129,864,880! to samo do nedelje...

[PTY]

REVIEW SUMMARY: A brilliant short story collection, which deserves a spot right next to your volume of fairy tales and I'm not talking about the child-friendly variety here.



BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Interconnected stories of dangerous books, witches and wise women, fey folk from a different realm and girls trained to be assassins, professional poisoners and healers. This collection introduces the sisterhood of Little Sisters of St Florian and is set in the world of Slatter's Sourdough and Other Stories, acting as an origin story for the events in the previous collection.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Exquisite prose; a shared world where the stories bleed into each other to establish a vibrant and sprawling mythology; complex portrayal of women as protagonists and antagonists; the breathtaking pen-and-ink illustrations by artist Kathleen Jennings.
CONS: The collection ended. Honestly, I could read at least three more volumes with tales in this world.
BOTTOM LINE: It's among the strongest short story collections on the market and it will fill your heart with darkest wonders.

With The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings Angela Slatter proves why she's one of the most important voices in fantasy. Fairy tales have seen a strong resurgence in recent years, but only Slatter understands them well enough to distill the essence that made them influential and prevalent and create her own mythos. She succeeds in her task and her short stories rival Grimm's fairy tales in their darkness, danger and viciousness.

No one is beyond a bloody end and damnation no matter how pure of heart they are, which makes for the best storytelling in my opinion. While there are no wicked stepsisters cutting their own feet to fit a glass slipper or dancing to death in red-hot iron shoes, Slatter gives us amputated limbs, death by rat infestation, horrible transformations, cannibalism, ghosts that stalk and harm the living and frequent poisoning. The perfect ingredients for a page turner and what a page turner this collection is.

Much of the impact of The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings comes from Slatter's prose, because women with power a fairy tale do not make. Her writing is lyrical and brims with the old magic that wedged the original tales in the world's collective memory. Each sentence she writes, she constructs with precision and purpose. Slatter doesn't waste a single word and even the tamest and most straightforward story in this collection (for calling any story here weak would be a crime) is captivating.

In terms of themes, the stories gravitate towards the position and power of women in society that is run by men. How do you wield powerful magic when you can easily be executed as a witch? How do you carve your own way in a world that's inherently hostile? How do you defend your honor and avenge your loved ones? Slatter examines how these women work the already established social order to their advantage and illustrates the power plays that occur in secret places, dark forests, dimly lit rooms and during the dead of night.

Each short story is self-contained and vary in subject matter. You have the last voyage of the pirate ship Astra's Light and her captain Maude in "Now, All Pirates Are Gone", the secret mission of Mercia in "St Dymphna's School for Poison Girls" as she learns the secret arts of discreet assassination and the daunting cleansing of a whole town Delling performs in "The Undone and the Divine". What gives the collection momentum is the ever-expanding world which connects events, characters and objects into one intricate tapestry.

Minor characters barely mentioned in one story take the stage as either villain or hero in the next, while main characters in previous stories make short appearances. Mother Magnus and Hepsibah Ballentine cannot be more different from each other, but both elicit such joy when they reappear in subsequent stories. Within this greater narrative, the reader learns the story of the Little Sisters of St Florian, their rise and the battle with their greatest enemy. It's perhaps of the most epic books written, but constructed and edited with enough skill to convey such rich lore and backstory in only 270 pages.

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings belongs on your shelf.
By Haralambi Markov







Danie Ware has posted the cover for her upcoming novel Ecko Endgame.

Here's the synopsis for this 3rd book in the Ecko series:



Winter has come to the Varchinde – and with it, the fatal spread of the blight. The grass is dead, and the plains' cities are falling to the loss of crops and trade.

Now, the Kas take their chance to rise from Rammouthe. Overmatched, betrayed and abandoned by his own forces, Rhan takes the ultimate gamble – he will abandon Fhaveon to lure the Kas into a final confrontation.

But the world's memory is returning. And, as the battle rages round him, Ecko begins to realise that everything they have done has been for a purpose. If they can fit the pieces together, then they might just win the war.

Yet, even if they do defeat the Kas, the blight is still there. And to save both the Varchinde and himself, Ecko must face the worst fear of all – the one that has come from his own world.

[PTY]

I ko to kaze da u SFu nema para?



LIVES OF TAO Author Wesley Chu Re-Signs with Angry Robot Books in Six-Figure Deal





Publisher Angry Robot reports that author Wesley Chu, author of the Lives of Tao series, has re-signed with the publisher in a six-figure deal.

Press release follows...



Wesley Chu Re-Signs with Angry Robot Books in Six-Figure Deal

We are delighted to announce that Wesley Chu, author of the award-winning Lives of Tao series, has signed on for three new science fiction novels in an Angry Robot Books record six-figure deal.

The World English deal, signed with agent Russell Galen, is for Wesley's new standalone series starting with The Rise of Io, publishing in August 2016. Although The Rise of Io is set in the same warring Genjix and Prophus universe as the Lives of Tao books, this brand new series will open the Quasing world to new readers as well as fans of the hugely successful Lives of Tao books.

The new trilogy picks up eight years on from the events of The Rebirths of Tao, the conclusion of Chu's current series, which will be published by AR in May 2015.

Wesley Chu: "Batteries recharged. OS upgraded. Sharks with frigging lasers fed. It's time to kick some ass! When I first made my strategic alliance with the metal overlords to take over the world, I didn't think humanity stood a chance. Now with Watkins Media joining the team, victory is inevitable! Still dibs on New Zealand!"

Marc Gascoigne: "Wesley Chu's Tao series has been a runaway success for Angry Robot, and we're delighted that he has re-signed for us for this brand new trilogy of novels. He manages to combine lofty science fiction themes with pure Hollywood pacing, and quite frankly his novels just rock. With Angry Robot recently moving to new owners, Watkins Media Ltd, we're delighted to have the resources to take Wes' sales to a whole new level. His world domination is now only a matter of time."

About Wesley Chu: Wesley Chu's best friend is Michael Jordan, assuming that best friend status is earned by a shared television commercial. If not, then his best friend is his dog, Eva, who he can often be seen riding like a trusty steed through the windy streets of Chicago. In 2014, Wesley Chu was shortlisted for the John W Campbell Best New Writer Award. His debut, The Lives of Tao, earned him a Young Adult Library Services Association Alex Award and a Science Fiction Goodreads Choice Award Finalist slot. The sequel, The Deaths of Tao, continues the story of secret agent Roen Tan and his sarcastic telepathically bonded alien, Tao. Chu has two books scheduled for 2015: The Rebirths of Tao from Angry Robot plus Time Salvager from Tor.

Reach Wesley on Twitter: @wes_chu and his website: www.chuforthought.com

[PTY]

REVIEW SUMMARY: Huberath asks us to become more conscious of the narratives we create and think more broadly about our place in the universe.


BRIEF SYNOPSIS: When Gavein Throzz moves to Davabel, he soon finds himself linked to a growing epidemic of deaths. And when he and other characters start reading a mysterious book called Nest of Worlds, Gavein realizes that his existence and perception of that existence may be terribly flawed.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: This novel puts your brain on a fast-moving treadmill and asks fascinating questions about the nature of human existence.
CONS: More narrative time could have been given to the several nested worlds to flesh out some of Huberath's philosophical questions.
BOTTOM LINE: Nest of Worlds is a wonderful introduction to the world of contemporary Polish science fiction, and a powerful, probing story that prompts thoughtfulness and self-awareness.

As part of my effort to read more scifi in translation, I jumped at the chance to check out Nest of Worlds, Huberath's first novel to appear in English. A major force in Polish science fiction, Huberath is also a professor of biophysics and biological physics at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. And he brings everything to this metafictional tale of life, death, and reading.

We first meet Gavein Throzz while he's travelling to his new Land, a journey that everyone on his world must make every thirty-five years. Only four Lands exist. Each person is also placed into a hierarchy according to his or her hair color ("black," "white," "gray," and "red"), and everyone has two names (the one they use everyday, and the one that foretells the manner of their death).

Once Gavein and his wife, Ra Mahleiné, have been reunited in their new land of Davabel (having been forced to take separate journeys according to their separate castes), they try to live a normal life in their boarding house with the other residents — until people start dying. First, the deaths seem random, but eventually people figure out that everyone who comes in contact with Gavein dies within a couple of days. Eventually, the bodies pile up until it's impossible for Gavein to shrug off the bizarre assertion, and whenever someone tries to kill him, that person dies instead. The scientific institute that attempts to study him and then kill him is wrecked by an earthquake, and then heavily bombed, but of course Gavein escapes alive.

Meanwhile, some of his friends have been reading a book called Nest of Worlds (those friends have also died). Out of interest, Gavein picks it up and finds that it is none other than a book about people reading a book called Nest of Worlds (do you have a headache yet?). At this point, we as readers plunge into the nested stories with Gavein, burrowing further and further until it's almost impossible to remember how many worlds removed we are from the primary story (Gavein's world). In each nested world, characters read Nest of Worlds, but the further the world gets from Gavein's, the more numerous the Lands and the shorter the time spent in them. As one former reader wrote in notes he left in the book (which Gavein finds), the worlds can be understood by deriving complex formulas and locating intricate patterns.

So if it's true, as Gavein and the note-taker realize, that each nested story contains more Lands and a smaller number of years in which to reside in each Land, that suggests that their own world may just be nested within yet a higher world (i.e. our world), which would be nested in yet another world (God?).

But what do all of these nested worlds and epidemic of deaths have to do with the act of reading? Huberath asks us to consider what happens to the characters we read about once we've put a book down. For instance, if a character has just fallen off of a cliff and we put the book down to take a bath or run an errand, what happens to that character? Do they remain in a kind of stasis? How could it be otherwise, since we won't know what happened until we pick up the book again? Nest of Worlds asks us to consider not our own consciousness chewing on the people and events in a narrative, but the existences of the characters themselves. Eventually, Gavein becomes aware that he is likely a character in a story being read by someone on another plane of existence. The deaths that have occurred were the result of characters who were only to have small parts in his narrative. Each time they weren't needed any longer to further the Gavein story, they were "killed off". At least, that's my interpretation of the deaths, but I'm sure there are many others.

In a way, Nest of Worlds is reminiscent of the Star Trek: TNG episode "Ship in a Bottle," in which the holodeck Moriarty becomes self-aware and demands to leave his fictional world to explore the "real" world. At the end of the episode, Picard, Riker, and others wonder if they/we are ourselves living in a holodeck world, manipulated and observed by a species on another plane of existence.

The very structure of Nest of Worlds proves Huberath's point, since the further we move away from a world, the less we remember about its characters, since our brains can only hold a certain amount of information at one time. And it's not surprising at all that when you pick up the novel after a break, and find yourself in any of the nested worlds, the result is disorienting, to say the least.

Huberath masterfully puts our brains through the ringer, forcing us to consider human existence in terms of the stories we tell ourselves. What logical conclusions should we come to? And why is it so hard to believe that we might be characters in someone else's story? And does that matter? I think it does, and I look forward to reading further translations of Huberath's work. But first let me take a couple of painkillers for this headache...

By Rachel Cordasco

[PTY]

She'd come out of the ground headless, with someone else's skull lying loose in her casket.

According to my morning's Chicago Tribune, the exhumation was supposed to be routine, a modern forensic examination of the victim of a 1948 unsolved murder. Certainly no one had anticipated she'd been buried with someone else's head—not the sheriff whose predecessors had never effectively worked the case; not the state's attorney, who'd fought the exhumation; not even the small town's mayor who'd pushed for the fresh look—at first at the request of a constituent who'd heard old-timers laughing conspiratorially about the murder, then because, some said, he'd gone crazy and begun hearing directly from her ghost.

For me, at first, the switched heads were simply tantalizing nuggets I could work into one of my upcoming Dek Elstrom mysteries, to fool readers into thinking I'm more imaginative that I really am. I figured I could fashion any number of fictions about why a body might come out of a grave sporting, loosely, someone else's head.

The newspaper story, though, hinted at mysteries beyond why a killer would need her head or, even more bizarrely, bother to replace it with another: Why had the case languished? Why had the sheriff and the states' attorney fought the exhumation? Was the mayor crazy, hearing from ghosts? Where, exactly, did one go, back in 1948, to get a spare head? And whose head was it?

Not quite mindful that I was in the midst of finishing my third Elstrom novel, due in weeks, and owed the fourth to my publisher in less than a year, I began researching old newspaper accounts. The facts were simple enough: Mary Jane Reed, 17, and Stanley Skridla, 26, had been out drinking on a June night before ending up at a rural roadhouse around midnight. The evening must have passed amicably enough, for they'd then driven the short distance to the local lovers' lane.

Stanley was found alongside the lane the next morning, shot dead. Strangely, his car had been driven the short distance back to the roadhouse.

Mary Jane Reed had disappeared.

A massive search was undertaken along the nearby river and across the surrounding fields. Five days later she was found, lying easily visible, beneath a tree in a spot that already been searched several times. Though she'd been killed by a single bullet fired into the back of her head, the lone crime scene photograph—why was only one taken?—showed the bullet wound carefully covered by leaves. She was fully dressed except for the slacks folded neatly on her back, and her body lacked any signs of the decomposition that would have resulted from being left out long in the hot June sun. Where had she been for five days?

Numerous leads were pursued but none panned out. Now, almost sixty years later, the new autopsy didn't pan out either; she'd been too long in the ground. It yielded no new clues to the killer.

Or had it? None of the old newspaper accounts, some of them quite lurid, mentioned anything about a beheading. How could that have been kept quiet?

I called the mayor. Intriguingly, he now owned the roadhouse where the young couple had last been seen alive—except, of course, by whoever killed them. He was eager to talk to anyone interested in the long-ignored case. I drove the eighty miles west from Chicago.

The mayor was coolly methodical as he laid out detail after detail about the long-ago killings, of the people and the places, the jealousies and the rumors and the strange silences that descended whenever he asked local old-timers about the case.

He told me who he thought killed Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla.

"You're sure?"

He shrugged, admitting there were other viable candidates. "It's been sixty years; most everybody's dead," he said. "Still...." He let the thought dangle, unfinished.

A seventeen year old girl's murder had gone unsolved, and mostly unremembered, for almost sixty years. Surely Mary Jane was owed more than that.

Perhaps...my thoughts sped up...a telling of her story through the relaxed constraints of truthful fiction.

But to do that, I'd have to know who'd been the most likely killer. And that demanded understanding why her head had been switched and who'd conspired to keep that secret—something that had eluded everyone involved in her recent autopsy.

