Appearances can be deceiving

REVIEWS BY GAVIN J. GRANT

Iain M. Banks has been publishing huge, complex space-opera science fiction for nearly 15 years and, fortunately, he shows no sign of stopping. Most of his science fiction novels are set in a far future universe and feature the various machinations and dalliances between agents of the Culture and other species. The Culture is a superb creation: part United Nations, part free-form association of humans, aliens and sentient artificial intelligences ("Minds"); seemingly part dictatorship and part anarchistic society, it is wholly indefinable. Banks' latest novel, Look to Windward, follows a plot hidden from both the reader and the character who will carry it out. As the novel progresses, we see games within games, events resulting from actions that occurred centuries ago and wars that could potentially stalemate forever. Banks does not gloss over the costs of war, spying and revenge: at this level of technology it is not individuals, but whole planets that might suffer the consequences.

The novel focuses on a musician in exile, Mahrai Ziller, and the efforts of an ambassador from his home world of Chel to persuade him to return. Every other character indulges in intrigue and double-meaning, but not Ziller. He does not want to meet the Chelgrian ambassador or return to Chel, and his attempts to escape the ambassador, his petty tantrums and his utter refusal to do what is expected of him make for some very enjoyable and highly imaginative adventures. Banks is one of the smartest and funniest writers in (or out of) science fiction, and Look to Windward will keep his reputation on the upslope.


Love and lies in London

Coming back to Earth with a jolt, Michael Moorcock's latest alternate history, King of the City, jumps right into action in late 1990s London. Dennis Dover is a paparazzo. He chases the rich and famous and whenever he can, he takes their photographs in compromising situations. He has managed a comfortable life so far, but it all comes apart when he takes a picture of the richest man in the world in flagrante delecto with a duchess in the Caribbean. There are many problems with this picture, not the least of which is that the man had been buried more than a year before.

King of the City is a dense, complicated whirling dervish of a novel. Dover ranges backward and forward in time, telling stories within stories, exploring the languages of London, love and storytelling itself.

Dover's voice is so certain and strong that the reader is bound to follow. Even when we discover he is an unreliable narrator, never as fully informed as he thinks he is, even when weak, blind and recovering in a hospital, he demands and receives our attention. King of the City is an energetic tour de force from a writer who makes the words, the people -- the very city itself -- speak.


Hungry like the wolf

Gillian Bradshaw's fanciful new historical novel The Wolf Hunt takes us to the time of the Crusades. The daughter of a minor noble, Marie Penthievre of Chalendrey has been left by her father in a convent while he is at war.

Marie is abducted from the convent by her father's enemy and, upon realizing her predicament, manages to make her escape. But she is eventually recaptured and taken to Duke Hoel of Brittany's court, where she declares she will never marry against her father's wishes and is fortunate enough not to be forced.

A classics scholar from Cambridge, England, Bradshaw has shown a talent for bringing history to life in several previous critically acclaimed novels. Her confident and intimate writing, her rich variety of characters and her refusal to use stock descriptions of the people and the period make The Wolf Hunt an engaging experience. Marie's predicament at the court, the background of the Crusades and her growing realization that she has fallen in love with someone she cannot marry add up to a great page-turner. There is only one fantastical plot element, lycanthropy (werewolves), and Bradshaw's take on it is refreshing. She gives it an unaccustomed beauty; her descriptions of the lives of wolves would sit comfortably with some of the best nature writing.


Gavin J. Grant lives in Brooklyn, where he reviews, writes and publishes speculative fiction.

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