The Reference Library
by Sean CW Korsgaard
As I wrap this column, icy winds and winter storms have left my power flickering, so by the time you’re reading this issue of Analog in late spring, I hope it finds all of you under sunnier skies.
Once more, I lament I come to you again ahead of the summer blockbuster season, and I’ve still yet to find some recent works of science fiction involving sharks.
What books do however I share with you this issue run the spectrum from the big and bombastic, to the intensely raw and personal.
These include what may well be the one of the biggest theme anthologies I’ve ever read, and certainly among the most comprehensive. Not one, but two novels that explore bringing back the woolly mammoths from extinction, that execute upon the concept in very different ways. An alternate history murder mystery set after the closing days of the American Civil War, and a short story collection from one of Afrofuturism’s rising stars. A rollicking war story following a woman and artificial intelligence paired from birth to pilot a tank, finding enemies on all sides. A debut novel about a dying mother and her toddler son together on an odyssey across a post-apocalyptic Britian seeking sanctuary. And a retro-styled throwback following a unit of Green Berets on a mission to save Earth from invasion, who find they may have to save a version of Mars pulled straight from Golden Age science fiction first to do it.
I hope a few of these books will help you kick off your summer reading with some true showstoppers.
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The Big Book of Cyberpunk
Edited by Jared Shurin
Vintage Books, 1116 pages, $32.50 (Trade Paperback)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $14.99
ISBN: 978-0593467237
Genre: Cyberpunk, Artificial Intelligence, Dystopian SF, Psychological/ Sociological SF, Reprint Anthology, World SF
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One thing I’ve learned very quickly in my brief time in this industry—as a reader, reviewer, author, and anthology editor—is that almost no anthology ever gets to be as comprehensive as you may want it to be. Sometimes contracts fall through, stories aren’t finished on time, or there are issues with the estate. One story may be too long, or too short, or doesn’t quite fit the theme or there may be too many of the same kind of story. You are limited by both page count and budget.
The Big Book of Cyberpunk stands in direct contradiction to all of that, and that it comes as close to a comprehensive collection of the cyberpunk subgenre is as enormous an achievement as its page count.
Frankly, I may well be understating the full scope and ambition of this anthology—it spans, not including an introduction from editor Jared Shurin, 108 separate stories that cover over seven decades of genre fiction from around the world. The oldest story reprinted in the anthology, “Coming Attractions” by Fritz Lieber, first ran in the second issue of Galaxy magazine in 1950, and has been anthologized and collected over two dozen times previously. The newest story, “The Tin Pilot” by K.A. Teryna, first published in the July/August issue of our sister magazine Asimov’s, won’t even be two years old by the time this column runs.
The international spectrum of the stories, some appearing in English for the first time, and the authors included are also among the most impressive I’ve ever seen in an anthology. These include authors from Korea (Yun Ko-eun), Nigeria (Wole Talabi), Russia (Victor Pelvin), France (Jean-Marc Ligny), Sri Lanka (Yudhanjaya Wijeratne), and Israel (Lavie Tidhar), to name a few. If ever you needed proof that the cyberpunk genre has become truly international in scope, just look toward these pages.
As for the stories themselves, they range in tone from pulpy action-adventure to more thoughtful and reflective, and cross the full range of the cyberpunk subgenre, ranging from corporate warfare and transhumanism to techno-libertarianism and Afrofuturism, and everything in between. There are the definitive classics, opening with William Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum”, as well as the likes of “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Phillip K. Dick and Bruce Bethke’s “Cyberpunk,” but it’s where you find the cult hits and forgotten gems of the genre that The Big Book of Cyberpunk hits its stride—some of my personal favorites included “The Endless” by Saad Z. Hossain, “Wolves of the Plateau” by John Shirley, and “I Can Transform You” by Maurice Broaddus. Even avid genre readers are likely to discover dozens of stories for the first time.
To highlight another significant inclusion, The Big Book of Cyberpunk marks the first time ever that Isabel Fall’s Hugo-nominated “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” appears in physical print, censors and bullies be damned, which nearly by itself merits this anthology a place on any genre fan’s shelves.
