PHILIPP MICHEL REICHOLD ON TUMBLR

is not about precipitation.  It’s cyberpunk. Snow is an albino whose testicles are worth a great deal of money in certain quarters. He lives on a desert world called Vatch in the Polity universe. The story concerns those who would have said anatomy in a stasis box versus Snow’s desire to remain anatomically intact. Along the way, he meets a remarkable young woman with a third agenda.

is an enjoyable story about a teenage boy, Ivan, in a world where space-time anomalies make dungeon crawls a reality. They are not only real, but potentially lethal. Ivan is coping with the loss and presumed death of his brother during a dungeon crawl and his mother's ineffectual coping with this loss. Of course Ivan gets roped into his first dungeon crawl ever and does quite well indeed. Though a novice he has intuitive good judgment and can think on his feet.

The story is well written with detailed, integral world building and Tolbert quickly teaches the in-story jargon so that the reader is never left dazzled/mystified trying to relate to/understand the narrative. Tolbert sketches the characters quickly and effectively. The plot moves quickly without wasted wordage or wasteful peregrinations. In the end, neatly done with foreshadowing hints, Ivan has found his place and started a new phase in his life. One suspects this is Chapter One of a longer work.

I suppose this qualifies as young adult fiction. I don't know. It's been many years since I was a young adult, but I think I would have enjoyed this story when I was 16. Even so, 58 year old me enjoyed the story and looks forward to reading more.

“I must unravel my past back to its beginning, and it’s to the beginning I will go next,”

My first Neal Asher story was Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck (Asimov's August 2005). Then came The Gabble (Asimov's, March 2006). I was fascinated and intrigued by the wonder and mystery of the Gabbleducks and everything about them. I'd been reading science fiction for forty years; so fascinating and intriguing me was no mean feat. Alien Archaeology (Asimov's June 2007) was the first Penny Royal story I read and it had not only a Gabbleduck, but also a rusty former ECS agent and an incredibly narcissistic and greedy treasure seeker. The fascination only deepened. I gleefully read the subsequent stories with Penny Royal, culminating in The Transformation Trilogy, which ties together the Prador, the Gabbleducks (we all know those are the Atheter, right?) and Penny Royal. There's also the shadow of a connection to Ian Cormac.

Mr. Asher weaves a complex and intricate tale. He leads us, captivated, to the inevitable and inexorable yet unforeseen conclusion. The gradual unraveling of the past mixed with the fraught action of the present is riveting. It is followed by the final revelation of the whole truth which has on me as great an impact as the final revelation in Sophie's Choice. It is in its own way as devastating. The climax of the story takes place at Panarchia, where Penny Royal's tale begins. So here at the end and the beginning, is where stand the dramatis personae.

"Meanwhile, over the years, it became apparent that Sverl was changing in some strange way."

Sverl started as a contradiction- a Polity-hating, human-loathing Prador possessed of an overweening curiosity. (You! You readers of War Factory. You didn't really think Penny Royal was finished with Sverl, did you?) He ends as a much happier and better suited/fitted individual than he started. And he is something of a trailblazer for the Prador. I suspect more will follow in his foot prints, or rather, claw marks. (Sfolk is also happy with his new position.)

"no one had any idea what the Weaver's intentions now were."

The Weaver is, as always, sitting in the catbird seat. He proves it is possible to achieve happiness, attain goals, and get what one wants, to the consternation of the Polity AI's, with some collaboration with Penny Royal. This involves a quid pro quo beneficial to all concerned, especially the reader. I wonder though if he isn't a bit lonely. Perhaps some more Atheter memstores will turn up.

"Welcome to the prison hulk the Tyburn. I am the Brockle and I am here to execute sentence on you."

The Brockle, oh, the deliciously deranged and arrogant Brockle. Mr Asher had to create a suitable, a plausible antagonist, and so came the Brockle with his Penny Royal like shoaling and his ability to hijack the once again hapless Garotte, and his nearly unlimited ability to expand himself and his abilities. The Brockle is not only nemesis, but also foil to Penny Royal. There is an important difference between the two. Where Penny Royal's madness drives its genius, the Brockle's madness drives only his meanness. Playing Hotspur to Penny Royal's young prince Harry, Penny Royal is all the Brockle would like to be, only not in a thousand years.

