/dev/random Science Fiction & Fantasy

Title: SASHA - A TRIAL OF BLOOD AND STEEL
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Author: Joel Shepherd
Edition released: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7336-2141-3
443 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

Lenayin is a country divided by religious and ethnic tensions exacerbated by the desire of the ruling class of Verenthanes to take more power in their regions over the Goeren-yai. The king has an uneasy hold on power, only possible by the agreement of the nobles, and deliberately weak so as to not provide an incentive for the nobles to rise against the benevolent rule. The Goeren-yai have for a century endured this situation, however with the fear that the living symbol of their pride - the Udalyn, are likely to be attacked, they look for a leader to unite them.

Sasha is the daughter of the king, but has forsaken all of this to live with the Goeren-yai and to study under the famed warrior Kessligh. Her prowess with the blade has lead the Goeren-yai to see in her the Synnich - the great spirit that may unite them. The Verenthane nobles see a potentially dangerous enemy. Sasha is young, impetuous and untested in battle, and therefore an unlikely leader, but events seem to conspire to cast her in that role.

I really, really liked SASHA. The central character was eminently believable, and complex enough that you could both like and dislike her at the same time. The social themes explored in this book by Joel Shepherd also offers a depth that helps cement this as a great story. It is in some ways a coming of age tale, with Sasha having to confront things that she thought she had put behind her, and to take on responsibilities that are almost overwhelming.

SASHA is a classic grand saga that will please any fantasy fan. It also has depth and character development that will bring new readers to the genre, and ultimately is a great story that will engage and entertain. I found it very hard to put this book down. SASHA is a great read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Title: EL DORADO
Publisher: Picador
Author: Dorothy Porter
Edition released: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-3304-2304-5
370 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

I have to admit that I wouldn't have thought it possible to combine poetry and crime fiction, but that is what EL DORADO is - a crime fiction novel written in verse.

EL DORADO follows the police investigation into a serial killer who kills children and places his golden trademark on their foreheads. The investigating officer, Bill Buchanan is starting to run out of ideas and enlists the help of his childhood friend Cath - a Hollywood special effects artist who builds fantasy worlds, and Bill needs to understand the fantasy that the killer has built.

Bill has his problems, an undying love for Cath that isn't reciprocated - well, can't be as Cath is lesbian, a broken marriage, and a teenage daughter in that rebellious phase. All this and a boss on his back because of the media attention, the serial killer mocking him in the daily press.

EL DORADO is a stupendous achievement. The tightly written poetry is superbly crafted into a thriller that is simply stunning. To say that I was taken aback by this story is an understatement. I was blown away. This is poetry without pretence, it is an unflinching look at the horrors within, and is a great crime story to boot. There is beauty in the apparent simplicity of the language, yet power in the imagery that Dorothy coaxes out of each line.

Dorothy Porter is no novice in this realm, with other verse novels such as Akhenaten, The Monkey's Mask, What a Piece of Work and Wild Surmise, along with poetry, young adult fiction and even the occasional libretti. Every reader of any genre needs to read Dorothy Porter to understand the power and beauty of the written word.

Title: INFECTED
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Author: Scott Sigler
Edition released: 2008
ISBN: 978-0-340-96352-4
340 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

There is a strange disease going around that has terrifying implications. Seeds falling from the sky have infiltrated a number of people, causing itchy triangular lesions that eventually drive the victim to insanity, homicide and even suicide. A CDC (Center for Disease Control) underling, Margaret Montoya, first identifies the disease and contacts the CIA. Dew Philips, a hardened CIA veteran, has already lost a partner thanks to a deranged victim of the disease and he is torn between his need for revenge and his duty.

Perry Dawsey, an ex-footballer with an attitude problem, is infected and tries to take on the infection himself, becoming more and more paranoid as the effects of the infection take hold.

Time is running short, as when the host dies, the infection releases catalysts that cause the body to quickly self destruct - removing all traces of the foreign bodies. But who created the infection agent? What is it's purpose? And why do the victims go insane.

INFECTED is also known as Infection in its original US release. INFECTED is a traditional alien invasion horror story. It is competently written, with a sense of urgency coming through, and plenty of gore and testosterone to delight the fan, but for me the shortcomings overshadowed what would otherwise be a reasonably entertaining read.

In the opening chapters the "seeds" are consumed by the Demodex mite, and apparently need to have their protective coat destroyed as they pass through the digestive tract of the mite to start their next phase. With less than a minutes research it would be clear that the Demodex mite doesn't have any way of eliminating waste. It doesn't need it. And the thing that really bugged me about this is that it was so unnecessary to the story. What would have been wrong with requiring body warmth and the moisture from sweat? Or the oils from the skin? Or heck, why not the human digestive system?