Even the mayor, the person most knowledgeable about the case, could only offer vague theories. None made sense.

Mary Jane Reed rode with me every minute of my way home, and she stayed close during the next days, weeks, and months as I finished my third Dek Elstrom novel and wrote the fourth. I stole moments, sometimes hours, and often whole days to study the old press clips reporting the deaths of Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla, and to reread the notes I made during my visits with the mayor—yes, I drove back to the roadhouse another half-dozen times, each time returning home with more fresh questions than answers to old ones.

When, at last, I was free to begin the story of Mary Jane Reed, I wrote like a man possessed by devils, except they were details, the hundreds I'd accumulated in my months of on again, off again researching. Deciding which mattered and which to shrug away went well at first, and the first sections of the book, the chapters presenting the events of the murders and the manhunt that ensued, fell quickly into tight shape.

And then, as I knew I would, I slammed into the wall that had always been waiting: Who'd needed her head, and why?

I'd hoped I could puzzle it through by writing. I composed a dozen scenarios, and then a dozen more. No invention worked; I could make no sense of why the skulls had been switched.

Until my mind wandered, unbidden, to the image of a fence post—a simple weathered chunk of wood that likely I'd never actually seen. It set something rocketing loose in my consciousness, something small and bright that had been hiding in plain sight.

I understood why her head had been needed, and why another was given.

I had my killer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack Fredrickson

[PTY]

Dakle, plan je bio da ponovo overimo poluzaboravljeni MAN PLUS, tek da sa pristojne generacijske distance otšacujemo kako nas se roman doima danas, skoro 4 decenije nakon objavljivanja.


Što se samog autora tiče, teško je o Pohlu reći išta što svako od nas ne zna, jer eto, Pohl je jedan od zaista retkih žanrovskih autora kojima je pošlo za perom da opstanu u vremenu koje je usledilo nakon Zlatnog doba, a to svakako nije mala stvar u žanru čija je evolucija nerotko znala da udavi mnoge kvalitetne romane kao zastarele, i to u ultra kratkom roku od  njihovog pisanja pa do objavljivanja. Razlog donekle leži u činjenici da je Pohl bio svestran u žanru i aktivan u fandomu, a upravo ovim romanom ( i Kapijom, naravno, dakle Hiči serijalom) se ne samo reaktivirao, nego i iznova lansirao, to kao pisac i proze i teorije, kao urednik i predavač i žanrovski Gran Master u najboljem smislu te odrednice. Otud je i fascinantna činjenica da je ovaj roman svojevremeno zapažen u konkurenciji veličina kao što su LeGuin i Pynchon, Russ i Delany, recimo. Hvale vredan podvig, ako se ima na umu da je to bilo uistinu revolucionarno doba koje je žanru donelo radikalni razlaz sa konvencionalnim modelima naracije, uvelike anulišući dotadašnji naivni eskapizam svojim skeptičnim preispitivanjem svih relevantnih i savremenih tema. U tom kontekstu, MAN PLUS se lako prepoznaje kao... pa eto, kao tipično zlatnodopski roman. Teme i motivi koje MAN PLUS nudi svakako jesu savremene, ali način na koji ih Pohl obrađuje je dirljivo tradicionalan. Pohlov futurizam je prilično konzervativno ekstrapoliran (dobre stvari koje imamo postaće još bolje, a one loše će biti iskorenjene ili, još bolje, same od sebe volšebno nestati) i ne nudi skoro ništa od svog onog obilja kojem smo prisustvovali u decenijama nakon objavljivanja ovog romana; Pohlova percepcija našeg društvenog bića je neuzdrmano patrijahalna; kompleksna politička kriza je vrlo šturo i beskrvno prikazana; još kompleksnija energetska kriza (ovlaš predstavljena kao nejasna kombinacija klimatskih promena i iscrpljenih sirovina) je simplificirana do granice banalnosti; Pohlov tehnološki aspekt futurizma je skučen i linearan ujedno, pa je otud i novum krajnje neubedljivo neraspoređen (Pohl nam ljupko nudi 'superkompjutere' koji zauzimaju čitave hangare (ha!), ali pri tom ne nudi gotovo niti jedan jedini njihov uticaj u čovekovoj svakodnevici); a tema rasnog ili polno/rodnog identiteta je toliko ignorisana da čovek naprosto ne može a da se ne divi tolikom autizmu kojim pravoverje modelira čak i veoma obrazovane i pronicljive ljude. No ipak, uprkos svemu tome, nepobitna je istina da Pohl majstorski iskorištava sav raspoloživ potencijal, ma kako se taj potencijal danas nama činio skroman - baš i kao sa svojim talentom u celini, Pohl uspeva da iz svake skromne komponente ovog romana izvuče apsolutni maksimum, a to svakako jeste odlika talentovanog pisca i odanog žanrovca.


Pa, da krenemo od same naslovnice.
Da, da, znam da će neko ko nema neophodno žanrovsko obrazovanje i afinitet (avaj, čak i mnogi koji rečene kvalitete imaju) lako u ovakvoj naslovnici videti samo jednu skroz naivnu i infantilnu vizualizaciju kiborga. Ali valjda upravo tu ključnu ulogu i igra ona fina razlika koja nam deli palp od šunda generalno: u ovom konkretnom slučaju, svrhovitost određuje praktičnost, a ova zauzvrat nudi ekonomičnost pa time i estetiku: da, ovo je čisto žanrovska prezentacija kiborga koji bi tumarao marsovskim pejzažom, ali je ujedno i dovoljno ekonomična da bude teško osporiva sa realističke strane: 1. Nema razloga da kiborg ne ispoštuje obličje ljudskog dvonošca, 2. Kompaktni senzori adaptirani za marsovske uslove itekako mogu da liče na muvlje oči, i pod 3. Kiborgu neosporno treba nezavisan i trajan izvor energije, što podrazumeva između ostalog i solarne panele, što dalje u marsovskim uslovima podrazumeva i maksimalnu površinu istih, to sa minimalnim opterećenjem za telo koje ih nosi, dakle, da - nešto u fazonu sklopivih krila, pomalo nalik onima kod slepog miša, to uglavnom zato što minimalno ometaju mobilnost tela koje ih nosi i razvlači po potrebi. No dobro, to i nije aspekt kojem treba bilo kakva odbrana, jer to je sasvim pitanje estetike, i žanrovac će to lako prihvatiti u istom tom kontekstu, a onaj ko to nije u stanju... pa, njemu je dalje tumačenje najverovatnije bespotrebno.


Što se stila i izraza tiče, recimo da je Pohlov adekvatan, i to je uglavnom to. Izraz je prilično ekonomičan, to da, ali je ujedno i krajnje prozaičan, stvoren da funkcionalno akomodira naraciju koja nam saopštava sve ono neophodno da bi se ispratio zaplet. Slično adekvatan izraz koristili su Asimov i Clarke, pa je otud i dokazan kao savršena alatka za isporuku zapleta koji se obilno oslanja na tehnikalije koje se laicima moraju saopštiti ekonomično ali i pedantno ujedno. Ali, u MAN PLUS zapletu zaista nema odviše takvih tehnološki zahtevnih detalja, pa bi otud i prozaičnost ovakvog izraza vrlo brzo sedimentirala u čistu banalnost, ako već ne i otvorenu dosadu. Da stvar po saspens bude još gora, Pohl bira i tradicionalni format zlatnodopskog narativa koji nas već na početku upozna sa činjenicom da je kolonizacija Marsa bila uspešna, što nam dalje jasno najavljuje da će se roman posvetiti isključivo zbivanjima koja su joj prethodila, dakle, sa znatnom dozom sortiranja informacije u formatu 'naknadne pameti'. Vrlo riskantan pristup, naizgled jednostavan pa otud i omiljen kod diletanata, ali zapravo dovoljno sofisticiran da bi se trebali laćati samo dokazani majstori. Pohl, naravno, ne bi bio Grand Master a da nema trik koji od tako neslanog štiva može stvoriti intrigantan tekst: Pohl svog naratora stavlja u treće lice množine! I eto, odjednom više skoro da i ne marite za simplificiranost tog izlaganja, zato što vam se stalno vrzmaju po glavi pitanja tipa, ko su ti famozni 'mi' koji nam pričaju ovu priču? I kako je taj misteriozni grupni narator prisutan čak i u situacijama koje su očigledno intimna zbivanja protagonista? Da li je grupni narator zapravo gomila psihopata? Ili špijuna? Ali zašto špijuna, kad zaplet ne zahteva tu konkretnu dimeniziju, niti ima ikakve očigledne koristi od nje? Naravno, kako zlatnodopski format nalaže, tek u epilogu saznaćete ko je taj famozni grupni narator. Možda ćete i naslutiti negde tokom čitanja, ali to uglavnom tek u poodmakloj fazi romana, pa otud i nema veze: trik je ispunio svoju svrhu i dodao saspens kojeg inače jedva da bi bilo. Otud se i potez mora prepoznati kao hvale vredan stilski poduhvat.


Dalje, novum. neravnomeran kakav već jeste, ujedno je i ograničen silno konzervativnom ekstrapolacijom futurizma koja je, recimo i to, bila skoro pa već neodrživa i u vreme njegovog objavljivanja, a kamoli danas. Naravno, Pohlov konzervativni svetonazor nije bio nikakva tajna, kao što to mnogi skandali oko njegove uređivačke cenzure pokazuju ( najpoznatiji je tu svakako onaj sa Ellisonovom pričom "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"), tako da nema smisla sad se bog zna kako zgražati nad time. Isto tako, fer je priznati da je i pre novotalasnih snaga žanr svakako bio sasvim dovoljno drzak u redizajnu dotadašnjeg puritanski represivnog tretiranja konzervativnih tema i topika - dakle, te su granice već silno ispomerali autori poput Farmera, Sturgeona i Butlerove, između ostalih, tako da zaista ne stoji pretpostavka kako nije bilo donekle ugaženih staza kojima su se mogle doseći teritorije po kojima žanrovski pisac do tada još kročio nije. Pre će biti da je Pohl jednostavno odlučio da ga te teritorije ne zanimaju, ali to je već manji komad fascinacije; onaj veći komad svakako se može prepoznati kao Pohlovo insistiranje da futurizam može i mora ravnopravno pripasti i konzervativcima. A to je već tema za studioznije bavljenje, i nesumnjivo se nje neko već i prihvatio.


Verovatno najuočljiviji aspekt neravnomernosti novuma ogleda se u Pohlovom blatantnom autizmu po pitanju tretmana žena: u Pohlovom novumu 'slabiji' pol ima i srazmerno slabiju ulogu: žene skoro da i ne postoje van tih stereotipnih obrazaca. A da stvar bude gora, nisu bog zna kako uspešne čak ni u tim krajnje simplificiranim ulogama: kiborgova žena je isprazno i bleskasto stvorenje koje se ostvaruje isključivo kroz preljubu, a kiborgove negovateljice i medicinske sestre su isto tu u limbu nekakvog međustanja, negde na pola puta između kokete i majke, očigledno nesposobne da u potpunosti ispune zahteve ijedne krajnosti. Otud se i jedina kompetentna negovateljica kalkulisano prikazuje kao žena srednjih godina, teški pušač, sa minimalnim atributima ženskosti, skoro pa muškobanjasta stasom i intelektom... O tom stavu bi se mogli držati silni simpozijumi, ali unutar palpičnih žanrovskih okvira fer je priznati da obrazac ima isto pravo na egzistenciju koliko i oni na drugom kraju spektra, jer žanrovski futurizam mora ili pripasti svima jednako, ili će malo ko od njega imati koristi. A Pohl je opet dovoljno majstor da ponudi narativ koji opstaje i na tako... eh... specifično konzervativnom poimanju naše eventualne stvarnosti. I mada nam tu stvarnost Pohl locira uglavnom u ovo ili ovome blisko vreme (opet ta zlatnodopska lukavost: timeline se može proceniti samo posredno, recimo u najavi da je Deshatine 42gi američki predsednik), može se reći da je ona danas jednako anahrona koliko je bila u doba objavljivanja, tako da tu skoro da i nema nekog značajnijeg podbačaja. Sem ako ne prepoznamo kao podbačaj činjenicu da je Pohl čvrsto verovao kako ćemo pre stići na Mars nego što će crnac (ili žena) stići do Bele Kuće. 


Drugi aspekt neravnomernosti novuma mogao bi se naći u tehnološkim i društveno-političkim ekstrapolacijama koje su u svojoj suštini toliko generičke da ih se može prepoznati kao sastavni deo svakog istorijskog perioda. Taj hladnoratovski koncept društveno, politički, kulturno i ekonomski suprotstavljenih blokova toliko je samopodrazumevajući da Pohl i ne smatra da se konfrontacija treba ikako personalizovati. Čak naprotiv, zlatnodopski format preferiše da se upravo takvi detalji izostave, da bi futurizam bio uverljiviji na duge staze, pa otud Pohl sračunato ne prokazuje ko je tu zapravo 'neprijateljska strana'. Ovlaš se pominju Azijati, a pošto mi pri čitanju podsvesno tumačimo prozu u savremenom kontekstu, podrazumeva se da tu prednjače Kinezi. Opet, dobar zlatnodopski trik, sračunat da romanu održava relevantnost na duge staze.


Ali aspekt transhumanizma tu definitivno odnosi šnjur, i pred njim sve ostale razlike blede do granice nebitnosti. I opet je uočljivo da iza tog Pohlovog izbora stoji svetonazor i principi za koje autor ne oseća potrebu da preispita, čak ni kad sama proza to od njega očigledno zahteva. Pohlov transhumanizam je do te mere sveden na kozmetiku, pa još k tomu i reverzibilnu, da je zapravo neodrživo prepoznati ga kao trans ili  posthimanizam, to čak ni kao ranu ili proto verziju: ako išta, lakše ga je prepoznati kao anti-transhumanizam.    Pohlov Roger Torraway je toliko neskriveno i neuzdrmano patrijahalna i konzervativna ličnost da zapravo postaje neka vrst simbola kojim jedan svetonazor zahteva svoje ravnopravno parče žanrovskog futurizma, u doba u kom je sve više postajalo očigledno da će on u celosti pripasti nekim drugim modelima. A ako svrnemo pogled na savremenu produkciju, videćemo da se to upravo i dogodilo: današnji majstori transhumanizma (Egan, KSR i Watts, na primer) nude upravo koncepte čiji je konzervativni pandan Pohl ponudio u liku svog  kiborga Rogera Torrawaya. I mada je transhumanistički koncept te trojice isuviše obilan i širok da ga se svede na bilo kakav zajednički nazivnik, upravo Pohlov kiborg pomaže da se u tome donekle uspe: Roger Torraway predstavlja prciznu otelotvorenu suprotnost savremenog transhumanizma.


