci-fi book: strange, scary and violent, with superior technology and no understandable morals. They appear in A. A. Attanasio’s The Last Legends of Earth and torment the humans who are caught as bait in a trap set for the Zōtl but their enemies, the equally powerful Rimstalkers.

What links all these aliens is that they are not similar to other well-known aliens of science fiction or they break the model established by formulaic science fiction novels. The Zōtl are technologically advanced aliens who want to enslave humanity for nourishment, but the means and the specifics of doing so are quite unlike any other science fiction book I have read. This is what makes them brilliant and scary.

Those are my five most creative aliens in science fiction novels. Are there any I have missed off? Add your suggestions below.

Science fiction versus literary fiction

We all know what literary fiction is, and we all know what it is not – but coming up with a robust definition is more difficult. Some readers divide the world into literary fiction and pulp fiction, or literary fiction and genre fiction. Science fiction is definitely not literary fiction, according to these people – the type of reader who claims to be open minded, but will describe the plot of any science fiction novel as ‘stupid’ when it is described to them. These readers divide the word into books with characters in them and books with space ships in them.

However, when you ask these people to codify the difference between literary (worthy) fiction and science (vapid) fiction the best they can come up with is something close to the following definition from the Huffington Post:

‘The main reason for a person to read Genre Fiction is for entertainment, for a riveting story, an escape from reality. Literary Fiction separates itself from Genre because it is not about escaping from reality, instead, it provides a means to better understand the world and delivers real emotional responses.’

So science fiction or genre fiction is escapism, where literary fiction focuses on illuminating the real world of complex relationships, deep emotions and life experiences. I can think of several science fiction writers who deal with the latter. The work of Philip K Dick derives most of its dramatic tension from character drama, instead of environmental conflict.

Dicks novel Now Wait For Last Year focuses on the relationship between the protagonist, Eric Sweetscent, his wife Kathy (who hates him), and his employer, Gino Molinari, the elected leader of Earth. There is a wider science fiction story about an intergalactic conflict and a drug with strange powers, but these are part of the backdrop, used in the same way as literary novel might use the Russian Revolution or the Second World War as a backdrop. Now Wait For Last Year provides understanding into how relationships function under pressure, how they form and collapse. Human relationships are the substance of this sci-fi novel as much as they are for any literary novel.

This is true of many of Dick’s other novels, as well as other sci-fi works. The Man In The High Castle is another novel by Dick which is primarily focused on character relationships and interpersonal conflict, within a science fiction setting.

Literary novels can be enjoyed as escapism. Ernest Hemingway, one of the great literary writers of the 20th Centaury, can be read as escapism. Novels like For Whom The Bell Tolls and To Have And To Have Not take the reader away from their current existence and allow them to be immersed in the Spanish Civil War or smuggling rings in pre-revolution Cuba. These novels perform the same function for their readers as science fiction novels do for their readers.

From my own research into the difference between literary and genre fiction, and from the books I have read from both camps, I have come up with a list of characteristics which are generally used to separate genre fiction from literary fiction. Literary fiction is character focused with less emphasis on narrative, sometimes leaving it unresolved. The narratives also tend to be non-linear. Literary novels have a stylistic flair to their prose, where as genre novels try to be accessible. Literary fiction is generally considered to be darker, more serious in tone, and slower paced, as well as being part of the on-going academic conversation of literary novels, which is mainly achieved through influences from and references to past novels in the conversation.

Most science fiction novels are considered not to match this definition; they focus on plot over character development, have linear narratives, are fast paced and exist in the on-going conversation of science fiction novels. They do tend to be serious in tone, but most literary fiction readers believe them to not be serious because the plot is focused on aliens or space travel; this is a major point of difference between the fans of both genres.

Dan Simmons’s novel Hyperion is a science fiction novel that meets all the above characteristics of literary fiction. It has a non-linear, character-focused narrative which is very similar in structure to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, as the novel is a series of interlinked stories developing the characters and their backgrounds. The narrative is left unresolved, and the tone of the book is dark and serious, often crossing over into horror. Simmon’s prose has flair, and he gives each section its own unique style which relates to the character whose tale is being told. Finally, it contributes to the on-going academic literary conversation through references to the work of John Keats, which are woven into the novel.

However you define literary fiction, some science fiction fits into it. The two are overlapping circles on the Venn diagram of literature, with common ground between them. They are not as separate as some literary fiction readers would have us believe.

Iain Banks is an author whose work firmly sits in the overlapping areas of literary and science fiction. This is especially true of his earlier work, before he had decided to split his writing into Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks. Walking On Glass, his second novel, has three main plots: the first is a relationship study set when the book is written, the second is ambiguous about whether it is science fiction or not, and the third is set in an alien war in the far future. This was Banks’s attempt to write a novel that spanned both genres.

Banks was more successful in this attempt with his later novel, The Bridge. This follows a man in a coma, but his coma dreams take him to a strange world with many recognisable mythological, fantasy and science fiction elements to the story, most notably the giant endless bridge the novel is set on. This novel is a great accomplishment of both literary and science fiction.

Banks’s novels which are clearly science fiction, such as his Culture novels The Player of Games or Consider Phlebas, are as much about the characters’ inner lives and their development as the dramatic events which they are swept up in. All of Banks’s novels are complex character studies, as well as having explosive external narratives. Banks also has a distinctive literary style, exemplified by the Scottish colloquialisms he uses in The Bridge. His novels, at least his non-‘M.’ novels, are considered part of the on-going academic literary conversation.

Despite his literary credentials, some readers still turn their noses up at Banks’s science fiction. It completely perplexes me why people read the Iain ‘without-the-M’ Banks, but refuse to read Iain M. Banks. A few science fiction classics like Dune or The Left Hand of Darkness are grudgingly accepted into the on-going literary conversation, while novels like The Time Machine and 1984 are not considered science fiction so that literary fiction readers are allowed to enjoy them.

Margret Atwood is an example of science fiction writer who shirks the labels of science fiction in particular and genre fiction in general . One assumes this is to preserve her standing in the academic, literary world and not to taint it by associations with less profound genres.

If the difference between literary fiction and science fiction is nothing more than hot air, then why do we not see sci-fi novels nominated for the Man-Booker prize? Ann Leckie’s novel Ancillary Justice deserves a nomination for this award, for its detailed exploration of character, serious tone, and literary experimentation (especially in regards to gender pronouns). Ancillary Justice meets the requirements of being sufficiently literary to be nominated for the Man-Booker prize, as well as having more imagination than most books which do get nominated for it, but still a genre stigma persists.

I can see no substantial difference between science fiction and literary fiction, other than an artificial classification used to separate ‘real literature’ from ‘entertainment’. Some works of science fiction fit into the classification of literary fiction, but generally the distinction is artificial and can be snobbish. Readers should be less worried about what genre or style they are reading and more whether it is an imaginative story.

Humanity’s Fire

The legacy of Iain M. Banks runs deep within modern space opera. Many typically ‘Banksian’ concepts appear in a lot of today’s space opera bestsellers: for example, there are key similarities between the Minds which Banks describes in his Culture novels and the ship AIs in Ann Leckie’s multie-award-winning Ancillary Justice.

One of the most Banksian of recent space opera series is Michael Cobley’s ‘Humanity’s Fire’, a trilogy of novels based mainly around the planet Darien, a few centuries in our future: Seeds of Earth, The Orphaned Worlds and The Ascendant Stars. These books all bear a cover endorsement from Iain M. Banks, claiming them to be ‘Proper galaxy-spanning Space Opera’.

On the surface, there are many similarities between Michael Cobley and Iain M. Banks: both are Scottish and write modern technologically-inspired ‘galaxy spanning’ space opera. Their novels have similar content: for example, both prominently feature AIs – a central character in Cobley’s Seeds of Earth is a machine intelligence with the personality of Harry Lime from The Third Man – and have characters which are drones, such as Flere-Imsaho in Banks’s novel The Player of Games.

What I find enticing about both writers is their descriptions of aliens, and this is where their imaginations come to life. Banks imagined the Dwellers, a race of anarchic manta-ray like creatures living in gas giants, whereas Cobley wrote about the Knights of the Legion of Aviators, cybernetic invaders from another universe. Both writers are also great at creating aliens that are religious zealots; the main villains in ‘Humanity’s Fire’ are the Sendruka Hegemony, who believe they are superior to other beings – similarly to the Idiran Empire, from Banks’s first Culture novel Consider Phlebas.

