The Reference Library
by Rosemary Claire Smith
Sometimes, we read science fiction to revel in tales of techno-optimism where great strides in science and engineering enable clever and courageous characters to create bold solutions to the seemingly-intractable problems we struggle with today. Other times, we simply seek reassurance that, despite the flaws in human nature, the unintended consequences of previous inventions will not be as awful as the techno-pessimists would have us believe. This month’s batch of books, whether by veteran science fiction writers or talented newcomers, are spread along the spectrum from glass-half-empty to half-full. Some present engineered solutions that are unattainable for most people and/or extraordinarily disruptive to entire communities. Others, however, envision bright futures, ones in which our descendants will find more effective ways to combat humanity’s worst impulses. Let’s start with the darker visions and work our way toward the light.
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In the Belly of the Whale
Book 5 of the Spiral Arm series
Michael F. Flynn
July 16, 2024
Caezik SF & Fantasy
ISBN: 978-164710-101-5
366 pages
Before he passed away last year, Michael Flynn, an Analog stalwart, completed one last novel in his long-running Spiral Arm series. For those not familiar with his previous works, In the Belly of the Whale is a fine place to dig into the whole gamut of human nature that Flynn serves up. This series began with The January Dancer, and continued with Up Jim River, In the Lion’s Mouth, and On the Razor’s Edge. Flynn’s last novel is set aboard an enormous generation ship hollowed out from an asteroid. The story opens two hundred years after the Whale was dispatched from Earth on its thousand-year journey to a planet orbiting Tau Ceti. To avoid inbreeding, the ship’s initial 40,000 inhabitants were selected from all over the world. Flynn says upfront that its planners thought of everything, accounting for all contingencies except one: “[t]hose aboard would be human beings.”
Over the course of several generations, the Whale’s social order has calcified so much that what began as a meritocracy has devolved into a highly-stratified social order in which those at the top inherit their positions of wealth and power. Some of these individuals lack key qualities desperately needed: courage, dedication, inquisitiveness, compassion, and adaptability, while self-interest flourishes. Worse yet, the Whale’s populace must cope with the aftermath of “the Big Burnout,” a cataclysm resulting in the destruction and abandonment of roughly a tenth of the ship.
Flynn’s keen interest in sociology is on full display in this energetic novel in which he depicts many facets of life aboard a generation ship. Oddly, these do not include much about religious practices or non-traditional family arrangements. Nonetheless, I cannot help but admire Flynn’s vibrant blend of customs, names, languages, and food preferences among a crew meticulously bred for genetic diversity. The chapters are short, each one containing five or six vignettes from varying points of view: a dedicated detective, an Enforcer, a salt-of-the-earth sergeant, the head of Security, a teenage couple, unscrupulous leaders, astrogators, a tutor, eugenicists, malcontents, and people who occupy the lowest rungs of society. Thankfully, In the Belly of the Whale begins with a roster to assist readers. Even without the roster, we know these types well. However, only a few of them are people I could connect with and root for.
Stories set on generation ships pose several challenges. They tend to fall into three types: those that focus on the suspense surrounding the launch; those whose plot depends on reaching a distant planet only to find it presents serious dilemmas; and those examining the deterioration of the social order within the ship once it has traveled too far to turn back. In the Belly of the Whale falls into the last category, thereby serving as a commentary on the fragility of the communities that people construct, especially when these communities are beset by external and internal forces at the same time. Flynn pulls no punches. As one character says: “every regime decays into some form of anarchy. Monarchs become lawless tyrants; aristocracies, squabbling, self-interested oligarchies; and republics decay into democracies.” Thankfully, the Whale’s navigation and maintenance divisions are on the job and the situation has not degraded to point where nobody believes they are traveling on a ship to another planet. Nonetheless, Flynn’s final novel reveals a future where humanity’s best days are behind us. In the Belly of the Whale ignores human resiliency and our propensity to adapt our customs and social structures when necessary. The story can make for discouraging reading, until one reflects on how civilization has lasted thousands of years in several parts of the world.