U procesu kiborgizacije, Roger Torraway gubi jedan po jedan deo tela: svaki amputirani deo tela se zamenuje tehnološki savršenim prostetikom, sve dok od Rogera ne ostane samo mozak, neophodan da procesuira informaciju i tako upravlja kiborgom. Tokom celog tog mučnog procesa amputiranja ljudskosti, Roger ne doživljava niti milisekund sumnje u svoj identitet: da, svakim danom sve više i više on postaje mašina, ali to je samo kozmetika, jer on u svom telu ionako ne obitava - on je Roger Torraway zato što je intelekt koji živi samo u mozgu, ne u telu. Telo je smrtno, telo je nevažno, telo je samo mesnati transporter kojim upravlja intelekt. Nema te telesne transformacije koja bi mogla da uzdrma identitet tog intelekta: Roger je jednako Roger i uvek će biti Roger, bilo da ga se stavi u kiborg mašinu, ili u telo od krvi i mesa ili drugog pola, ili da ga se daunloduje u kompjuterski čip. U tom finalnom razgraničenju tela i intelekta koji njime upravlja, Roger Torraway i nema potrebu da odviše preispituje svoj identitet, naprosto zato što on zna šta jeste, i tu spoznaju ne može niti uzdrmati a kamoli promeniti tamo neki tričavi tehnološki proces menjanja tela, zato što je taj proces očigledno reverzibilan, pa otud i čisto kozmetički.


Ali u svom tom stoičkom podnošenju amputacija tela u koji je rođen, Roger Torraway je samo jednom sebi dopustio reakciju, i to od one ekstremno potresne sorte: kad je shvatio da je kastriran. U trenutku kad je shvatio da je ostao bez genitalija, Rogerov intelekt je istovremeno doživeo sijaset reakcija duhovnog sloma, od histerije pa do katatonije, najavljujući činjenicu da identitet Rogerovog  intelekta itekako ovisi o mesnatom transporteru u koji je rođen, ali naravno, Pohl tu Rogerovu krizu autistički ignoriše, daveći je stoicizmom zlatnodopske herojštine. Otud je i ta jedna jedina narativna prilika da se 'čovek plus' i 'čovek minus' direktno suoče sračunato zadavljena, e da nedaj bože kasnije u romanu ne izraste u nešto sklono bilo kakvom otimanju narativnoj kontroli.


U epilogu, MAN PLUS nudi uvid u svetonazor za koji se danas baš i ne može precizno žanrovski proceniti da li je sve ređi ili samo zapostavljeniji, pa time i manje uočljiviji. Sam Pohl svakako jeste bio neuzdrman u svom konzervativnom poimanju sveta, ali to ipak ne znači da je ujedno bio i neperceptivna osoba, nesposobna da prepozna obrise stvari koje dolaze. Ne treba zaboraviti da je upravo Pohl bio izdavačka snaga iza DHALGRENa i THE FEMALE MANa, dok je radio kao agent za Bantam,  tako da je itekako bio svestan dubina transhumanističke kontroverze, ali izgleda da naprosto nije osećao potrebu da i sam bude deo iste. A sa ovim konkretno romanom, Pohl nudi sasvim pristojne argumente u podršku teze da, bez obzira kome eventualno pripadne sama budućnost ljudske vrste, bar žanrovski futurizam ravnopravno pripada i konzervativcima.

[PTY]

Pošto smo skoro izgubili još jednog žanrovskog velikana, Luciusa Sheparda, red je bio da se i od njega oprostimo kako dolikuje: uživanjem u njegovoj prozi. Sasvim slučajno, izbor je pao na njeogov poslednji roman, Beautiful Blood, to bez ikakvog predznanja da će to biti zapravo konačna i potpuna Griaule saga, dakle nešto sasvim nekarakteristično za Sheparda na kom sam odrasla. I ne tvrdim sad da me magični realizam kao žanr po pravilu odbija, nego mi naprosto nije pošlo za rukom na naiđem na bog zna kako impresivne naslove u tom žanru. Ali ovakav kakvog ga Shepard piše, daleko od toga da bi ikog ikad odbio, a pogotovo mene.



Sama skaska je startovala još davne 1984, sa pričom "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule", i upravo to što sam svojedobno smatrala za autorski odušak, za mali izlet u preširoka prostranstva fentezi proizvoljnosti, u ovom romanu se pokazalo kao upravo kruna Luciusovog opusa.


Zmaj Griaule, veličanstvena paralizovana zver u čijoj senci cveta grad Teocinte, u ovom romanu efikasno povezuje sva pređašnja pominjanja sa svojim tragičnim finalom. Različiti ljudi imaju različite motive da ubiju Griaula, ali svi se slažu da je poželjno da ga se ubije, i to na neki fin i kulturan, znači beskrvan način. Zadatak je poveren umetniku slikaru, koji planira da na zmajevim slabinama oslika mural otrovnim bojama, a jednom kad mural bude završen, Griaule će iz milenijumske kome neosetno kliznuti u smrt. Ili je bar takav plan.


Delikatni psihološki portreti svih tih ljudi koji žive u senci uspavanog zmaja i plotuju njegovu smrt su duboka fascinacija i ogromno čitalačko zadovoljstvo. Ako išta, Lucius u ovom romanu ubija ne samo Griaula, nego i svaki bogovetni fentezi kliše o zmajevima: Luciusov Griaule niti bljuje vatru, niti širi veličanstvena krila nego je tek paralizovana lešina kojoj isti ti zaverenici izvlače krv i otkidaju komade mesa i krljušti zarad novčanog profita. Pa ipak, čak i u tom inertnom stanju ne-bitisanja Griaule samom svojom masivnošću održava ne samo sopstvenu fantastičnu biosferu, nego i egzistencijalni okvir za sve ljude koji u njegovoj blizini opstaju. Za te ljude, Griaul definiše smrtnost i raspadanje u istom kontekstu u kom definiše i besmrtnost i večnost, pa se otud i roman bavi subverzivnim temama na način koji se retko očekuje (a zato i još ređe prepoznaje) od samog žanra fentezija.


Otud se i doživljava kao veličanstven i pomalo gorak eksperiment u kom jedan fascinantno nadaren autor transmutira tamo neke skoro pa bezvredne fentezi proizvoljnosti u duboka i suštinska filozofska razmišljanja (koja će najverovatnije mimoići sve ljubitelje fentezija koji omaškom i u potrazi za zmajevima otvore ovu knjigu 


U svom finalnom naslovu, Lucius nudi ostavštinu u vidu straobalne jezičke i karakterizacijske veštine, sve to u svrhu isporuke jedne dirljive i prilično neočekivane filozofije, to bar kad se uzme u obzir sf ostatak njegovog opusa. I eto, koliko god da smo bili njegovi obožavaoci za života, toliko nam Beautiful Blood daje na znanje da smo možda vrlo malo o samom Luciusu znali, ali dobro, bio je to baja sa kojim smo odrasli i kog ćemo se uvek rado sećati i još ga rađe čitati.

[PTY]

I eto, najzad je došlo podesno vreme da utvrdimo Eganov Incandesence.


Bog dobri zna da Egan nije laka literatura čak ni u svom najzabavnijem formatu, ali Incandesence me je svojedobno izmučio koliko i Schild's Ladder, to do tačke u kojoj sam usprkos zainteresiranosti prosto morala da ga ostavim za neko bolje vreme. To "bolje vreme" kod mene u prevodu uglavnom znači više slobodnog vremena i manje poslovne rastrzanosti uopšte, znači, uglavnom podrazumeva godišnji odmor.


Kao i svi Eganovi ultradaleki futurizmi, Incandesence podrazumeva koncepte sa kojima se čovek mora dobrano izrvati pre no što ih u potpunosti shvati i prihvati, a Egan upravo u tom delu svog opusa nekako ponajmanje tetoši neukog čitaoca. Matematički koncepti, baš kao i oni o fizici crnih rupa i orbitalnih kalkulacija, zahtevaju predznanje koje uvelike nadmašuje prosečan nivo opšteg znanja, iako ih Egan unosi i razvija vrlo postepeno i temeljito. Upravo u tu svrhu je i osmišljen zaplet jedne od narativnih linija: insektoidni stanovnici malog sveta dolaze u opasnost da ih proguta gravitacioni kolaps zvezde koja je nekad davno bila uzrok propasti njihove rodne planete. U kratkom periodu od intelektualnog "buđenja" prve jedinke koja je naslutila opasnost, pa do izvođenja samog manevra kojim je opasnost izbegnuta, Egan posredno elaborira i koncept posthumanističke ideje i filozofije o uzajamnoj vezi  tehnologije i entiteta koji ju je stvorio. U drugoj narativnoj liniji, Egan razvija isti koncept kao "naš" posthumanistički futurizam, udaljem milion godina od današnjice: to je koncept koji dosledno razvija i elaborira u svim svojim ultradalekim futurizmima, i on tu narativno služi i kao paralela i kao reper ujedno.


Eganova fascinacija našim "postDNA" intelektom i identitetom i ovde nudi teren za vrlo ubedljivo predočen koncept posthumanističke inteligencije koji je u Incandesence atraktivniji no ikada, iako je dobrim delom saopšten kao samopodrazumevajući. (A možda upravo u tome i leži najveći deo njegove privlačnosti. ) Eganov opus je odavno već dostigao fazu u kojoj je prilično samoreferentan, pa ga je izgelda i najbolje čitati upravo hronološkim redom... što dalje znači da Ortogonal trilogija najverovatnije zahteva da se prethodni opus ne samo u potpunosti overi, nego najverovatnije i utvrdi. A to je plan&program kakvom se svaki hardSF fan zdušno raduje, ionako.

[Mica Milovanovic]

Ja moram da ustvrdim da moje sve skromnije praćenje svetskog SF-a ne uključuje Egana, pre svega što sam se par puta slično spotakao... To naprosto nije nešto sa čime imam snage da se borim...

[Mica Milovanovic]

Sad tek videh da si pisala o Šepardovom Griolu, mojoj staroj ljubavi...


Blentavi, nesređeni i neobavešteni (a entuzijastični) kakvi smo bili, objavismo davne 1992. u Monolitu The Scalehunters Beautiful Daughter, a da smo preskočili predivan uvod u ovaj serijal "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule". Tek kasnije postadosmo svesni šta smo uradili. Ja imam negde na nekom starom disku u ChiWriteru devet desetina završen prevod priče The Father of Stones, po meni možda i najboljeg nastavka serijala - priče koja na predivan način u jednom naizgled običnom fentazi miljeu razmatra neka od ključnih pitanja ljudskom postojanja - slobodne volje, naše mogućnosti da utičemo na ono što nam se dešava, jesmo li slobodna bića ili "pioni u igri života", vođeni voljom stvorenja koje svojim postojanjem menja stvarnost oko sebe...


Kad i ako odem u penziju, kao scallop, završiću jednog dana taj prevod...

[scallop]

Prethodno ćeš imati paklene muke da se izvučeš i čirajtera. Vadio sam "Varnicu" iz toga i nikom ne bih poželeo.

[Mica Milovanovic]

 

[PTY]

Sad tek videh da si pisala o Šepardovom Griolu, mojoj staroj ljubavi...


Blentavi, nesređeni i neobavešteni (a entuzijastični) kakvi smo bili, objavismo davne 1992. u Monolitu The Scalehunters Beautiful Daughter, a da smo preskočili predivan uvod u ovaj serijal "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule". Tek kasnije postadosmo svesni šta smo uradili. Ja imam negde na nekom starom disku u ChiWriteru devet desetina završen prevod priče The Father of Stones, po meni možda i najboljeg nastavka serijala - priče koja na predivan način u jednom naizgled običnom fentazi miljeu razmatra neka od ključnih pitanja ljudskom postojanja - slobodne volje, naše mogućnosti da utičemo na ono što nam se dešava, jesmo li slobodna bića ili "pioni u igri života", vođeni voljom stvorenja koje svojim postojanjem menja stvarnost oko sebe...


Kad i ako odem u penziju, kao scallop, završiću jednog dana taj prevod...

da, da, Griaule je neverovatno potresan motiv... otud ti je ovaj roman must read stavka, veruj mi na reč. Potpuno me uhvatilo na prepad, ta Luciusova dimenzija. Mislim, znala sam ja da je on straobalan pisac, daleko od toga, ali nikad mi nije palo na pamet da će upravo na Griaule ovoliko da se sunovrati u čistu metafiziku. A najpametnije od svega, nema tu nikakvih odgovora, samo pitanja. Čovek me naprosto oduvao, šta da ti kažem.




Što se samog Egana tiče, on tu ništa posebno ne odskače od ostalih iz grupe trenutno vodećih: znači, McAuley, Watts, KSR, Nagata i još par njih posvećenih hardSF maniru, kao Atwoodova ili Bear, recimo. Egan razvija potpuno iste koncepte, i to u skoro pa istim formatima: evolucija bazirana na bio i nano tehnologiji, AI, etički i moralni aspekti transhumanizma i sve što ide u tom paketu. Ali način na koji on to radi izdvaja ga, i to dobrano, od svih ostalih za koje znam. jednostavno, Egan tome prilazi iz nekog ekstremno ozbiljnog ugla i tu nema ni mrve kompromisa sa palpičnim formatima za kojima gotovo svi ostali redovito posežu. Recimo, meni se 2312 veoma dopao, stvarno, ali kad bi se po tim parametrima poredili, onda bi 2312 bio roto roman a Incadesence doktorat, na potpuno istu temu, jelte.


Naravno, što roman palpičniji, utoliko je prijemčiviji, ali po tom merilu, ništa od Eganovog ultradalekog futurizma nije laka proza, ali je zato neverovatno zarazna. Posle trećeg u nizu romana, Egan će ti postati životna opsesija, to ti sad tvrdim, a ti sad vidi i premeri da li ćeš da gricneš i taj famozni prvi. 

[PTY]

     




Znam da nije fer na bilo koji način kritikovati nedočitanu knjigu, ali prosto moram... u pitanju je The Genome – Sergej Lukjanjenko.

