Chamber Four

Author: Ninni Holmqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargy

Other Press, 2009

Filed under: Literary, Sci-fi

Broadly, The Unit is relatively straightforward science fiction about a fascist society in which logic and a sensible bottom line are prized more highly than quality of life. The title—which sounds military to me—actually refers to the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological materials.

In this society, if you are not a solid cog in the economic machine and if you have no children, you are designated “dispensable” and are conscripted into the Unit. For women, the deadline for becoming a productive citizen is age 50, for men, age 60. For all, the fate of residing in the Unit is grim: your organs are harvested and, in the meantime, you’re used a human guinea pig for any number of physical or pharmacological experiments.

Let me put on my nerd glasses for a moment and nitpick one aspect of the premise: when we live in a world becoming more overcrowded by the second, the idea that a government would threaten people’s lives in order to make them procreate makes the whole novel feel a little bit out of date.

There, now that’s done, let’s get to the rest of what is a quite interesting and mildly entertaining, not dazzling, novel. …
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Author: Peter Ackroyd

2009, Nan A. Talese

Filed under Sci-fi, Historical, Horror

I bought this book on a dorky impulse (it’s the sort of thing that occurs often), mostly because Frankenstein is one of my favorite novels, and because I had recently read John Kessel’s awesome short story, “Pride and Prometheus.” Peter Ackroyd does Shelley’s book justice, deftly weaving historical fiction into the classic’s universe. The book offers a retelling of the famous monster story. In this version, Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory is in a London warehouse (he’s from Switzerland), and he is best friends with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who of course was Mary Shelley’s husband. The mixing in of the biographical fiction is a welcome change for the familiar plot, and Ackroyd’s experience with historical fiction lends a feeling of freshness. …
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Author: Scott Westerfeld

2009, Simon Pulse

Filed under Young Adult, Sci-Fi, Historical

I don’t really read all that much sci-fi, and even less so niche stuff like steampunk, but if I had to pick a go-to subgenre, steampunk would be my choice. I like the alternate history, low-tech tech, Victorian atmosphere, and funky gadgets. When I learned about Westerfeld’s alternate history of the First World War, battled between an axis of machinists (“Clankers”) and an alliance of nations who rely on biological machines of war (“Darwinists”), I was intrigued. I don’t usually give much credence to book trailers–they are usually rather dumb and tend to commodify books a little more than is to my taste–but the one for Leviathan tickled my fancy. (I’ve embedded it below if you care to watch.) …
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Author: John Burnside

2009, Nan A. Talese

Best ebook deal: Barnes & Noble

Filed under: Sci-fi, Literary

The Glister begins with a contemplative rumination about the ravaged state of the world in which the story takes place. It’s a city near an old chemical plant where the land and people have “soured,” turning bizarre in creepy ways. The city’s divided into two parts: Innertown, the slums, and Outertown, where the rich people live.

The character whose perspective the narrative inhabits first is Innertown’s lone policeman, a sad, troubled man named Morrison. After setting the scene, Morrison slowly recounts the frightening story of a boy who went into the poison woods to find the devil and never came back. Since then, a total of five boys have disappeared.

Mentioning a crime to solve is slightly misleading; The Glister is more of an extension of that initial rumination than it is a plot-driven mystery, and it’s definitely not a Morrison-centric detective story. But Burnside, who’s written more poetry than prose, does his ruminations well, and he spends a lot of time on an interesting, if slightly disjointed, coming-of-age story involving an Innertown teenager.

It’s often compelling and interesting, and often beautifully written. The two halves—mystery and coming-of-age—don’t quite make a whole, but it’s still worth a read. …
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Author: Bernard Beckett

2009, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Best ebook deal: Sony eBook Store

Filed under: Sci-Fi

Genesis takes the form of a four-hour oral examination for entrance into a nebulously prestigious institution called The Academy, and it takes less than four hours to read. The novel’s setting is the kind of dystopian future that won’t surprise you. The world has been ravaged by political and environmental disasters, there’s mention of a virulent plague, and there’s something called the Downfall, presumably when the worst disasters coincided.