I also really hated the cliche of the ex Vietnam vet turned CIA operative, running as a lone wolf, bent on revenge for his buddy's demise. Also, why was the CIA involved at all? Apparently this underling from the CDC calls up the local CIA office and is put through the the director and then the President is authorising black ops on US soil? Gimme a break! I'm sure the huge number of fans of Sigler will descend on me for my heresy but there is just too much that is unbelievable in this to make it even a half-way decent story.

Title: THE PHILOSOPHER'S APPRENTICE
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Author: James Morrow
Edition released: 2008
ISBN: 978-0-297-85343-5
400 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

Mason Ambrose realises he has just thrown his PhD out the window, and that there is not a lot of work for failed philosophers. Mason is approached with an interesting proposition, to be paid quite handsomely to teach morals and ethics to a girl who, through a recent diving accident, has lost all sense of right and wrong. Mason is a little reluctant at first, what with the out-of-the-way location on the Isla de Sangre, and the reclusive employer Edwina Sabacthini, but with not a lot of other offers on the table he decides to take the plunge.

Ambrose's student is Londa, Edwina's daughter. A stunning creature with total recall of everything she reads, Londa proves a difficult but extremely capable student. Londa starts to build her moral compass around the lessons, developing a strong sense of justice, which begins to become a problem once Londa moves into the wider world.

THE PHILOSOPHER'S APPRENTICE is an interesting mix, with obvious references to Shaw's Pygmalion, as well as Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau, and perhaps even a nod to The Night of the Living Dead. There is also an underpinning of subtle humour that ties the book together. Morrow has been able to draw on some interesting themes and explore them in an entertaining way.

The book follows Mason's progress as teacher, conscience and in some ways saviour of Londa through his disillusionment and finally a reconciliation of sorts. One main theme that comes immediately to mind is Frankenstein's Monster. But the question is, who is Frankenstein? Edwina or Mason? Or is it simply that a society that treats justice as a commodity is the ultimate evil? Either way, the reader will have a great time finding their way through this journey and reach their own conclusion.

I have just come back from an all company meeting of Sun Australia/NZ, and I must say that I am impressed by their commitment to open source. Coming in as part of the MySQL acquisition, there was a real concern that the open source mantra coming from Sun may not have any substance. Nothing could be further from the truth. In every presentation I've seen, both at this meeting and at other meetings, and in talking to other Sun employees, there is a real will and drive to make sure just about everything in the Sun portfolio is available as open source.

This has given me faith that the integration of MySQL into the stack has real synergies and buy-in from the entire company. It has also made me feel a lot more comfortable in coming from the open source heartland into a company that has multi-billion dollar revenues and tens of thousands of staff worldwide. Sure there will be teething problems. Sure there will need to be a shift of focus for some in the company. Sure there will be scepticism in the wider open source community. None of this will matter though, as open source is no longer the future, it is mainstream, it is now and it is starting to shift perceptions to match the reality on the ground. I feel privileged to be part of a company that has recognised that and is making some bold moves that will no doubt prove successful.

Why the title "Everything Under the Sun"? Have you looked at Sun's portfolio recently? There are very few gaps in what they can offer in the IT arena, from hardware to operating systems to software all the way up to enterprise solutions. I think it is going to be an interesting time.

Last weekend I decided to change my laptop over from Fedora to Ubuntu. Why? Well, it was time I made a change, and I'd started to hear pretty good things about Ubuntu, but the real reason was I tried to upgrade an old laptop to Fedora 8 a while ago and it wouldn't even find a commodity PCMCIA network card, so I couldn't use the network based installer. Ubuntu not only found that card, but also found the oddball wireless card and installed a driver for that. So I figured I might give it a go on my laptop, which is my main computer.

The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 6400, with Intel 945 on-board graphics, and Intel 3945ABG wireless chip. Fedora 6 was problematic on this and I had to hunt to find drivers that would run the display in 1680x1050 mode, and to get the wireless to work. This wasn't a major problem once I got hold of the correct drivers and updated my RPM repository configs, but it did take time. So I was prepared for a bit of a battle with Ubuntu.

The battle lasted a very short time. Basically I had to decide if I wanted to leave the current operating system there and just add Ubuntu into the spare space on the disk, or use the entire disk, and then if I wanted to encrypt the disk. OK, lets go with encrypted. From that point on it was disturbingly simple. The install went without problem, and the graphics and wireless worked flawlessly from the start - no need to figure out any arcane settings.

It was after this point that I started to get pleasantly surprised time after time. I typed in my favourite editor command 'gvim' and it told me that it couldn't run it, but if I installed one of the following packages, complete with the command line to run, I could run the command. OK, run the command, run 'gvim' again, gvim worked. Cute.

It didn't stop there though. I installed Totem to view some videos. On Fedora I had to install that then go find all the codecs and replacement libraries to get over the restrictions on MPEG encoding. On Ubuntu I started viewing a movie, it came up and told me it didn't have the codec required, did I want to search for it. OK, I'll search - then it finds the codec and warns me about the legal restrictions, asks for my confirmation, then installs it and once completed the movie starts playing. No needing to restart Totem, no need to click on anything to replay, it just takes off where it left! Impressive stuff.