Priznajem da nisam ništa od njegove "straže" čitala, tako da ne verujem kako je problem bio u prevelikim očekivanjima, ili premalim, svejedno: the Genome ima više nego pristojne ocene kod mnogih žarovskih rivjuista, plus se generalno bavi temom koja me zanima, tako da je to odnelo prevagu. Sam Lukjanjenko ima status gotovo glamuroznog pisca, i često se pominje njegova veština u kombinovanju post-sojvetskih i anglosaksonskih referenci, to pogotovo u karakterizaciji i humoristički obojenim fabrikacijama o stvarnim ljudima i fenomenima. I dobro sad, možda sve to i stoji, oni koji su Lukjanjenka vise iščitali (ili bar ovaj roman dovršili) znaće to bolje od mene. Ja to jednostavno nisam bila u stanju, u tamo negde na oko 45% odustala sam od čitanja. 

E sad, interesantno je da ne mogu kategorično da tvrdim kako je the Genome loše štivo, u smislu da me se doima kao slabo ili neinteresantno ili nevešto sročeno. Naprotiv, po sve tri stavke roman se solidno kotira, tu uključujući i moj dojam o samom prevodu: stil je solidan, mada decidirano nezahtevan, ali to je svakako postignuto sa otvorenom namerom a ne na bilo kakvoj autorskoj nesposobnosti. Što se same "interesantnosti" tiče, i tu se malo šta može argumentovano spotčitnuti, jer roman nudi zbivanja u vrlo intenzivnom tempu – iz strane u stranu, tu se non-stop nešto događa, smenjuju se protagonisti i aktivnosti i informacije (ovo poslednje u prilično didaktičnom maniru, ali ne narušava sam tempo), i to vrtoglavo gomilanje svega i svačega diže intenzitet do samih granica histerije, pa opet...cela ta smesa ostaje neverovatno isprazna, u svom tom kovitlacu. Moram da priznam kako me to neobično fasciniralo, jer tako je fino podešeno da se stvarno teško prepoznaje kao slučajnost.  Mislim, sa tolikim obiljem pokretnih elemenata, skoro je nemoguće da celina ne proizvede makar i privid nekakve sadržine, ali u ovom slučaju ostalo je vakuumski prazno i uopšte ne postavljam pitanje da li i koliko tu ima praznog hoda između zbivanja, jer ovde  upravo sama histerična zbivanja jesu prazan hod i ništa više. Fascinantno, zaista: šund na larpurlartističkom nivou.

Elem, negde na pola knjige uhvatim se kako zapravo stalno razmišljam o tome. Ne kažem da je to samo po sebi bilo dovoljno da od knjige odustanem, ali jeste mi bilo dovoljno da shvatim kako mi je sasvim svejedno da li ću do ovog konkretno epiloga uopšte stići, i tako...

[PTY]

The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein and Other Gothic Tales








Svojevremeno sam skinula pirat Ligotijeve The Collected Short Fiction i skroz se izgubila u toj masivnoj knjižurini, pa mi se učinilo da bi mi praktičnije bilo da štrpkam same zbirke pojedinačno, makar da se opet ne zateknem u situaciji kako po enti put čitam istu priču.   


Odlična zbirka, puna bizarnih i morbidnih, ali uvek fascinirajućih tvistova na poznate skaske o gotskom mraku. Na neke od njih Ligoti ukucava efikasniji epilog a neke odvodi i korak dalje, ali u svakom slučaju radi se o uspešnom zakucavanju ekstra bizarnijeg eksera. Apsolutni majstor baratanja suštinom u ultra kratkoj formi, ali dobro, nema potrebe da i ovde ponavljam ono što i vrapci već znaju - nije da nam baš na ovom terenu treba jos jedan ekspert za bliding obvijus... Ligoti rulz i to je to.  

[PTY]

     Dakle, apsolutno savršen završetak godine i njenog plana & programa! 

Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do—a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He's supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That's all there is to it. He's offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn't what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.

     Odlična knjiga, iz pera autora kojeg volim i cenim, pa još i napisana u maniru koji je ispunio (čak i nadmašio, ako ćemo iskreno) sva ogromna očekivanja koja sam negovala još otkako je knjiga najavljena!

Istina je da smo se Gibson i ja pomalo razilazili još od Neuromancera, a sa svakom trilogijom ta distanca je postajala sve veća i veća. Nije tu bilo ničeg posebnog ili konkretnog, nego eto, izgleda da se naprosto radilo o nekoj vrsti otuđenja baziranog na zamoru materijala: Spook Country i Zero History su zahtevali određenu dozu napora da se dočitaju, i izgledalo mi je da će to (p)ostati Gibsonov trend u novom veku i milenijumu. Jedno vreme je tu bilo malko razočarenja (od one vrste kojom iskreni fanovi uglavnom ispraćaju odrastanje, to bilo sopstveno ili autorovo, a neretko i oba ujedno ), onda je usledila i rezignacija (kad fan ubeđuje sebe kako sve prolazi, i mora da prođe, jer ništa ne traje večno i sve tako u slično musavom fazonu  ), ali onda - onda je došao The Peripheral.

The Peripheral žonglira dva konkretna futurizma: prvi je udaljen oko dve decenije od naše današnjice, a drugi negde oko 7 decenija. Oba novuma nude karakterističnu distopiju koju spaja sam zaplet: Flynne (prvi futurizam) živi u nekoj vrsti predapokaliptične distopije, prepoznatljivo ekstrapoliranoj iz naše današnjice: Flynne i njen brat, rednek veteran sa arapskih žarišta, žive u svetu gde je jedina ekonomija svedena na proizvodnju narkotika preko ilegalnih builder-printera, to uz mafijaški suptilnu podršku korumpirane Homeland Security infrastrukture. I kad Flynne jednog dana zameni brata na polulegalnom posliću koji se svima činio trivijalnim i krajnje banalnim - da upravlja security dronom u nečemu za šta su smatrali da je demo verzija nove kompjuterske igre -  ona prisustvuje nečemu što joj baš i ne izgleda kao normalno zbivanje u virtuelnom konstruktu.
Istovremeno, u onom udaljenijem postapokaliptičnom futurizmu, Wilf Netherton saznaje zašto su to Kinezi, zajedno sa ultrabogatom post-Putinovskom mafijom, daleko lakše preživeli apokalipsu koja je eliminisala skoro 80% stanovništva sa lica Zemlje: nepoznati serveri (u anonimnom vlasništvu) u stanju su da uspostave network most preko njega razmenjuju informaciju sa određenim segmentom prošlosti. Vrlo korisna alatka za gomilanje novca, ta mogućnost da se važna informacija plasira u kritični momenat iz prošlosti... ali naravno, postoji tu caka – jednom kad se most razmene informacije uspostavi, taj segment prošlosti više ne sledi uobičajeni linearni kontinuum, nego postaje njegov patrljak, slobodan da stvara sopstvenu budućnost. I mada u trenutku uspostavljanja veze između dve tačke u vremenu one obe jednako pripadaju istom kontinuumu, što se zbivanja više gomilaju, to se patrljak tačke prošlosti više odvaja od rečenog kontinuuma.

Dovoljno široka pozornica za zaplet, ali svejedno, malo ko istu koristi na način na koji se to Gibson odlučio. Kad smo zadnji put imali kolekciju rednek protagonista van svoje prvoloptaški stereotipne forme i sadržaja? Ne pamtim, pošto se pri worklbuildingu čak ni žanrovski konzervativci ne uzdržavaju od korištenja prefabrikovanih lego kockica.
Upravo zato, The Peripheral je sve ono što je Neuromancer morao postati, u ovom najboljem od svih mogućih svetova.


The Peripheral je mudriji, zreliji Neuromancer, lišen narcisizma noar ikonografije i one uvek pomalo prisutne gibsonijanske samodovoljne samodopadljivosti koja je kasnije kulminirala u Bigendu.

The Peripheral je angažovan na način za koji čovek od prve strane naprosto zna da mu je srce na pravom mestu (to srce i romanu i angažmanu, jelte), i optimističan je na način na koji savremeni čovek mora biti optimističan, to ako želi da ostane i čovek i savremen ujedno: dakle, angažovan na preispitivanju svih svojih mogućnosti i svih mogućih budućnosti, i to bez narkoleptičnog eskapizma.

The Pripheral je roman koji je najzad prerastao distopiju kao proznu šminku i žanrovsku mimikriju koja je samoj sebi svrha, baš kao što je i prerastao noar-antiheroje koji su boemski kul i tehno-gikovski šik.

The Peripheral kaže "Because people who couldn't imagine themselves capable of evil were at major disadvantage in dealing with people who didn't need to imagine, because they already were. She'd said it was always a mistake, to believe those people were different, special, infected with something that was inhuman, subhuman, fundamentally other. Which had reminded her of what her mother had said about Corbell Picket. That evil wasn't glamorous, but just the result of ordinary half-assed badness, high school badness, given enough room, however that might happen, to become its bigger self. Bigger, with more horrible results, but never more than the cumulative weight of ordinary human baseness."


Ovaj citat apsolutno ilustruje ne samo duh romana nego i duh samog 'novog' Gibsona, jer ova ideja možda i jeste nekakva sinteza svetonazora iz pređašnjih romana, ali to onda samo na nekom bazičnom nivu koji je tek ovde evoluirao u jedan suštinski realističniji a otud i neminovno optimističniji svetonazor. Negde usput, savremeni SF futurizam nam je srozan na apokaliptični difolt koji je postao sam sebi svrha, pa otud i dekadentno zavodljiv: na mestima gde nam je nekad služio u svrhu upozorenja, danas sve češće služi u svrhu gratifikacije. Bliski futurizam u svojoj savremenoj verziji neretko nudi i dimenziju skoro pa morbidnog likovanja: žanrovski autori kao da su se malko smorili što glavnina populacije i dalje ne veruje u apokaliptične predznake u domenima klimatskih promena, finansijske nestabilnosti i društvenih tenzija, pa otud i insistiraju na distopiji kao samopodrazumevajuće logičnoj posledici. Ne kažem da je takav svetonazor sasvim neopravdan, ali doima me se prilično infantilan taj način na koji sebe smatra progresivnim, dok u stvari nudi samo malko ispoliranu verziju hipi naivne tehnofobije.

The Peripheral otud nudi pošteno ekstrapolirane distopije koje kao da nam govore: da, jeste, budućnost će nam doneti određenu količinu sranja, ali ništa manje no što ga je naša sadašnjost donela našoj ne tako davnoj prošlosti.

[PTY]

     Dakle, mojih 5 knjiških hajlajta iz 2014:


Naj mejnstrim knjiga:













Naj žanrovska knjiga:









Naj debi roman:









Naj nonfiction:





Naj specijalni utisak:


odlična godina! masa genijalnih, uglavnom žanrovskih knjiga naprosto nije uspela da se dokopa naj-liste, pa ni genijalni The Peripheral... ali Faber je isporučio naslov koji ne samo da je pomeo svu svoju konkurenciju za knjigu godine, nego za sad vodi i u domenu knjige decenije. magično štivo, u svakom bogovetnom pogledu.

[BladeRunner]

Hej PTY,

hvala za listu. Vremena za čitanje nikada manje, pa je ovo baš ono što mi je trebalo.

Keep watching the skies (i sve naj)

[PTY]

lajkvajz, Blejde! 

[PTY]

     Meni je već odavno postalo pravilo da neznane i nepreporučene knjige čitam taman koliko se daju čitati, dakle, sve dok ne naletim na prvu oveću poteškoću koja najavljuje da knjiga možda i nije baš vredna truda i vremena. Ta rutina prilično dobro funkcioniše, još mi se nije desilo da sam se pokajala zbog takve selektivnosti, ali ponekad naletim na knjigu za koju naprosto ne mogu da iskreno ocenim da li spada u "dobro" ili "loše" kategoriju, sve kad je tako mic-po-mic i dočitam. Jedna od takvih je i The Transhumanist Wager (u daljem tekstu TTW, zarad uštede vremena), prvenac Zoltana Istvana.







E sad, ovo je stvarno masivna knjižurina koju teško da ćete ikad čitati u prevodu, ali opet, ne mogu ni mirne duše da tvrdim kako to ipak nije nekakva šteta: roman me se doima kao sazdan isključivo od mana i nedostataka, pa opet, eto, u pitanju je vrlo kontroverzno štivo, a već je to samo po sebi nekakav kvalitet. Ukratko, da me neko pita da li bih TTW prepuručila za čitanje, ja stvarno ne znam da li bi tu iskren odgovor bio da ili ne, a to mi se stvarno retko dešava. Otud, umesto ocene (a ni po pitanju ocene ne mogu da se odlučim, TTW mi oscilira od dvojke pa do oslabije četvorke istovremeno, nekakav skoro pa kvantni fenomen  ), da malko drvim po fenomenu koji me košta skoro punih 20 sati čitanja.

Elem, Zoltan Istvan je zbog ove knjige obijao pragove ni manje ni više nego pet stotina izdavača, i svi su mu rekli "ne": većinu razloga za takvu odluku i sama mogu da prepoznam, otud im i ne zameram. Eventualno je Zoltan ovo izbacio kao samizdat, i eto, neke od ozbiljnih kritika su iznenađujuće povoljne, a ja opet uspevam da prepoznam većinu razloga i za taj fenomen. Jednostavno rečeno, TTW uspeva da čitaoca impresionira i razgnevi u isti mah, a to jeste popriličan poduhvat.

Istvan ima vrlo malo (ovde iskazanog) književnog talenta, ali izgleda da on i ne traži karijeru u književnosti, pa čak ni ovoj našoj populističkoj: Istvanu je naprosto trebala knjiga da preko nje plasira svoje filozofske i političke stavove, otud mu je žanrovski šablon sasvim dobro poslužio kao posuda za pomalo vitrioličan pamfletistički sadržaj. Ali to nije ni izbliza toliko negativna procena koliko zvuči kad je otkucam, pošto je SF žanrovski format ionako maltene namenjen za takve svrhe, a sam Zoltan ga koristi na prilično korektan način, bez ambicije za koju nema očigledno pokriće. Otud se i doima kao kompetentan korisnik žanrovskog alata: kad mu narativno ustreba prostor za tiradu, on posegne za formatom dnevnika ili razmene pisama ili nekom vrlo praktičnom scenom debate u kojoj učesnici prilično argumentovano iznose stavove. Iz perspektive žanrovskog romana (to pogotovo prvenca), to je prilično solidno urađeno, uglavnom zato što je Zoltan svestan svojih mogućnosti i limitacija, pa se otud i ne zaleće da odgrize više no što može da  uspešno sažvače. Dakle, da – čist pamfletizam na delu, ali SF to dobro podnosi, čak štaviše, SF to poprilično voli. Naravno, lepše je kad nas ta angažovanost dosegne u paketu sa impresivnom književnom veštinom, kao recimo kod Legvinove ili Mijevila, ali bože moj! ne mora baš sva ponuda da nam bude redom ekleri i mocart kugle, nađe čovek ponekad apetita i za običnu krofnu sa džemom.  Dakle, s te strane, TTW može da prođe: pamfletistički manir, ne odviše sofisticiran, ali opet, ne baš savim ni vulgaran, nego više onako, uglavnom prihvatljiv i razumno neambiciozan.

