Pandemic: the board game

Most board games have a narrative element to them: Monopoly has the struggle for one business to drive all the others to bankruptcy, Cluedo (or Clue if you are American) has the story of a murder mystery, but Pandemic is one of the most narrative-focused board games. The story of the Pandemic board game is that of a group of scientists racing to save the world from a deadly disease outbreak. The actions which the players take form the narrative of saving the human race.

In Pandemic, the players work co-operatively to stop the spread of four diseases from city to city around the world. Each player has a specific character, with a skill set that helps end the pandemic. The diseases spread while the players try to contain it and find the cures. If the players can eradicate all of the diseases then they win, but if the diseases spread too far then humanity is lost.

The narrative of Pandemic is most similar to that of a thriller; it reminds me of the opening third of Steven King’s The Stand or 28 Days Later. There is the race-against-time aspect of the game – an essential component of any thriller – and there are also clearly defined characters with professional relationships to each other. The board game explores these professional relationships through the way in which the characters interact with each other, in much the same way as TV shows like CSI do.

Having several different geographical locations is another key element of the disease thriller, and the dramatic action of Pandemic takes place across several locations around the globe, much like zombie-based virus thriller World War Z. The narrative of Pandemic explores how the infection pans out in different places and the players see the disease affecting different parts of the world through the characters they play.

The characters of the Pandemic board game are all reminiscent of a science fiction story; there are scientists, researchers, medics, operations experts, etc. These characters certainly pay homage to the sci-fi archetypes of works such as I am Legend and The Andromeda Strain. The narrative of a global disease outbreak is also familiar from science fiction stories such as 12 Monkeys and Children of Men. The narrative of a game of Pandemic thus shows all the hallmarks of several well-known science fiction stories.

The level of co-operation between players in Pandemic is unusually high amongst board games. In Pandemic, the players work together against the game itself – it is in essence a very complicated, constantly-changing puzzle. The mechanics of the game create an accurate simulation of the spread of a disease within the limited medium of a board game. It is brilliant how this game efficiently recreates a real-world process through board game mechanics. Other games do this as well (Power Grid is a good example), but the accessible way in which Pandemic models the spread of disease is a thing of beauty.

The game does have some competitive elements to it, mainly through the addition of a bio-terrorist character in the On the Brink expansion pack. This character plays against other players to aid the spread of the disease, and wins if the human race is wiped out. This addition of an antagonist opens up the narrative to layers of interpersonal conflict (human beings against each other), where as before Pandemic only had extra-personal conflict (humans against natural forces, i.e. disease).

The bio-terrorist functions in a similar way to Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) in 12 Monkeys, he puts a human face on the threat of disease and provides a character that the protagonist can have an adversarial relationship with. This makes the narrative more engaging as we can see human conflict play out next to environmental conflict, aka the spread of the deadly diseases. This makes the game of Pandemic more fun and the narrative more engaging.

The mechanics of Pandemic are very well suited to modeling the spread of a disease around an interconnected globe and the international response to this outbreak through the mechanics of co-operative play. As well as the co-operation mechanics, the involvement of narrative in Pandemic’s mechanics is unusually high. There are other games where the actions of players form a complex narrative, such as the galactic power struggle of Twilight Imperium, but it is rare to find narrative given this level of importance within game mechanics. What makes Pandemic so much fun to play is the way in which the players construct a narrative as they play.

The narrative of a game of Pandemic has many similarities to science fiction or thrillers. Many of the recognisable elements of these stories are present in Pandemic; the only difference is that the method of exploring the thriller or science fiction narrative is through the different medium of a board game. The story of a game of Pandemic is just as compelling as 12 Days Later or The Stand, but the means of engaging with the narrative are different.

Science fiction at the BAFTAs

Awards season is upon us, the time of the year when movie studios have to pretend that all of this is about art and not about making as much money as possible out of a line of films that look increasingly similar every year. This ends later this month with the Oscars, but before that we have the British Academy Film and Television Awards, which function along the same lines as the Oscars.

Personally, I prefer the BAFTAs, as they are slightly less preoccupied with American self-congratulation and contain a selection of foreign language and art house films as well as each year’s award blockbusters. The BAFTAs will take place this Sunday (8th February), and I have taken the time to look into how well the science fiction genre will be represented at the awards.

The answer to this question depends very much on how you define science fiction. In its purest form, the genre is underrepresented at the BAFTAs, but some borderline SFF titles do have nominations.

Birdman, the art house superhero film, has a lot of nominations, including in the best picture category. Birdman stands a good chance of going home with at least a few awards. Hopefully Michael Keaton will win best actor for his superb comic performance, in which he mocks himself and Batman mercilessly. However, the film would be better classified as magical realism, rather than science fiction or fantasy. Birdman does pays homage to the established archetype of the current generation of superhero films – namely that everything must be Batman: for evidence of the Batmanification of all superheroes, see the ludicrous dark and gritty Fantastic Four trailer.

The Grand Budapest Hotel also has a lot of nominations, again including best picture, and is a delightfully funny and distinctively odd film. It is set in a fictional, slightly mythical Eastern European country at a vague point in 20th century history. Again the film pays homage to many fantastical archetypes, but without being expressly fantasy.

Some of the other best picture nominees are likely to appeal to fans of science fiction, most notably the biopics of Steve Hawking (The Theory of Everything) and Alan Turing (The Imitation Game). Obviously these are historical dramas about real life scientists and both have strong performances at their core, but they are further evidence that film award bodies consistently overlook the science fiction genre.

The other major categories fare the same as best picture – for example, best director also has nominations for Birdman, The Theory of Everything and The Grand Budapest Hotel, but Christopher Nolan is cruelly overlooked for the masterfully directed Interstellar and James Gunn is similarly snubbed for the excellent Guardians of the Galaxy.

Children’s science fiction is well represented in the animated film category, with Don Hall and Chris Williams nominated for Big Hero 6, Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable for The Boxtrolls, and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller for The Lego Movie. The later is one of my favourite films of last year; it is funny, emotional and innovative. Why it has not been nominated for an Oscar for best animated film is beyond me. The Lego Movie thoroughly deserves to win in this category.