Where both writers’ imaginations dazzle the reader is through their description of the strange physics of hyperspace. In ‘Humanity's Fire’, hyperspace consists of layers which get progressively more chaotic and dangerous as you descend. In the Culture novels, there is intra-space and extra-space sandwiched between our universe and younger and older universes respectively. Out of these strange other realities come some very imaginative concepts, such as the Godhead, a recurring villain of ‘Humanity’s Fire’.

The Godhead is a giant ancient being dwelling deep within the layers of hyperspace. Its power is unmatched, as is its desire to dominate our universe. This reminds me of Banks’s Excession, which comes from another universe in the Culture novel of the same name. The Excession abducts the ships which probe it, possibly testing to see if humanity is ready for contact with beings from another universe. Both entities are more powerful than the novels’ protagonists, potentially very dangerous to them, and complete alien. These are brilliantly imaginative concepts, originating from an area of science fiction where authors are allowed to let their imaginations run riot.

One area where Banks and Cobley differ is in their representation of Earth. ‘Humanity’s Fire’ takes place in a universe in which Earth is a distant, but still very present, part of human society. The Culture novels barely mention Earth (apart from the novella, The State of the Art, which is set on Earth in the 1970s). Banks’s other science fiction novels either take place away from Earth or happen on an Earth so radically different from our own that it is barely recognisable.

In terms of story structure, the two writers approach narrative in a similar way. Their novels have many protagonists and multi-threaded stories unfolding in different locations across the galaxy. These stories also take place across real, hyper and virtual space in both authors’ work. The action of the ‘Humanity’s Fire’ novels takes the reader down to the deepest levels of hyperspace where the Godhead lives, where as Banks’s Surface Detail has a story which unfolds simultaneously in a virtual war and in the real world.

One of the most striking differences between the two is in narrative structure. ‘Humanity’s Fire’ is a trilogy with linear narrative, and is meant to be read in a certain order. The Culture novels do not have a connecting story - expect perhaps the story of the Culture’s history, as events in some novels are referenced in others. The difference is that the Culture books form a non-linear progression, over a broad spread of time and can be read in any order.

In terms of a science fiction narrative, the works of both authors are quite similar. The key difference between the two can be found by comparing Iain M. Banks’s novels with his Iain Banks literary novels. The exploration of drugs, sex and political themes, which are in all of Iain (with or without the M.) Banks’s novels, are absent from the works of Michael Cobley.

The way these writers envision the future is very different. This is partly because ‘Humanity's Fire’ is set in the (comparatively) near future, whereas the Culture novels take place at some unspecified point in the far future. However, the future of ‘Humanity’s Fire’ is very similar to ours, with currency, corporations, national boundaries and most people being heteronormative. Banks imagined a radically different future, a future without scarcity, without gender boundaries or even species boundaries – a future where everything was in flux and constantly evolving. One author’s future is recognisably our own world and one is a complete departure.

In terms of the sci-fi genre details, Michael Cobley and Iain M Banks are very similar writers; one is influenced and endorsed by the other, and both are part of a Scottish science fiction subgenre. They are both Banksian, with AI characters, strange aliens and stories taking place in several realities simultaneously. However, in terms of the stories they tell within this genre they are very different.

Comparisons aside, ‘Humanity’s Fire’ is great trilogy of novels in their own right, and I would highly recommend them to any fan of science fiction and especially fans of space opera. They are also great reads for Iain M. Banks fans hungry for more of his distinctive space opera style.

Rush Jobs

Before The Killing was a national fascination, before The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo captivated us, before even Wallander graced the page or screen, there was Martin Beck. I recently read an adventure starring Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s famous Swedish detective after it was recommended to me, because I enjoyed all of the above. As good as it was, I found this late 1960s crime novel to be very dry, and it suffered from focusing almost exclusively on the process of the investigation.

After finishing my first Martin Beck novel, I read the new darkly comic crime novel from Nick Bryan and found it to be the opposite of this. Rather than being focused on the nitty-gritty of the investigative process, Rush Jobs looks at character of the investigators and their story. This approach ensured that the book was a lively read and not too dry.

Rush Jobs is the second adventure of the mismatched duo of private investigators, Hobson and Choi. John Hobson is tough, cynical, street wise and violent at the drop of a hat. Angelina Choi is his social media savvy, optimistic, work experience student. In the second week of Choi’s work experience, the pair investigate the kidnapping of a supermarket employee, attempt to evict a group of chuggers from Peckham, and get tangled up in an illegal dog fighting and drug smuggling ring. During this, Hobson’s shady past comes back to haunt him, and he has to do some soul-searching as to the type of person he is. Meanwhile, Choi must navigating the perils of teenage life and decide if she really wants to keep working in the murky world of private investigation.

About the Author

Nick Bryan is a London-based writer of genre fiction, usually with some blackly comic twist. As well as the detective saga Hobson & Choi, he is also working on a novel about the real implications of deals with the devil and has stories in several anthologies.

More details on his other work and news on future Hobson & Choi releases can be found on his blog at NickBryan.com or on Twitter as @NickMB. Both are updated with perfect and reasonable regularity.

Subscribe to his mailing list using the form in the sidebar of NickBryan.com to get news first and an all-new free Hobson & Choi short story immediately!

When not reading or writing books, Nick Bryan enjoys racquet sports, comics and a nice white beer.

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The structure of Rush Jobs is very different to most crime novels. Rather than the narrative being based around the progression of a single case, the story follows the characters on their personal journeys. The novel’s strong character development really makes this work, and we see how Hobson and Choi’s trust in each other grows as the narrative progresses.

The two eponymous characters have substance, are funny and are engaging. They are also realistic, flawed human beings, which makes them complex and their stories much more interesting. This is especially true of Hobson, whose attempts to redeem himself for terrible things he did in the past is the focus of the character arc. The novel also explores the idea of whether Hobson can change as a person enough to recognize the benefit of Choi’s more delicate approach to investigating.

Most fascinating is how the two characters relate to each other, they are very different but clearly work well together on a professional and personal level. Choi is our window into Hobson’s dark crime underworld, and the reader finds out about how this sinister version of London works at the same time as she does. To fulfill this role, Choi is a relatable teenager, and goes through many of the normal trials of youth - friend angst, teenage crushes – as well having to survive life as a PI’s assistant.

Hobson & Choi Series by Nick Bryan

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf (Hobson & Choi #1)

"If we get 400 followers, John Hobson will solve that nasty wolf-murder case for free! Fight the thing himself if he has to! #HobsonVsWolf!"

Angelina Choi was only trying to drum up some Twitter followers and make a good impression on her first day interning at John Hobson's one-man detective agency.

But the campaign went viral and now they have a murder to solve, no money coming in, and an unwilling Hobson faced with battling some enormous beast.

With both follower and body counts rising, can they crack the case without offending everyone or being eaten by a huge dog?

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf is the first case starring Hobson & Choi, a bickering, mismatched detective duo for 21st century London. This book collects the debut storyline of the hit darkly comic crime web serial, extensively rewritten and improved for this definitive edition.

Over the entire arc sits the question of what will happen at the end of Choi’s work experience? Do they like each other enough to continue? Can Choi forgive Hobson for the terrible things he did in his past? These important character issues are handled with humor and warmth.

The focus on character story over the crime narrative has the net result of reducing the tension in the book. Rush Jobs focuses on three related crime cases, and the tension of each rises quickly and is then resolved. A single crime narrative running through the entire novel would have built up greater tension. The revelation of Hobson’s past with the villainous Rush Recruitment comes too early in the narrative, as that story is resolved by the halfway point, which removes the sense of mystery.

This character-based approach makes the reader want to read more of Hobson and Choi’s adventures, and was key to the story’s success when it was a web serial on JukePop Serial. Bryan has successfully translated it from the weekly serial format into a complete and engaging novel, with great cliffhangers and a consistent sense of humour running throughout. However, the serial nature of the on-going story is still apparent, and I would have found the plot of Rush Jobs very difficult to follow if I had not already read the first volume, The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf.

