SCIENCE FICTION: ALEX GOOD
INSATIABLE MACHINE Zoë Robertson with Jesse Life (Roseway, 344 pages, $21)
Science fiction often takes a monitory bent, and given current global trends you don’t need much of a crystal ball to predict the form that looming dystopias will take. Aside from the effects of climate change, perhaps the most popular theme being worked by SF authors today is that of social and economic inequality: imagining a coming world that is divided between a wealthy elite and the rest of teeming humanity.
“Insatiable Machine” is a remarkably lush depiction of such a near future. The U.S. government is controlled by a handful of global corporations and the economy has evolved to a point where the deplorable masses no longer serve any function. A final solution awaits. All that stands in the way is a family with a very useful collection of skills.
Zoë Robertson packs a lot of detail into her vision of the future, describing a wide range of domestic and industrial machines that actually work and a broad cast of characters. Think Tom Wolfe, but more speculative and tilting to the left.
GODS, MONSTERS, AND THE LUCKY PEACH Kelly Robson (Tor, 240 pages, $19.50)
One can imagine a lot of different reasons for developing timetravel technology. In “Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach” we are told that in the year 2267 it is used in various ways, including historical study and time tourism. But mainly it has a progressive, redemptive function: going back into the distant past to restore ancient ecosystems in order to assist our recovery from environmental disasters that have left much of the Earth a wasteland.
Minh is part of a team assembled to travel all the way back to Mesopotamia in 2024 BCE. This will lead to some initial contact issues that go well beyond the usual, as Minh has been physically modified so that she has the upper body of an elderly woman but a set of tentacles instead of legs. As Minh herself puts it: “Why be human when you can be more?”
And as the mission starts to come undone it’s unclear whether any of them will be coming back, or if they’re about to be lost in time.
PATENTLY ABSURD Bradley W. Schenck (Radio Planet Books, 260 pages, $18.95)
“Patently Absurd” marks a joyful return to the city of Retropolis and the future that never was, the location of Bradley Schenck’s previous novel “Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom.”
Specifically, the six linked stories collected here deal with the adventures of a couple of employees of the Retropolis Registry of Patents, an office that has the unenviable task of trying to keep a lid on some of the more dangerous ideas coming out of the city’s Experimental Research District.
This means it’s up to Ben Bowman and his robot assistant, Violet, to deal with breakaway floating labs, an eruption of mole people, outbreaks of blue slime, time machines and doorways to other dimensions as they attempt to save Retropolis from a spirit of innovation gone mad.
Throw in a generous helping of Schenck’s own delightful illustrations and what you have is a high-spirited genre romp that fans won’t want to miss.
DAYFALL Michael David Ares (Tor, 288 pages, $34.99)
At least since the success of the movie Blade Runner, the conventions of noir and SF have seemed a natural fit.
In “Dayfall,” the debut novel from Michael David Ares, the connection is made explicit, as our hero, police detective Jon Phillips, is a big fan of the detective stories of Raymond Chandler. Indeed, he’s so keen on being like gumshoe Philip Marlowe that he hangs out at bars even though he doesn’t enjoy the taste of alcohol. Phillips has gone to New York City to help solve a series of violent crimes that seem connected to an event known as “Dayfall.” You see, the Big Apple has been under a nuclear-forged cloud of darkness for a decade and the sun is finally going to come out, which is something that threatens to throw the city into chaos. With a cast including a power-hungry CEO, a sexy bartender, corrupt politicians and various hired guns, Phillips has his work cut out for him.