Science fiction films are better represented in the ‘technical’ BAFTA categories. Interstellar has nominations for original music, production design and cinematography – in all three of which the film excels. Hans Zimmer’s score is dark, brilliant and contributes to the film’s edge-of-our-seat tension. The film is also beautifully shot, and the retro look of the its production design creates a timeless vision of the future.

Special visual effects is the category traditionally dominated by Hollywood’s big budget science fiction films, and this year is no different. Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, X-Men: Days of Future Past and the last Hobbit movie have all been nominated, and all were visually stunning. However, I find it hard to believe that visuals is the only way in which the science fiction genre has excelled itself in the last year.

Guardians of the Galaxy has a nomination for best make up and hair; the design of the alien creatures was very convincing, and it deserves a win in this category. This film was my favourite of last year, it is funny, spectacular and moving. In terms of the filmmaking craft, it is much better than the worthy biopics and art house films that are nominated for best picture. There are clearly certain genres that get nominations for awards and certain ones which are ignored. Looking outside the blockbuster science fictions which came out last year, there are many brilliant independent science fiction films such as The Phoenix Project which deserve award recognition.

Interstellar has a few nominations for being slightly more highbrow and acceptable, but it is still looked down on for being science fiction. Guardians of the Galaxy and other superhero films are snubbed further for not being considered artistically valid. This is despite the fact that Guardians of the Galaxy is better than most of the best picture nominees.

Apart from the technical categories, which are largely ignored by the press, science fiction as a genre is under-represented at the BAFTA awards this year. This has nothing to do with the sci-fi films of last year being below par: Interstellar and Guardians of the Galaxy are easy as well made as The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything. This is evidence of the fact that only a certain type of film gets nominated for BAFTAs.

The BAFTAs should be an interesting night of awards; I hope that Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel do well, but from the perspective of a sci-fi fan there is an odor on under-appreciation from the nominations.

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.

Birdman

In 2002, Charlie Kaufman could not adapt Susan Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief for the screen and so instead wrote a film about his struggle to adapt the book. Adaptation starting Nicolas Cage, the film which came out of this, is self-consciously everything Orlean’s book is not but is still a very entertaining watch. The same can be said of Birdman, that it is both a film about adapting and is a failed adaption of Raymond Carver’s short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Birdman deals with the same themes as Carver’s short story: the complexities of love, abusive relationships, and suicidal thoughts. However, in narrativeit is very different to the original story. Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a washed up movie star who used be known for playing a superhero called Birdman.

Riggan wants to reignite his career with a Broadway adaptation of Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, but he has to deal with a difficult co-star (Edward Norton), his recovering addict daughter (Emma Stone), his ex-wife (Amy Ryan), his current girlfriend (Andrea Riseboroug), an actress who is in a dysfunctional relationship with Norton’s character (Naomi Watts) and a theatre critic with a vendetta against him (Lindsay Duncan). On top of all this, Riggan is haunted by Birdman, who mocks his failures and chides him for giving up on the film franchise.

Birdman is a loving parody of the current superhero-dominated movie landscape. Keaton’s association with the Batman franchise, the epitome of the superhero craze, underlines this. Birdman himself is a thinly veiled Batman, he has the same gravely voice and a very similar costume. In one excellent scene, Birdman becomes enraged with a TV interview with Robert Downey Jr. and bullies Riggan about being the original superhero and giving it up.

Keaton excellently sends himself up throughout the movie, he has all the desperation of a washed up has-been, all the ambition of a struggling actor, all the aloofness of a self-centered artist. Norton is also a superb self-parody in his role as the self-involved serious actor who rants about “being real” on stage, while the rest of his life falls to pieces.

As well as parodying superhero films, the high art theatre world comes in for a roasting. Many stage archetypes are sent up, there is Norton as the primadonna stage star, Watts as the nervous actress making her theatre debut, Stone representing the effect of exposure to a world so focused on creating art and exploring inner emotions that real life relationships have been left to collapse.

Birdman is an exploration of modern trends in film and theatre. There are some good points about how superheroes have gone from blockbuster entertainment to serious art form, and how the struggling theatre world is trying to maximize its appeal with television and film actors, while said mass entertainment actors are trying to use theatre to gain artistic credibility. In one of the film’s best scenes, Duncan’s theatre critic lambasts Riggan for his egocentric production and contaminating her art form with his popular entertainment. Riggan hits back with how her elitist world is dying and needs people like him to keep it alive.

The film tackles several serious issues. Riggan blasts the current social media obsessed youth for not engaging with the real world and his daughter tells him that the world has moved on and Riggan is trying to cling to relevance without changing himself. Birdman is also an honest look at how superheroes have invaded every aspect of our artistic culture, even the theatre.

Points are made about the integrity of the theatre as a serious artistic medium where performers can explore complex emotions and nuanced characters. It is also pointed out that theatre is mainly experienced by older, middle-class white people, who are detached from other people’s problems. Whenever serious debate takes place in the film, it is always even handed and conducted in an entertaining way; the film never lectures or is preachy.

As well as artistic debates, the themes of love and difficult relationships are explored. Riggan has a dysfunctional relationship with her daughter, who herself looks for love in the wrong places - mainly Norton’s truth obsessed actor. The scenes we see from What We Talk About When We Talk About Love mirror the relationships in Birdman, we see unconditional love in difficult times, we see emotional betrayal, we see violent and self-destructive urges.

The most complex relationship explored in the film is Riggan’s relationship with himself, as personified by Birdman’s frequent appearances. Birdman tries to break Riggan down and convince him he is a failure. Riggan fights back but cannot escape his own haunting self-doubt. Riggan is a man searching for relevance in a world that has changed, whilst being unable to let go of his past.

Magical realism is used throughout Birdman, there are many scenes which could be interpreted as existing only in Riggan’s mind or by the fact that he actually possesses supernatural powers. The film blends together the emotional depth of a drama film with scenes of explosive action similar to any superhero movie. The use of magical realism allows Birdman to stay true to both genres, it is both superhero movie and cerebral drama. I was left not sure if Birdman is an art house superhero film or an art house film about superheroes.

