Conflicts across time and space

REVIEWS BY GAVIN J. GRANT

Writer Nick Sagan takes on the already hoary virtual reality subgenre and produces a dark and imaginative first novel in Idlewild. Set in a near-future world, the novel introduces readers to Gabriel Hall (nicknamed Halloween), a teenager who wakes up with amnesia after an attack he cannot remember. He thinks his assailant is one of the nine other students at Idlewild, an exclusive school where the residents learn to create their own virtual environments. When Halloween throws a party to bring the students together, he finds he's suspected in the possible murder of Lazarus, one of his fellow students. The school authorities insist Lazarus has graduated but the students don't believe he would leave without telling them.

Alongside Halloween's tale, Sagan unfolds a parallel story involving humanity's final days as a killer virus spreads around the world. While people panic and some plan for cryogenic storage, the Gedaechtnis company designs "posthumans" who are genetically altered so the virus won't harm them. The hope is that the posthumans will find a way to stop the virus and resurrect humanity.

Sagan, a Hollywood screenwriter and the son of astronomer Carl Sagan, adds unexpected and satisfying complexity as he ties the two plot lines together. Despite a slightly disappointing ending, Idlewild is a strong debut that should make readers eager for the next entry in what is expected to be an Idlewild trilogy.


Moving on

Although not quite as elegant as his recent short stories, British writer Charles Stross's first novel Singularity Sky will please his fans and no doubt bring him many new readers. In the 21st century, 90 percent of the Earth's 10 billion people are involuntarily relocated to other planets by the Eschaton, a newly sentient artificial intelligence. Jumping forward 400 years, we arrive on the New Republic, the leading entity in a four-planet empire which was politically frozen around the year 1900. One of the planets, Rochard's World, has been visited by the Festival, an entity that began as an automatic interstellar repair system and has since gathered passengers, followers and hangers-on—some of whom are decidedly dangerous. The New Republic's leaders, systemically unable to comprehend the Festival's decentralized nature, make the unfortunate, and ultimately useless, decision to launch a battle fleet to protect Rochard's World.

The war is merely a side event as Stross uses the dispersal of the Earth's population to compare and contrast political systems in much the same way Ken MacLeod did in his recent Engines of Light series. Inventive and occasionally very funny, Stross is a writer who wants to entertain but also to be taken seriously. If he can meld the depth of his short stories to the breadth of vision shown in Singularity Sky, he will be well on his way to his goal.


Render unto Caesar

Noted science fiction writer Norman Spinrad is switching genres with his latest book, The Druid King. This historical novel (which might be classified as speculative fiction) is the story of Vercingetorix, a Gaul who stood up to Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire. The Druid King isn't alternate history, so from the start the ending is assured. With the plot fixed, Spinrad occupies the reader with a rich variety of mostly male characters, fragmentary and ever-changing alliances and a touch of the fantastic: Vercingetorix not only leads his tribe, he is also a druid, and, like Caesar, he occasionally has visions.

Caesar wants to use Gaul as a political springboard to Rome but his invasion sparks Vercingetorix's opposition. The two men are therefore the cause and ongoing grounds for war: they know neither will surrender, so they use their armies ruthlessly. The battles in the fields, forests and cities are horrifyingly described in prose that occasionally flashes purple ("What a glorious sight! Shouting, screaming, a mighty barbarian horde in full battle frenzy.")

Spinrad is at his best describing the towns and cities of Gaul and the changes brought by trade and war. No matter how civilized Roman occupation is, the reader's sympathies remain with the underdog tribes who will eventually join under one leader, Vercingetorix, as Gauls. The Druid King is an uncompromising political tragedy which forces readers to weigh the human cost of war.


Gavin J. Grant writes from Northampton, Massachusetts.

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