Rush Jobs (Hobson & Choi #2)

“Sometimes #crime feels like the Matrix. Or the #patriarchy or #porn. It's everywhere, even in people you trusted, and there's so MUCH of it.”

Angelina Choi returns for her second and final week of work experience at John Hobson’s detective agency, ready for anything after their first successful murder solve.

After all that online buzz, they’re in phenomenal demand. Can Hobson & Choi solve a kidnapping, play chicken with corporate crime, beat back gentrification, save a dog from drug dealers and head off violent backlash from their last case?

Or will grim revelations about Hobson’s past leave them floundering in the chaos?

Rush Jobs collects the second major storyline in the Hobson & Choi saga, #1 on Jukepop Serials and #2 in Dark Comedy on Amazon, adding brand new chapters and scenes to the case.

Rush Jobs is a hilarious mismatched-buddy crime caper, underpinned by excellent character development. There is great humour in Choi explaining Twitter to Hobson and in Hobson’s hatred of all things internet-based or seemingly hipster in origin. The back-and-forth dialogue between the two characters is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The prose is compelling, the dialogue is witty and the reader gets a real sense of going on a journey with the characters.

The humour of the novel gives it a sense of warmth, whereas the crimes that the pair investigate give it a sense of tension. On balance, I would say the book is more funny than tense. This could be because the multi-threaded nature of the crime story means there is not a progressive build up of tension. The stakes to do not seem high, and a real sense of threat to Hobson or Choi does not materialise. The climax competently resolved the stories but does not have the intensity of some of the works mentioned in the first paragraph. That said, there is more than enough humour in this book to make it a great read.

Rush Jobs (and the other Hobson and Choi stories) has a great pair of characters who are lively, sarcastic and engaging. The story whips the reader along; this is a book which is hard to put down. The masterfully handled character arcs give this a sense of being a real and believable story. The two characters at its core are very likeable and the reader is left wanting more from them. Also the bonus story at the end of the book is very strong, and should not missed under any circumstances.

A lot of dry, procedural crime novels would benefit from Bryan’s character-based approach, which is entertaining, clever and hilarious. The multi-threaded plot and the character-based approach make it fast paced and interesting. The story is light hearted and fun, a good read. This is one book I would highly recommend.

Claiming China Miéville

China Miéville is an author who defies classification. Critics, academic, comic fans and genre readers all love his novels, his style is unique and his imagination distinctive, and his novels do not fit neatly into one genre or style.

Miéville himself claims to be a ‘weird fiction’ writer, the same genre in which H.P. Lovecraft wrote. Weird fiction contains elements of horror, science fiction and fantasy, but its use has dropped out of the popular lexicon and it does not fit into our modern, more narrowly-defined, view of literary genres. Having read a number of Miéville's novels. I believe there is sufficient evidence to claim him as a science fiction writer.

Embassytown is Miéville’s most straightforward science fiction novel. It is set on an alien planet, a lot of the plot focuses on interstellar travel and exploration, and there are fantastic alien creatures.

The plot of the novel mostly takes place on the planet Arieka, where the city of Embassytown is located. Arieka is home to an indigenous civilization, the Ariekei, who speak with two mouths. Special sets of twin humans raised from birth and linked into one mind, known as ambassadors, are the only people who can speak to the Arieka using their language (which is called Language). When a new ambassador consisting of two cybernetically linked non-twins arrives and start to speak Language, the effect on the Arieka is like taking a drug. Quickly the Arieka become violently dependent upon this drug, and the future of Embassytown and of all the humans on Arieka is threatened.

The entire universe of Embassytown is a brilliantly constructed sci-fi novel, filled with amazing concepts such as the Immer (a larger Universe outside our own through which you must travel to reach other planets), the organic technology of the Arieka and several future religions, to name but a few.

What makes Embassytown special as a sci-fi novel is the concept of Language itself, the Ariekan. The entire world of Arieka is based around this idea and Miéville has realised all the possibilities of a world which is very alien to our own, a world where an entire species can be enslaved to addiction from someone misspeaking their language. This is the sort of brilliant sci-fi concept which makes classic sci-fi novels like Dune or Foundation so enjoyable to read, and ensures Miéville’s place as a great science fiction writer.

Miéville has not written any other novel that can be so definitely classified as science fiction, but there are cases for some of his other books to be so considered – for example The Scar, book two of his Bas-Lag universe. At first glance, you might think that The Scar is only a fantasy novel, as it contains magic, vampires and giant sea monsters. However, it also has a cast of other strange creatures which have more in common with science fiction than fantasy, such as the insectoid Khepri, the aquatic Grindylow, the mosquito-like Anophelii and of course the remade, humans who have been altered to resemble other species or machines. These races are far from the elves and dwarfs of most fantasy novels, the later being more likely to occur in an Iain M. Banks story than one written by Tolkien.

The Bas-Lag universe, and The Scar in particular, contains many science fiction concepts such as sentiment machines and beings from other dimensions – such as the Slake-Moth, the villains of the first Bas-Lag book Perdido Street Station. The most classic science-fiction concept of the Bas-Lag universe is the alien beings known as the Ghosthead who ruled Bas-Lag three thousand years before the events of the novels. These powerful beings come from a world where the day varies between being warm enough to produce seas of iron and cold enough to freeze the atmosphere. Seeking a more moderate climate, the Ghosthead travelled across the stars in a ‘metal fish’ (read spaceship) and crashed into Bas-Lag. These are clearly aliens and they bring with them the alien technology of ‘possibility mining’, manipulating events in their favour.

There are many strange and wonderful concepts in The Scar and the other Bas-Lag novels, of which some are clearly fantasy (such as the vampires and elementals) and some are clearly science fiction (such as the Ghosthead in The Scar or the sentient machines in Perdido Street Station). The novel is ambiguous in its classification, but I feel there is enough evidence to consider it to be science fiction.

As well as novels set on Bas-Lag and Arieka, Miéville has written several novels set on Earth, but in typical Miéville style this is not Earth as we know it. One such book is The City and the City, which takes place in a modern world that is recognisable as our own. There are mobile phones, and places including London, New York and Istanbul are mentioned. This Earth also hosts two very strange cities, those of Besźel and Ul Qoma, which physically exist in the same space but the inhabitants of one must not see or interact with the other.

Besźel and Ul Qoma are places that could only exist in a China Miéville novel. The twin cities are completely separate, other than the fact that they exist in the same location, and a mysterious organisation known as Breach polices the interactions between the two cities and punishes those who break the rules. An explanation is never given of how this situation came into existence or whether the forces which police it are magical, technologically-advanced or simply good old-fashioned political tyranny.

The City and the City is a novel which plays mind games with the reader. When the reader believes there is a supernatural or science fiction explanation to the strange setting, evidence will appear that there is a more mundane explanation. The case for this book being classified as science fiction (or fantasy) is that the concept of the two cities and the way which Miéville explores their relationship is archetypical science fiction, as sci-fi writers use the medium to explore the real world implications of strange and different ways of living. The fact that this particular strange and different way of living might not be scientific or supernatural in origin does not matter, what matters is how the writer explores this different world with the reader. This is essence of science fiction and it runs through all of Miéville’s work.

China Miéville has written enough science fiction or novels containing sci-fi concepts to be considered a science fiction author, but his work also bears the hallmarks of other genres such as fantasy, horror, crime and political thrillers. Miéville’s work defies classification, and he subverts genres as much as he embraces them. However, his work is a must-read for anyone interested in science fiction as a genre.

Ancillary Sword

There has never been a science fiction debut novel that has been as well received as Ancillary Justice. Ann Leckie's novel is the first book to win the Hugo, Nebula and Clark awards and has sold handsomely. Like a lot of sci-fi debuts, Ancillary Justice is part one of a trilogy, but how does a writer follow up such a successful first novel and make sure the sequel does not disappoint readers’ high expectations? An obvious answer would be to give the reader more of the same, so Ancillary Sword continues where Ancillary Justice left off in terms of both story and debate. Breq (a human ancillary who is all that remains of the controlling AI of the vast starship, Justice of Toren) has been given command of a warship and sent to protect the Athoeksystem.