Much like Kaufman’s Adaptation, Birdman is a film full of surprises which defies classification. It spans the worlds of popular culture and high art and manages to be entertaining on all fronts. Most of this is due to the superb performance from Keaton as Riggan/Birdman and the excellent supporting performances from the rest of the cast. Birdman excels as a movie, and I highly recommend that everyone go and see it.

The Eternal Past

You might think that looking out of date is not a problem for science fiction, but it happens surprisingly frequently. How we imagine the future (or the past for that matter) says more about the present than what is likely to happen in the future. Our vision of the future is a portrait of our present ambitions and fears. From H G Wells's enthusiasm at the dawn of the machine age, to George Orwell's fears of totalitarianism, and to the atomic optimism of Isaac Asimov, science fiction novels have described the present and then looked out of date within a few years. With this in mind, how do authors or film-makers stop their future becoming dated?

This can be a big problem for films where their entire look can become outdated, sometimes in only a few years (we're still waiting on those hover boards from Back To The Future 2). However, this problem can also affect books when the cultural zeitgeist moves on. Dune’s themes of a consciousness expanding drug, spiritual awakening and revolution captured the mood of the 60s but have since been left behind by contemporary debates.

Some works just end up looking like the past. The computer system, M.O.T.H.E.R, in Alien looks very much like the larger brother of the BBC Micro. In 1979, the design of M.O.T.H.E.R probably looked very cutting edge, but now computers have evolved beyond blocky green text on black backgrounds and chunky multi-coloured keys. The whole system looks as dated as the industrial design of the rest of the Nostromo.

However, this does not reflect poorly on the film – quite the opposite, it enhances its aesthetics because it contributes to the run-down out-of-date feel of the entire ship. This is a part of one of Alien’s themes, that in the future there will be still be bad jobs. The dirt, hard work and danger of the Nostromo is the counterbalance to the shiny, clean Enterprise. The harshness of their working conditions explains why the characters are interested in investigating the strange planet if it brings them more money – or at least prevents them being fired. The computer design says more about information technology in the late 70s/early 80s, but the overall aesthetics of the film contributes to the narrative.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels are filled with gadgets that are atomic powered. From atomic blasters to atomic belts, the novels are a love letter to the optimism of the early 1950s. It was believed that the world would change completely now that atom was split, and it did. However atomic optimism melted away during the Cold War with the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, and today we see the belief that atomic power will solve all our energy problems as ridiculous as the idea of fitting a tiny nuclear reactor into a belt.

This said, Foundation is a record of how people felt when it was written. Asimov's vision of the future captures the mood of the time and reminds us of how the past viewed the future, which in turn tells us about the opinions of the past. After the Second World War and the devastation it left behind, by the early 1950s people were ready (and in fact needed) to feel good about the future, and recent technological progress was a something to feel good about. This coincided with the writing of some of the great science fiction books of the time including Author C. Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night and Robert A. Heinlein’s Red Planet.

Greg Bear's novel Eon was written in 1985 but is set in 2005. However, in this 2005 the Cold War is still raging, the Soviets have a moon base and Eastern and Western orbital weapons platforms face off against each other. This may seem ridiculous today but it is a telling insight into the fear in the 80s of a never-ending Cold War with expanding weapons and expanding horizons. Another example is 2001 (was made in 1968) which imagined our present to have Strong AIs, moon bases and human-piloted missions to Jupiter. Yet there is no internet, smart phones or social media.

These are the difficulties of predicting what society will be like in a few decades. Predicting hundreds or thousands of years into the future is impossible. Life in the year 4,000 maybe almost completely unrecognisable to people today. My advice to writers is not worry about making inaccurate future descriptions and concentrate on telling a good story.

Some works of science fiction are able to make accurate predictions about the future. One example which comes to mind is the film Minority Report, which accurately predicts a few current or near future technologies including gesture control, tablet computers and non-lethal law enforcement weapons (in this case, a personal water cannon).

Minority Report includes these devices because technology experts were brought in to consult on the film. Even with experts advising on everything from future car design to town planning, it is still only possible to accurately predict what is likely to change in the near future. Our lives today are radically different to the average Victorians’ and it will be nearly impossible for an author to accurately predict what day to day life will be like in 2150.

One way to avoid being a victim of the constantly evolving popular zeitgeist is to consciously evoke the look or themes of the past. Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar opted to go for a retro blocky look to its design. It would have been easy imagine an Apple future - all smooth surfaces, bright colours and thin glass - but instead the ships and robots of Interstellar are boxy, heavy and dark. They look more closely related to the above-mentioned BBC Micro than to our modern ideas of computers.

There are several possible reasons for this choice, one of which could be to imply that in the future smooth and sleek design has gone out of fashion and angular design is popular. This trend can already be seen when comparing the cuboid design of the PS4 and Xbox Obe with the curvey PS3 and Xbox 360. It could also be because Interstellar is set in a future where knowledge of machines and computing has been lost, and thus adopting a retro design visually implies technology is moving backwards.

Whatever the reason for this design, the effect is to give the film's look a feeling of timelessness. In our future, when design ideas have moved on, Interstellar will not look as out of date as it would have if it had been a vision of the future based on current ideas of what technology looks like.

If an author or filmmaker wants to avoid appearing out of date by accurately predicting what the future will be like, then they should set their work in the near future (like Minority Report) as it is only possible to predict the near future. However, the best way to avoid your work dating as Eon has is to adopt the themes or designs of the past as a model for your future. Jonathan L. Bowen, the director of the indie sci-fi film The Phoenix Project, described this as 'the eternal past'. Bowen’s film adopts past technologies and visual styles to avoid it looking out of date in the future.

It is also worth remembering that there is nothing wrong with an author's vision appearing dated if it serves the narrative (like Alien) or makes a statement about the present (like Foundation).

How we view the future is an important record of what values and ideas are important to us now. Our fears and aspirations provide deep insights into who we are. This is something every science fiction author or filmmaker should remember.

5 sci-fi board games

When I mention science fiction games, what comes to mind is something like Mass Effect or Halo - typically a first-person shooter on a console. Occasionally people think of PC strategy games like Starcraft or Command and Conquer, but there are a growing number of science fiction board games which capture the archetypes of the genre. The complexities of intergalactic power struggles, the subtle differences of species, the perils of the wider universe can be encapsulated very well in a board game. Below I have chosen five of my favourites, arranged in order from most accessible to most complex.

