Six writers are up for this year鈥檚 Arthur C. Clarke award for science
fiction
YOU learn to dive out of the way of buckets of blood and guts as you read
Mary Gentle鈥檚 Ash: A secret history. With an alarming talent for
realism, she propels the reader from horror to anger to involvement in 1112
pages. It鈥檚 an astonishing accomplishment. Gentle juggles archaeology, the
anthropic principle, golems and medieval Burgundy in her alternative history set
in motion by a genetic mutation, enabling its possessor to work miracles with
time and space.
Octavia Butler鈥檚 Parable of the Talents is about another kind of
miracle, that of survival in a dystopic future America. Her heroine鈥檚 book of
revelations, 鈥淓arthseed鈥�, inspires those who believe that God is change,
offering a 鈥渒ind of species life insurance鈥�. Its goal is adulthood for humanity,
a destiny among the stars.
Advertisement
Ken Macleod鈥檚 Cosmonaut Keep, has the narrative strength of his
earlier works. Peppered with witty notions鈥攕pamming information irritates
aliens into benevolence鈥攈is two worlds and times are shuffled together,
their strands tied in the knot that ends the novel. But alien saurs and humans
can work together in the laboratory as they unravel neuronal nets from squid
brains. His 21st-century politicos shuffle and shaft their way to power, just as
statists and liberals always have. The strength of this book shows in the growth
and change in his characters.
Adam Roberts鈥檚 Salt is a good first novel, slightly outclassed by
its rivals. His characterisation of the colonists on an alien, desert planet is
slight, but the complex crystalline landscape he has created will haunt the
reader. But both China Mieville鈥檚 Perdido Street Station and Alastair
Reynolds鈥檚 Revelation Space suffer from sprawl. Fantastic gothic London
and its (far too many) inhabitants jostle for attention in Mieville鈥檚 book,
while Reynolds drives the reader across space with ancient aliens, archaeology,
warring elements and political infighting.
And the winner should be . . . Macleod, with Gentle giving him a run for the
money鈥斅�2001 this year.