The story of Ancillary Sword follows the same main characters (Breq, Lieutenant Silvadene, et al) and the same storyline - the growing civil war between the two halvesof Anaander Mianaai, humanity’s tyrannical leader in Leckie's vision of the future. The same debates about colonialism, identity, race and class are explored again, but not in a way that retreads the same ground. Ancillary Sword makes sure it pleases the established fan base, as the reader will find the same characters and plots they enjoyed in Ancillary Justice.

Rehashing an earlier novel is a surefire route to failure. Aside from the obvious criticism of lack of imagination, it would be nearly impossible to repeat the success of Ancillary Justice. So it is necessary for the sequel to be different to some degree.

Ancillary Sword introduces some new characters, mainly to replenish the cast after the bloody climax of book one, and these complement the existing cast well. Breq is able to find self-important, petty tyrants wherever she goes and the new antagonists are just as entertaining as the old ones.

The most noticeable difference with the sequel is in the narrative. Firstly,the structure of Ancillary Sword is quite different to Ancillary Justice, as the former has a significant proportion of the story told through flashbacks, which the latter does not. Around a third of Ancillary Justice was the story of Justice of Toren, filling in the events which led to her becoming Breq and discovering the division in Anaander Mianaai. This is told in tandem to Breq’s story in the present, they both have different perspectives as one is from the point of view of a starship and the other a lone ancillary. By contrast Ancillary Sword follows a simple linear narrative with only Breq's present point of view.

The substance of the plot is also different. Ancillary Justice followed the trajectory of a revenge story, whereas Ancillary Sword is a conspiracy thriller. In part one of the trilogy, we find out why Justice of Toren was destroyed and see Breq's attempts to avenge herself. In part two,Breq is sent to a new system and must find out which officers are loyal to which half of AnaanderMianaai. The very different plots make for very different tones and emotional journeys for the characters, reading the sequel is a very different experience to reading part one.

The location is another key difference between the two novels. Ancillary Sword is set in only one location, whereas Ancillary Justice had three main locations and several minor ones. The sequel is much more claustrophobic, as well as exploring this location in much more detail. Another aspect of this difference is that Breq's relationships to the new characters are more developed than those in book one. All these factors make Ancillary Sword a very different read to Ancillary Justice.

In some ways Ancillary Sword is very similar to Ancillary Justice and in othersit is very different. The characters, arcplot and broad outlines of the novel are very similar but the specifics are very different. Personally, I preferred the plot of Ancillary Justice, as the revenge story gave the novel more momentum. Also, the characters of the first book were more interesting.

The better developed location of the sequel, along with the familiar arc plot and characters of the first part, did make Ancillary Sword an entertaining read. However the plot and structure changes meant the novel was less engrossing than Ancillary Justice.

In terms of the wider debate about how to follow up an engaging original with an enjoyable sequel, I would ultimately erron the side of preserving as many aspects of the successful original. This said, the specifics of the series needs to be taken into account, the mistakes of Ancillary Sword could be the successes of a different novel. I enjoyed reading both books a lot but in trying to be different, Ancillary Sword loses some of what made Ancillary Justice so great.

Ringworld Retrospective

Larry Niven’s Ringworld is an established science fiction classic. Unlike many other science fiction classics, it is also relatively short at a mere 288 pages long – much shorter than Dune’s 604 pages. A lot of science fiction authors take the approach that length is proportional to quality, whereas writers in other genres take the opposite view. Ringworld proves fewer words can achieve as much and more. It is a gripping read, the adventure plot is exciting and the characters are engaging. The novel’s brevity contributes to its success. The adventure plot is exciting because it is based around a small group of characters questing for an objective. The protagonists crash on the Ringworld, a mega-structure consisting of a flat ring which encircles a star, and try to escape from it. This simple quest to escape the giant alien structure is the key to the effective plotting of the novel. The protagonists have a well-defined goal, and we can see how their actions move them towards accomplishing it.

This creates a narrative which always has forward momentum and to which the characters actions always seem relevant. Where a lot of science fiction novels fall down is in over-plotting. Ringworld is based around a tight group of characters questing for a defined goal, and so it does not suffer from this.

The narrative of the questing protagonists is presented in a straight-forward and accessible manner. The story is linear and written in the closed-third[*should there by a hyphen in closed-third? There is not one when it next comes up a few paragraphs below] person, following a single protagonist, Louis Wu. We experience the story through his perception, which links the reader’s understanding of the Ringworld with Louis’s. This makes the strange world of the Ringworld accessible to the reader, as they learn about it at the same time as the main character.

It also avoids a frequent science fiction pitfall, excessive info dumping. I am always disappointed when professional authors drop extended exposition into the middle of scenes and destroy the reader’s immersion in the story. This sort of lazy writing would be questioned by most amateur critique groups, but authors occasionally ruin the pacing of a perfectly good scenes with an information overload.

In Ringworld, because we find out about the Ringworld at the same rate as Louis Wu, a clear picture of the universe is built up in the reader’s mind without the need for info dumping from voice-of-god narration. Niven is able to cover a lot of plot and back story quickly, the reader is efficiently given the background on all the main characters and how their races have interacted in the past. The history of the universe is conveyed to the reader without them having to be lectured to.

The use of a linear, closed third person narrative in this way also means that the reader never feels Louis Wu is holding anything back from them, and we get his emotional reaction to each new obstacle the characters encounter. This approach forms a strong connection between the reader and Louis Wu, which makes him a very relatable protagonist and creates an engaging narrative of his personal story.

Central to what makes Ringworld such an engaging read is how interesting and well-balanced the main characters are. As well as Louis Wu, there is Nessus who belongs to the excessively cautious but technologically advanced race called the Pierson's Puppeteers, and also Speaker-to-Animals, a Kzin, whose anger and violence is the opposite of Nessus. Interestingly, both of these characters are unusual for their race: Nessus appears cowardly from our perspective, but by Puppeteer’s standards he is recklessly bold; Speaker may seem violent to us, but from a Kzin’s point of view he is placid and timid. The fourth member of the party exploring the eponymous mega-structure of the Ringworld is Teela Brown, a human who had been selectively bread to be lucky.

What makes Ringworld an engaging read is the interesting team dynamics between these characters. The aliens are imaginative and their differences create the inter-personal conflict which drives the story forward. The setting of the book, the Ringworld itself, is a fascinating place for these characters to explore and provides milieu narrative, where the conflict is between protagonist and environment. The hostile environment of the Ringworld provides extra-personal conflict which challenges the protagonists, but where the novel really excels is in inter-personal conflict or conflict between characters.

The milieu plot tests the bonds between characters and leads to conflict between them. The most entertaining sections of Ringworld are in Niven’s carefully study of how these radically different characters fall apart and bond together to tackle the challenges thrown up by the milieu. In Ringworld, extra-personal conflict works to create inter-personal conflict, and a conflict-filled story is an entertaining read.

Ringworld is not perfect. One area where it falls down is in the presentation of women, but we do need to remember that this book was published in 1970 when social attitudes were very different. That said, there is no escaping the fact that the book has underdeveloped female characters. Of the four protagonists, Teela Brown is explored in the least detail, and the only other female character in the book, Prill, has no real defined character.

Later in the book a male character called Seeker is introduced and Niven should probably have thought through the confusion which arises iwhen reading a fast-paced action scene with one character called Seeker and another called Speaker. However, these points do not detract from Ringworld’s many accomplishments.

Niven’s novel has had a lasting impact on science fiction, as well as launching his own Known Space universe. The titular Ringworld has nods in many other prominent works of the genre: Iain M. Banks has said that the Ringworld inspired the Culture orbitals in his novels, and the Forerunner’s halos from the Halo video game franchise bear a clear resemblance to Niven’s creation. Ringworld mega-structures have become so common that the phrase Niven Rings has been coined to describe them.

Overall, Ringworld is a tight and well-written novel, deserving its place as a science fiction classic. Where some novels have epic scope, thousands of pages and huge casts, Ringworld has a close focus and brevity. Larry Niven has done great work creating an interesting cast of characters and a mysterious world for them to explore which leads to an engaging story. Science fiction writers who overwrite should look at Ringworld to see how a short novel can also be a great novel.

5 sci-fi books for horror fans

Horror and sci-fi are two genres that have a lot of cross-over potential, and some of the best work in either genre combines elements of both. For example, Alien still stands up as both one of the best science fiction films and one of the best horror films of all time. With that in mind, I am about to recommend five science fiction novels that any horror fan would enjoy. 