Ali ideje koje taj pamfletizam saopštava su priča za sebe: prepoznatljivo pozitivne u svojoj suštini, formatovane su na tako radikalan i do te mere beskompromisan način, da se ponekad naprosto postidite što ste u stanju da pokažete ikakvo razumevanje za iste. A pošto Istvan ni malo ne krije da je glavni protagonista TTW (Jethro Knights) zapravo njegov alter-ego, otud vam se ne ostavlja ni milimetra distance sa koje bi morali da eventualne opaske upućujete striktno protgonisti, a ne autoru. Na koga ste, btw, svakako negde i nekako već nabasali, kao kolumnistu i dopisnika za mnoge savremene medije, tu uključujući Wired, Nationa Geographic Channel i The Huffington Post.  Njegovi stavovi kroz te medije i jesu malko više moderisani, ali u knjizi, pa još pri tom i žanrovskoj, Zoltan je ocenio kako sebi može dati potpunog oduška, bez ikakvih zadrški i kompromisa.
Upravo to je i uradio.

Njegova tri transhumanistička "pravila" formatom podsećaju na Asimovljeva tri zakona robotike ali celokupni ton postavke koju ta pravila nose mene ponajviše podseća na filozofiju Ayn Rand, koja mi je uvek bila taman dovoljno odbojna da se nikad ne upustim u njeno podrobnije razumevanje. I mada ja odavno ne negujem interesovanje za stvari koje nalazim estetski ili ideološki neprihvatljivima, kod TTW to i nije toliko bio slučaj, pošto meni ideja o nauci podređenoj boljitku i napretku čoveka apsolutno nije odbojna, naprotiv. Ali jeste mi odbojna ideja o radikalnoj i ostrašćenoj svesti koja sebi uzima za pravo da u ime celog čovečanstva definiše šta je tu zapravo boljitak i napredak. A Zoltan Istvan radi upravo to.

Negde u dubini njegove naracije oseća se podstruja koja je meni čisto fašistička po svojoj prirodi, i to ne kripto, nego sasvim otvoreno i bez ikakve griže savesti. Otud je i naracija podređena toj podstruji, pa Zoltan/Jethro nailazi na oponente koji su redom karikature sopstvenih svetonazora: beskrupolozni političari, maliciozni religiozni lideri, marionetski Predsednik, kolebljivi naučnici, i sve u tom stilu. U tako crno-belo pojednostavljenoj strukturi naracije i svetonazora jednako, pamfletizmu je posao ekstremno olakšan, otud se i predstavlja kao lek protiv neznanja i korupcije, oličene u masi koja jednoobrazno podseća na religiozne protestante ispred klinika za abortuse. U Zoltanovom svetonazoru, svet je upravo tako podeljen: ta i takva bezumna gomila na jednoj strani, na drugoj strani on i njemu slični, a u sredini niko. Zapravo, kod Zoltana sredine uopšte i nema, samo te dve krajnosti.

Što se same filozofije tiče, ja svakako primećujem da je Zoltan dosledan što se njene primene tiče, ali zaista ne znam koliko je ona sama originalna. Osim pomenutih triju zakona (koje možete naći na njegovoj vikipedija stranici, da ih sad ne prekucavam), Zoltan svoju filozofiju TEF (Teleological Egocentric Functionalism) u romanu pojašnjava ovako: "Teleological  - because it is every advanced individual's inherent design and desired destiny to evolve. Egocentric – because it is based on each of our selfish individual desires, which are of foremost importance. Functional – because it will only be rational and consequential; not fair, nor humanitarian, nor altruistic, nor muddled with unreachable mammalian niceties."

Naravno, sf već odavno intenzivno secira koncept trans i posthumanizma, ali to seciranje retko kad ima ovakav ton. Paradoks je što mnoga od tih seciranja neretko stižu do veoma sličnih zaključaka, ali nikad uz tako blatantno ispoljen autizam prema konceptu ljudskosti kakvu danas (valjda, još uvek  ) znamo. A čovek ne može a da se pomalo zlobno ne zapita šta bi to zapravo Zoltan Istvan radio u svom posthumanistički besmrtnom obličju, da ga kojim slučajem za života dosegne? 

U svakom slučaju, vrlo interesantna knjiga, i to ne samo iz dijagnostičarske perspektive (da zadržimo još malo tu zdravu zlobu): filozofija je predočena u laički pojednostavljenom formatu, otud i pomalo otvorena za razne interpretacije. Moja je nekako na više instinktivnom nivou, i ako iko od vas odluči da se ovom knjigom pozabavi, bilo bi mi drago da čujem neka malko rezonskija i temeljitija tumačenja. Sam naslov knjige je direktna asocijacija na Pascal's Wager, i sa tim konceptom se prilično udobno gledam oči-u-oči, ali sa TEFom stvarno ne mogu, uprkos prirodnim afinitetima odavno sazrelog ateiste. 

[PTY]

januarski zanimljivi naslovi:



South London, May 2010: foxes are behaving strangely, Burmese immigrants are going missing, and everyone is trying to get hold of a new party drug called Glow. A young man suffering from a rare sleep disorder will uncover the connections between all these anomalies in this taut, riveting new novel by a young writer hailed by The Guardian as "playful, arresting, unnerving, opulent, rude and—above all—deliciously, startlingly, exuberantly fresh."

Twenty-two-year-old Raf spends his days walking Rose, a bull terrier who guards the transmitters for a pirate radio station, and his nights at raves in warehouses and launderettes. When his friend Theo vanishes without a trace, Raf's efforts to find him will lead straight into the heart of a global corporate conspiracy. Meanwhile, he's falling in love with a beautiful young woman he met at one of those raves, but he'll soon discover that there is far more to Cherish than meets the eye.

Combining the pace, drama, and explosive plot twists of a thriller with his trademark intellectual, linguistic, and comedic pyrotechnics, Glow is Ned Beauman's most compelling, virtuosic, and compulsively readable novel yet.





Almost anyone who has read or written Science Fiction or fantasy has been inspired by the work of Michael Moorcock. His literary flair and grand sense of adventure have been evident since his controversial first novel Behold the Man, through the stories and novels featuring his most famous character, Elric of Melniboné, to his fantasy masterpiece, Gloriana, winner of both the Campbell Memorial and World Fantasy, awards for best novel. Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and Michael Chabon all cite Moorcock as a major influence; as editor of New Worlds magazine, he helped launch the careers of many of his contemporaries, including Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, and J. G. Ballard.

Tor Books now proudly presents Moorcock's first independent novel in nine years, a tale both fantastical and autobiographical, a celebration of London and what it meant to be young there in the years after World War II. The Whispering Swarm is the first in a trilogy that will follow a young man named Michael as he simultaneously discovers himself and a secret realm hidden deep in the heart of London.




"Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent."

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future—all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.

The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer's daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge,  ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome—and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her.

Meanwhile, Apollo—stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does—has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human.

Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives—the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself—to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.

This new novel, and its forthcoming sequel, take place in a weird version of Greek mythology, featuring an ideal city of young people, robots from the distant future... and Socrates, stirring up trouble as usual.

[Mica Milovanovic]

Sestro slatka, čitam The Peripheral i dogurao do 150 stranice.
Meni sve vreme u glavi bruji Timescape - gotovo kao 35 godina kasnije da daje omaž ovom
velikom delu naučne fantastike... U pogovoru navodi Sterlingov Mozart in Mirrorshades, ali
ovo je, bre, Timescape, revisited (London-Amerika, ekološke i druge katastrofe, slanje poruka kroz vreme...)

[PTY]

da! Da! DA!

To je taj zreliji Gibson koji više ne živi u svom hermetički zavarenom mehuriću, Gibson koji se najzad ratosiljao autističke samodovoljnosti i dozvolio sebi da prepozna žanrovsku gravitaciju, i to gravitaciju obaju veličanstvenih korpusa, jer nazirem ja tu i malko džentlmenskog rukovanja sa engleskim sf svetonazorom...
Ali otom potom, jer ocenjujem da si tek negde na polovini, pa worldbuilding ni izbliza nije kompletan... ali jedva čekam još utisaka, je-dva, jer za potpunije razumevanje ovog romana garant mi treba hive mind. 

PS. Obrati pažnju na Michikoide

[Mica Milovanovic]

Mića mora da obrati pažnju na Mićikoide... 

[PTY]

Linda Nagata i dalje neguje sklonost ka trešastim naslovnicama... zubi mi utrnu čim ih ugledam 




Linda Nagata has a new trilogy of books coming out later this year from Saga Press, set in the same universe as her always-intriguing "Red" short fiction. Here are the covers for the first two books, The Red and The Trials

Here are the synopses of those first two books:



The Red

Reality TV and advanced technology make for high drama in this political thriller that combines the military action of Zero Dark Thirty with the classic science fiction of The Forever War.

Lieutenant James Shelley, who has an uncanny knack for premeditating danger, leads a squad of advanced US Army military tasked with enforcing the peace around a conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The squad members are linked wirelessly 24/7 to themselves and a central intelligence that guides them via drone relay—and unbeknownst to Shelley and his team, they are being recorded for a reality TV show.

When an airstrike almost destroys their outpost, a plot begins to unravel that's worthy of Crichton and Clancy's best. The conflict soon involves rogue defense contractors, corrupt US politicians, and homegrown terrorists who possess nuclear bombs. Soon Shelley must accept that the helpful warnings in his head could be AI. But what is the cost of serving its agenda?

The Trials

In the wake of nuclear terrorism, a squad of elite soldiers must combat artificial intelligence and seek justice in this military political thriller, a sequel to The Red.

Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is just one battlefield of many.

A new cycle of violence ignites when rumors of the elusive, rogue AI known as the Red go public—and Shelley is, once again, pulled into the fray. Challenged by his enemies, driven by ideals, Shelley feels compelled to act. But are the harrowing choices he makes really his own, or are they made for him, by the Red? And with millions of lives at stake in a game of nuclear cat-and-mouse, does the answer even matter?

[PTY]

Robert Charles Wilson ima novi naslov najavljen za april ove godine:











što se ekranizacije Spina tiče:


"Fight Club" screenwriter Jim Uhls will adapt Robert Charles Wilson's 2005 novel "Spin" for Syfy's miniseries of the same name, the cabler announced Thursday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.The six-hour miniseries will follow the novel's tale of a young scientist on a mission to save the world from an impending apocalypse due to a mysterious cloud that has covered planet Earth, blacking out all the stars.
Universal Cable Prods. will produce the project with Rob Morrow's Bits and Pieces Picture Company and Leslie Urdang of Olympus Pictures.
Wilson's "Spin" is the first book in a trilogy, which also includes "Axis" and "Vortex."





... nije loše, nije loše, scenarista svakako obećava, pošto je meni Fight Club ekranizacija bila znatno koherentnija od predloška, tako da sam za nju imala samo reči hvale. Otud se i nadam da će ton serije udariti upravo fenomenalni Spin, a ne poprilično inferiorniji ostatak trilogije.
dakle, živimo u nadi, baš kako i dolikuje.

[PTY]

A evo i šta nas tog lepog čeka u februaru.


Prvo i najvažnije:




The aliens are here. And they want to help. The extraordinary new project from one of the country's most acclaimed and consistently brilliant SF novelists of the last 30 years. The Jackaroo have given humanity 15 worlds and the means to reach them. They're a chance to start over, but they're also littered with ruins and artifacts left by the Jackaroo's previous clients. Miracles that could reverse the damage caused by war, climate change, and rising sea levels. Nightmares that could for ever alter humanity - or even destroy it. Chloe Millar works in London, mapping changes caused by imported scraps of alien technology. When she stumbles across a pair of orphaned kids possessed by an ancient ghost, she must decide whether to help them or to hand them over to the authorities. Authorities who believe that their visions point towards a new kind of danger. And on one of the Jackaroo's gift-worlds, the murder of a man who has just arrived from Earth leads policeman Vic Gayle to a war between rival gangs over possession of a remote excavation site. Something is coming through. Something linked to the visions of Chloe's orphans, and Vic Gayle's murder investigation. Something that will challenge the limits


a onda i:




Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things—which includes a never-before published American Gods story, "Black Dog," written exclusively for this volume.

In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction—stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013—as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.



After two acclaimed story collections, Laura van den Berg brings us Find Me, her highly anticipated debut novel—a gripping, imaginative, darkly funny tale of a young woman struggling to find her place in the world.


     Joy has no one. She spends her days working the graveyard shift at a grocery store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. But when a sickness that begins with memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy, for the first time in her life, seems to have an advantage: she is immune. When Joy's immunity gains her admittance to a hospital in rural Kansas, she sees a chance to escape her bleak existence. There she submits to peculiar treatments and follows seemingly arbitrary rules, forming cautious bonds with other patients—including her roommate, whom she turns to in the night for comfort, and twin boys who are digging a secret tunnel.


     As winter descends, the hospital's fragile order breaks down and Joy breaks free, embarking on a journey from Kansas to Florida, where she believes she can find her birth mother, the woman who abandoned her as a child. On the road in a devastated America, she encounters mysterious companions, cities turned strange, and one very eerie house. As Joy closes in on Florida, she must confront her own damaged memory and the secrets she has been keeping



In the aftermath of a devastating plague, a fearless young heroine embarks on a dangerous and surprising journey to save her world in this brilliantly inventive dystopian thriller, told in bold and fierce language, from a remarkable literary talent.

My name be Ice Cream Fifteen Star and this be the tale of how I bring the cure to all the Nighted States . . .

In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off of the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a mysterious disease they call Posies—a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.