The selections aren’t completely perfect—the weakest story of the collection is easily Janelle Monae’s “The Memory Librarian”, and one has to wonder if its inclusion had more to do with the celebrity of its author rather than the merits of the story—and I’m probably not going to be the first one who wishes the book was available in hardcover, given the combination of its length and a few rereadings can and will push that trade paperback lining to the breaking point.
But those are minor quibbles in the face of what an achievement this anthology truly is: as comprehensive a collection of cyberpunk science fiction as has ever been assembled, equal parts showcase and textbook. Whether you’ve been rocking out to the genre for decades or have just begun to dive in, looking to reconnect with old favorites or discover something new, this anthology is a must own.
The Big Book of Cyberpunk more than lives up to both its name and the genre so many have come to love since William Gibson first wrote of skies the color of television screens, tuned to a dead channel.
* * *
The Tusks of Extinction
Ray Nayler
Tordotcom, 112 pages, $26.99 (hardcover)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $13.99
ISBN: 978-1250855527
Genre: Ecological/Environmental SF, Climate Change SF, Biological SF, Psychological/Sociological SF
* * *
Extinction
Douglas Preston
Forge Books, 288 pages, $20.99 (hardcover)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $14.99
ISBN: 978-0765317704
Genre: Technothriller, Climate Change SF, Biological SF, Hard SF
* * *
I feel like, as a concept, Pleistocene rewilding doesn’t attract nearly the level of excitement that it should, given the enormous impacts it could have on everything from environmentalism to wildlife preservation. That we may soon possess the ability to bring some animals back from extinction is incredible—as are the multitude of questions that raises. So, I present you with not one, but two brilliant novels out in the first half of 2024, both addressing the resurrection of the mammoth and its consequences while also serving as a perfect showcase for how two authors can look at the same concept and explore it in two wildly divergent directions.
Ray Nayler, hot off of the success of his first novel The Mountain in the Sea, revisits many of the same themes of animal intelligence, man’s relationship with nature, and how human greed has a nasty way of jeopardizing both in The Tusks of Extinction. Nayler quickly proves just as adept at exploring the minds of a mammoth as he did octopi, even as he centers his latest novel on a scientist tasked with exploring the mind of a mammoth very literally.
Dr. Damira Khismatullina was the world’s leading scientist studying elephant behavior while she was alive—she’s now been dead over a year, violently killed by poachers in an ultimately failed attempt to save some of the last remaining elephants from extinction. Her preserved digitized consciousness lives on, however and is given the chance to live again—albeit not as a human.
Russia has revived the mammoth, only to discover that, like their now-extinct elephant cousins, mammoths depend on generational knowledge among the herd to survive in the wild, a knowledge none of the animals possess, and now must be taught. So Damira’s mind has been downloaded into the mind of the matriarch of one of the newly created mammoth herds being released into Siberia. Fitting that a scientist brought back from the dead should be the one to teach a species brought back to life how to live again—and having once been killed by poachers herself, to beware the dangers humankind presents.
Nayler remains perhaps one of the most interesting authors writing today when it comes to exploring non-human intelligence, be it cephalopod or elephantidea. The Tusks of Extinction makes great use of Damira as the primary viewpoint character, and watching her slowly go native as leader of the mammoth herd is an arc I would have happily seen this all too brief book explore more.
If Nayler was interested in the animal side of the de-extinction equation, Douglas Preston’s Extinction is far more focused on the human side of it. Preston has been a staple of the technothriller scene for over 30 years by this point, he also worked for the American Museum of Natural History, and both parts of his background come into play in his latest novel.
Nestled in the Colorado Rockies exists the Erebus Resort, a hundred-thousand-acre wildlife preserve where visitors can see once long extinct animals like the mammoth, giant sloth, and Irish elk exist once more. The kidnapping and murder of a billionaire’s son and his new bride in the park while on their honeymoon draws the attention of local law enforcement, with Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Frances Cash and county sheriff James Colcord tasked with tracking down the couple’s killers.
Initially assumed to be the work of a group of eco-terrorists, that theory goes out the window as more people end up killed in the park. As the body count climbs, a conspiracy is uncovered, and the park is evacuated. Cash and Colcord know this much about the perpetrators: They kill with a level of malevolence, are highly intelligent, and most terrifyingly of all, are not human.
