Review: The City in the Middle of the Night

The story of this Hugo nominated novel takes place on the planet January, a sphere tidally locked to its star, creating two worlds, one scorched by constant sunlight, the other a cold world of endless night. Humans barely survive in the narrow twilight world that borders both extremities. 

The story begins with a sacrifice. Sophie takes the blame for a theft committed by her roommate Bianca, her punishment for this trivial misdemeanour, to be hurled down a steep precipice to the night world and almost certain death. Unexpectedly, Sophie is saved by a fearsome alien life form (the Gelids) and returned to her twilight home, Xiosphant.  

The setting up of the story was a delight. Anders builds tension with skilled prose, quickly capturing reader interest. 

The characters were well defined but I found little about them to interest me which made the overly long middle section of the novel a challenge. It's a pity, given the well-executed opening scenes. The main protagonist, Sophie engages the Gelid early but further contact is minimal until the final section, where she journeys to their dark world to understand the strange connection she feels for them. This was the most compelling section of the novel, but for me, too little too late.

That said, this is a unique tale of survival and adaption to the harshest of environments, offering one of the better descriptions of what an alien race may be like. Four Stars

Review: The Ten Thousand Doors of January

January Scaller is raised as a ward of the wealthy Mr Locke, a member of the exclusive New England Archaeological Society, who employs her father, Julian Scaller, to acquire objects of interest from around the world. As a consequence, January grows up in an emotionally isolated setting, mostly without the love and guidance of her father. She makes amends for her loneliness, exploring the many artefacts that fill Mr Locke’s grand house, it’s mysteries stirring her developing imagination.

Stifled in her adolescence, January embarks on a journey of self-discovery in her late teens, when she discovers a mysterious leather book that carries the promise of adventure, discovery and love, all just a step removed from ten thousand secret doors.

The dream-like prose is reminiscent of many great tales told a century earlier, with its protagonist yearning to fit into the world, but never fully able. I look forward to finishing this Hugo nominated novel and re-engage with the wondrous world created by Harrow’s polished prose.

The Hugo Awards

The 2020 Hugo Awards are fast approaching. A favourite annual literary award for the best SFF works and considered the premier award in science fiction. It has been operating since 1955. A good database to see all the winners of the Hugo’s, as well as all other major SFF awards, is at science fiction awards database

CoNZealand will hold the event in 2020, which due to the Coronavirus pandemic will only be viewed online from July 29 to August 2.

I’ve been reading some of the recent previous winners of the award in preparation for the upcoming event. The author, N K Jemisin has dominated the awards with her trilogy: The Fifth Season; The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, winning the last three Hugo’s in a row. Prior to that, Mary R Kowal’s novel, The Calculating Stars and Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem took the award. 

There’s an interesting bunch this year, so I hope to read all of the 2020 nominations before the award night. The nominations for the major award are:

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Sanders;

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow;

Middle Game by Seanan McGuire;

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley; and 

Gideon the Ninth by Tasman Muir.

Review: The Obelisk Gate

The key protagonist, Essun, remains the hero in The Obelisk Gate, as she settles into the underground community of Castrima. The surprise element of the previous book where all three POV characters are Essun at different stages of her life, is replaced with two main protagonists, Essun and her daughter Nassun, as they struggle to survive in a deteriorating world. 

Nassun flees her hometown of Tirimo with her dangerously unpredictable father to the community of Found Moon where she is ultimately guided by the Guardian, Schaffa, who once guided her mother. Essun, with the help of Alabaster, further develops her orogene skills to prepare for the increasingly violent battle, raged by Father Earth against reckless human activity that led to the loss of its Moon.

Somewhere along the way, I lost interest in both protagonist’s, not really caring for either of them. I’ll put it down to the excessive descriptions used, no doubt setting up for the final instalment, but it read like two separate stories. I’d have given up on this book all together if not for Jemisin’s undoubted writing skills and the fact I so enjoyed book one. I suspect the third instalment will be as enjoyable as book one, as Essun’s and Nassun’s lives finally come together for the story’s resolution. Despite the trilogy’s slow middle, it remains a truly unique fantasy world told by a talented writer. 

