Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

Paul J. McAuley's new novel Fairyland instead.
Don't let the title fool you. This is no sweetly icky novel. It isn't even a fantasy, it is hard science fiction of
the best sort. Genetically engineered "dolls" are the new servant class, the playthings of the first world
bourgeoisie. Alex Sharkey is a designer of psychoactive viruses, the new designer drugs. In
collaboration with the super smart young Milena he genetically alters some dolls, turning them into the
first of what come to be called fairies. The newly awakened folk, far from being the fey creatures of
legend, quickly develop their own agenda. The battles that follow are cruel in the extreme as each side
uses the other in cynical furtherance of their own ends. This is a gloomy, bitter book which makes telling
points about nanotechnology and genetic dabblings. You may not enjoy it, but you will certainly
appreciate it.
I like spy novels too (I think the word you want is "eclectic"). John Le Carré's latest is Our Game and it is
a masterpiece. The new post-communist atmosphere has caused a shake up in the intelligence services
and Tim Cranmer, the book's narrator, has been forcibly retired along with Larry Pettifer his long time
double agent inside Russia. Somewhat late in life Pettifer appears to have discovered morals and a sense
of social awareness. These manifest themselves in a seemingly hopeless crusade on behalf of the
rebelling Caucasian states (Chechnya, Ingushetya et al). He becomes involved in a massive fraud yielding
37 million pounds which he uses to finance the revolution. Cranmer seems to be implicated in this -- he
isn't, but few are convinced. Propelled by the pressure of these suspicions he pursues Larry forward
into the future and backwards into the past, a voyage of discovery that attempts to understand and
illuminate both the man and his motivations. Old episodes are analysed with a new insight and new
episode are explained (and predicted) by what has gone before. The truths we learn about each of them
from this analysis are bittersweet ones. This is a masterful novel and it works on every possible level. It
is writing of genius.
One of my favourite authors is Jack Vance. His elegant, mannered prose is always a delight and I wallow
in it. He has written quite a lot outside of the SF/Fantasy field and recently I picked up a copy of The
Mad Man Theory by Ellery Queen, a house name that Vance used on two detective stories in the mid
1960s (the other was called A Room To Die In and I have that as well). Both are actually rather
disappointing, being merely routine thrillers with nothing to mark them from the pack. There are
occasional Vancian touches (meals are very sensuously described) but they are few and far between.
The commercial formula that was "Ellery Queen" seems to have overwhelmed Vance's original voice.
Definitely for completists only.
Charles de Lint is one of the few serious fantasy writers that I can stomach. Normally I don't like fantasy
very much and I avoid it. However I actively seek out de Lint's books. The Ivory and the Horn is
another collection of his magical-realistic contemporary fables set in the city of Newford. As always,
though many of the pieces are slight, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and the overall
effect is a delight. The Newford stories are invariably artfully crafted pieces.
Svaha, on the other hand was something of a disappointment. It is more of an SF novel than a fantasy.
It is set in the twenty first century. The native American tribes have taken the American government to
court and won a landmark decision. Granted tribal lands in perpetuity, they have retreated there behind
"enclaves", technological barriers that keep the outside world at bay. There they live according the old
traditions (and superstitions) mingled with the high technology which only they now seem to posses
(they have satellites and skyhooks). Meanwhile the rest of the world goes to hell in a handbasket as the
environmental factors we currently worry about peak and effectively destroy the outside society. Life for
the have nots is nasty, brutish and short.
The uneasy juxtaposition of native American lifestyles and high technology contrasted with the moral
and physical decay of the outside simply fails to convince. I think perhaps de Lint's voice is too loud. The
book bogs down as it goes through the politically correct motions.
For many years I have admired the mannered Chinese detective novels written by the late Robert van
Gulik. Told in the traditional Chinese manner (van Gulik was a Chinese scholar of note), they concern one
Judge Dee, an actual historical person who lived from AD 630 to 700. For a long time I was convinced