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Time’s Agent
Brenda Peynado
Tor Publishing Group, Tordotcom
August 13, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-25085-431-5
224 pages
If you’re yearning for a fresh voice, may I suggest Brenda Peynado, whose debut novel, Time’s Agent, is set in the Caribbean. Be warned, however, this is a decidedly grim view of human nature, particularly with respect to our inability to learn from past mistakes notwithstanding numerous do-overs. Peynado packs a slew of big ideas into her short novel, beginning with the ability travel to “pocket worlds” and back. Each alternate world obeys unique physical laws as to time and space. Time may pass much faster or much slower in a pocket world than it does in ours. Also, a pocket world may encompass a single solar system in orbit around a star that is not the Sun. A different pocket world can be as small as a bedroom. Yet another is barely the size of a twin bed, with someone’s arm or leg dangling disconcertingly into our own universe at the point where that world intersects with ours. If this sounds impossibly far-fetched, be assured it rests upon recent work by astrophysicists on a theory of cosmic inflation and events that took place during the universe’s first trillionth of a trillionth of a second.
At first, teams of scientists embark on explorations of the pocket worlds. Archaeologist Raquel Petra and her biologist wife Marlena visit one pristine paradise. Raquel searches for the Taino who lived in the Dominican Republic before European colonization, while Marlena studies plant species not native to our world. In a tragic mistake of an instant, Raquel causes them to tumble into a pocket world where time is sped up so that forty years elapse in just a few hours of subjective time. They return home to find that their six-year-old daughter is dead. Gone, too, is the idealism and certitude of their youth, in the face of a dreadful, dystopian future. Marlena blames Raquel for the accident and is horrified by Raquel’s decision to download their deceased daughter’s voice and memories into a robotic dog. Now they must cope as best they can with the ashes of their youthful dreams.
Thus, what began as ambitious academic projects devoted to studying biology, archaeology, and other aspects of pocket worlds, have been swept away. Raquel and Marlena soon learn that scientific institutions have been supplanted by rapacious corporations ravenously monetizing—strip mining—the pocket worlds for everything worth stealing and then converting what is left into garbage dumps. Big corporations ruthlessly exploit the time differentials to use pocket worlds as plantations where impoverished day laborers toil. These indentured workers produce a year’s worth of labor, and grow a year older doing so, while their children back home live a single day. Hence, the corporate commodification of time is a feature, not a bug. Worse yet, some pocket worlds function as warehouses for those suffering from highly-contagious fatal diseases. What emerges is a heartbreaking portrayal of love and loss in a Caribbean nation lacking adequate guardrails to protect its lands and its down-trodden citizenry.
One might wish for a less black-and-white response to the discovery of pocket worlds. Won’t there be some organizations dedicated to using these places to house people afflicted with intractable diseases for the few hours or days of their subjective time while scientists and researchers back home spend years or decades developing treatments and cures? One also might wish that the principal characters in Time’s Agent acted more like researchers devoted to studying a myriad of biological species and investigating how the former Taino populace used these plants for food, medicine, clothing, shelter, and other purposes. Instead, the insights, poetry, and unrelenting bleakness packed into Time’s Agent paint a dispiriting portrait of extreme environmental degradation inflicted by end-stage capitalism and colonialism on steroids.
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Convergence Problems
Wole Talabi
Daw Books
February 13, 2024
ISBN 978-075641-883-0
320 pages
After first encountering Wole Talabi’s work in his AnLab Readers Award-winner “Blowout” (Analog July/August 2023), it’s a treat to read more of his short fiction. Convergence Problems collects sixteen of his idea-driven tales. The longest of these, “Ganger,” is wholly new, while three others were revised after appearing elsewhere, and several more are hard to find. One of the joys of single-author collections is gaining a sense of themes and concerns the writer returns to again and again, reworking as needed. So it is with Talabi, who hails from Nigeria. He draws on his experiences as a chemical engineer, inventor, and scuba-diver to pair future technology, such as invasive computer simulations, with supernatural beings found in traditional African mythology. Moreover, having spent time in Nairobi, Australia, England, and Malaysia, he proves adept at conveying a welter of emotions whenever his characters return to their homelands and family members, especially those who stayed behind and do not understand why the others left.