It is among the highest compliments I can give Extinction that it’s evocative of the very best of Michael Crichton. Many will draw parallels between this book and Crichton’s Jurassic Park, but Extinction offers more than enough to deserve a look on its own merits. The central murder mystery is compelling, as are the twists taken along the way. The attention given to the hard science behind rewilding and what it would take to create something like the Erebus Resort is commendable.
I reviewed these books together because in many ways, they work far better as companion pieces than competition. Both offer a look into some of the wild possibilities de-extinction and rewilding offer, and how human greed and hubris may result in follies for both. They even both offer extensive afterwards from the authors where they offer a look into some of the science and inspiration behind the novels.
Plenty to sink your tusks, er, teeth into.
* * *
The Murder of Andrew Johnson
Burt Solomon
Forge Books, 276 pages, $32.99 (hardcover)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $16.99
ISBN: 978-0765392725
Series: John Hay Mysteries 3
Genre: Alternate History, SF Mystery, Political Thriller
* * *
If there is one thing most of my fellow Americans can agree to dread about 2024, it’s that it’s an election year, so perhaps an alternate history political thriller centered on the assassination of an unpopular, scandal-ridden president could be seen as too timely. At least until I mention the president in question is Andrew Johnson.
An easy contender for one of the nation’s worst chief executives, and perhaps the most hated man in America at the time of his death, that The Murder of Andrew Johnson turns his death into a compelling whodunit and political caper is a marvel.
The year is 1875, and less then ten years after the end of the War Between the States, former President Andrew Johnson may well be the only man well and truly hated by both sides. To the North, he is the man who sabotaged Reconstruction, stonewalled Republicans in Congress, and whose actions led him to become the first president impeached. To the South, he is a scalawag, a Southern loyalist who sided against the Confederacy, and whose reconciliation efforts are seen as half measures. Yet even Johnson has a diminishing group of loyal die-hard followers and even managed to recently secure himself a seat in the US Senate. It seems the man who has bedeviled both North and South shall continue to vex both for years to come.
That is until, mere months after his ascension to the Senate, he dies, to the celebration of many.
Enter John Hay, lawyer, reporter for the New-York Tribune, and occasional detective, who while on assignment covering the death of the former President, suspects that the death was not a natural one. The list of possible suspects consists of a long list of enemies ranging from Republican officials in Washington, Confederate loyalists in the South, and even members of his own family. Hay’s search for answers and the truth will see him uncover details about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, corruption within the reigning Grant administration, and a few that may put his own life in danger. Just how much is he willing to risk finding the killer of the most hated man in America?
Compared to many works of alternate history, the points of divergence from our own history in The Murder of Andrew Johnson are small and subtle—Johnson’s death by foul play, rather than a series of strokes, being the most obvious, along with a few small changes mostly centered on the Lincoln assassination and linked attempts on the lives of then Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. What’s shocking is just how otherwise historically faithful the novel is—Solomon extensively details his sources in his notes, as well as how much is pulled from our own history and what was changed for the sake of the novel.
Much like the other loosely connected John Hay mystery novels, much of the appeal comes from the central character’s talent for observation, and how his investigations will often cross paths with key figures and events of the day, Hercule Poirot with the luck of Forrest Gump. It’s also wonderful to see a period accurate depiction of Cleveland, Washington DC, and Tennessee as beautifully realized in meticulous detail as Solomon does here.
For fans of murder mysteries and alternate history, and avid readers of Civil War history, The Murder of Andrew Johnson makes for as compelling a journey as the central caper.
* * *
Beyond Enemies
Marisa Wolf
Baen Books, 416 pages, $18.00 (trade paperback)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $8.99
ISBN: 978-1982193218
Genre: Military SF, Artificial Intelligence, SF Thriller
* * *
I am finishing this column not long after the legendary David Drake has passed away, so it isn’t too surprising that when it came time for this issue’s column, I was looking for some rock-solid military science fiction, and a new science fiction novel involving futuristic tanks. On both counts, Marisa Wolf’s Beyond Enemies more than stands and delivers.