When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting with her whole heart and soul to protect the only world she has ever known.

Guardian First Book Award finalist Sandra Newman delivers an extraordinary post-apocalyptic literary epic as imaginative as The Passage and as linguistically ambitious as Cloud Atlas. Like Hushpuppy in The Beasts of the Southern Wild grown to adolescence in a landscape as dangerously unpredictable as that of Ready Player One, The Country of Ice Cream Star is a breathtaking work from a writer of rare and unconventional talent.

[PTY]

Sestro slatka, čitam The Peripheral i dogurao do 150 stranice.
Meni sve vreme u glavi bruji Timescape - gotovo kao 35 godina kasnije da daje omaž ovom
velikom delu naučne fantastike... U pogovoru navodi Sterlingov Mozart in Mirrorshades, ali
ovo je, bre, Timescape, revisited (London-Amerika, ekološke i druge katastrofe, slanje poruka kroz vreme...)

Elem, neću biti sutra pri netu za opširnije kuckanje a vidim da te se to sa omažom baš dojmilo, pa reko da pokrijem i to, u slučaju da dovršiš The Peripheral. 

Da se ne lažemo, Timescape je odavno već pivotalni roman ne samo što se žanra tiče, nego pop-kulturnog svetonazora uopšte, otud ti možeš omaže Timescapu da nađeš maltene svuda gde se obrađuju koncepti multiverza ili vremeplova -  kod McDonalda, kad protagonist skakuću iz jednog 'verza u drugi ko Alisa kroz ogledalo, pa kod MacLeoda gde su budućnost i prošlost samo dimenzije virtuelnog multiverza, ili pak kod Mijevila, kad u City & City dva sveta koegzistiraju razdvojeni samo dimenzijom ili bog zna čime. (pazi, sve englezi, a?    ) Sve su to meni u većoj ili manjoj meri nekakavi Timescape omaži, i to se maltene podrazumeva, jer ti danas naprosto ne možeš da obrađuješ te koncepte na radikalno drugačiji način, sem ako iz čistog fazona ne insistiraš na nekom anahronom, retro svetonazoru. A Timescape koncept ionako nije striktno žanrovski koncept nego prvenstveno naučni, pa otud i svašta toga Benfordovog postaje pivotalno, jer to je to, to je sad već gradivni materijal sa kojim temeljit SF danas prosto mora da se koristi, čak i kad ne pretenduje da ostane striktno unutar 'hard sf' dela korpusa.

Gibsonov roman se poprilično poklapa i sa Timescapeovim narativnim sledom zbivanja, pa je otud i omaž uočljiviji, ali ne znam baš koliko je pri tom i suštinskiji. Benfordov svet 90tih je pred apokalipsom, pa otud i kontaktira svet 60tih, u nadi da će ovaj uspeti da eliminira uzrok apokalipse; Gibsonov drugi futurizam je već postapokaliptičan, i ja ne vidim da iko u tom svetu mašta o nekoj 'popravci' istorije, meni svi oni izgledaju poprilično udobni u tom svetom kakav već jeste, doduše osim Wilfa, ali opet, Wilf je ona vrsta romantične persone koja bi bila jednako nostalgična u kom god se svetu nađe, pa i onom u kom živi Flynne. To mi je glavna razlika, i sve ostale su njoj podređene. Ali Gibson se ovde toliko temeljito vratio u okrilje žanra i to baš onog njegovog 'hard sf' svetonazora, da to daleko više impresionira nego sam omaž: kao prvo, smanjio je doživljaj oko ikonografije, jer ovo je moglo biti stvarno egzotično da se nije kontrolisao. I to jeste njegov najveći podvig, zato i kažem da je odrastao i uozbiljio se, jer on je uvek bio sklon ikonografiji koja je toliko zavodljiva i uverljiva da postane sama sebi dovoljna i zaguši mu sve ostalo. To je bio njegov paradoks: što mu je ikonografija bolja, to je konstriktivnija, pa otud i diktira sve ostalo, od zapleta do karakterizacije. Iz toga nema spasa, to je kao viktorijanski korzet, to se ne može prepraviti da bude udobno, to se mora prosto odbaciti u kompletu. Ovde je ikonografija pod priličnom kontrolom. Zapravo, začuđujuće dobrom kontrolom, za Gibsona: i periferali i mićikoidi su ostali u pozadini, niko od njih nije hajdžakovao naraciju, iako itekako imaju potencijal za tako nešto. Gibson sve to spretno zauzdao i ne sećam se niti jednog mesta na kom se makar i pomolilo moralno i etičko čeprkanje po njima. A moglo je slobodno, jer ima tu podosta nakaradnosti koje dobrano dovode u pitanje čak i najslobodoumnija žanrovska shvatanja nauke u službi progresa.

Drugi omaž Benfordu je negde na liniji njegovog trezvenog optimizma: Timescape svet 90tih ne može da izbegne apokalipsu, ali prima poruku od sveta dva ili tri veka u budućnosti. E sad, nije važno kakva je poruka, važno je da ona znači kako svet i dalje postoji, kako apokalipsa ipak nije konačna, kako ne podrazumeva kraj multiverza, nego eventualno samo jednog od njegovih svetova. To je ujedno i bazični optimizam opstanka vrste - pojedinci umiru, ponekad i masovno, ali vrsta ipak opstaje, a to jeste najtrezvenija vrst optimizma, lišena eskapizma sa jedne strane i opsesivnog pojednostavljanja kompleksne stvarnosti sa druge.


Sve u svemu, fenomenalan roman.

[Mica Milovanovic]

Ah, "suštinskiji"... "Suštinskiji" u smislu njegovog svesnog i odlučnog vraćanja SF korenima.


Narativne strategije poslednja tri "Bigend" ili "Blue Ant" romana nagoveštavale su nešto sasvim drugo. Kod mene je, uprkos tome što sam sa zadovoljstvom pročitao sva tri ova romana, ipak postojala nekakva sumnja da li je to pravi put, koliko je moguće pažnje držati takvim načinom pripovedanja. Poslednji roman, Zero History, kada je početno oduševljenje novinama koje takav nači pristupa nosi, već mi je bio pomalo nategnut.


Ova ovde, kao što kažeš, kontrolisana upotreba SF ikonografije predstavlja nešto što je nasleđeno iz prethodne trilogije, gde su sitni detalji kreirali ne samu narativnu strukturu, već i strukturu sveta u kome se ta naracija odvija. A to što je nasleđeno iz prethodne trilogije sada je uvedeno u ultimativnu SF tradiciju, kao što sama kažeš - jer Timescape jeste možda ključni roman tog doba, uz, naravno, samog Neruromancera.


Dakle, ono što sam hteo da kažem, jeste da sam siguran da nije slučajno da The Peripheral, koristi praktično identičnu strukturu Timescape-a- dve paralelne radnje u na dva kraja sveta (London-SAD), ekološki problemi - pitanje našeg opstanka na planeti, kontakt između dva vremena. Mislim da je to svesna odluka, kojom nam poručuje da se "vratio"...

[PTY]

Da, i ja vidim Timescape kao ključan roman iz tog doba, po konceptu: Neuromancer je ključan po svojoj ikonografiji. I svakako nije slučajno što se Gibson vraća Timescape strukturi, baš kao što nije ni slučajno da mu je narativna budućnost najzad prepoznatljivo futuristička. Što se mene tiče, taj potez  je toliko radikalan da ga ja prepoznajem ne samo kao 'povratak', nego kao 'otkrivanje' sf-a. Tamo gde je meni izgledalo da Gibson ide u zadnjih 6 romana, pa, činilo mi se da tamo sf-a nema uopšte. Otud ovoliko moje oduševljenje.

A njegova uzdržanost po pitanju čeprkanja oko periferala i mićikoida meni šapuće da smo upravo pročitali tek prvi deo trilogije. 

[Father Jape]

meni svi oni izgledaju poprilično udobni u tom svetom kakav već jeste, doduše osim Wilfa, ali opet, Wilf je ona vrsta romantične persone koja bi bila jednako nostalgična u kom god se svetu nađe

Ali mi prvo saznamo za nezadovoljstvo Ash, pa tek onda Wilfovo. A njih dvoje zajedno, to je praktično trećina ljudi koje znamo iz ,,budućnosti". A tu su onda i čitave cosplay zone koje dodatno govore o fetišizaciji prošlosti i žalu za njom. Mada, da se ne lažemo, njima je objektivno do jaja — a to znamo po tome što imaju vremena da kenjkaju, vajkaju se i misle da im nije do jaja.

[PTY]

Ash, to je ona sa tetovažama, jelda? mmm, baš me se i ne doima kao neko duboko nezadovoljan svetom u kom živi...
Što se kosplej zona tiče, pazi, vidim ja tu tonu morbidne nostalgije, naravno, ali to nije isto kao i istinska želja za menjanjem sveta u kom živiš. I ja vazda morbidno musam oko meni predivnih '80tih, ali to ne znači da zaista želim njihov povratak.

[Mica Milovanovic]

jevtro, u prikazu za Emitor nema nigde, ili ja tu nešto nisam skapirao, tvog mišljenja o romanu. Baš bih voleo da ga čujem...


Što se tiče cosplay zona, to mi, Novobeograđani, najbolje razumemo. Eno, rasturiše nam igračku... 

[PTY]

Den Patrick's debut novel was announced with a staggering news that Gollancz went deep into their pockets and shelved out a high-profile six-figure sum to acquire the world rights for the entire Erebus Sequence. "The Boy with the Porcelain Blade", being the first novel in the sequence, was then described by a publisher as a dark fantasy with echoes of Mervyn Peake, Robin Hobb and Jon Courtenay Grimwood making it instantly one of my most anticipated novels of the year. Now that it is finally here I can clearly see why Gollancz are getting so worked up. "The Boy with the Porcelain Blade" is really something.

Set in a quasi-Renaissance Italy, "The Boy with the Porcelain Blade" takes place in the troubled Kingdom of Landfall. Our protagonist Lucien di Fontein is a talented but lonely ear-less fighter. He is in fact an Ofrano, a deformed and mishapped mysterious witchling who is struggling to find his way in a political landscape ripe with corruption. Landfall is led by an insane King who lives in isolation and his Majordomo who actually rules the Kingdom. But the complicated politics is only part of the problem. Deep in the countryside the girls are going missing and the actual truth behind the events is much grimmer than anything Lucien thought possible. While notionally being the first novel in the series, "The Boy with the Porcelain Blade" concludes the story in a satisfying way but it does end up with a conclusion that will have readers up in arms.

Despite not being (at least in fantasy standards) a long book, "The Boy with the Porcelain Blade" packs a lot of punch and is extremely well written in an excellent literary style which is sadly often absent in modern fantasy. While I didn't see much resemblance to the works of Mervyn Peake, I definitely saw many similarities with Jon Courtenay Grimwood's excellent Assassini series which is also set in the pseudo-Italy. However, I think that it will definitely appeal to readers of Robin Hobb. Most interestingly, Patrick uses a quite effective literary device to get his story across and we are slowly brought up to speed by using alternating chapters, some set in present, some in past. As such, "The Boy with the Porcelain Blade" is a rich, literary fantasy thriller which bodes well for the rest of the series.

[PTY]

The scions of a falling house must navigate a world of corporate warfare to maintain their family's status in the Moon's vicious political atmosphere.

The Moon wants to kill you. Whether it's being unable to pay your per diem for your allotted food, water, and air, or you just get caught up in a fight between the Moon's ruling corporations, the Five Dragons. You must fight for every inch you want to gain in the Moon's near feudal society. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.

As the leader of the Moon's newest "dragon," Adriana has wrested control of the Moon's Helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal corporation and fought to earn her family's new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana's five children must defend their mother's empire from her many enemies...and each other.

[PTY]

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anatham, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years.

What would happen if the world were ending?

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

[PTY]

Moj poslovično užasni januar je ove godine uspeo da mi hajdžakuje i skoro pola februara...    muka i patnja, ali ipak, nije sve tako crno.


elem, dobre duše su me uputile na crowarez, a tamo... bože moj, koliko krasote i lepote... svi ti divni ljudi koje ne mrzi da se bakću oko knjiga, ne znam, eto, nemam reči koliko sam im zahvalna.


naravno, Veštac je tu bio prvi, ČK izdanje, ali meni svejedno odlično, mada se ja tu manje razumem nego neki od vas... prva knjiga mi je odlično legla, po jedna priča između romana sa liste, baš kako prija i dolikuje.


dalje, bilo mi je sumanuto drago da vidim kako se naš Jakšić silno čita, ima odličan broj hitova u svim formatima, naravno, ja ga imam u papiru ali svejedno sam skinula njegovog Severnjaka i Hodočasnika, da mi se nađu tokom radnog dana dok negde sedim uz kafu.    također ima i hrvatskih monolita, što me silno obradovalo, pošto me od njih već godinama deli okean, kao i od mnogih knjiga koje samo kupujem a nemam prilike da i pročitam. I uopšte, ima tamo gudiza da se čoveku pamet zavrti od silnog oduševljenja.


Hvala vam svima na linkovima.

[PTY]

Kate Mosse me nikad nije naročito privlačila, njen Labyrinth sam bez grižnje savesti preskočila, uprkos nagradama i hajpu, ali čisto iz respekta prema ženi obećala sam sebi jedan njen roman van trilogije. Isprva je plan bio da to bude neki od starijih romana ali kad je izašla The Taxidermist's Daughter njen sinopsis me zaveo taman dovoljno da promenim odluku.






The Taxidermist's Daughter  do te mere obiluje finim žanrovskim motivima (to finim bar za one koji taj konkretno žanr vole, naravno) da naprosto ne može da omane u rukama iole kompetentnog pisca. A Mosse to svakako jeste, pa otud taj njen kolaž gotske viktorijane, protkane mračnim strepnjama i silnim tabu misterijama (i predstavljen na platformi ranog ženskog identiteta u formatu sufražetkinje) zaista lako pleni na emotivnom planu.