"During the ensuing three periods of waking, Trent thought about his past, wished he could change it but accepted he couldn't."

Trent Sorbel, erstwhile soulless tyro and basic sadistic criminal thug, has like the Tin Man, been in need of a heart. In the end he has grown one through his shepherding of the shell people and his love for three particular shell people. He has redeemed himself, Penny Royal just provided the setting.

"Blite and the crew were a strange lot"

Speaking of hapless, poor Blite and his crew have been dragged along by Penny Royal through the thickest thickets in the briar patch, the Graveyard, and beyond. In the end he and his crew are no longer a blight on the Polity and well, you'll see.

"On Masada, Penny Royal had provided me with intimate evidence of its own guilt, so my role seemed to be that of executioner."

is a dystopian tale set in Spain in a future not too far ahead for us. Our age is referred to fondly/longingly/nostalgically as The Peak. In the post Peak world, every modern convenience that you can think of is breaking down or already broken– and by this I mean such things as transportation, health care, and food not to mention certain taboos.

The divide between well off and poor is still in existence, it’s just the levels for both are lower. There’s too much of nuthin’ and not enough food even for the “Haves”. Gracia, or Grace, spans both sides of the divide as she travels from the comparative comfort of her boyfriend’s life/neighborhood/world to the old life/neighborhood/world to attend the funeral of her grandmother’s companion.

Through her eyes, the reader sees the deterioration of humanity, its pomps and its works. The trains run less often. The water runs much less often, there are no physicians. There are food riots. The author carefully unfolds this tale skillfully as she carefully unfolds the scenes until the final unveiling of the final horror, the final dehumanization of humanity.

is an anthology edited by Johnathan Strahan that explores the concept of "big dumb objects," or "Godlike Machines." My introduction to the concept was Harlan Ellison's "I Have no Mouth and I must Scream." Of course, his Analytical Menace" inspired the SkyNet of the Terminator franchise. So seemingly all-powerful, enigmatic, and in so far as AM or SkyNet was concerned, inimical. But to create something fresh, you need to let go of old concepts and imagine something that fits the bill of particulars in a different way. So though these machines are enigmatic and potentially deadly, they need not be inimical or particularly menacing. All of these authors are masterful and masterfully write compelling stories that should inspire tomorrow's generation of writers imagine original stories of their own. Certainly well worth the price and well worth reading, I would not be surprised to see them as springboards for discussion in workshops for new writers. The contents in order of appearance are: •Return to Titan - Stephen Baxter •There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow/Now is the Best Time of Your Life - Cory Doctorow •Hot Rock - Greg Egan •Alone - Robert Reed •Troika - Alastair Reynolds •A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure [and the Threat it Entails] - Sean Williams

Troika Alastair Reynolds Troika is the first story. It tells of a Russian space mission to to an enigmatic artifact, the Matryoshka, that has appeared suddenly in the Solar System. But the real godlike machine of the piece is the even more enigmatic (and deadly) Soviet bureaucracy that Gulag's the cosmonauts for bringing home an unpleasant truth. The Matryoshka plays Prokofiev's Troika from Lieutenant Kizhe, just to let you know what's really going on, though this story is not a comedy. The twist at the end is splendid. Return to Titan Stephen Baxter's Return to Titan, one Baxter's Xeelee stories, is about development/progress/exploitation thwarted by those pesky environmental protection laws. The inhabitants of the Solar System use tame wormholes to travel through the system. And there's a wormhole at Titan. But the laws against intruding where there may be sentience prevent development/progress/exploitation on Titan and beyond. This is a great inconvenience to Harry and Michael Poole, who've gotten rich building wormholes and fueling development, and whose continued prospects depend on further expansion. So they induce Jovik Emry, who's in charge of protecting Titan, to take them down on an expedition to prove there's no sentience. What they find is a marvelously imagined world-- an engine that makes life on Titan possible. But even godlike machines can be vulnerable to that most destructive of forces-- human greed.