Talinn Reaze and her artificial intelligence Bee serve as equal halves of “Breezy,” one of many parings of the United Colonial Force’s elite Artificial Intelligence Troops. The AITs, or Eights, are paired together to perfectly compliment the respective weaknesses of a solo human or artificial intelligence pilot, whose training and integration begin while the human half is still in gestation. The resulting integrated pairs make them among the most effective front-line troops the UCF has. Breezy has led several assaults on the front during the war against the Interstellar Defense Corps.
Which makes Breezy’s current duty posting—garrison duty on an uninhabited planet that the UCF hasn’t even bothered to name—questionable. The monotony is broken by a sudden attack from an unknown source, followed by strange orders from command that gathered many of the Eights in one location, raising further questions. And the answers to them will change Talinn and Bee’s views of the war, and of themselves—and there are dangerous foes with designs on them, and maybe the only ones they can trust are each other.
What those foes never counted on was that once they’re in a tank, Breezy isn’t just inseparable—they’re unstoppable.
With the action kicking off not long after the opening chapter, and not letting up until the ending, with a few twists along the way that should blindside the reader as much as they do Talinn and Bree, Beyond Enemies makes for a damned entertaining ride. The heart of the novel is doubtlessly the bond between Talinn and Bree, and the two make for a fascinating character—each half is distinctive in their own right, but the lifelong bond between them is effortlessly believable. The banter between the two of them flows effortlessly, is often hilarious, and from the way Talinn and Bee’s distinct personalities occasionally bleed into the other, they truly feel like they’ve been paired as “Breezy” since conception.
I don’t know if Marisa Wolf can fill the David Drake sized hole in our hearts, but with a few more books this good, she’ll more than earn her own spot there in time, and Talinn Reaze and Bee can stand proudly next to Alois Hammer and his Slammers in the proud tradition of military science fiction.
* * *
Convergence Problems
Wole Talabi
DAW Books, 320 pages, $27.00 (hardcover)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $16.99
ISBN: 978-0756418830
Genre: Afrofuturism, World SF, Collections, Artificial Intelligence, Hard SF
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One of my favorite novels from 2023 was the solo debut of Hugo, Nebula and Nommo award-nominated author Wole Talabi, Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon. I’d actually considered it for a past Reference Library column, but alas, it’s strictly fantasy, so I’ll limit myself to saying I recommend it highly. On the other hand, his second collection of short fiction, which came out in February 2024, Convergence Problems, is nearly strictly science fiction, and serves as a near perfect showcase of what makes Talabi and his work so appealing.
The collection includes one novella, three novelettes, and twelve short stories, thirteen of which had been published previously over the past decade. One of the short stories, “Blowout,” might be familiar already to avid readers of Analog, having originally been published in the July/August issue of the magazine last year, following a sister hoping to save her baby brother after the Martian surface drilling rig he’s working on explodes. Another, “A Dream of Electric Mothers,” is an alternate history where the colonization of Africa is avoided, and quantum computers, artificial intelligence, and African spiritualism mingle together, and was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards, and won the Sidewise Award.
Some other highlights include “Performance Review” and “Embers,” which both deal with technological change and industrial decline in interesting ways, and the novella “Ganger,” a dystopian story which takes place in a domed city after nanotech created to mitigate global warming go violently rogue, while the combination of a governing artificial intelligence, class strife, and droid labor makes life in the dome increasingly repressive.
I also enjoyed that Talabi included some extensive authors notes about each story, his thought process and inspiration behind the conception of each of them, and the often bumpy journey some of them took from his mind to publication. To use “Blowout” as an example, it began as an idea for a story in 2012 that never quite worked, but fragments were used in three stories that did, including this one, which was a finalist in the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award contest before finding its first publication here at Analog. You don’t often see many authors talk about their creative process in such detail, about how it can often take years to get a story just right, or finding the outlet that publishes it, that frustration, failure, and waiting are all part of that process, even for a talented author like Talabi.