Connie je kćer nekad poznatog a sad duhovno i fizički oronulog majstora taksidermije (da, "prepariranje" bi tu valjda bio prihvatljiv domaći prevod, ali on nekako ne poseduje tu dimenziju bizarne i morbidne fascinacije, tako da je "taksidermija" tu daleko adekvatnija...), a pri tom i sama boluje od krajnje misteriozne, epilepsiji nalik bolesti za koju smatra da je uzrok njenog gubitka pamćenja.  Naime, Connie se ne seća svog detinjstva, niti se seća ljudi koje je u detinjstvu poznavala. Tu i tamo doživljeva odseve uspomena u kojima kao da figuriraju nečija imena ili obrisi, ali naprosto nije u stanju da te fragmente uspomena poveže sa stvarnim ljudima.  Connie otud živi život podređen negovanju oca, nekad slavnog i popularnog taksidermiste čiji je muzej čudesnih prepariranih ptica zastvoren pod nejasnim okolnostima, i koji od tada svoje dane provodi uglavnom u stanju dubokog samosažaljena i još dubljeg pijanstva. Ali i pored svega toga, Gifford je nekako uspeo u njemu najvažnijem životnom poduhvatu: uspeo je da od ćerke napravi vrsnog taksidermistu, koja je pored zanata od oca nasledila i njegovu fascinaciju lepotom smrti.
I kada jedno ubistvo pokrene lavinu zbivanja, Connie se zatiče u kovitlacu mračnih tajni i još mračnijih ljudi koji su godinama strpljivo čekali svoj trenutak osvete. 

Zaista lepo napisano, i vrlo životno, pošto se Mosse u romanu vratila u rodni Sussex i ta dimenzija dobro poznatog i voljenog pejzaža odlično funkcioniše u pripovedanju koje se doima kao gotovo lirsko po svojoj prirodi. Isto tako, obilje morbidnih detalja o praksi taksidermije 19tog veka nudi odličnu pozadinu za mračna i bizarna zbivanja.
Sve u svemu, vrlo zabavno i zanimljivo štivo, 4/5

[PTY]

Opičeni Jared, genijalan kao i uvek... 


Does anyone else remember Fallen? It was a terrible movie with DENZEL, smack in the middle of the post-Glory period where DENZEL only did terrible, terrible movies. Which also, incidentally, coincided with the period of my youth when I would see Any Movie At All. My friends and I single-handed funded Hollywood for at least a decade.

Appropriately, many of my high school friends are now out in LA, probably because, if you've seen Fallen, you know how low the bar for Hollywood feature films can go. It was terrible. I remember it for three reasons:
1.There was a fair bit of controversy over the fact that DENZEL did not smooch his female co-star (Embeth Davidtz), even though the movie clearly required smooching. I remember this because of a Newsweek article (this is also back when Newsweek was a thing, too) about how this was probably because of horrendous racism (generally) and a deep-seated white-dude inferiority complex when it come to DENZEL (specifically). Probably true.
2.The movie is about the fallen angel Azazel who leaps from body to body by touch, which is a pretty freakin' cool premise for a police procedural/thriller.
3.Freakin' Azazel - in whatever body - keeps singing "Time is on my side", which, 17 years later, I still resent. Especially (SPOILER) the hammy John Goodman version. Horrendous, horrible earworm, which is a metaphor - I suppose - for Azazel him/herself or something. But mostly really, really, really annoying.

Fallen currently has a 7.0 on IMDB, which is about 6 and 4/5th of a point above where I would put it, honestly. Maybe this is part of the Great Late 90's Revival, but I think it is taking nostalgia a bit too far. Because, again, that movie? Really bad.






So, Touch. Which does not have Azazel, DENZEL or The Rolling Stones. But does, at its heart, have a very similar mechanic: there are people that, for some reason or another, bounce into your body by touching you. Skin to skin contact and, whammo, they're living your life. You? Disappeared. At least, until they're done (bored, finished, whatever), and you get your life back, with a big black hole in the middle of it. And possibly massive credit card debt.

It is seriously creepy. And, what makes this book great? Touch acknowledges the creepiness, debates it, mulls it over, bounces it around a bit... and never, ever says it is ok.


Touch's protagonist is the entity known as Kepler. Kepler is genderless, raceless and featureless - as you might expect a 'person' that hasn't been confined to a single body to be. This is all done with disconcerting ease: as Kepler bounces from body to body to body, the reader becomes increasingly disassociated with conventional notions of 'identification'. Nor does it matter to Kepler: when Kepler is looking for a host, Kepler looks much shallower than skin deep. It isn't about age, race or gender, it is about location, access, health and habits. Touch is as liberating as it is dehumanising. In the eyes of a being like Kepler, we realise how silly we've become. It is much more important to have good dental care.

Touch is also as sinister as it is dehumanising. Kepler is on the run - caught in-between another of his/her kind and an organisation devoted to eliminating his/her kind from the face of the Earth. Simultaneously hunter and hunted, cat and mouse, Kepler's pseudo-immortality is strained to its very limited. This is a high-tension chase book - not unlike something Bourne-ish - in which a very dangerous individual weaves in and out of our 'banal' systems, alternately chasing and fleeing from an all-powerful organisation. There are moments of gasp out loud tension and nail-biting fear, as Kepler - a creature of fluidity and freedom is bottled up, threatened and hurt.

And yet... Kepler is an absolute monster. Again, Touch refuses to pull its punches, and this is why the book is so unbelievably bloody good. Kepler is a vampire - and she/he is one of the 'best' of his/her kind. Kepler brokers bodies - finds people willing to trade years of their lives for cash in the bank. And, again, that's Kepler at his/her best. Normally his/her kind flit around, taking minutes, hours, years of lives - people waking up with decades gone, in strange houses with strange families. It is absolutely nightmarish: a loss of life, control and agency that's almost completely without parallel. "Painless", certainly, but far from trauma-free.

As Kepler runs around the world (and back again), spending time with his/her victims and captors, the debate rages. For Kepler, this is a matter of survival: she/he has a right to live, and live unmolested. But to others, Kepler's very existence is molestation - everything Kepler is and does assaults our fundamental notions of what it is to be human and to have free will. Neither argument, is, of course, perfect - and in the shadowy organisation and body-jumping serial killers that we meet, we see the slippery slopes of both sides. But the events of Touch seem to be the first time in this world where the debate is taking place: where the discussion, and a sort of rough understanding, is reached.

Setting aside the debacle of Fallen, the best comparison for Touch can be found in Claire North's previous book - The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Like Harry August, Touch is simple 'one twist' science fiction: a single idea, explored at depth. And, also like Harry August, Touch does this superbly, and with an incredible grace. The idea is spectacular, but its expression is beautiful. Rather than droning on about the 'science' of how a fictional conceit might work, the book instead focuses on how it impacts their lives, loves, and the way they relate to the world around them.

Harry August, however, was a heart-breaking, loveable book about an ordinary person, who ultimately clung to 'ordinariness' (in the face of immortal power and apocalyptic doom, no less). Touch is chillier, and less loveable - essentially the diary of an utterly alien predator, someone or something that lives at perpendicular angles to the rest of us, and - whether or not she/he acknowledges it - is losing the ability to see humans as people. Arguably, Touch is the more powerful of the two books because it is harder-hitting: about survival, not heroism; compromise, not triumph. Harry August leaves you with fuzzies; Touch... a sense of unease. This is a powerful, disquieting, and provocative book that examines what it is to be human from the perspective of someone that no longer is.


http://www.pornokitsch.com/2015/02/new-releases-touch-by-claire-north.html#more

[BladeRunner]

Zvuči zanimljivo, ali mi se nikako ne sviđa što autor huli na "Fallen"!

[PTY]

Welcome to my world! 
(Recimo, zato ovih dana izbegavam da čitam ikakve rivjue o fenomenalnom The Drop... )

[PTY]

"Arab Jazz", debut novel by Karim Miské which was originally published France in 2012, gained a wholly new resonance after the Charlie Hebdo murders because it revolves around the very same themes that cause this horrific even in the first place. And to give it another layer of soul-shivering surreal coincidence, the events following Charlie Hebdo murders played out on the very same locations (namely the 19th arrondissement) where "Arab Jazz" unfolds. The similarities were so uncanny and disturbing that Karim Miské afterwards wrote an insightful article about it for the Independent which I urge you to read as well. In it he proclaims: "Why have these people invaded my book?". As you're probably aware, no-one does gritty as the French and in a way I was lucky enough to have read "Arab Jazz" before the above mentioned murders took place because otherwise I might have found it too disturbing. "Arab Jazz" revolves around those familiar themes that are often explored in contemporary French literature: namely religious fundamentalists, racism, social injustice and general inequality but also, beauty and potential of multiculturalism on the streets of Paris.

The story itself takes place in 19th arrondissement in Paris. 19th arrondissement is Parisian melting pot - a place where different cultures clash and evolve together. At best times it is a wonderful place that gives it's resident each day something new to discover but can also turn to worst with a flick of the finger. For Ahmed Taroudant change happens when his upstairs neighbour is murdered and blood starts dripping into his place. Air stewardess Laura Vignole's brutal, ritualistic killing acts incendiary on this tight knit community and many people are jumping to conclusion, even placing Ahmed as the main suspect. Ahmed knows a lot about police procedure as he's addicted to crime fiction and he instantly recognizes by the way he's questioned by detectives Rachel Kupferstein and Jean Hemelot that he's placed in the middle of the their investigation. Ahmed decides to clear his name but how to do it? Laura's murder propels the story forward and from this point Karim Miské's moves in glacial but mesmerizing jumps across time which in unflinching way reveal the nastiest elements of Parisien underbelly. As such, "Arab Jazz" is not your ordinary crime thriller but rather a snapshot of a society broken by depravity and religion.

"Arab Jazz" will be devoured by those who enjoy the grittier side of contemporary French literature as by those who enjoy tv series such as Braque or Engragenes. All these works of art come from and explore the same subject matter. While reading Karim Miské's superb debut can be tough at times, it is an important and intelligent book that serves as both the warning and the eye-opening account of a society that's on the brink of collapse. Another stunner from MacLehose Press which handsomely deserves its many accolades such as Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and the English Pen Award.

[PTY]

In the not too distant future, Pittsburgh has been destroyed by a terrorist atomic bomb. In the years that follow, its survivors re-live life in the city and those of their dead friends through the Archive; it is a virtual environment gleaned from security cameras, internet maps, people's blogs and social network sites and all meshed together by smart programs. One survivor, John Dominic Blaxton, gets a job working as a detective, mainly for insurance claims, in the Archive. It is in the archive that he finds the body of a woman's body, head down in the mud. Who is she? Why is someone unpicking the records of who she was and where she had been in the archive? If Dominic can control his urge to undertake drug-enhanced forays into the archive to visit his late wife – a victim of the bomb – he might just get some answers. Until, that is, circumstances happen to get in the way. But is there ever any such thing as coincidence?

Set in a dystopic future of high security and fear-driven, right wing politics Thomas Sweterlitsch brings us a noir-style detective story reminiscent of a modern William Gibson crossed with Paul McAuley in near-mundane SF mode and not to mention the ubiquitous influence of Philip K. Dick. This is classic old-fashioned, new-wave cyberpunk. ('Old fashioned'? Gosh, I can remember when cyberpunk was itself new but its influence in recent years seems to have waned.) But this is 2014 and this is a cyberpunk novel, and a powerful one at that. Given that this is also a debut novel does make it all the more remarkable and I'd be surprised if it does not at least make the long-list of a few SF awards: it certainly deserves to.

The cyberpunk elements are self-evident throughout the novel. The near-future portrayed sees most people with wi-fi hard-implants connecting them to the internet. And so individuals need shielding from adware, protected from hacking and to sufficiently street savvy not to fall prey to hawkers, huckster, let alone outright criminals of the on-line world. And then there are the corporations and politicians using online techniques and the virtual world to further their own bids for wealth and power.

So what we end up with in Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a gritty, noire thriller set firmly on the SF side of the genre's border with that of techno-thrillers. Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a portrayal of a nightmare future that scarily seems all too likely if we carry on sleepwalking into the embrace of the early twenty-first century cyber hive.

[PTY]

Unfortunatelly, my first encounter with writings of Lionel Davidson came when his obituary was published in 2009. I've always heard such great things about his thrillers and was always tempted to read them but life and other books got in the way. Similar thing happened to me with Colin Dexter whose Morse series I've finally got around to reading just this year. Since then I've embarked on a Davidson reading spree and I was delighted by what I've found. Davidson, similarly to Le Carre, is great at capturing the atmosphere without succumbing to obvious cliches. The result is a series of gripping, sombre thrillers that enthrall the reader. Basically, everything revolves around characters and carefully written descriptions and "Kolymsky Heights", which is about to be re-published in March by Faber Books, is one of the best examples.
Originally published in 1994, "Kolymsky Heights" was Davidson's first thriller in 16 years and ultimately turned out to be his final one. Since then it became something of a cult classic with authors like Philip Pullmann proclaiming it to be the best thriller he's ever read.

"Kolymsky Heights" is a technothriller set in frozen Sibirian wasteland during the winter night. The existence of a lonely Russian underground research station at Tcherni Vodi (Black Water) dealing with genetics and optical research is a secret known to a priviledge few. Usign a series of cryptic messages, professor Efraim Rogachev decides to break out its finding to the world. A while later these are seen by Johnny Porter, better known as Raven, who shortly afterwards embarks on a mission of reaching Professor Rogachev. His travels take him around the world ending in grand fashion - with a rollercoaster ride that'll leave you breathless.

I realise that my summary sounds like a spy thriller by numbers especially when I mention that there's even a femme fatale in the picture (inimitable Dr. Tanya Komarov) but that can't be more different than the truth. Over 3/4 of "Kolymsky Heights" are less about spying and read more like a travelogue through world's many exotic locations. And here lies the true appeal of Davidson's writing. He makes you forget about the place where you're reading the book. I dare you not to start shivering once you start reading about Sibirian cold. It's that good. Davidson is greatly missed and I'm sorry his output hasn't been greater but that's the way it is. As things stand, "Kolymsky Heights" is definitely one of his greatest achievements. A novel that deserves to be re-read and to paraphrase Pullman, one of the best thrillers I've ever read.

http://upcoming4.me/news/book-news/review-kolymsky-heights-by-lionel-davidson

[PTY]

Publication Date: January 19, 2015



The year is 1877. Automatons and steam-powered dirigible gunships have transformed the nation in the aftermath of the Civil War. Everything on the other side of the Mississippi has been claimed for Russia. Lincoln is still president, having never been assassinated, but the former secretary of war Edwin Stanton is now the head of the Department of Public Safety, ruling with an iron fist as head of the country's military.