Galaxy Trucker

This is a really fun and very innovative game, in which you build and fly a cargo truck through a hazardous area of space. Galaxy Trucker has two sections: first you must build your truck, against the clock, using pieces from a pile of upturned ship components. Make sure you do not leave any internal sections exposed or modules loosely connected, or you will be in trouble later! Then you fly your ship around a system, collecting cargo, dodging asteroids and fending off pirates. Any weakness in your truck from the building stage will be quickly exposed as bits fall off, are knocked off, or are blown off.

Galaxy Truckers is unadulterated fun, from the panic of trying to piece together a working truck to the nerve-racking encounters on your cargo-hunting voyages, this game is an emotional rollercoaster. It is rather light on the details of specific sci-fi concepts, but there is enough to evoke the sense of the genre. The only flaw of this game is that if your ship falls apart completely early on, then it can be a dull round, but there are three rounds in a game and after the first I became pretty skilled at putting together a ship that would (mostly) survive. It is no secret that this is one of my favourite board games, which I would recommend to any serious board gamer or sci-fi fan. There is also a special bonus board on which you can build the Enterprise. Full marks for fan nods.

Pandemic

Pandemic is a contemporary-Earth-based game, but the story comes straight out of a science fiction novel. Several diseases are ravishing the world and a group of scientists, doctors and emergency response personnel must save humanity before it is too late. Pandemic is a globe hopping, disease fighting, cooperative game. Each player chooses a role (medic, researcher, etc.), and they must work together using each character's strengths to stop the spread of disease and research a cure.

Pandemic is different from most games because the players must work together against the game mechanics, the spread of disease. It is somewhere between an unusual board game and a very complex, constantly-changing puzzle. If you are tired of competitive board games causing family and friends to fall out, then Pandemic could be a solution. However, if you have a particularly bossy friend, they can make this game unpleasant by taking over. The story Pandemic tells is different each time and the narrative formed by the battle against the diseases is very engrossing. The game also becomes a lot more fun with the addition of the On The Brink expansion, which adds a Bio-Terrorist role whose mission is to work against the other players to aid the spreading of the diseases and bring about the end of the human race. Now what could be a more typically sci-fi villain character than that?

Eclipse

Eclipse is a game with a lot of replay value. The map can be put together in any number of ways and each player chooses a different alien race that has varying abilities at war, research, trade, etc. They then occupy areas of the galaxy and build a space fleet to engage with the other players. The board is built from segments as the player's fleets explore it, meaning that each game will have a different configuration.

The process of capturing space territories, extracting resources and building fleets is a lot of fun, as is customising the design of your warships with different components that your scientists research. The options are almost endless, which is why Eclipse is never boring. There are a lot of rules, and being a new player facing experienced players can be frustrating until you learn the game's details. This game perfectly captures the archetype of space opera in the range of weapon, shields and drives that are available. Finding all the different ways of fitting them together is what makes the game so addictive

Twilight Imperium

A full scale galactic power struggle between diverse aliens, taking into account environmental, culture, political, military and technology differences modelled with painstaking detail is how I would describe Twilight Imperium. On the surface it is similar to Eclipse as you have different races with different characteristics, these characteristics vary the resources, technologies and warships each race has, then spaced-based combat occurs. The difference with Twilight Imperium is the variety of play options: it has more races, more technologies and more worlds, but more importantly there are more ways for players to interact with each other. As well as military conflict, Twilight Imperium has political, scientific and economic competition, which each race handles differently.

Twilight Imperium’s selling point is that it is more complex, more involved and more realistic than most similar games. Despite its complexity and how long it takes to play, Twilight Imperium is a lot of fun. It really allows players to be devious and underhanded in many ways, as well as providing lots of different tactics to suit the style of the player. Certainly this is not a game for board game beginners, but avid gamers and sci-fi fans will find lots of fun here. Twilight Imperium really does capture the scale of galaxy-spanning epic science fiction, and the imagination that has gone into designing each race, its history, each world and all the technologies is commendable. The realism of the simulated conflict in Twilight Imperium has inspired the details of several writing projects of mine, as the plot produced by an individual game of Twilight Imperium can be as complex as Dune.

Android

Android is a complex narrative based noir/detective/sci-fi game. It takes place in a vaguely Blade Runner-esque future and revolves around different detectives solving a crime. Similarly to Twilight Imperium, the appeal of Android is the sheer variety of ways that the game can be played. The entire game is set up around a complex narrative with various events pushing your character towards optimism or depression, as well as towards any series of solutions to the case. Unlike Cluedo (Clue for our American readers), where the solution is fixed at the beginning of the game, in Android everything is constantly in flux and as you peel away the layers of the narrative, the culprit changes.

This game borrows heavily in terms of tone and plot from the sci-fi noir of Philip K Dick and Adam Christopher, and all of the different possible options means it has a complex and varied plot. Each game is like reading a different novel, which gives Android a lot of replay value. It is however, very complicated due to the sheer number of possible narrative changes. Generally I enjoy complex board games like Twilight Imperium, but even I thought Android had too many game modifiers and additional rules. It is impressive how they have managed to create a game mechanism which realistically recreates the feel of a novel narrative. I would recommend this game to any lover of sci-fi stories.

These are my choices, what are yours? Is there anything I have left off? There are sci-fi board games I have wanted to play but I have not had a chance yet, such as Space Cadets and the Starcraft board game. What are these like to play? Let me know below.

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.

Mockingjay - Part One

The third part of the film Hunger Games film series lends itself to some obvious criticisms, being the adaptation of first half of Suzanne Collins’s novel it could have been slow paced, with little plot development and suffering from having to set up the second, excitement filled part. In short it could have had the same problems as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or Twilight: New Moon. As well as being a part one there are also very high expectations, the film is based on a best selling novel and follows up two critically acclaimed box office topping hits. Mockingjay also stars run away box office sensation and critical darling Jennifer Lawrence. Between all these factors the stakes for Mockingjay - Part One are high. Despite all of this The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part One is a good film, the strong characters are put at the forefront of this picture and watching them is extremely entertaining.

