Novellas Old And New
Aug. 24th, 2004 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentThree brief reviews. On the side of the old we have 'The Rose' by Charles L Harness, one of this year's retro-Hugo nominees. On the side of the new we have two more Best Short Novels: John Meaney's 'The Swastika Bomb', from the anthology Live Without A Net, and Walter Jon Williams' current Hugo nominee 'The Green Leopard Plague'.
'The Rose' is classic golden-age sf. It's a story about an idea, in this case formed into a question: art or science? Is it the purpose of humanity to create or to understand? Simply in the fact of being asked in an elegant, if obvious, fashion, this underlying question gives 'The Rose' most of its power. It's a power that survives a plot driven by transparently implausible technology, and even survives characters who are nakedly little more than symbols.
The three central characters explicitly represent Art and Science and Synthesis, and at heart, as it must be, the story is an argument for that third option (an argument enabled by a straight-faced awakening of the pineal gland, no less). By extension, therefore, it's also an argument for the validity of science fiction as a medium for such synthesis, a subject to which any sf fan will surely be sympathetic. And given this, in a way, the fact that it so openly displays the pulpish traits so commonly used to criticise classic sf merely adds to the story's charm.
'The Swastika Bomb' has no such high pretensions. It's biotech-based sf, but of the softest kind, set in a world war two in which the arms race is biological, and not mechanical or informational or atomic. The story is a somewhat tongue in cheek Bond-like affair that sees an intrepid secret agent dispatched into occupied Europe to deal with a secret Nazi weapons program. Throughout, brazen puns (spitfires are dragon-like creatures; the ultimate weapon is a 'nucleic bomb') and gratuitous name-dropping (Turing is breaking genetic codes; Einstein really doesn't like the idea of quantum biology) abound.
There is a serious story, the one that crops up time and again in alternate history, about the independence of history (and humanity) from any one technology; and Meaney's short-scene, fade-in-fade-out writing style is as accomplished as ever. But fundamentally I think this story is intended as fun. On that score, it succeeds admirably, and had me laughing out loud more than once.
'The Green Leopard Plague' has something in common with 'The Rose', in that it is also a story more memorable for its ideas than its writing. Despite this (or truthfully, in part because of it) it's probably my favourite of this year's novella shortlist. 'The Cookie Monster' by Vernor Vinge may run it close, but 'The Green Leopard Plague' has more, ahem, colour.
It's told in two time-frames. First up is a medium-future somewhat-posthuman strand in which a mermaid, Michelle, starts researching a mysterious gap in the life of one Terzian, father of 'cornucopia theory'. For a few weeks, he disappears: drops out of recorded history. Secondly (inevitably) there's a near-future strand that tells Terzian's story directly. This is a traditional sf thriller, in which a professor who's surprisingly competent in martial arts goes on the run with a beautiful woman who's carrying the vital macguffin.
The macguffin is the titular plague - in a nutshell, photosynthesis for humans - and the debates that she has with Terzian are the meat of the story. They're interesting; Williams does a pretty good job of considering the economical and social implications of his creation (and even not a terrible job of the science, handwaving in just the right places). And in this - in the debates - the story is not unlike 'The Rose'. Where they part company is the subject; whilst 'The Rose' looks at a timeless fundamental, 'The Green Leopard Plague' is very much about a problem of the here and now.
'The Rose' is classic golden-age sf. It's a story about an idea, in this case formed into a question: art or science? Is it the purpose of humanity to create or to understand? Simply in the fact of being asked in an elegant, if obvious, fashion, this underlying question gives 'The Rose' most of its power. It's a power that survives a plot driven by transparently implausible technology, and even survives characters who are nakedly little more than symbols.
The three central characters explicitly represent Art and Science and Synthesis, and at heart, as it must be, the story is an argument for that third option (an argument enabled by a straight-faced awakening of the pineal gland, no less). By extension, therefore, it's also an argument for the validity of science fiction as a medium for such synthesis, a subject to which any sf fan will surely be sympathetic. And given this, in a way, the fact that it so openly displays the pulpish traits so commonly used to criticise classic sf merely adds to the story's charm.
'The Swastika Bomb' has no such high pretensions. It's biotech-based sf, but of the softest kind, set in a world war two in which the arms race is biological, and not mechanical or informational or atomic. The story is a somewhat tongue in cheek Bond-like affair that sees an intrepid secret agent dispatched into occupied Europe to deal with a secret Nazi weapons program. Throughout, brazen puns (spitfires are dragon-like creatures; the ultimate weapon is a 'nucleic bomb') and gratuitous name-dropping (Turing is breaking genetic codes; Einstein really doesn't like the idea of quantum biology) abound.
There is a serious story, the one that crops up time and again in alternate history, about the independence of history (and humanity) from any one technology; and Meaney's short-scene, fade-in-fade-out writing style is as accomplished as ever. But fundamentally I think this story is intended as fun. On that score, it succeeds admirably, and had me laughing out loud more than once.
'The Green Leopard Plague' has something in common with 'The Rose', in that it is also a story more memorable for its ideas than its writing. Despite this (or truthfully, in part because of it) it's probably my favourite of this year's novella shortlist. 'The Cookie Monster' by Vernor Vinge may run it close, but 'The Green Leopard Plague' has more, ahem, colour.
It's told in two time-frames. First up is a medium-future somewhat-posthuman strand in which a mermaid, Michelle, starts researching a mysterious gap in the life of one Terzian, father of 'cornucopia theory'. For a few weeks, he disappears: drops out of recorded history. Secondly (inevitably) there's a near-future strand that tells Terzian's story directly. This is a traditional sf thriller, in which a professor who's surprisingly competent in martial arts goes on the run with a beautiful woman who's carrying the vital macguffin.
The macguffin is the titular plague - in a nutshell, photosynthesis for humans - and the debates that she has with Terzian are the meat of the story. They're interesting; Williams does a pretty good job of considering the economical and social implications of his creation (and even not a terrible job of the science, handwaving in just the right places). And in this - in the debates - the story is not unlike 'The Rose'. Where they part company is the subject; whilst 'The Rose' looks at a timeless fundamental, 'The Green Leopard Plague' is very much about a problem of the here and now.
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