Liam McCool is a bad man, one of the best Irish cracksmen there is when it comes to robbery, cracking safes, and other sundry actives—until he was caught red-handed by Stanton. Those in the South who don't fit into Stanton's plans for the Reconstruction, and Stanton realizes Liam McCool is more useful doing his dirty work than sitting in a jail cell. But when his sweetheart, Maggie, turns up murdered, Liam McCool realizes he'll do anything, even if it means getting way over his head with bloodthirsty Russians, to solve the crime.

The King of the Cracksmen is an explosive, action-packed look at a Victorian empire that never was, part To Catch a Thief, part Little Big Man. It's steampunk like you've never seen it before, a murder mystery in a foreign world where no one is who they seem to be and danger lurks around every corner.

(prvo poglavlje stavljeno na net: bibliotropic.net)

[PTY]

A dark and sometimes-gruesome sci-fi noir set in a slick, sick city on the brink of disaster.

Debut novelist Trichter plunges the reader into a futuristic LA corrupted by its dependence on androids known as "spinners" for the spinning engines they bear instead of hearts. Most "heartbeats" view the "bots" as nothing more than objects to be used, abused and discarded for scrap. But Eliot Lazar is in love with a bot named Iris. Maybe it's because of who his father was, maybe it's because of his prosthetic arm, "the border where the metal competes with flesh," but whatever it is, it leaves him devastated when Iris is kidnapped and sold off piece by piece. He sets off to beg, buy or steal his love's limbs back and reassemble her, even as the cops start sniffing around the only crimes they care about—the ones against heartbeats. Some readers will be turned off by the cynicism of Trichter's vision or the sexualized violence against android women, but the more hard-boiled will love the fast-paced plot and unforgettably garish, ghoulish world. Many of the minor characters are stock types, but they're embellished with enough gleefully grotesque detail to keep readers engaged. The deeper questions raised by the premise, about what it means to be alive or in love, are never answered, but they'll linger in the mind of any reader with a beating heart.

A fast-moving, suspenseful story set in a fascinating future world stuffed with all the violence, sex and sleaze a noir fan could ask for.





Byrne's debut novel may be the most inventive tale to come along in years.

Decades in the future, two young women begin their separate journeys in parallel storylines: Mariama travels east across the Sahara, while Meena walks west from India to Djibouti on a trail that crosses the Arabian Sea. That high-tech construction is designed to harness the sea's energy and is technically off-limits to the public, but a few people travel on it and never return. Have they all perished? Meena will take the risk, since she feels compelled to find the place where her parents were murdered, perhaps to confront their murderer; Mariama's goal is less clear. That the two women will eventually meet is obvious, but the outcome and its significance are not. Meena is running away from people whose identities are as unclear as the reason for the five snakebites on her chest or the kreen that lives inside her—perhaps a snake, perhaps a demon. The story gets confusing as reality alternates with vivid hallucinations, but it's easy to shrug off the confusion and enjoy the wild ride. Byrne's wonderful imagination makes the trek across the open sea appear almost plausible, as Meena carries such items as desalinators, a protective pod and diapers cleaned by the sun. In vivid scenes, both women become intensely aware of their sexuality, an important aspect of their stories. The writing is often brilliant, as Byrne paints wholly believable pictures of worlds and cultures most Westerners will never know. Slightly less believable is the dramatic conclusion, even though Byrne does not stint on imagination.

This is engrossing and enjoyable despite its minor flaws. Strong, appealing protagonists and an unusual plot make Byrne's literary invention well worth the reader's while.





A new SF novel, a first person narrative in the mode of the detective story, from the celebrated author of the Book of the New Sun series.

It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.

A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.

[PTY]

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have sent us the table of contents for their next anthology — and the lineup is fantastic.

Sisters of the Revolution (coming in May from PM Press) gathers a curated selection of feminist speculative fiction chosen by the award-winning Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, with editorial assistance from Tessa Kum and Dominik Parisien.

Ann & Jeff said, "This is our contribution to an ongoing conversation, as conceived of and facilitated by Jef Smith who created and ran the Kickstarter and helped in so many other ways. We hope that the anthology is a success and could potentially become a series, exploring further aspects of feminist fiction with a series of guest editors who bring their own perspective."

Here's the book description:



Sisters of the Revolution gathers a highly curated selection of feminist speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and more) chosen by one of the most respected editorial teams in speculative literature today, the award-winning Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Including stories from the 1970s to the present day, the collection seeks to expand the conversation about feminism while engaging the reader in a wealth of imaginative ideas.

From the literary heft of Angela Carter to the searing power of Octavia Butler, Sisters of the Revolution gathers daring examples of speculative fiction's engagement with feminism. Dark, satirical stories such as Eileen Gunn's "Stable Strategies for Middle Management" and the disturbing horror of James Tiptree Jr.'s "The Screwfly Solution" reveal the charged intensity at work in the field. Including new, emerging voices such as Nnedi Okorafor and featuring international contributions from Angelica Gorodischer and many more, this collection seeks to expand the ideas of both contemporary fiction and feminism to new fronts. Moving from the fantastic to the futuristic, subtle to surreal, these stories will provoke thoughts and emotions about feminism like no other book available today. Other contributors include Anne Richter, Carol Emshwiller, Eleanor Arnason, Hiromi Goto, Joanna Russ, Karin Tidbeck, Kelley Eskridge, Kelly Barnhill, Kit Reed, L. Timmel Duchamp, Leena Krohn, Leonora Carrington, Pamela Sargent, Rose Lemberg, Susan Palwick, Tanith Lee, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Vandana Singh.

1."The Grammarian's Five Daughters" by Eleanor Arnason
2."The Men Who Live in Trees" by Kelly Barnhill
3."The Evening the Morning and the Night" by Octavia Butler
4."My Flannel Knickers" by Leonora Carrington
5."The Fall River Axe Murders" by Angela Carter
6."The Forbidden Words of Margaret A." by L. Timmel Duchamp
7."Boys" by Carol Emshwiller
8."And Salome Danced" by Kelley Eskridge
9."The Perfect Married Woman" by Angelica Gorodischer
10."Tales From the Breast" by Hiromi Goto
11."Stable Strategies for Middle Management" by Eileen Gunn
12."The Glass Bottle Trick" by Nalo Hopkinson
13."Their Mother's Tears: The Fourth Letter" by Leena Krohn
14."Northern Chess" by Tanith Lee
15."Sur" by Ursula K. Le Guin
16."Seven Losses of Na Re" by Rose Lemberg
17."Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates" by Pat Murphy
18."The Palm Tree Bandit" by Nnedi Okorafor
19."Gestella" by Susan Palwick
20."The Mothers of Shark Island" by Kit Reed
21."The Sleep of Plants" by Anne Richter
22."When It Changed" by Joanna Russ
23."Fears" by Pamela Sargent
24."The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet" by Vandana Singh
25."Detours on the Way to Nothing" by Rachel Swirsky
26."Aunts" by Karin Tidbeck
27."The Screwfly Solution" by James Tiptree, Jr.
28."Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time" by Catherynne M. Valente
29."Home By The Sea" by Elisabeth Vonarburg

[Mme Chauchat]

Jao radosti, eto antologije u kojoj prepoznajem deo tekstova a "The Perfect Married Woman" Anhelike Gorodišer je jedna od dve njene pripovetke prevedene na srpski i apsolutno je razbijanje, ali razbijanje, od horor priče.

[PTY]

Ja ovde prepoznajem priče jedino od Ras i Tiptri... sramota božja, otud je i red da ovo obavezno nabavim.

[PTY]

Daniel Polansky's Low Town trilogy was a bit of a fantasy oddity - a first person, noir-inflected fantasy that didn't seem to give much of a shit about being a fantasy. It wasn't as much aggressively avoiding the classic tropes as much as forging its own, nonchalant path around them. Certainly the books had a touch of magic, a big ol' war, some secret societies and cunning rogues, and all that - but the focus was much tighter: about one man and his maturing sense of responsibility (for himself, his 'community' and his own actions).

Which is why Those Above (2015) initially seems a complete departure. Rather than the intimacy of the first person narrative and the (relative) restraint of a single city, Those Above is a more traditional epic narrative: a handful of third person points of view, spread across an entire continent. The stakes are higher as well - rather than 'one man's soul' (a rather melodramatic phrasing), Those Above is a clash of civilisations, of cultures and of visions. If that seems perplexing, bear with me...

In Those Above, a ruling caste of near immortals - Tolkien Elves crossed with D&D Deva crossed with The Capitol - govern the world from the lofty heights of the Roost. Thousands of years ago, these awesome beings (in the literal sense) conquered humanity. Fast forward over centuries of enlightened dictatorship. Only one generation ago, humanity tried to rebel... and it didn't work out so well. But the humans have had the tiniest taste of freedom, and, however towering they are, humans can still dream bigger.


If that makes Those Above seem one-sided - or clear - it isn't. Although the four point of view characters are all human, each has her or her own complicated set of motivations. Bas is the most successful commander in the Aelerian army, and the only man to have beaten one of them in combat. But he's exhausted by politics, and ready for the end of war. Eudokia is Aeleria's not-so-secret leader, a one-woman-Illuminati who controls her country's Senate and directs its imperial ambitions. Meanwhile, Calla is the human steward to one of the most powerful members of their court. Raised in their shadow, she adores her master, the most empathetic of his kind, and can see how hard he works to maintain the peace. Yet, further from the hub of their city, in the outermost ring of the Roost, Thistle grows up a vicious street predator, fighting only for his survival.

They - the other that rule this world - have impacted all four of these lives, and millions of others. Their influence is simply too much for one perspective; too complex to be easily captured. Polansky uses the four characters to take different approaches into explaining who they are, what they mean and how we, as humans, can start to understand them.

Arguably, if Low Town was about intimacy, Those Above is about scale. The visual and cultural cues of Aleria are reminiscent of ancient Rome (including the gloriously Livia-like Eudokia). There's a vastness on every page - from the horizon-spanning emptiness of the plains to the gleaming towers of the Roost; from the armored immensity of the Aelerian legions to the towering grandeur of their architecture. Even the extravagance of the meals and the decadence of their experimentation: everything in Those Above screams that this is the most important, most significant, most impressive moment in both civilisations. The inevitable conflict between them will be all the more titanic as a result.

Yet, epics, however vast, are still a dime a dozen. Or a dime a doorstop. What makes Those Above a soaring success is how it balances the jaw-dropping significance of the moment with the tiny, relatively mundane, details. If the plot Those Above is a massive juggernaut, plowing inexorably towards a magnificent war, the individual players are still distracted by their own dramas: day to day jobs, flirtations and schemes. Thistle wants to rise in the ranks of thieves. Eudokia is dealing with blackmailers. Bas's lieutenant is a drunk. Calla is annoyed by an incompetent chef. The reader may understand that this is the most significant time in all of this world's history, but the key players do not. They're distracted by their lives, by their limited vision. They're only human.


And this difference in perspective is carefully woven throughout the book. To them, life only exists on the geological scale - in great events that span centuries, romances that take years to resolve, scientific works that require eons to perfect. They operate on a glacial pace that's mind-bogglingly alien. And yet, humanity is equally perplexing to them - our rapid generations, meaningless connections; our wildly emotional responses fuelled by our short lifespans. Calla's master is unique in his ability to understand how humans think; his empathy is paralleled by Eudokia's talent for strategy at their level. This is us vs them: few can see it coming, and fewer can appreciate how catastrophic the coming war will be.

Also worth mentioning? Beneath all this - Those Above's recurring conflict between mortality and vision - is a cracking good adventure. There's politics and plotting, war and adventure, conquest, invasion, flirtation, assassination, big magic swords, tawdry affairs, murder, blackmail, burglary, mountaintop duels and (why not?) an airship. As brilliantly as Those Above delivers its big, thematic vision, it is also gloriously entertaining - as any great epic fantasy should be.

Those Above is I, Claudius - by way of Tolkien and filtered through Chandler. That is to say, really damn good.

http://www.pornokitsch.com/2015/02/review-those-above-daniel-polansky.html#more

[PTY]

Meni su tehno-trileri po definiciji spekulativna fikcija, pa otud pomalo i SF; Unmanned možda i ne ide baš toliko daleko, ali svejedno, lako se čita i u tom ključu. Perfektno napisan, Unmanned nudi više informacija o vojnoj tehnologiji - pogotovo o njenom state-of-the-art-drones segmentu - no što se inače nalazi u dokumentarcima.
Koji me inače ne zanimaju, pa otud malo šta o tome i znam.
Što mi dalje olakšava to čitanje u ključu spekulativne fikcije, pogotovo kad se radi o zapletu koji nudi u suštini kiberpankovsku ideju o uličnoj primeni sofisticirane tehnologije.

Naravno da je sam fenomen "daljinskog ratovanja" odavno već deo tmurne nam stvarnosti, ali to definitivno ne znači u da su svi njegovi aspekti poznati i lako prepoznatljivi. Protagonista ovog romana je vojnik koji iz pustinje u Nevadi dronom ubije 13 civila u Afganistanu, među njima i nekoliko dece. Ljudi koji su mu naredili da to uradi ne grizu se odviše što su očigledno baratali pogrešnim informacijama, pa mu otud i savetuju da to prihvati kao neizbežnu kolateralnu štetu za koju niko nije zapravo kriv. Cole to naprosto nije u stanju: ono što ga je posebno dotuklo je snimak jedne od preživelih žrtava, devojčice od desetak godina, kojoj je eksplozija raznela ruku u ramenu. Otud Cole ubrzo postaje pobunjenik i otpadnik, i kad ga eventualno kontaktiraju troje novinara sa predlogom da im pomogne oko prikupljanja informacija o privatnim kontraktorima kojima se vojska služi u svojim delikatnijim operacijama, on bez oklevanja pristaje. Cole u tom predlogu vidi šansu za sopstveno iskupljenje i uskoro zajedno otkrivaju zamršenu mrežu mračnih petljancija u kojima ravnopravno učestvuju vojska, CIA, i privatnno preduzetništvo kojima je ratovanje osnovni uslov opstanka.

Ideja o dronovima kao "sigurnom" oružju koje minimizira kolateralnu štetu je izgleda odavno lako uvaljena široj javnosti, pogotovo onom njenom delu kojeg zanima ponajpre profit a onda i udobnost ratovanja na daljinu. Ali u svetu u kom amater-entuzijasta može za smešno malu svotu novca da napravi sopstveni sofisticirani dron i njime upravlja koristeći smartfon aplikacije malo ko je tu zapravo siguran.
Odličan triler i vrlo uverljiva sumorna slika današnjice. 4/5

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