“Ganger,” the longest piece in the book, provides its thematic focal point. Talabi posits that a Nigerian billionaire uses her wealth to create her own version of a Utopian city to protect a select group of people from climate change. Ah, but events never go as planned in Utopias, do they? “Ganger” opens as a robot dedicated to monitoring the thoughts of one sixteen-year-old city resident prevents her from committing suicide. In this daring story, Talabi juxtaposes the search for a purpose to one’s life inside a high-tech community with a reworked traditional Yoruba legend.
Talabi’s fascination with computer simulations, remotely-operated equipment, and extractive technologies form the basis for “Blowout,” which is a heartfelt piece about a woman trying to save her estranged brother after a deadly disaster on Mars. “An Arc of Electric Skin” combines recent scientific research into using heat to increase the electrical conductivity of melanin with an unflinching look at police brutality. This story first appeared in Analog’s sister periodical, Asimov’s Science Fiction (September/October 2021). “Embers” provides a poignant look at evolving technology exacerbated by corporate indifference, which upends human livelihoods and lives. “Debut” reminds me of Sue Burke’s Dual Memory (reviewed in Analog January/February 2023) in that both concern humans guiding an AI as it learns to create art. Talabi’s “Debut” cuts directly to incisive questions: What materials and media might autonomous AIs use to create and disseminate art? Who will be their intended audience?
Talabi displays a fondness for departing from straightforward narratives. “Comments On Your Provisional Patent Application for an Eternal Spirit Core” may make readers vow to scrupulously delete all comments before ever submitting another document anywhere from now on. “Abeokuta52” is written as a future op-ed by the son of a victim of an alien disease, complete with reader comments. “Silence” is a love story told in second person. “Saturday’s Song” nests a story within another story. This sequel to his earlier “Wednesday’s Story” features Shigidi, a minor Yoruba deity who causes nightmares. Talabi’s first novel, Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, made a splash in 2023, landing on a bunch of award ballots. Convergence Problems closes with “A Dream of Electric Mothers,” a haunting tale of quantum computing as a means of communicating with facsimiles of the ancestors. The technology was developed to help the country’s leaders make better decisions, but the main character sees it as a means of talking with her deceased parent.
A brief Afterward, which contains spoilers, treats curious readers to the inspirations for each story. In sum, you never know what Talabi will latch onto next. His versatility surprises in the best ways.
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Inversions
Book 2 of The Guardian Cycle duology
V. Melcer
Storm Publishing
August 14, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-80508-366-5
434 pages
Much like Refractions, which is M. V. Melcer’s debut novel, Inversions continues to reveal some of the best and worst possibilities for humanity’s future on and off the planet. Although the two books can be read separately, they are more satisfying taken together. Inversions picks up roughly a generation or two after Refractions wraps up. The good news is that enormous space stations orbit the Earth. The bad news is that they are reserved for wealthy and powerful elites plus a carefully-selected cadre of their employees. The worse news is that the daily life of those permanently residing in space stations is not the picnic most denizens of Earth believe it to be. Political and economic tensions between the space stations reflect their national origins, primarily the United States and China. The space stations must be on constant guard against the deadly threats of unpredictable solar storms. Moreover, those living in space are still dependent on Earth for much of their food.
Speaking of food, widespread starvation ravages many parts of the globe due to the one-two-three punch of climate change, rampant population growth, and unpredictable outbreaks of pernicious “phages” that destroy much of the world’s crops. Several countries possessing considerable arable land have formed a shaky alliance to combat these ills. Their grudging cooperation is essential in warding off even more devastating famines. Complicating matters is the need to preserve vast swaths of forests to absorb excess carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Doing so diminishes the amount of land that can be devoted to crops. As the world’s environmental problems worsen, the formal alliance becomes shakier.
Inversions depicts events from the perspective of three principal figures. Jason Nevsky is the nephew of the ship captain who is the main character in Melcer’s previous book. Jason aspires to live up to his famous aunt’s legacy by ridding the world of hunger and defeating the looming environmental catastrophes, a tall order, indeed. His daughter, Liz Lake, fundamentally disagrees with her controversial father’s tactics and repudiates most of the strategies he espouses. It’s easy to sympathize with this capable young woman as she struggles to make her own way in the world. Lastly, Ranath Eyre runs the fifth-largest independent space station. She has plans to create a new community with a bright future for a select few, despite the significant risks inherent in doing business with both the Chinese and American space stations.