Jovik Emry may well be the most despicable viewpoint character I've ever read. While one could argue that the Pooles are even more so, and that the only differences between him and them are matters of degree/opportunity/ability, the moral difference lies in motivation. Greed is a factor for both, but the Pooles' failings are mitigated by their goals. They have built something marvelous and are possessed by an overweening drive to go on building, regardless of what obstacles they need to remove. At least backup Michael Poole has the courage and integrity to sacrifice himself for the cause. Emry is motivated solely and admittedly by the desire to prolong his own worthless existence as comfortably as possible. He approves of the Pooles' plan to remove the Titan obstacle, but rails against them over the ultimate results. He is the most despicable character in the entire anthology. No other character matches him. No, not one.

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow/now is the best time of your life Cory Doctorow takes the reader on a richly imagined romp through a post-apocalyptic landscape involving machines that turn cities into forests, a UNC commune where happiness is hardwired, superb fighting suits and zombies that uplift you into virtuality. The viewpoint character, Jimmy, has been genetically engineered by his father to be virtually immortal. This sounds really great until you consider the protracted puberty. But then, reversing all that engineering causes its own problems. Jimmy is a character the reader can really empathize with, and being uplifted to a virtual existence makes for a happy ending, right?

Alone Alone is among the most enigmatic of the travelers on Robert Reed's Great Ship. He does not have any memory of a time before he was on the ship and does not know how he got there or what he is doing there. For ages, he has walked the surface of the ship, eschewing contact and remaining alone. As activity on the surface increases, he travels for more ages within. The captains of the Great Ship don't lie mysteries, and he escapes capture. After a time he goes through the personal affects of a murder victim and takes his place among the passengers. Things then get a little weird at the end, and we find out something the passengers of the Great Ship would not suspect.

A Glimpse of the Marvelous Structure and (and the Threat it Entails) Sean Williams' Structure tells the story of a spy, Donaldan, sent to gather information about the Mines of the planet Gevira. They produce an incredible amount of raw material and are the basis for the planet's economy. He's infiltrated the local police, and takes part in the investigation of a mysterious death. The deeper one goes into the Mines, the greater the likelihood of inexplicable death. The victim in this case is also still alive-- an investigator named E. C. Cotton. She takes Donaldan on a tour of the Mines, as the answers to the questions of her death and of the secrets he has been sent to uncover both lie deep below the surface. The "godlike machine" is of course the Structure-- the mines are more than just deep. Temporal mechanics are involved, and Donaldson is shaken to the core of his being by what he uncovers. The story is structured as a series of reports back to his controller and mentor, and is tense and compelling. (He carries an uplink to a Guild satellite in his head.) The Structure is a unique approach to questions of time and space.

One of the challenges of science fiction writing is populating the stories. One can use humans, but human motivations and cultures can be limited in scope and range. The anwser lies in using other physical forms than the human-- the lizard-like Gorn from Star Trek TOS co mes to mind. I imagined but never wrote about kangaroo-like aliens. A popular shape for aliens is that of the cat-- felinoids. Here are 5 Science Fiction felinoids of my acquaintance--

Even when cat-like in shape, aliens can be very human in values, thought patterns and motivations. It's not easy to create and alien mind from the inside out. We can create an alien with human like thoughts and then set its behavior and one end of the spectrum of human behavior and play it off humans whose personalities stand in contrast to that of the alien. And so it is with van Vogt's Coeurl. Coeurl in "Black Destroyer"/'' The Voyage of the Space Beagle'' is the last survivor of a dying race. He is decadent and depraved and not nearly as bright as he thinks, despite his abilities. After first conatct, he kills a number of the human explorers, not realizing how obvious he is. We can see the smugness of the house cat in him, but he also fits within expectations for human depravity. He is contrasted by the scientifically and intellectually trained and incredibly well adjusted humans of the Beagle. They have him neatly sorted and classified fairly quickly. He is however not without resources and builds a tiny spaceship with which to escape the humans when his luck turns. Despite ihs briilliance in adaptating human technology, he is emotionally and fundamentally disabled by his depravity. This disability leads to the sort of despair which is seldom a survival trait.