When I was testing it on the older laptop I had problems with the wireless card (which kept locking up under heavy load), so upgrades would hang. I killed them off then started it up again with a wired connection. It found that it had failed, started off again where it left off and completed the upgrade. This really started to give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

At every point I've so far been reasonably impressed by Ubuntu. Everything just seems to work and seems pretty solid. There have been a few quirks getting my calender file back from my Fedora install, but a quick look at the Ubuntu forums and we had the answer. Just about everything I use was available in either the standard software installer or in the extended installer. The only thing I had to go outside of the standard installers was Skype, and that was a pretty simple install.

There are going to be roadblocks, I am after all what may be termed a 'Power User', so I don't expect plain sailing, but I've gotten a great head start so far and feel confident that the problems ahead will be minor.

Title: THE NEW SPACE OPERA
Publisher: Voyager
Editors: Jonathan Strahan and Gardner Dozois
Edition released: 2007
ISBN: 0-7322-8294-2
549 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

I've already spoken of my love of anthologies, and another love I have is the grand vista of the space opera. So you can tell I was pretty pleased when I saw THE NEW SPACE OPERA. This anthology collects together new and current writers that write in that classic SF sub-genre of the space opera. Space opera is that sweeping, all-encompassing saga that takes your breath away, and this book has 18 of the best space operas I've read for quite some time.

There are some great authors in THE NEW SPACE OPERA, including Dan Simmons, Gregory Benford, Robert Silverberg, Stephen Baxter and Greg Egan, and there are more than a dozen others to round out the roll call.

How do you make a space opera different? Each of these stories is a revelation in that regard. Each gives you a different definition of "space opera".

I really liked THE NEW SPACE OPERA and I've found a few more authors to add to my list of favourites, along with cementing some that were already there.

Well worth the look.

Title: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TORC
Publisher: Gollancz
Author: Simon Green
Edition released: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-575-07939-7
362 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

Edwin Drood has a bit of a secret. He is a shaman, and goes by the name of Bond, Shaman Bond. He is part of a secret family who fights a never ending war against evil to keep you safe from the nasties. With demons trying to possess politicians and an all out attack on the bastion of the family, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TORC is not short of action.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TORC is meant to be a spoof of all of those James Bond thrillers, with a supernatural twist. On page one I was laughing. By page 50 the joke was starting to pall. I never got to page 100. While the premise has promise, the delivery was basically a series of gags that really didn't do the story any justice.

Simon Green has created what may appeal to a vast number of readers, but to me it was a pale imitation of Charles Stross, who does this so much better.

I happened to grab the latest copy of my favourite electronics mag the other day which featured on the cover the Vectrix electric motor bike. Sort of a cross between a motorbike and a scooter, this appealed to me on so many levels.

It has around a 100km range at an average speed of 40km/h, which would suit many a suburban commuter. OK, it isn't going to handle a crossing of the Nullarbor, but then neither would the Honda Spacey. It is designed for a different task. If you live within 20 or 30km from work and use a motor bike, then this would suit you down to the ground.

The price is a little hefty at around 2 to 3 times the price of a competing motor scooter, but you then have to factor in that you don't have any fuel costs, apart from an overnight charge. If you are using Green Power or a grid-interactive solar system, then the cost to the planet starts to plummet.

It will be interesting to see how this catches on.

Title: THE YEAR'S BEST AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY (THIRD ANNUAL VOLUME)
Publisher: MirrorDanse Books
Edited by: Bill Congreve and Michelle Marquardt
Edition released: 2007
ISBN: 978-097577362-8
224 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

I love anthologies. They give you a chance to read authors you may not know about or choose normally. And when they feature the best authors in your country, then how can you go wrong?

THE YEAR'S BEST showcases 11 Australian authors: Kaaron Warren, Simon Brown, Margo Lanagan, Geoffrey Maloney, Terry Downling, Deborah Biancotti, Lee Battersby, Ben Peek, Chris Lawson, Kim Westwood and Alistair Ong. It is a shame to say that of these I really have only heard of two or three. But this is what anthologies are all about, introducing new readers to new authors, and this book does it well.

The stories cover a great range of the Science Fiction and Fantasy spectrum and there is sure to be one or two to appeal to any taste. Of all of the book I really only skimmed one story, and that was "Terning tha Weel" by Kim Westwood, not because it was a bad story, but because the use of a phonetic style for me came in the way of the narrative.

In any anthology you have to have a standout, and for me this was "The Souls of Dead Soldiers are for Blackbirds, not Little Boys" by Ben Peek. A quirky little story this really was poignant and thought provoking while still being entertaining.

If you want to know who to read next year, take a look at THE YEAR'S BEST and get a glimpse of the best in Australian SF&F.