The focus on their relationships grounds the film and stops it floating off into a debate about totalitarianism or being simply a series of vapid set pieces.

The strong performances from the able cast bring the characters to life (even those with little screen time), which makes the personal and interpersonal conflict vivid against what could have been the overpowering weight of the extra personal conflict. The three main conflicts are balanced against each other which stops the film becoming abstruse, melodramatic or just empty spectacle.

The personal conflict which follows Katniss Everdeen, Jennifer Lawrence, reluctantly becoming the face of the uprising against the oppressive Capitol, is handled well with an interesting exploration of the role of reluctant hero and the symbolic figure head. Katniss has always been a great reluctant hero, the perfect antidote to glory seeking superheroes that currently dominate the big screen.

Katniss’s reluctant hero is much more realistic and interesting to watch, Lawrence is ably shows the two sides of her personality: the raging Mockingjay, icon of the revolution, and the withdrawn teenage girl yearning for a normal life.

Lawrence is very good with the complex character of Katniss, bringing the character to life through her contradictions, from unrestrained anger at the violence of the Capital’s oppression,to heart breaking sadness when she sees the personal consequences of the struggle, to normal teenage angst and desire to be left alone by destiny. Where the character could have been confused, Lawrence makes her seems like a real person, filled with frailties and strengths.

Interpersonal conflict is very important in teenaged stories, with their strong focus on relationships. Mockingjay Part One avoids clichés even with characters who only appear briefly and could have been stereotypes. The supporting cast all get there moments to shine and each character adds a different dimension to the story, from the politicians and generals on either side, to Katniss family and friends struggling to live normal lives during a war.

I am glad Mockingjay Part One avoided a tired love triangle storyline common to many young adaptations. That would have been too obvious for a series as subtle as the Hunger Games and that is rooted in the extremes of life, from murderous teenagers to full scale open conflict between state and citizens.

More interesting interpersonal relationship are explored such as that of her family, her commanders and her enemies. The stand out performance of the film is Donald Sutherland as the Capital’s leader, the maniacal President Snow, who is equal parts Caligula and Stalin. A special mention must go to Philip Seymour Hoffman who turns in a great performance as calculating and manipulative Plutarch Heavensbee, producer of Katniss’s propaganda videos. He is great as ever, a talent that is sadly missed.

Some of the strongest moments of the film are in nuanced relationship drama. Extrapersonal plot developments, the rebellion itself, kept to a minimum or happen off screen so that they do not overpower the movie. This is not just a war film, it is about these characters continuing lives set against the backdrop of a war.

The most accomplished moments of extra personal conflict are not explosive action scenes but the contemplative scenes, Katniss visiting a field hospital or pausing for a few minutes by a lake. The strength of these scenes is that they also develop personal conflict, Katniss resolving to become the symbol they need in the field hospital, and the interpersonal conflict, Katniss bonding with her comrades at the lake side. Several conflicts turn on the same key emotional scenes, extra personal conflict and interpersonal conflict developing when Katniss sees a video of her love interests Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) doing propaganda video for the Capitol, rebel leader Alma Coin’s (Julianne Moore) speeches pushing personal and extrapersonal conflict forwards as Katniss becomes the Mockingjay and the rebellion steps up its efforts.

The war, or extrapersonal drama, is shown unflinchingly. The conflict we are shown is reminiscent footage we have all seen of the current conflicts in the Ukraine or Syrian. The ravishes of war in Mockingjay are also similar to reports I have read recent conflicts. The military set pieces appear to be modern, not futurist, or even looks a bit retro (the grey industrial landscape is reminiscent of the 70s or 80s) which makes the violence of the conflict appear very real. Mockingjay’s overall tone is grim tone, there is the horrors of war, the breakdown of personal relations and the Katniss doubt that if she can bear the weight of being the symbol the rebels need. The emotional tone is dark but the movie stops being oppressive by having enough inspiring movements such as the solidarity the rebels experience during a Capitol bombing raid.

The film is not perfect, it has some negative points. Peeta's character suffers from underdevelopment, not being particular interesting the first place and Hutcherson being a less than gifted actor. The rebellion could also have been explored more depth, the rebels are not shown as being completely virtuous but the politics are very one sided. The Capital is bad and the rebels are noble, reality is rarely like this and a more nuanced conflict would have been more realistic.

Despite these criticisms The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part One avoids all of the pitfalls it could have fallen into and ends up being a very well made film. The only drawback is that is raises expectations for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part Two. If part two can exceed part one than it will be a stunning end to the series. However the second half of Mockingjay turns out, I am certainly excited to see it after the strength of this film.

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.

Relatable superheroes

Superheroes offer a particular challenge to writers. When dealing with characters with greater than human abilities, it is important that the writer finds a way to make them relatable. If your superhero is practically invulnerable then your story will lack tension and your audience will struggle to relate to the character. A protagonist who cannot be harmed in any way cannot lose anything and nothing can stop them from achieving their goals. We relate to characters through the fact that they, like us, can be hurt, can experience loss and can have their ambitions thwarted. A character who cannot experience this is of little interest to a reader. In exploring this issue, I am going to look closely at a few examples – mainly Luc Besson’s film Lucy, which I saw recently.

Besson is known for bringing a certain visual flair to his films – he has a distinctive style which can be seen in work as diverse as Leon and The Fifth Element. However, impressive visuals do not make a movie: engaging characters and a gripping story are also necessary. Lucy is a treat for the eyes, but lacks dramatic tension because its protagonist is overpowered.

Scarlett Johansson plays Lucy, a hapless American tourist travelling in Taiwan. Lucy is kidnapped by gangsters and forced to carry a new drug to Europe. However, there is an accident and a lot of the drug ends up in Lucy’s bloodstream. Here it unlocks her ability to use more than 10% of her brain, which for some reason her gives her superpowers and eventually turns her into a godlike being.

This ridiculous plot is little more than window dressing for a series of spectacular fight scenes and glowing visual illustrations of Lucy's new found abilities. Some of these are breathtakingly beautiful, and some are a generic series of martial arts based fights that are little different from every other similar such scene since The Matrix.