Against this backdrop and that rather boring sounding structure, Genesis turns out to be a quick, heavily philosophical novel about the ethics and existential questions of artificial intelligence. And it’s quite a bit more gripping than that might sound. …
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Author: Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters

2009, Quirk Classics

Best ebook deal: Sony eBook Store

Filed under Literary, Sci-fi

What I most enjoyed about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was how it was delivered almost as an enhanced edition of the original text. Most of Austen’s original novel was intact, and Grahame-Smith more or less selectively modified the book. This transformed the story into something different, while ensuring it remained potted in the same soil. In Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Winters takes a very different approach. This novel is very much a rewrite and not a modification. Sea Monsters is essentially a mashup of Austen’s novel and Beauty and the Beast, “Pirates of the Carribbean” and “Bioshock.” It’s still a pretty fun read though. …
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Author: Michael Rubens

2009, Pantheon

Best ebook deal: Barnes & Noble

Filed under: Sci-Fi, Humor

Rubens’s biggest credit in his “About the Author” note is as a writer and producer on The Daily Show. So the conceit is clear: this will be a funny TV guy writing a funny sci-fi novel.

There are two ways this can go. The author can use the wide boundaries of the genre as an excuse to take wild risks with the plot and characters, and so short-circuit the usual novelistic learning curve. Or he could be a funny person who thinks that writing a novel is easy, and doesn’t put nearly enough work into it. Unfortunately, Yrnameer is the latter, and Rubens turns in an uninspired, shapeless mishmash.

The premise is derivative to the least—it reads like a compilation of sci-fi’s greatest hits. The plot is barely there. The characters are two-dimensional. And, possibly worst of all, it’s just not that funny. There’s evidence of a humorous mind at work, but there’s a big difference between being funny on TV or in person, and being funny in a novel.

Rubens’s humor is ill-suited for the novel form, and it seems that he is, too. …
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Author: Robert Silverberg

Public Domain, 1958

Best eBook Deal: free

Filed under: Sci-Fi

I had certain expectations when I downloaded a sci-fi novel from 1958. I figured with a book titled Starman’s Quest I was in for a Buck Rogers style romp across the asteroid belt chock full of ray guns, green aliens, war-era tech talk, and a plot concerning the destruction of the universe. I’ve got to admit that I was pleasantly surprised to read the book and find my assumptions were wrong across the board.

Starman’s Quest veils its age nicely. Unlike other old public domain adventure stories like King Solomon’s Mines in which the adventure is constantly filtered through a dusty, dated lens, this novel felt quite contemporary. Admittedly, I don’t read all that much sci-fi, but the plot seemed pretty original and even somewhat fresh, despite the book’s age. …
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Author: Bruce Sterling

Del Rey, 2009

Best ebook deal: Diesel eBooks

The Caryatids is a novel of ideas, in that it doesn’t give too much weight to characters or plot. It concerns a dystopian future in which the environment has been destroyed, and the substance of the narrative largely focuses on the debate about what to do.

In the blue corner, there’s the Acquis (or future Democrats), well-meaning bleeding hearts with questionable methods; they’re trying to fix the planet and save humanity. In the red corner, there’s the Dispensation (future Republicans), profiteering corporate lugs with questionable morals; they’ve accepted their doom and are trying to live as well as they can in the meantime. It’s a thinly veiled political allegory, and doesn’t serve particularly well as the backbone of this fictional world.

The title refers to seven clones created by a rogue scientist. The novel is divided into three sections, each following one “sister,” tied together more by passing reference than any real connection or interaction. Ultimately each section is more a premise than a narrative, and The Caryatids is finally a fractured series of ideas and satires that never quite coalesces into a compelling story.  …
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Author: Scott Sigler

Three Rivers Press, 2008

Best ebook deal: Fictionwise

This is one of two mass-market books I picked up for a recent bus trip. Unlike Kronos, Infected turned out to be exactly what I expected when purchasing it: a graphic and bloody thriller.

Basically there’s this weird infection people are getting that makes them really itchy, then these weird triangle marks appear all over their bodies. Then they go mental and murder everyone they can before offing themselves. The government is going crazy trying to A.) stop what they perceive to be a terrorist bio-attack and B.) keep it under wraps.

The triangle marks, we learn, are alien seedlings, spawning in human bodies and controlling their minds a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The main plot line of the book focuses on former college football star Perry Dawsey as he battles for control of his body and mind against the creatures growing within him. Perry is a big guy with deep-seated anger issues, and he is able to withstand much more pain than the other victims we hear of. Most of this pain is self inflicted, as he tries to wrest them from his body. …
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