The Last Legends of Earth by A. A. Attanasio (1989)

This book is a strange one even by science fiction standards. The plot takes place over hundreds of years and involves epic wars, strange planets, time travel and bizarre aliens. It is with the latter that this novel’s horror appeal lies. The villains of Attanasio’s novel are the Zōtl, small spider-like creatures which feed on a chemical that is produced by the brains of sentient creatures when they are in pain. They capture humans and keep them as cattle, and torture us for their own nourishment.

Not only is the idea of the Zōtl pretty scary but they are completely alien to us. Communication with them is almost impossible and thus we cannot reason or plead with them. Like the creature inAlien, the horror comes from the unbridgeable gap between different species. When communication breaks down, only violence can exist. This idea is at the root of many of science fiction’s scariest villains, from Pitch Black to Starship Troopers.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989) 

Hyperion is an accomplished science fiction novel and a must-read for any serious fan of the genre. The story follows six strangers on a pilgrimage to see the Shrike, a murderous alien god. Along the way, each character recounts the story of what brought them to the pilgrimage. The book reads like a series of interlinked novellas which span different genres. The Soldier’s Tale is an action adventure, whereas the Detective's Tale is a mystery thriller. Two of the tales were among the scariest horror stories that I have ever read.

The Priest's Tale follows a disgraced Catholic priest who escapes to the planet Hyperion to study a lost tribe. Whilst he lives with them he slowly realises how the world Hyperion has changed them monstrously. Simmons’s elegant prose and fantastic ability to create mood makes the slow realisation of the dangerous situation that the priest is in more frightening.

The Scholar's Tale combines both horror and tragedy to create a powerful and terrifying story. It is told by an academic whose daughter, Rachel, whist studying the world Hyperion was exposed to an alien device which causes her to age backwards. Simmons renders in heart breaking detail Rachel's regression (physically and mentally) into a child.

Grass by Sheri S. Tepper (1989)

This is a novel which I love and have talked about before, but I cannot recommend it enough. Sheri S. Tepper also writes horror and mysteries alongside science fiction, and all three genres are contained in Grass. The novel is set in a distant future where humanity is being wiped out by an incurable disease. Only the planet Grass is unaffected, and so it is here that Westriding-Yrarier family are sent to discover its secret. What they find is a closed community of former aristocrats who are under the control of the Hippae, who are native to Grass. The Hippae appear to be animals at first, but their true intelligence and murderous hatred quickly becomes apparent.

What is scary about Grass is the idea of being trapped in a small community where horrible events are taking place which everyone is either oblivious to or too terrified to mention. Tepper uses her skills as a mystery writer to create tension through a closed community harbouring a dark secret. She also uses her skill as a horror writer to develop the Hippae as horrendous monsters.

The slow revelation of how dangerous the Hippae are and the psychic hold they possess over humans builds tension which leads to an explosive conclusion. However, the real strength of Grass as horror comes from the sense of being trapped among ordinary people who have a sinister secret, much like The Wicker Man or Rosemary’s Baby.

Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (2010)

Some works of horror rely on gory or shocking images to create tension – John Carpenter’s The Thing is a good example of this. Banks is a master of the sprawling space opera and has a knack for the disturbing. His debut literary novel The Wasp Factory turned heads, and a few stomachs with a particularly disgusting revelation.

Of all his science fiction novels, Surface Detail is the one which most lends itself to the horror genre. The novel charts a simulated (and then actual) conflict between future human and alien civilizations over the morality of virtual hells. Several of Banks’s ‘Culture’ novels involve a virtual reality to which a person’s mind can be sent in the event of their death. Some civilizations judge the dead and then consign them to a virtual hell or heaven.

One part of the novel follows Chay, who has become trapped in a virtual hell, and charts the torment (both physical and psychological) which she experiences. Banks’s visceral imagination summons up wheels of blood, monstrous demons and a vast war in hell - the only purposes of which are to inflict more suffering. Banks has a brilliant imagination not only for science fiction concepts but also for the gruesome and disturbing. In this novel he combines both, and the result is both gripping and gory.

The Blue Blazes by Chuck Wendig (2013)

This is not strictly science fiction but is an urban fantasy, and quite scary so it deserves to be on this list. The Blue Blazes sets the bar of urban fantasy high by combining it with the gangster genre. The book starts by following a group of New York gangsters during a mob power struggle. Violence is an everyday part of their world and this book does not flinch from describing the violence in gory detail.

The book slowly reveals the wider supernatural fantasy world it is set in, this New York is built above a subterranean world of goblins, golems, ghosts, demons and strange powders that can alter the user. The book morphs from a gangster drama into an epic struggle against the subterranean gods and the monsters who worship them. Wendig blends violence with strong characters as easily as he blends the crime and fantasy story aches.

Gangsters work well in horror stories where the horror is mainly the result of violence, and by combing the crime story with urban fantasy more varied violence is possible – not just the violence of human conflicts, but also that of supernatural predators. There are many works of horror which put violence front and centre (pretty much any film by Takashi Miike comes to mind), but The Blue Blazes manages to draw on the crime and fantasy genres as a source of violent horror.

Those are my science fiction recommendations for horror fans. Do you have any others to add to the list? Let me know in the comments below.

Top Ten Most Influential Books

There is a meme going around where you post the ten books which have been the greatest influence on you. Several people have approached this in a creative way (you can see my friend Claire Rousseau’s YouTube video on the same topic here), but I decided to do a good old-fashioned blog post. Below you will find my selection, in order of publication.

1. Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970)

Ringworld is a novel which is narratively very simple but extremely compelling. There are four characters: Louis Wu, a human explorer; Nessus, who belongs to the race of Pierson's Puppeteers; Speaker-to-Animals, who is from a race of giant cat-like apex predators, and Teela Brown, a human who has been selectively bred to be lucky. The characters are interestingly balanced against each other, the Pierson's Puppeteers are a very paranoid race but Nessus is considered to be recklessly bold by their standards, although to us he comes across as cowardly and easily startled. Speaker-to-Animals is aggressive and constantly threatening violence, yet by his race’s standards he is timid and placid.

The four characters explore a giant ring which encircles a distant star. Who build the megastructure? Where did they go? What are its secrets? These are questions which Niven expertly builds up and slowly feeds us the answer. Ringworld is quite simply a clever story with strong characters written well. It is a book which has stayed with me for years after reading it.

2. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (1984)

I am not easily upset, and it requires a scene to be very gross for it disgust me. The Wasp Factory managed this. A friend who lent it to me told me it contained the most vile scene that he had ever read and, despite bracing myself for it, it still shocked me. The book goes out of its way to be offensive and challenge your sensibilities, but underneath there is a beautifully, subtly written  story about isolation in the remote areas of Scotland.

The Wasp Factory manages to be cryptic without being annoying. The reader asks themselves, is this really happening or is it mainly in the character’s head? Some novels aim for this but end up simply being confusing. The Wasp Factory is beautiful written and is elegantly provocative.

3. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (1988)

This is the first novel which opened my mind to the fascinating world of the Culture. The Player of Games is Iain M. Banks’s second science fiction novel, and deals with the Culture coming into contact with the Azad, a civilisation with three genders which is entirely based around a board game. The Culture’s greatest game player, Jernau Morat Gurgeh, is sent to play the Azad at their own game. However, Gurgeh finds it difficult to adapt to life outside the utopia of the Culture.

The novel has a thriller plot, as various parties in Azad society attempt to stop Gurgeh from winning, as well as insights into our society seen through Gurgeh’s eyes. Despite their three genders and strange board game, the Azad have more in common with humans today than we do with the Culture. Their savage brutality, their massive inequality, their repressive social order and oppressive greed is a stirring criticism of everything that is wrong with our society. The Player of Games is Banks firing on all cylinders: it is original, shocking, intelligent, insightful and very entertaining.

4. The Last Legends of Earth by A. A. Attanasio (1989)

The Last Legends of Earth is an odd book, to put it mildly. Set billions of years after humanity’s extinction, the human race is brought back to life to bait an enormous trap set for the Zōtl - a spider-like race who feed off the chemicals a sentient brain makes when it is in pain. The novel takes place over several hundred years of this trap, as a group of humans time travel back through its history. What they encounter along the way is often surreal and always frightening.