Lucy quickly becomes so powerful that the gangsters cannot hurt her, but this happens too early in the film and we have had hardly any time to get to know Lucy as a person. The result is we do not empathise with her. This film has too much of The One and not enough Neo. To be able to relate to the protagonist, the audience needs time to get to know them before they become invulnerable.

Having weaknesses as well as strengths is an important part of making your protagonist relatable, despite Superman's strength he is powerless against Kryptonite. If your character has superhuman strength, then lack of technical knowledge gives them a weakness and makes them relatable. Another useful weakness for a super-powered character is to have a social dysfunction. They may have greater than human abilities, but if they cannot relate to other characters then they will suffer in the world of your story. Your super-powered protagonist should not be so powerful that they do not need friends.

The character of Wolverine in the X-Men films is a good example of this. Wolverine’s abilities make him practically invulnerable, but due to psychological damage he struggles in trusting other people. Wolverine’s greater than human physical abilities are not enough to achieve his goals and his less than human social skills make working with others to achieve them difficult. Tension comes from the audience waiting to see if Wolverine can work with the other X-Men or if his lone wolf personality will thwart him despite his super powers.

Speaking of friends, the supporting cast of your story is a great way to make a protagonist more relatable. Having friends who are vulnerable is a good weakness for a superhero to have. The Superman movies do this very effectively, as Superman can be hurt because he cares for Lois Lane and villains can threaten her. Superman stands to loose something important to him in the story, and so it has more tension and he becomes more relatable.

Lucy’s lack of character development injures the film in regard to the above. The eponymous heroine is not the only underdeveloped character, as all of the supporting cast suffer from this as well. It is with the supporting cast where this lack of development is mostly keenly felt. We do not learn much about Professor Norman (played by Morgan Freeman) other than that he is a scientist with theories relating to using more of the human brain. Similar Pierre Del Rio (Amr Waked), a Parisian police officer with whom Lucy works to defeat the gangsters, is also a mystery to us. We do not know about these people, their lives, dreams and goals (beyond presumable staying alive) so we cannot relate to them. Thus we cannot relate to Lucy through her relationship with the supporting cast. A better-developed and more sympathetic supporting cast would add tension to the film.

Usually Besson is good at balancing striking visuals along with solid character development and a gripping story. He managed this well during both Leon and The Fifth Element, both of which are well known for their visual spectacle and are well-loved for the strong bond which the audience gains with the characters on their journey. The latter is a good example of what Lucy could have been: The Fifth Element has breathtaking action as well as Besson's trademark provocative visuals, but it also has the Earthly charm of Bruce Willis at its core. The Fifth Element also features a woman of incredible powers as a protagonist, but in this case we empathise with Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) through her personal journey to find love in a chaotic and violent world. This is something we can all relate to, but by contrast we cannot relate to the physiological changes which Lucy is going through because we have never experienced anything like it. More could have been made of the personal losses that Lucy experiences to make her a more relatable character, but this is missing from the film.

The Matrix is a film which successfully creates a relatable protagonist in Neo (Keanu Reeves). We follow him as he discovers the truth of the world around him and eventually becomes the all-powerful ‘One’. Neo gains his godlike abilities right at the end of the movie and we have spent a long time following Neo while he was still human and vulnerable. Reliability comes from his very human vulnerability in the dangerous world of the Matrix.

The TV series Buffy: The Vampire Slayer also does a good job of making a super powered protagonist relatable. Buffy is powerful but not invulnerable. The slayer can be killed, so when she faces powerful antagonists like Spike there is a tension which Lucy lacks when she faces the Taiwanese gangsters. Buffy also has the same emotional vulnerability as any normal teenager, which means we can relate to her through shared experiences.

When creating a protagonist with greater than human abilities how relatable they are and the level of tension which you want for your story are important considerations for any writer. The character should have some vulnerability: either a physical weakness, the lack of a certain skill or an emotional vulnerability. The supporting cast of non-super powered characters need to be developed properly and the protagonist needs to have experiences in common with the audience. These experiences should be the everyday experiences of love, loss and emotional vulnerability, as it is through these shared experiences that we can relate to the character.

Above all, avoid a situation like Lucy, where the protagonist is invulnerable and underdeveloped, as the audience will struggle to relate to them. This is especially bad in a story with undeveloped supporting characters, thus closing off other avenues of empathy. A good place to start is looking carefully at super hero stories you have enjoyed and thinking why you relate to the protagonist of that story.

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!

Zombies are not dead

I had become tired of zombies. For a while , zombies were my favourite sci-fi B-movie villain. There had been a string of really good zombie movies, most of them British. 28 Days Later (2002) updated zombies to a modern urban environment and made them scary again. Shaun of the Dead (2004) brought zombies to my manor of North East London and managed to be a movie that was in equal parts genuine horror and hilarious character-based comedy.

Then it all went wrong, with a string of formulaic Hollywood zombie films. Finally there was Zombieland (2009); billed as pastiche of the zombie movie, it lacked either humor or charm. What Zombieland proved was that when a genre reaches the point of being mocked it has completely run out of original ideas.

What makes Zombieland boring where Shaun of the Dead was brilliant was that the latter was a completely serious and scary zombie movie with funny characters. Zombieland aimed far lower, at being a straight comedy, and managed to be not even particularly funny – although Bill Murray did have a great cameo.

For a while, I was tired of zombies and thought that nothing could rekindle my interest. Then three great titles came along, and none of them were films.

First was the Playstation 3 game The Last Of Us released in 2013. Set in a world which has collapsed after a zombie uprising, the story follows Joel, who lost his daughter during in the initial zombie uprising and now lives a cynical, survivalist life. He is given the job of transporting Ellie, a teenage girl who might hold the cure to the zombie inflection, across America. The journey is long and dangerous, they have to face zombies, dangerous survivalists, soldiers and cannibals. During the journey Joel and Ellie bond and Joel is eventually able to reconcile the loss of his daughter.

The Last Of Us succeeded where a lot of zombie movies have failed by having engaging characters. Joel and Ellie have a great dynamic and have a real emotional journey. There is more to their story then just surviving zombies, they have to find a way to live in a world that has collapsed. As an audience, we are frightened when they are threatened because we want them to survive. The story and the writing of The Last Us was much stronger than any film I have seen recently.