An alien way of thinking can still be human in nature but insane by human standards-- to the point that what we consider normal would be regarded by them as hopelessly and tragically deluded. Algis Budrys created such a race for Shadow on the Stars. Farlans in "Shadow on the Stars" are militaristic and inherently paranoid-- to the point where anyone militarily skilled enough to pose a political threat to his superiors is dealt with quickly and terminally. It is thus that Farla has become beset by a younger, stronger enemy while her Navy is led by preening idiots. Seeking remedy, the Farlans turn to a reservist named L'Maranid. L'Maranid makes short work of Farla's enemy with a series quick victories that shatters them into a collection os successor states. But the paranoid nature of the Farlans is destined to work to wily Earth's advantage.

Some aliens seem not so alien in thinking once one gets past cultural biases. The Hani of CJ CHerryh's Compact Space are traders in a multi species trading compact. They are newcomers to the game and feel inferior to Compact members who've been around longer. Their society is matriarchal, with males dispossed and treated as inferiors as a matter of course. Much of their literature is dedicated to the poignant brevity of males. C.J.Cherryh often writes about strong women coming to their own. Human examples are Signe Mallory of ECS Norway and Ari of Cyteen. And then there is Pyanfar Chanur. Chanur's rise parallels and powers the Hani's rise in Compact Space. Of as great an import as Chanur's elevation of the Hani in Compact space is the sexual revolution initiated by her taking her dispossesed and disgraced husband aboard as working crew.

The Kzinti of Larry Niven's Known Space are more alien in their thinking that the others, though they weren't always so. Larry Niven describes the Kzinti of his first story, "the Warriors," as humans dressed up in cat suits. A telling conversation occurs when the Kzin captain askes if they should be running from Angel's Pencil, the human ship and intended prey of the story. Kzinti in later stories would never consider asking such a question. They would "scream and leap" into battle as a matter of course. This impetuosity leads them into a series of defeats, especially in the First Man-Kzin War with its destruction of five invasion fleets in battles in Sol system and then off Wunderland in Alpha Centauri space. The reimagining of the Kzin in the many volumes of the Man-Kzin Wars should make and interesting paper or two.

The itiji, the cats in Golva's Ascent (Asimov's March 2012) by Tom Purdom are alien in culture and motivation. Though they lack hands, they posses sophisticated language abilities and understanding of advanced math, logic, ethics and tactics. They have evolved as hunters with a strong sense of ethics and compassion. Their natures stand in stark conquest to that of the brutal human interlopers on their world. Golva, like the jaguar in "The Snow of Kilimanjaro," is compelled to climb the heights and explore. Unlike that famous jaguar, he lives to tell about it.

Golva is a young itiji polymath and visionary. He has decided to be the first to scale the heights above his home. He encounters and is captured and experimented upon by a group of human explorers. They are unhindered by any conscience or compulsion. Eventually the brutality gets to be too much for one member of the expedition and she assists him to escape back to the lowlands. Golva's erstwhile tormenter makes the mistake of pursuing them. He shortly learns that superior tech and cruelty need not suffice in having one's way. The itiji are very good at coordinating rescue and the use of force. While his captors had thoughtlessly spared Golva no pian in interogating him, the itiji response to the human attackers is carefully considered and limited to only that which is needed to stop the attack.

External links *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_extraterrestrials#Felines These five are but a small sample of fictional felinoids. A longer list is on Wikipedia

http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___5.htm Black Destroyer at baenebooks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algis_Budrys Aldrys Budris on Wikipedia

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gorn Gorn at Memory Alpha

http://www.larryniven.net/ Larry Niven

http://www.perrochon.com/cherryh/discussions/thr30.html On Sexism and Feminism among the Hani

A strange and mysterious (and eerily beautiful) tale, set in a strange and mysterious land, beyond a strange and mysterious horizon, with a strange and mysterious disappearance, and a strange and mysterious ending, about a strange and mysterious panther.