Review: The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season is an epic story of survival in an unstable planet, oppressed by nature - Father Earth, and human against human. Earth is the main antagonist where seasons are separated between simmering volcanic, seismic, atmospheric and geomagnetic disturbances and utter devastation. Human mutants, orogenes, are used to subdue the violent earth, delaying the inevitable tide of cataclysmic extinction. The controlled environment known as the stillness allows a temporary beleaguered civility for its citizens,  but still the orogene’s power is feared and hated by the humans they protect and exploited by an elite ruling group known as the guardians. 

The Fifth Season spans three seemingly disparate times on Earth. All three protagonists are orogene women: the child, Damaya, being trained to properly develop her orogene powers; Syenite, a 4 ring orogene, who is sent on a mission with the experienced 10 ring orogene, Alabaster; and Essun, the older mother who leaves home to find her husband who murdered her son and took her daughter. There’s a secret in this multiple point-of-view story that surprises and enhances this epic story. Told in the second-person narrative, Jemisin effectively submerges the reader into her imagined future Earth that sits atop our own civilisation, long ago buried. Life barely survives a genocidal Father Nature where memories of honouring the once revered Mother Nature are long forgotten.

This bleak, savage world is akin to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, where humanity is assaulting its own, even though life on Earth borders on extinction. However, unlike The Road, Jemisin offers a glimmer of hope for civilisation that nature can be changed.

Review: The Calculating Stars

Mary R Kowal’s novel - The Calculating Stars - takes place in an alternate history where the USA’s scientists are not driven by the Soviet Union space race, rather by a global disaster that may end the human race. A destructive meteorite has destroyed many major cities in the USA, initiating a similar climate change pattern that led to the extinction of the dinosaur. The world’s scientists unite to fast-track space exploration so that the human race can survive the pending green house disaster.

The 1950s is not my favourite time period for story telling, yet despite my preconceived bias, I couldn’t stop reading this book. This in no small part, is due to Kowal’s word craft, but also her engaging main character, Elma York. It’s Elma’s enduring hope that strikes a chord and carries the reader through the hurdles and triumphs in her life, from barely surviving the meteorite strike to becoming an astronaut.

I also liked the way Kowal balanced the societal impact with the technological challenges, eliciting the human struggle that would be faced attempting to colonise other worlds. Racism, sexism and the stigma of mental health are rife in the 1950’s, yet despite these hurdles, Elma maintains a strong sense of hope and empathy for the many characters that come into her life.

The personal narrative accentuates Elma’s struggle - a woman in a male dominated industry determined to follow her dream. She never loses faith, even while facing harrowing personal and technical challenges. I particularly enjoyed the seamless way in which Kowal blended the technical craft of flying with Elma’s personal feelings as she took on those challenges. This brought a raw realism to many memorable scenes, creating a believability that made you me to read more.

Review: The Three Body Problem

Where Cixin Liu’s characters fall short, his world building shines, as does his take on theoretical physics, which dazzles like a noon day sky filled with three suns!

In the vein of A C Clark, Liu imagines the history changing event of first contact with extraterrestrials, while setting it against the tumultuous latter 20th century political history of China.

The story opens in the cultural revolution of the late 1960’s where Ye Wenjie’s father, a well known physicist is beaten to death by Red Guard fanatics, leaving a permanent scar on her faith in the world. She is ultimately conscripted to a secret Red Coast base, a telecommunications centre where she discovers proof of extraterrestrials. 

Fast forward to the not too distant future where prominent scientists are being murdered. Shi Quian, a quirky and wily police officer is investigating these events. A scientist, Wang Maio, a nano materials researcher is drawn into Shi’s world, soon witnessing inexplicable and disturbing events, including playing a strange VR game, ‘Three Body’, which simulates an unstable and declining world in another star system. This ultimately ties into an actual world, Trisolaris and their inhabitant’s own desperate plans for survival.

Character development is the weakest link in this otherwise dazzling world envisaged by Cixin Liu. Even more extraordinary is Lui’s bold take on theoretical physics, seemingly challenging the boundaries of scientific investigation with his inspiring imagination, a prerequisite for great ‘hard’ science fiction. He achieves this in spades, making his work shine with the intensity of three suns!