Last year, In The Flesh (2013) started on the BBC. It began with only three episodes but managed to be easily the best show of 2013. Earlier this year, a second series with a full six episodes was shown and this cemented the show’s reputation as one of the best on TV right now.

In the Flesh is also set after a zombie uprising but, unlike The Last of Us, civilization defeated the zombies and found a partial cure through regular injections of a new drug. Now the former zombies are being returned to society as PDS (partially deceased syndrome) suffers. The show follows Kieren Walker, who is returned to his family in the small Yorkshire village of Roarton. Kieren faces the prejudice and open hostility of a small community coming to terms with a big change.

In the shows zombies or PDS suffers are clearly a metaphor for the social changes which have gone on in Britain since the 1960s. Part allegory on immigration, part analogy for homosexuality, In the Flesh makes a point about how hard it is for people to accept others who are different, even within their own family. Kieren goes on a painful emotional journey, where he has to deal with the circumstances of his death, the hostility of people he used to call friends, the rise of a new anti-PDS political party, and an undead separatist movement.

In the Flesh is gripping because it has an intelligent point to make, but it also has strong characters and an emotionally-engaging story. We long for Kieren eventually to find someway he can live in peace, despite his difference.

Recently I have finished reading M.R. Carey’s The Girl With All The Gifts (published June 2014), which is also set in a world after a zombie uprising. As in The Last Of Us, humanity only survives in a few survivalist camps and the rest of the world has been overrun with zombies, or ‘hungries’ as they called in the book. The novel follows Melanie, a girl in a strange school on an army base. In many ways Melanie has a normal life – she loves school, has a crush on her teacher Miss Justineau, and enjoys stories about the Greek myths – but quickly we learn that there is something very unusual about Melanie.

Melanie and the children in her class are caught somewhere between being human and a violent ‘hungry’. They can learn and talk but also have insatiable desire to eat human flesh. She is a part of program to study the hungries to find a cure. When the school is attacked, Melanie, Miss Justineau, the brutish Sergeant Parks, the callous Dr. Caldwell and the green Private Gallagher are thrown out into the dangerous world of hungries and violent survivalists known as junkers. Surviving in the ruins of London relies on them all working together, but as the novel progresses they find it hard to trust each other.

The Girl With All The Gifts is one of those novels which grabs you on page one and whisks you away with a captivating story. Although Melanie is a strange character to be inside the head of, her sense of wonder at the world outside her classroom is completely captivating. The novel has nail-biting tension, beautiful writing and engaging characters. Carey plays with the reader’s sympathy and it is brilliant how he is able to make you fall in love with characters you hated at the beginning of the novel.

All three of these works leave the wider zombie situation unresolved, and instead focus on the characters and their emotional journey. We can relate to them as people searching for friends, love or home in a hostile world, as it is something we have all experienced to a greater or lesser extent. In these three cases, good writing and engaging characters make a great zombie story, just as they make a great story in any other genre.

It is also interesting that none of these stories focus on the initial zombie uprising but instead deal with how people live in a changed world. Stories about zombie uprisings have been done to death, but there is still life in the zombie genre by finding original ways to approach zombie stories. Zombie films may be dead, but my love of zombies lives on in other media.

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.

The Punk Writer

Every writer wants that distinctive voice which brings their prose to life in a unique way. Something which makes their work stand out in the enormous pile of manuscripts that agents and publishers receive. When I think about individualism, standing out and not being bland, I think about punk. The music of The New York Dolls or the Sex Pistols seems to have little to teach the aspiring sci-fi or fantasy writer, but many authors have adopted the punk aesthetic to bring flair to their writing.

Punk has its origins in the sense of alienation and social breakdown caused by deindustrialisation in the 1970s, themes explored by sci-fi writers such as J.G. Ballard. Punk also attempts to fight back against conformist mainstream culture and overbearing culturally-conservativepowers, which authors have also explored – such as China Mieville in his book, The Iron Council. For a novel to have the punk suffix (steampunk, cyberpunk, etc) it should contain an element of rebellion in the story and an individualistic style, this is the connection between literary punk subgenres and the musical form of punk.

Mieville is an interesting case study as an author who has adopted the punk aesthetic and applied it his writing to create an original and distinctive style. In order to explore this fully, I will compare Mieville's writing to my personal favourite punk band, the Dropkick Murphys.

The first thing these two have in common is that they are not typical of their genre. Mieville describes himself as a ‘wired fiction writer’, however his ‘Bas Lag’ trilogy of novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar and The Iron Council) have elements of the fantasy, sci-fi and horror genres. Set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag, most of the action of the loose trilogy occurs in the city of New Crobuzon, a steampunk vision of Victorian London, where magic (or thaumaturgy, as Mieville calls it) sits alongside smoke stacks and workhouses, where steam-powered robots known as constructs perform heavy tasks, illegal newspapers sow dissent and a seditious killer preys on the vulnerable.

The Dropkick Murphys blend the hard and fast Oi style of punk to traditional Irish folk music. Fiddles, bodhráns, bagpipes, tin whistles, accordions and mandolins are frequently used in their music, alongside drums, bass and guitars. The raw, coarse energy of the traditional punk power trio enthused is fused with Massachusetts Irish culture, which has come to be known as Celtic Punk.

Both China Mieville and the Dropkick Murphys mix different genres and styles to create something distinctive. They have a wide variety of influences which makes their work individual and original – something all authors seek to be.

Another thing the two have in common is that their output is an aggressive statement of individualism. Punk is about not conforming to established ideas of taste or beauty but expressing your own view on what is beautiful. The Dropkick Murphys aggressive Oi style makes no attempts to conform to what could be considered pleasant or easy to listen to, and their music is fast, hard and aggressive. They also express their individualism through the influence of their Massachusetts Irish background; everything from the Red Shocks to the AFL-CIO trade union are brought into their songs, which makes them unique has a punk band.

