SCIENCE fiction鈥檚 traditional dream of space now comes in two varieties:
hardware accelerating through real vacuum, and glitzier software vehicles that
flicker through what it鈥檚 no longer cool to call cyberspace. Some writers
contrive to have it both ways.
Stephen Baxter takes the hardware route in Voyage, (Voyager,
拢16.99, ISBN 0 00 224616 3), lovingly describing NASA鈥檚 first manned
mission to Mars. The Ares ship is lashed together from fragments of Apollo gear,
its obsolete computers being barely more than desk calculators鈥攆or this is
1985. Baxter鈥檚 alternative space age spins off from the crippling, rather than
killing, of President Kennedy in 1963. As history wobbles, NASA faces a
different set of post-Apollo cutback options; a shoestring Mars shot emerges as
the way forward.
The year-long journey of Ares and its crew of three (one female, one black)
is broken by lengthy, intensely researched flashbacks. These generate real
suspense as we trace elaborate chains of chance and expediency leading to the
actual mission. Many segments are gripping in their own right鈥攕uch as the
saga of the nuclear-powered 鈥淎pollo-N鈥�, and its postmortem鈥檚 grim echoes of the
Challenger inquiry. Voyage is a splendid nostalgia trip to times when
astronauts were still the Right Stuff.
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The 鈥淣ew Mars鈥� of Ken McLeod鈥檚 The Stone Canal (Legend,
拢15.99, ISBN 0 09 955891 2) inhabits a more distant future: a flawed
Utopia built on a Mars-like planet very far away. McLeod juggles both kinds of
space, with interstellar wormhole travel developed by 鈥渇ast folk鈥濃�攆ormer
humans who, uploaded into nanotechnological supercomputer constructs (鈥渟mart
matter鈥�), have whizzed away beyond puny human comprehension into an evolutionary
Singularity.
All this is anchored to Earth by, again, flashbacks. The central triangle of
characters, first seen talking revolutionary politics in 1975 Glasgow, manoeuvre
and joke and compromise through the disintegration of today鈥檚 world
order鈥攐ne moment of black comedy coming when our hero鈥檚 miniature
anarchist-libertarian state in North London rents its own nuclear deterrent from
Kazakhstan. Somehow the human race wins through. Despite a flattish climax,
Macleod鈥檚 offbeat imagination and witty narrative make this a rewarding
read.
Nanotechnology also figures in William Gibson鈥檚 Idoru (Viking,
拢16.00, ISBN 0 670 85778 5), here used to reconstruct earthquake-hit
Tokyo in a style even more alien to Western eyes than its present buildings. But
this is mere noir background. The thriller-romance plot revolves around
an ageing rock-celebrity鈥檚 announced intention of marrying an idoru or
idol-figure, a Japanese superstar existing only as software. Investigations
follow: by the celeb Rez鈥檚 fan club, by data snoops from a media outfit
specialising in exposures that make British tabloids look cuddly, and by lurkers
from the hidden Net enclave called the Walled City. Meanwhile, a smuggled and
highly illegal nanoassembler kit has ended up in the wrong luggage and
鈥�
As usual, Gibson鈥檚 deeply-polished writing conveys the glamour of future
technologies which don鈥檛 always quite make sense, but compel through sheer
flair.
Lastly, Gene Wolfe鈥檚 Exodus from the Long Sun, (Hodder &
Stoughton, 拢16.99, 0 340 63835 4) concludes an ambitious far-future
tetralogy whose earlier books can be skipped only at risk of total
incomprehension. Its science fiction theme is familiar鈥攁 vast,
multigenerational colony starship in partial decay鈥攂ut presented in
dazzling detail, mystery-crammed and with a Dickensian wealth of characters.
The protagonist Silk is a doggedly resourceful priest of the vessel鈥檚 鈥済ods鈥�,
recorded personalities who live in 鈥淢ainframe鈥� and are due to awaken at the end
of the journey.
Silk鈥檚 harebrained quest to save his endangered church has spawned a cascade
of revelations, betrayals, and war. Now it is time for him to lead his flock to
the promised land, and vanish into history; much is unravelled, but all four
books need to be read again. Wolfe always goes deeper than you think.
Conquest of space may still be only a dream, but these authors are
first-class dreamers.