The Zōtl are a genuinely scary villain – completely alien, utterly cruel and almost unstoppable. This is a novel which genuinely scared me at times. When it was not scary it was surreal and imaginative. A lot of readers will find this novel too strange. but its bizarre story captivated me.

5. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper (1989)

There are not many books which caused me to miss a tube stop, but the final confrontation in Sheri S. Tepper’s Grass had that effect. The build-up to this climax is slow but effective, gradually introducing the world of Grass and the terrifying Hippae that inhabit it. Tepper is well known for her mystery novels and uses those skills to great effect in Grass to establish gradually the mystery of this strange planet and the psychic hold which the Hippae have over the humans.

Early on we assume the Hippae (a quodraped twice the size of a horse and covered in razor-sharp spines) are simple beasts of burden, but before long we see how powerful, dangerous and – most frightening of all – how intelligent they are. Tepper expertly builds up the threat of the Hippae to the point where you feel genuine fear for the protagonists, who are trapped on this dangerous world without even weapons to use against the murderous Hippae. The novel builds to an explosive conclusion which could be one of the most gripping scenes I have ever read.

6. A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge (1999)

This a novel which is epic in every sense, set over more than 40 years as humans slowly infiltrate and attempt to take over the Spider civilization which orbits the strange On/Off star. On/Off is a star which burns hot for around 40 years and then turns cold for 200. The Spiders live a strange life of long term hybernation and brief bursts of life. As well the Spiders, there are two separate factions of humans trying to take control of the planet, and the plot evolves slowly but brilliantly as humans and Spiders constantly attempt to outmaneuver each other.

Vinge writers very gripping sci-fi, his plots pick you up and carry you along with them. The book is long but never dull with a great cast of heroes and villains. This novel surprised me by the degree to which I empathised with the Spiders, who are completely alien but also strangely human. This novel is epic but also a gripping read.

7. The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)

Another book which is both strange and scary, The House of Leaves begins like many horror novels with a married couple moving into their new house. At first their life is idyllic, but when they find a strange door which leads to a secret labyrinth things take a turn for the terrifying. The House of Leaves has layers of story, all of them strange and scary. The text itself is infected with the novel’s strangeness, the words turn upside down, cascade down the page or form a spiral.

The House of Leaves is challenging to read in many ways – the story is strange, and the text is stranger – but the whole book is filled with suspenseful character drama. Some have been put off by how odd it is. but I found that underneath there is a great story of love and the struggle to survive. The House of Leaves is original, gripping and well written.

8. The Scar by China Miéville (2003)

China Miéville has a brilliant imagination, and whenever I pick up one of his books I am blown away by the strange, uncanny and terrifying creatures he is capable of imagining. The first novel in his Bas-Lag trilogy, Perdido Street Station, made Miéville’s name as a fantasy writer, but I think that the second, The Scar, is his finest. The Scar takes place in the floating city of Armada, which consists of thousands of boats tied together. Armada is a pirate city which travels the oceans of Bas-Lag capturing other boats to add to its mass. The reader is quickly drawn into the politics of Armada, the rivalries between the pirates and the unusual creatures which live there.

Miéville takes the reader on a bizarre and often disturbing voyage around the waters of Bas-Lag, introducing imaginative new creatures and exploring the detailed history of his world. Each layer of Armada or Bas-Lag that is revealed is always strange and surprising. The Scar is a novel which spans many genres, borrowing from fantasy, science-fiction. horror, steampunk and the adventure novel. Like all of Miéville’s novels, it is a work of breathtaking originality, but I would say that this book is his finest.

9. Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch (2013)

The fourth novel in Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant series is probably my favourite. It was hard to choose one for this list, but I decided on the most recent instalment because it contains so many of the elements that I love in the series. The novels follow trainee detective Peter Grant in the Metropolitan Police’s department for investigating magical crimes. This time he goes undercover in a Brutalist housing development in Elephant and Castle which might have been designed by a magical practitioner.

Peter Grant’s usual sense of humour makes this an enjoyable read. The novel perfectly blends the elements of a police procedural and a fantasy quest. Broken Homes touches on a wide variety of topics of interest to me, especially the architectural vision of the 1960s, the history of Aaronovitch’s magical universe and the exploration of a dark criminal underworld. The book builds to a spectacular finale with a twist so unexpected that I nearly dropped the book.

10. The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (2014)

A protagonist who jumps of the page and pulls you into their world is a rare and valuable thing. From the first sentence of M. R. Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts, I was hooked. The novel follows Melanie, a young girl attending a strange school on an army base in a post-apocalyptic world. Melanie is a bright, inquisitive girl and Carey skilfully takes you inside her head. The reader relates to her through their own experience of school, but we quickly find out that there is something very unusual and very sinister about Melanie’s school.

The Girl With All the Gifts is a gripping read, and from the first scene I wanted to know more Melanie and her world. The novel expands out into ruined post-apocalyptic London and the tension remains high. Carey is also a master of playing with your sympathies for different characters. This is one book that I could not put down.

That is my list. It was hard to choose ten, but these were the books that I settled on. Let me know which books have influenced you in the comments below.

3 sci-fi sequels

A terrible sequel can ruin a great original – I am looking at you, Matrix films – but a good sequel can expand on what the original established to create something better. A lot of original works in the sci-fi genre introduce us to a world and it takes a sequel to fully realise the story potential of that world. With that in mind, below are three sci-fi novels that I have loved to which I really want to see a sequel.

Quick word of warning, this post will contain spoilers for the novels mentioned.

Glory Season by David Brin

David Brin is well known for writing epic series of science fiction novels. As well as contributing to the Second Foundation Trilogy with Foundation's Triumph, he also wrote a series of six novels set in his own ‘Uplift’ universe. This is why his 1994 Hugo and Locus award nominated book, Glory Season, seems so strange to me. There is a lot more scope to develop the universe of this novel and most of the main plot threads are left unresolved. It strikes me that it was intended to be the first part in a series for which Brin has yet to write the sequels.

At the close of the novel, the protagonist Maia has found some equilibrium to her life on Stratos but her problems of finding a niche in Stratoian society have not been resolved. Also the story of her relationship with Renna is left on a cliffhanger – Renna is a visitor to Stratos, and carries a warning from the rest of humanity about the return of an alien enemy. He forms a deep friendship with Maia but his presence on Stratos triggers a violent struggle to capture him. In the climax Renna fakes his death to stop the fighting and this devastates Maia, however in the resolution Maia discovers Renna is still alive and she determines to find him again.

A second novel covering Maia trying to find a foothold on Stratos whilst looking for a way to contact Renna would be an interesting read. It is likely that there will be more contact between Stratos and the rest of humanity in their near future so it would be interesting to see how Stratoian society changes when they are less isolated. It would also be interesting to see how Maia would react to visiting worlds with cultures more similar to our own.

Most of all I would like the sequel to explain more about the hostile alien species which the Stratoians defended and Renna claims is returning. A sequel to Glory Season could expand the scope of the narrative to the galactic scale and the novel explored the wider conflict between humans and the invaders.

A Deepness In The Sky by Vernor Vinge

Vernor Vinge's 1999 novel is a staggering accomplishment in science-fiction. Its epic plot is set over 40 years, as two bands of human space explorers investigate the strange world of the Spiders. The novel itself is a prequel to Vinge's 1992, Hugo Award winning novel A Fire Upon The Deep, but there are substantial gaps in the story between the end of the A Deepness In the Sky and the start of A Fire Upon The Deep which a sequel would perfectly fill.

Of the unanswered questions, the most mysterious is what happens to the novel’s protagonist, Pham Nuwen, after he leaves the Spider’s world and before the god-like energy being Old One reconstructs him in A Fire Upon the Deep. Pham is last seen heading towards the Unthinking Depths at the centre of the galaxy as he searches for technologically-advanced civilizations. Those who have read A Fire Upon the Deep will know he is going in the wrong direction, as the most advanced civilizations in Vinge’s universe live on the galactic rim.

A novel covering Pham’s journey into the Unthinking Depths, revealing what he encounters there and covering his eventual meeting with Old One, would be a fascinating read. It would also fill in the one area of Vinge’s ‘Zones Of Thought’ universe that has not been explored yet. A Fire Upon the Deep is set in the Beyond and A Deepness In the Sky is set in the Slow Zone, but nothing has so far been set in the Unthinking Depths.