Melcer employs first-person present tense to inject a refreshing immediacy into the scenes from each character’s point of view. As the plot unfolds, it’s fascinating to watch how decisions made and actions taken by strong-willed, prominent players in the previous novel have profound impacts on their children and subsequent generations. For those of us who hope that our compatriots in space will leave age-old geopolitical tensions between nations behind, Inversions is a cautionary tale as to how and why it’s all too easy to fall prey to the same old suspicions and conflicts. As one character says, “[t]he things human beings do best is mess things up for each other.”
In sum, Melcer can be counted on for adept portraits of the precarious nature of living on space stations, sympathetic characters struggling with their pasts, and an intricate plot filled with political intrigue. All in all, Inversions makes an engaging page turner.
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Radiant Sky
Book 2 of Apollo Rising series
Alan Smale
November 12, 2024
Caezik SF & Fantasy
ISBN 978-164710-115-2
410 pages
Some purveyors of alternate history display a propensity for returning our timeline to the course many wish it had taken before it got off track. Perhaps that’s the impulse behind tales of murdering a notorious genocidal maniac when he was but a baby. Other writers show us how our world is better than what it easily might have been like if a few other events had gone badly. My favorite of these is Maureen McHugh’s short story, “The Lincoln Train.” On reading Alan Smale’s Radiant Sky, which is the sequel to Hot Moon, I don’t know that he fits neatly into either camp. At first blush, it’s easy to suppose we would be enjoying a brighter present and future if both the United States and the Soviet Union had only continued their space programs during the 1970s by launching permanent lunar orbiters and establishing settlements on the Moon. Smale’s Apollo Rising series rests upon his convincingly-robust depiction of what could have been accomplished in space exploration given the technology available in the 1970s and 1980s.
On the other hand, his alternate timeline envisions these achievements leading to armed military conflicts between the two global superpowers in space and on the Moon. Hot Moon kicks off in 1979, when the decades-long Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. turns into a deadly shoot-out at a space station orbiting the Moon. Radiant Sky skips ahead to 1983, after things have settled down again to the point where astronauts and cosmonauts live and work amicably enough in a shared base on the Moon. Or so everyone supposes.
Veronica Carter, the formidable astronaut protagonist from Hot Moon, leads a joint team of explorers from both nations as they circumnavigate the Moon from pole to pole. The convoy consists of a tractor-trailer sized mobile laboratory and habitat, plus a Moon rover and a motorcycle. Their scientific mission is to collect rock and core samples from selected locales, especially those containing rare Earth elements both nations must otherwise import. The mission proves to be anything but routine when they hit a land mine and find themselves in an ambush. As the action heats up, there are a plethora of characters to keep straight. Some appeared in Hot Moon, but not all of them. Smale does a fine job, however, of presenting their distinctive, nuanced personalities. Chief among these is Veronica Carter, who hates living on Earth and is at a loss as to the next phase of her career and her personal life. That is, assuming she survives the fire fight.
Soon, each side accuses the other of attacking the joint mission for motives that are plausible, but not conclusive. Although a base has been established near the Moon’s equator, political and economic factors make the continuing presence of humans on the Moon less than assured. The astronauts are keenly aware that NASA’s budget for lunar exploration grows tighter with every passing year. Politicians who control the funding take their cues from the American public, who are rapidly losing interest after the end of the U.S.-Soviet “space race.”
Both Hot Moon and Radiant Sky make for intriguing speculation as to paths not taken during an era when relations between the United States and the former Soviet Union were at least as fraught with distrust as relations between the U.S. and Russia are today. Radiant Sky wraps up satisfyingly while opening the door for the further adventures of several intrepid characters.