Throughout each of the stories in Convergence Problems, Wole Talabi’s own style of Afrofuturism shines through, a mixture of his Nigerian heritage and engineering knowledge that makes each of these stories truly his own. The sixteen stories collected in Convergence Problems offer as superb a showcase for one the genre’s rising talents as you could ask. If you’re not yet familiar with his work, this is as fine an introduction as one could ask, and if you are, there’s probably a few new tales here that will prove fast favorites.
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Not Alone
Sarah K. Johnson
Doubleday, 352 pages, $28.00 (hardcover)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $13.99
ISBN: 978-0385548434
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic SF, Dystopian SF, Ecological/Environmental SF, Psychological/Sociological SF
* * *
As a new parent, I shouldn’t be so surprised that I gravitated towards Not Alone, the debut novel from Sarah K. Johnson, which follows a mother and son on a journey to find the missing father during the collapse of civilization. The surprise is that even after having finished it some time ago, it still haunts me, and even as an avid reader of post-apocalyptic fiction, Not Alone manages a few new twists along the way.
The novel opens five years after the end of the world as we know it. A combination of hurricanes growing in strength and microplastics polluting the oceans finally resulted in trillions of particles of industrial refuse getting kicked up into the atmosphere. Millions, if not billions, die in the aftermath, and industrial civilization looks to have ceased entirely. Rainfall is now toxic, the air suffocates the survivors little by little each day, and dust storms kick up more.
Two of those survivors are Katie, who has holed up in her London flat with her five-year-old son Harry, who has never left the flat or known a world other than this utterly broken one. Each day, Katie scavenges what food she can to feed them both, usually tubers and the rare cat, with a worsening cough she knows is a sign she’s running out of time before the choking death that has already killed so many claims her as well.
Two discoveries will break that routine and send Katie and Harry on a journey across a ruined Britannia. The first is an encounter with a stranger named Sim, the first survivor Katie has encountered in years, and whose intentions and predatory habits set off alarm bells in her head. The second is the discovery of a letter from the day of the disaster left by Jack, Katie’s military veteran fiancé who she’d long assumed died in the cataclysm, who may have instead sought shelter in northern Scotland, along with instructions on where to find him. With that, mother and son set off to find him, before Katie’s lungs finally fail, leaving Harry alone in a world he’s only now seeing for the first time.
First, credit where it’s due, of all the dooms visited upon Earth and humanity that I’ve encountered in fiction, Not Alone offers the first I’ve seen where airborne microplastics have destroyed civilization, and one the novel has made sufficiently terrifying. Other terrors will prove far more familiar to the genre savvy—failing infrastructure, struggles navigating when GPS is gone, the potential threats posed by other survivors.
Far more effective, however, are the dangers and fears evoked that are far more familiar. With the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic still lingering today, I’ve no doubt a world where danger lurks in every breath, sheltering in place, and alarming levels of discord and distrust should be burned permanently into a lot of minds. So too for any parent are the fears of Katie as a mother struggling to raise a child under terrifying circumstances. Johnson wisely turns a lot of those fears up to 11 throughout Not Alone, as well as grounding much of the novel’s theme work. Some are familiar—trying to keep a child entertained—some hopefully less so—how does one explain the end of civilization to child, much less one that has never known civilization? But the novel’s central struggle is also Katie’s—she desperately wants to be a good mom and will do anything to protect her son—and it gives the novel its very human heart.
Katie also makes for an interesting character in her own right. For reasons I dare not spoil, she was already dealing with some lingering trauma before the end of the world, which coupled with I imagine is the standard amount of PTSD for survivors of civilizational collapse, has left her hyperalert and paranoid even by the standards of post-apocalyptic fiction. We see Katie snap or leery even of those rare survivors who offer aid, terrified Sim is on her tail from London, sure that there are threats around every corner. Within reason—she understands she is a small, malnourished woman with a small child and a few vaguely remembered self-defense courses to defend herself if things go FUBAR. She also knows she’s dying, and what will happen to Harry if he is left alone.
I will also admit that I, as a Yank, thought the thoroughly British setting and occasional British dialect added some terrific flavor to the novel, a particular favorite being the efforts to circumvent border gates into Scotland, and all that implies about the state of affairs prior to the collapse. Johnson also has a true gift for describing the decaying landscape in a way that fills the reader with dread, and the chemical taste of the air in a way that makes the skin crawl.