Vinge has such a vivid imagination that I want to read more about his universe. A Deepness In The Sky opened up so much of the history of Pham Nuwen and his time in the Slow Zone, but I still want to find out more. I want the story brought full circle with him being sent to the Beyond at the beginning of A Fire Upon The Deep.

The City And The City by China Miéville

The continuing debate about whether The City And The City is science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy or just a plain crime novel is a testament to how intriguing China Miéville’s novel is. It focuses on two cities which are physically intertwined with each other, yet the residents cannot interact with or acknowledge the existence of the other. Whether this division is scientific, magical or psychological is never fully explained.

The mystery surrounding the two cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma is so essential to the appeal of The City And The City that I would not want it explained in future books, but there is still ample scope for further stories in that universe. At the end of the book, Inspector Tyador Borlú has been transferred to Breach, the mysterious, semi-mystical department which enforces the border between the two cities. A future novel covering the cases which Borlú investigates while working for Breach would be fascinating.

Miéville has a brilliant imagination for the uncanny and the macabre, and I would like to see him write more weird fiction/crime cross-over novels. I want to see what strange and gruesome murders Breach will investigate in the future, and the concept of the two intertwined but divided cities is so interesting that I want to read more about it.

Above are three of the novels to which I would like to see sequels. There are others, but those are the ones that I would be most excited about if they were to be announced. I am sure that you will have suggestions of your own – so let me know in the comments below!

7 reasons Peter Grant is better than Harry Potter

It’s the battle of the trainee wizards, as two titans of recent fantasy novels set in our world face off against each other. In one corner is the Hogwarts trained, magical boy wonder from the international bestselling Harry Potter series. In the other corner, it’s the London Metropolitan Police’s finest, from the critically acclaimed Peter Grant novels. Who is the best sorcerer’s apprentice?

To be honest, I have already made up my mind. I read the Harry Potter novels as they came out, to be part of the enormous sense of anticipation that surrounded them, and I found them a little underwhelming. For me the series peaked with The Prisoner of Azkaban - the last novel where the editor was able to stand up to JK.

Ben Aaronovitch’s novels are a more recent discovery for me, and from the start I was hooked on the adventures of Peter Grant, apprentice wizard and trainee detective in the Met’s division for investigating magical crimes. I loved the way in which the novels blended police procedure and the magical apprentice story into one novel. So as my mind is already made up, here are 7 reasons (equal to the number of Harry Potter books) why Peter Grant is better than Harry Potter.

Quick note, this article contains some spoilers. You have been warned!

1 – Peter Grant has a sense of humour

Peter Grant is a great character to be in the head of. I love his sarcastic comments, his irreverence in the face of gods or great wizards, his hilarious side comments to the reader. This creates the sense that Peter Grant is a real person. His reactions to the weird, the supernatural and the mystical are believable as the reaction of someone finding out that the world is a lot stranger than he had anticipated. It also makes him fun; I can imagine Peter Grant would be a good person to go for a pint with.

By contrast Harry Potter has teenage angst and the same self-centred world view that most teenagers have – except Harry Potter is the centre of the world, so he is quite likely to be extremely narcissistic later in life.

2 – Peter Grant has interests outside magic

Most people are not defined by what they do or what they study. They have a broad range of interests and the same should be true of trainee wizards. Peter Grant has interests in music (mainly jazz), architecture, football, the history of London, the tube, Isaac Newtown and so on. As I said above, he would be an interesting person to go for a beer with. We never really get an understanding of Harry’s interests outside of his magic adventures, as the world generally revolves around him.

3 – Peter Grant has better taste in music

In the second ‘Rivers of London’ novel, Moon Over Soho, we discover Peter Grant’s interest in music. His father was a well-known jazz musician and Peter was raised on a varied diet of music. In this novel, Peter investigates the mysterious deaths of several semi-professional musicians on the London jazz scene. Peter’s knowledge of jazz and the music scene helps him track down the strange creature behind these deaths.

I cannot remember Harry Potter being interested in music. If he was, I expect he would be into something over-rated, like Pearl Jam.

4 – Peter Grant did not go to a fancy private school

Hogwarts is clearly the Eton of the magical world, in that its students seem to think no other schools exists in the UK, it’s full of over privileged students who are the children of over privileged students and it only lets in enough normal people to prevent it being closed. Harry’s expensive private education might fast track him to Oxford but does not help make him a relatable character. Most people’s childhoods are not spent in expensive boarding schools, they have to deal with overcrowded class rooms and disruptive fellow students.

Peter Grant on the other hand is a graduate of that egalitarian institution Hendon Police College before embarking on two years of being a beat bobbie which all members of the Met have to go through regardless of the fancy private education. Rivers of London opens with Peter’s last days as a street constable. He is the first responding officer for a gruesome murder where he encounters a ghost. This draws him to the attention of Detective Inspector Nightingale who takes him on as a trainee detective at The Folly (the branch of the Met which looks covers magical crimes) as well as an apprentice wizard.

Peter survives the dangerous magical underworld of London using the street smarts he gained growing up in a Kentish Town council estate and his two years as a beat constable. Expensive private schools might be great for the theory of magic but when things turn nasty I would prefer to have street smarts on my side.

5 – Nightingale is a better wizard than Dumbledore

Peter’s guvnor, Detective Inspector Nightingale, is probably my favourite character in the series. From his mysterious first appearance in Rivers of London to his high-octane confrontation with Russian Night Witch, Nochnye Koldunyi in Broken Homes, Nightingale always conducts himself with sense of authority and style. Nightingale has run The Folly by himself for several decades and is now training Peter in the magical. He is over a hundred years old, served in both world wars and once casually remarked that he took out a German Tiger Tank with a fireball. Nightingale is what I expect from a wizard, academic knowledge, bravery, a scene of style from a bygone era, and the slight implication that he is a hiding a big secret from everybody.

Dumbledore (a thinly veiled Gandalf clone) attempts to be mysterious and alluring but instead is just plain unhelpful. A lot of pain and death could have been saved if he had explained everything to Harry from the beginning. However, that would prevent the story being drawn out to seven excessively long novels.

6 - The Faceless Man is better villain than Voldemort

Rarely do we encounter villains who are pure evil with hearts that are blacker than black. Most of the terrible things in this world are done by criminals who are very similar to regular people just without a regard for the law. Peter’s nemesis is the Faceless Man, a crime boss and wizard who hides this identity (and his face) behind a spell. He is not an evil spirit or a demon but a human being who wants to use his gifts to enrich himself at others’ expense. This also makes him dangerous, as he is not averse to killing those who could expose him.

In Broken Homes, Nightingale says that the Faceless Man is not a super villain but a criminal like any other, he will make mistakes and they will catch him. In this novel Peter has to go undercover in a Brutalist housing block in Elephant and Castle that the Faceless Man has gone to great lengths to demolish. However, the Faceless Man has a nasty surprise up his sleeve.

Harry’s nemesis is Voldemort, a cartoon villain who lacks depth or believability. He might be evil but we know that most villains are real people, governed by human weaknesses such greed or hatred. I find that a big nebulous baddie is a lot less scary than a normal person who is manipulative and violent.

7 – Peter Grant is proper Londoner

Raised in Kentish Town with one parent from Sierra Leone and another from Britain, Peter Grant sums up modern London. He loves the capital, it’s diversity, it’s colourful characters, it’s strange magical underworld. Peter is also interested in everything that makes London London, from its musical traditions to the London Underground. He talks about length about the history of London, for example in Whispers Underground (where Peter investigates a murder which took place in Baker Street station) he talks at length about the history of the tube, how it was first built and how the suburb of Notting Hill sprung up around it. This is one of the many passages in which Peter demonstrates his knowledge and love of London.

The Peter Grant novels are as diverse as London is. They have a cast of characters, including a Jamaican river godess, a Somali murder squad detective, a Scottish/Asian pathologist, a Russian Night Witch as well as characters who are LQBTQ and disabled. Ben Aaronovitch handles the writing of these characters with care and sympathy. The Peter Grant novels are a good series of books to read if you are interested in diversity in the broader SFF genre, a gene which has not always handled these issues well.