Alan Smale, who has twice won the Sidewise Award for alternate history, can be counted on to give readers clear-eyed, nuanced takes on alternative events that could plausibly have transpired. For those inclined to question the feasibility of his timeline for space exploration, he caps off Radiant Sky with a thorough, well-thought-out essay summarizing several NASA projects that could have been more fully pursued, some dating back to the 1960s. There’s much food for thought here regarding the choices made by American and Soviet leaders given the state of technology at the time as well as the economic and political considerations at play. He left me with hope as to the mastery of technological challenges and concerns as to the long-term political leadership essential to the continued human exploration of the Moon and beyond.
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Rumor Has It
Book 3 of The Disco Space Opera series
Cat Rambo
Tor
September 24, 2024
ISBN 978-1-250-26939-3
256 pages
Cat Rambo’s The Disco Space Opera series sits well into the optimistic end of the spectrum. Who doesn’t long for the day when we’ve created a sapient bio-engineered spaceship, especially one that can zip across the galaxy to dock at sumptuous space stations filled with more sentient species than the spaceport cantina on Tatooine? The three novels in Rambo’s series take space opera in a fresh—and mouth-wateringly tasty—direction. Rumor Has It continues Captain Niko Larsen’s travels with her former lover Petalia, plus her found-family of a crew as they hunt for information regarding the notorious space pirate Tubal Last. Owing to their dire financial situation, they point their smart aleck bio-ship, You Sexy Thing, toward Coralind. That’s an enormous space station hollowed out from an asteroid and rebuilt using biological materials instead of metal and plastic. Coralind’s verdant gardens teem with plants, insects, and organisms from dozens—or is it hundreds?—of planets, which provide a rainbow of colors and a heady brew of scents, not to mention all manner of aliens. Rambo’s inventive descriptions will delight gardeners, visual artists, and cooks.
During an annual festival on Coralind, Niko and crew plan to set up a pop-up restaurant in hopes of earning enough to get themselves out of their precarious financial situation. Naturally, complications ensue, including a subplot involving bank bureaucracy. Suffice to say, let’s hope this novel never gives anyone in the financial sector any ideas.
Did I mention that the space station is run by Biboban, a highly-intelligent being living in an enormous tank at Coralind’s core? Niko first met Biboban years ago when it was humanoid in form. They did not part on good terms. The scenes from Biboban’s perspective are fascinating, especially those in which Biboban finds common ground with You Sexy Thing, in part because they can converse at a speed more suited to themselves than the much slower discussions they have with humans and the other aliens. You Sexy Thing is quite an entertaining character, particularly with its new-found hobby of “hourisigah,” which is the creation of dramatic situations and events.
Notwithstanding a lurking enemy out for revenge, Rumor Has It tells a quieter story than the first two installments in the series, You Sexy Thing and Devil’s Gun. Those books relied on rip-roaring action, punctuated by savory scenes of gourmet meals and their preparation. Rumor Has It derives tension from the relationships between the characters—those who have known each other for many years and those who are recent additions to the crew, plus one who is along for the ride. Everyone in this ensemble cast harbors secrets from the others, secrets that Rambo shares with readers via her skillful use of omniscient point of view. Consequently, this novel revolves around several individual decisions to withhold their private business from other members of their found family. These prove to be tricky decisions with no clear-cut right or wrong choices. Thus, key scenes move smoothly from one character’s mind to another and on to a third one in the space of a paragraph as the plot builds.
In sum, Rumor Has It makes a delightful third course following You Sexy Thing and Devil’s Gun using some staples, sprinkled with a generous helping of rare ingredients. My appetite has been whetted for the next course or two, where I suspect master chef Rambo will unveil a pièce de résistance.
Full disclosure: Cat Rambo coedited two anthologies containing short stories of mine.
Footnote:
Rosemary Claire Smith’s novelette “Apollo in Retrograde” (Analog November/December 2023) won the 2023 Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Over the years, Analog has published her time-travel tales, alternate histories, and other science fiction stories, as well as several guest editorials and book review columns. Rosemary’s science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories and essays also appear in Amazing Stories, Fantastic Stories, and other periodicals and anthologies. Her interactive adventure game is T-Rex Time Machine. Rosemary has worked as a field archaeologist, union leader, and election lawyer. Follow her on-line: www.rcwordsmith.com and across social media @RCWordsmith to find out what else she is up to.
Copyright © 2025 Rosemary Claire Smith