All of China Mieville's novels contain scenes that are written with the intention of making the reader's stomach turn. Mieville is a visceral writer, whose creations have distorted anatomies and behave in grotesque or violent ways. His writing makes no allowance for what the reader might find tasteful and in fact deliberately seeks to shock and offend. Mieville's also draws on his interest in Marxist politics, role-playing games and the writing of H.P. Lovecraft to express his individuals.

China Mieville and the Dropkick Murphys refuse to conform to accepted standards of taste, as well as drawing on their background to find what makes them unique as an artist. This is the key to what makes these two unique, interesting and individual, and it is essential to what punk can teach us about being a distinctive writer. Both seek to be provocative, or even offensive. Punk is an aggressive display of nonconformity which can be found in both the Dropkick Murphys’ music and China Mieville's writing, and they both adopt this disregard of established tastes to create original work.

As a writer, there is no sense in being timid or second-guessing what you want to say because you feel it might conflict with the established sense of what is acceptable. Writers who do this tend to be comfortist and boring, their prose is filled with unnecessary restraints and is dull and unimaginative. If you want to be a success as writer then it is necessary to make your writing unique, memorable and individual, and not to spend too much timing worrying if this confirms to someone else’s view of what is acceptable. This is the lesson that punk can teach writers.

Neither China Mieville nor the Dropkick Murphys are typical of their genre, but punk is about being atypical. By being atypically punk, the Dropkick Murphys are being punk. China Mieville is punk in the way he writes provocatively, confrontationally and by making an aggressive statement of individualism. Punk is about not being shy or conforming to how the establishment thinks you should behave. What punk can teach writers is to be bold, be yourself and not give a damb about what others think you of.

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.

Foundation Retrospective

Christmas 2001 and the world was gripped by the ‘Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring’, which exploded into cinemas with almost unanimous critical approval and huge box office success. It was the film everyone had to see. However, what is less well known is that New Line Cinema only embarked on the plan to adapt Tolkein’s seminal fantasy novel after a plan to make a very different trilogy of films collapsed. In 1998, New Line were busy developing film versions of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels. How different would film be today if they had succeeded? Asimov is best known for his Robot novels (I, Robot; Caves of Steel, etc) but his Foundation novels have perhaps had an even greater influence on science fiction. The Foundation series began life as a series of short stories published in Astounding Magazine between 1942 and 1950, which were collected into the first novel, Foundation, in 1951. Two further novels, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation followed in 1952 and 1953 respectively. All were well received and quickly became classics of post-war science fiction. In 1965, Asimov was award a special Hugo for Best All-Time Series, beating The Lord of the Rings to the title.

Foundation’s influence upon the rest of the genre is subtly but persistent. Most obviously, Asimov was the first to use the concept of a world being covered by one vast city. Trantor, the capital of the Asimov’s future human empire, is echoed across sci-fi books and film, from the vision of the future of Earth in ‘The Fifth Element’ to Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Republic/Empire in the Star Wars films. Trantor has reappeared again and again since Asimov first imagined it during the Second World War. Many other classic works give nods to Foundation, most notably The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy name drops the Encyclopaedia Galactica, the great compendium of all human knowledge which the Foundation is working to collect.

Foundation is set in the distant future, where one single human empire covers the entire galaxy. On the imperial capital, Trantor, the empire’s greatest scientist, Hari Seldon, claims that he has found a means to predict the future of human society through a new science, which he calls psychohistory. Through complex mathematics, Seldon has discovered that the empire is doomed and will soon collapse. This will be followed by ten thousand years of barbarism, but this could be reduced to a mere thousand if the greatest scientists are gathered together to create a library of all human knowledge, the Encyclopaedia Galactica. This group will be known as the Foundation and, after a thousand years, will emerge to found the Second Empire. Seldon’s plan is approved, but the Foundation is consigned to the remote world of Terminus at the far end of the galaxy from Trantor.

The book then chronicles the Foundation’s attempts to survive and thrive in the years of chaos which come after the collapse. The scientists of the Foundation are guided by Seldon’s plan and his map of how events will play out. However, unforeseen and extremely unlikely events shift the fate of the galaxy away from Seldon’s plan, which must later be re-established by the Second Foundation.

Foundation was one of the earliest novels of what we now understand as science fiction. Distinct from the dystopian fiction of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, Asimov became known as one of the big three writers of science fiction, together with Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. The Foundation novels are a love letter to the 1950s technological optimism that can be seen in Hergé’s Tintin or the British TV show Space 1999. When Asimov was writing Foundation, the atom had just been split for the first time and it was thought that atomic energy would transform every aspect of our lives. The Foundation novels are filled with atomic blasters and nuclear belts which seem dated now, but which preserve a vision of what we thought the future would be like. Future generations may think the same about current authors’ enthusiasm for nano technology.

However, Foundation is also tinged with fear for what the future will hold. The collapse of human civilization is discussed at length in the books, something which was on everyone’s mind as the world entered the nuclear age and the Cold War began. As America and the USSR tested larger and larger bombs it was felt that humanity needed Hari Seldon to imagine our survival after the complete destruction of our civilization. This fear of the future can be seen in the cinema of the 1950s, where popular films included a remake of ‘Godzilla’ in 1954, an adaptation of ‘1984’ in 1956 and ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ in 1951, where an alien chastises humanity for our self-destructive streak.

Foundation was out of step with the trend of its time, but now this in common place, with superhero movies from ‘Iron Man’ to ‘The Fantastic Four’ regularly featuring scientists as heroes. The ‘Stargate’ TV series is a good example of a science fiction show in which scientists and soldiers work side by side to save humanity. The spin off, ‘Stargate Atlantis’, also borrows heavily from Foundation. Set in a galaxy where war has wiped out most of humanity, one last bastion of science and civilization holds out against the chaos. Over 70 years after Hari Seldon and the Foundation first appeared in print, its influence upon science fiction is still profound.

Isaac Asimov created a series of novels which continue to astonish today with their intricate plotting, vivid imagination and sprawling narrative. Over the following decades, other great writers have been inspired by his work in their own creations, and it is this which gives him the status of titan of the genre. The Foundation novels are essential reading for any science fiction writer (especially in the space opera or hard sci-fi subgenres), as Asimov has a created a story that is as enduring and brilliant as The Lord of the Rings.