I would like to take a break from this light-hearted article for a moment to make a serious point. One of the weaknesses of Harry Potter is the sidelining of characters from a minority background. The books have a very positive message about tolerance but it is somewhat problematic to represent minorities as magical creatures whilst sidelining the human minorities in your novel. For someone being much more intelligent and articulate on this subject, Harry Potter and wider SFF please see Sarah Shokerhere article here.

Seriousness is over now, and I will also say that the one thing Harry Potter has over Peter Grant is a better animal companion. Hedwig is much cooler than Toby the dog.

Well, that’s my take on drawing a few parallels between two books aimed at different ages, different audiences, published at different times and in different genres. It’s all a load of fun anyway, which is what reading should primarily be about.

POV in Banks novels

Stories change radically depending on the number of point of view characters. A novel with a single viewpoint deals with one character’s experience of the story, whereas one with multiple points of view allows different perspectives on the same events or on multiple related events.

Some authors choose an approach to point of view that works well for them and stick to it throughout all their books. This is especially true of novels in a series – readers would find it strange if the next Song of Ice and Fire novel only had Tyrion’s point of view or if the last Harry Potter novel had thrown in the perspectives of a great many characters.

Other authors experiment with different quantities of point of view in different novels depending on the needs of the story. These authors usually write in a variety of different styles and write novels which are quite different from each other. Once such writer is Scottish author Iain M. Banks who penned 13 sci-fi novels between 1987 and 2012. No two of his books are really alike and throughout his career he experimented with different numbers of point of view characters. I am going to look at four examples now show how the different number of point of view characters shaped the novels.

The Player of Games

Banks’s second sci-fi novel focuses on a single point of view character. Gurgeh, the eponymous player of games, lives in the utopian future human society known as the Culture, which appears in many of Banks’s sci-fi novels. Gurgeh is recruited to establish contact with a new alien society whose social structure is entirely based around the playing of a complex board game.

We follow him and only him through his recruitment and his attempts to play the game. This is an effective way to introduce an alien society to both the protagonist and the reader. As Gurgeh learns more about the game and the world he is in, so does the reader and we keep pace with him throughout the story. Because the narrative of The Player of Games focuses on Gurgeh’s experience of the trials of playing Azad, the only important events in the book are those which concern him. Having more than one point of view character would detract from the novel’s focus.

Inversions

A later novel which takes place within the Culture universe without featuring the Culture itself, Inversions consists of alternating chapters from two different point of view characters: Oelph, a doctor’s apprentice and DeWar, a military dictator’s bodyguard. Oelph and DeWar live in different countries on the same planet and the only connection between the two of them is a war between their two nations.

Both characters have separate stories of court politics which are only tangentially related to one another. By having two point of view characters Banks allows the novel to explore two sets of related, but not directly connected events. The result is that it builds a larger picture of the wider context of both stories in the reader’s mind.

Against a Dark Background

A standalone novel outside of Banks’ long-running Culture series, Against a Dark Background follows Sharrow and her former combat team as they go in search of the last Lazy Gun, an ancient weapon which kills its targets ironically. The novel switches between Sharrow’s point of view and that of the rest of her team, often during scenes. The perspective moves to where it can best describe the events currently happening, but the team are never split up and all experience the same events.

The plot remains focuses on the linear narrative of the adventure Sharrow and her team go on. Events outside what the team are currently experiencing have little effect on the story, so Banks uses POV changes to show different characters’ perspectives of the same events.

Excession

Taking place on a galactic scale, Excessioncharts the Culture’s response to what it describes as an Outside Context Problem, a threat outside of its knowledge. The arrival of the titular Excession, a strange artefact from another universe, triggers a struggle for its control between the Culture and another race known as Affront.

The novel has many point of view characters; some only appear in a couple of scenes and some have a story running the entire course of the book. They all experience different aspects of the struggle for control of the Excession.

This novel is so expansive that it cannot be told from a single point of view, as no one person sees all that is important to the narrative. It needs a great number of point of view characters with their own self-contained stories, all of which affect one another and contribute to the wider plot. Only a point of view structure like this can tell a story that is set on such a large scale.

The four models of POV structure outlined above can also be seen in works by other authors. The Player of Games reveals its world to the protagonist and the reader in the same way the Harry Potter novels do; Excession’s wide focus is similar to that of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire; China Miéville uses the two protagonists experiencing different but related stories in Perdido Street Station; and Sheri S. Tepper shows different characters experiencing the same events in Grass.

Most authors keep to one approach to point of view which suits all their novels; it is rare to find an author like Iain M. Banks who experiments with the all four different approaches.

Gender and the Future

Sci-fi is the perfect medium to explore gender issues, as it allows us to imagine a society that is better or worse for women and thus provide some insight into what we could achieve in the present. However, a lot of authors fall back on lazy stereotypes for female characters or fail to fully think through how their sci-fi concepts affect women. The one piece of advice I would give to sci-fi writers of all genders is: think about the role of women in your fictional society and what this says about the world you are creating.

Recently, I have read three novels, well regarded in the space opera sub-genre, that look at gender in future societies in very different ways. However, can these books be classified as feminist and what do they have to say about how sci-fi authors view female characters?

The most recent of the three books is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which is set in a future where the human space is dominated by one human society called the Radchaai. The Radchaai are genderless and the author uses “she” as a pronoun throughout the book, which is written in the first person. Whenever the narrator describes any human, whether Radchaai or not, she always uses the female pronoun. Non-Radchaai humans frequently point out to her that some characters are male but she still makes mistakes.

Leckie is trying to make some form of statement about a future where humans have evolved beyond the need for genders and the associated baggage but it is not made clear in the book. Nor do we get an idea of gender relations in any other human society or their views on the genderless Radchaai. Is this common in the future or does the rest of human society still have entrenched views on the differences between men and woman? Other issues - such as: do they differ biologically or just in gender? How do they reproduce? In what sort of family unit are children raised? - are also not covered. I get the feeling Leckie wants to say something about gender in Ancillary Justice, but her point is murky at best.

Second is Glory Season by David Brin, which is set on a matriarchal world where women are not only the majority but also hold all positions of power. Males are restricted to a few token roles and are the subjects of crude stereotypes about their intelligence. However, Brin does not portray this world as a feminist utopia, as there are still social conflicts within Glory Season. Cast, job, background, religion and wealth are all important divisions within their society, and power is still concentrated within the hands of a few rich and powerful women.

Where Glory Season falls down is not having something coherent to say about the role of women in this society. This book makes the vague point that totalitarianism and oppression are human characteristics and present in all societies, but the text is hardly feminist and is not clearly informed by a feminist theory.

The book does feature a woman protagonist (sadly this is unusual in the sci-fi genre) who questions gender roles and the fairness of their clan based society. It also reflects on the need for society to change drastically and radically to achieve gender equality and stop violence against women. Glory Season is about a woman finding her independence and not being a victim of wider social constraints.

This said, I think David Brin wrote the book because he had an interesting idea for a future matriarchal society and not because he had something profound to say about the role of women in our or any other society. The author has failed to fully consider the implications about writing about a matriarchal world and thus any feminist points the book might have made are lost to confusion.

Finally, I want to talk about the feminist sci-fi classic The Handmaid's Tale. Unsparingly, the other two books do not come off favourably when compared, but I want to focus on why The Handmaid's Tale handles the role of women in the future better than the other two books. This is mainly because it has a clearly defined point about the role of women in the future, which also says something about the role of women in our society. It is hard to confuse its points about how women are only valued as incubators to produce more men, there is no vagueness about how women are restricted and judged based on their adherence to an impossibly high moral standard.

Margaret Atwood’s book takes the role of women in the future and makes it the focus of the narrative, thus making a clear point. Not every sci-fi book has to focus only on the role of women in the future, but it does need to be clear about how imagined social and technological changes affect genders relations and the role of women.

Glory Season has a lot of interesting ideas about the future but does not have a clear point to make. Ancillary Justice has a point, but it is ill defined and lost in opaqueness. The Handmaid's Tale has a point to make and is clear about it.

As a sci-fi writer, there is no excuse for not considering the role of woman in any imagined society or for falling back on gender stereotypes. Your book does not have to be a statement on gender relations but as a writer you do need to think clearly about gender roles in any world you are creating.