If there is a flaw in Not Alone, it’s the flashbacks interspersed throughout the novel, which don’t add too much, and kill much of the building tension. Without any spoilers, I will say as bleak as the novel can get, the ending is worth it—those fearing a similar depression sparked by the likes of The Road can breathe easy.
* * *
Warlord
Doc Spears
WarGate Books, 492 pages, $25.00 (hardcover)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $3.99
ISBN: 978-1949731767
Series: Warlord 1
Genre: Sword and Planet, Space Opera, Military SF, First Contact, Alien Invasion, Alien Beings
* * *
The sword and planet subgenre is one that remains very hard to get just right. You play too fast and loose, and you end up with a work of science fantasy, if not just outright fantasy. You go too far in the other direction and you end up with space opera. Toss in a little high adventure, a little planetary romance, and you get what was the dominant flavor of science fiction for over half a century, one that’s been increasingly hard to replicate ever since
Which is why Warlord, a pulpy throwback that threads the needle between classic sword and planet and modern military science fiction, is a rare find indeed.
Like many Green Berets, Sergeant First Class Benjamin Colt is eager to prove himself. On the tail end of a bad breakup, and a military career that, until now, has never included combat, he may be more eager to prove himself than most. Which is why he eagerly volunteers for a top-secret task force—one he soon learns exists to circumvent the destruction of human civilization by aliens.
An extraterrestrial race that call themselves “the Guests”—and known more derisively as “Hair-Lips”—arrived on Earth about a year ago, touting promises of trade, technological exchange, and access to interstellar space. They also secretly spread an advanced viral mutagen that breaks down any technology more advanced than a can opener into Earth’s atmosphere that will spread across the planet in weeks. Luckily, humanity cracked the code on two key bits of alien technology—using slipstreams to travel through space-time, and replication technology. With the clock ticking, Colt’s unit has a mission: travel a few years into the future where the mutagen has burned out, establish a forward operating base, rebuild humanity, and kick the aliens off Earth.
In true military fashion, nothing goes according to plan. The unit crash lands to find themselves not on Earth, but Mars. Not our Mars either, but one of breathable air, home to strange alien races, but also humans, all facing a doom no less dire than the one facing Earth. Colt and his team now face the long odds of preventing the fall of two worlds instead—because if they fail on Mars, there’s no saving the Earth.
The core pitch behind Warlord is a simple one—drop a modern military unit into the type of interplanetary adventure setting so common in the Golden Age of Science Fiction and watch the fireworks. Indeed, much of the fun of the novel comes from watching how differently Colt and his companions handle the situation compared to how the likes of John Carter or Eric John Stark would have. It also manages to do this without denigrating the older works, and more often than not wears its love for the classics on its sleeve, with a few homages and tributes to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Lin Carter, and even CS Lewis worked in.
I also appreciate that Doc Spears gets the military details correct—Spears is himself both a veteran and a military weapons instructor, and it shines through in his work. There is that signature dark humor, an authenticity to the chatter and bonds between Colt and his unit, without getting too mired down in jargon to be indecipherable to readers who are less familiar with the military. That attention to detail for military accuracy also pays off on the scientific side of Warlord—one memorable example is the unit taking time to learn how to adjust to how Martian gravity affects weapons fire.
This is the first book in a new series, with at least the first three books available by the time you’re reading this review, so fans of retro science fiction and planetary romance will have plenty more adventures with Colt and crew to enjoy.
For those who love the tales of adventure on Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett, and heroes like John Carter and Eric John Stark, Doc Spears delivers the latest entry in the sword and planet tradition, with a few clever modern twists along the way.
Sean CW Korsgaard is a U.S. Army veteran, award-winning freelance journalist, author, editor, and publicist who has worked with Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Baen Books, and Writers of the Future. His first anthology, Worlds Long Lost, was released in December 2022, as was his debut short story, “Black Box.” He lives in Richmond, Virginia with his wife and child, along with, depending on who you ask, either far too many or far too few books.
Copyright © 2024 Sean CW Korsgaard