2024/052: The Hydrogen Sonata — Iain M Banks

Why do we bother with this sort of bio-tangling stuff in the first place? We could live lives of such uncomplicated joy if we left them to their own sordid, murderous devices. [loc. 1207]

The Gzilt, a Culture-adjacent civilisation, are counting down the days to Sublimation, when their entire species / civilisation will enter a higher plane of being (or possibly a 'great retirement home'), as foretold in their Book of Truth. But when a neighbouring civilisation sends a ship to reveal a long-held secret to the Gzilt, that ship is destroyed. What secret can possibly be deemed so dangerous at this point?

The key to the mystery involves musician Vyr Cossont, a grown woman who is repeatedly referred to as 'the girl'. Vyr has grown an extra pair of arms to enable her to play the eponymous Hydrogen Sonata, an experimental and perhaps unlistenable piece subtitled 'String-Specific Sonata For An Instrument Yet To Be Invented'. With the help of a mysterious Culture ship, the Mistake Not..., she has to track down an old friend who may know the solution to the mystery. Meanwhile, two non-human races are squabbling for scavenger rights to anything the Gzilt leave behind, and various Culture ships are zooming around, having long conversations and involving themselves in other civilisations' business. So no change there.

I have fond memories of earlier Culture novels but found this one a slog: possibly just a case of 'right book, wrong time', but I found it less engaging than expected. There were some glorious, and some gloriously self-indulgent, ideas and scenes; some interesting observations about the allegedly-peaceful Culture, and the Minds; some intriguing characters, and enticing asides ('the broad hips of a non-mammalian humanoid': why?). But I didn't especially like any of the characters (except perhaps the Mistake Not...) and there seemed to be elements, such as Vyr's shawl-form companion Pyan, which could have been removed without damage to the overall structure.

The Hydrogen Sonata (Banks' last Culture novel) was published in 2012, and I suspect the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum was looming large in the author's mind: but lines like 'if we’re all about to step into the big bright and shining light, Vyr, but there is just a chance that we’d be doing so under false pretences, and it would be good to know the truth, don’t you think? Just in case we wanted to rethink...' [loc. 1802] just make me think of a later referendum whose outcome was shaped by lies.

Now I want to reread the earlier novels, most of which I have not revisited in at least two decades. But looking back over my reviews of Matter, Consider Phlebas, The Algebraist, and Excession (two of which were rereads), I find that my enjoyment of Banks' SF has not been unalloyed. Perhaps I should skip the rereads and retain my faint hazy impression of excitement, adventure and really wild things.

2024/051: Expect Me Tomorrow — Christopher Priest

The future no longer bore thinking about.
So, tomorrow? What to expect of tomorrow?
The future had become a sequence of days: they survived this day, worked through it as it came, managed somehow. Tomorrow dawned with the apprehension that something else might have to be survived, worked through, managed. They lived on the edge. [p. 229]

In the first decade of the twentieth century, glaciologist Adler Beck makes the final corrections to his new book, Take Heed!—A Scientist Warns of the Terror to Come, in which he argues for the inevitability of the coming Ice Age. In the middle of the twenty-first century, Chad Ramsey negotiates redundancy (he was a police profiler) and stifling heat as he uses cutting-edge technology implants to research his family history. Both men are twins. Adler's bohemian brother Adolf, after a stint as an opera singer in Manaus, buys shares in a copper mine; flits around Europe, with the occasional letter to his brother; is convicted of defrauding multiple women, and imprisoned. Like his brother, Adolf is plagued by 'incursions' in which a man's voice questions him about his life. Chad's rather less bohemian brother Greg is working for a national broadcasting company as an investigative journalist, most recently involved with a company called Schmiederhahn which doesn't believe in coincidence.

Priest's depiction of near-future England is all too credible. 'Already the physical symbols of civilisation were serving notice.' The journey from Hastings to Heathrow takes nearly a day; storm-damaged sea defences are left to crumble, the hospitals only take emergency cases, wildfires devastate much of England's farmland. In contrast, Adler Beck's nineteenth-century life seems idyllic, despite disasters natural and otherwise, Adolf's precarious and mysterious lifestyle, and Adler's certainty that the ice is coming.

Priest draws together climate fiction (this is one of the most positive novels I've read on the subject), historical fiction and some futuristic technology into a story about brothers, about equilibrium and about hope. I found the contrast between Adler's sedate account and Chad's quiet desperation very effective, and the descriptive passages -- especially post-Krakatoa sunsets as seen from Blackheath -- vivid and credible. And I was fascinated to discover that, despite the standard disclaimer ('All the characters in this book are fictitious') Adolf Beck was a real person.

Surprisingly cheering, though near-future England, with its isolationist mentality and its gradual collapse, seems depressingly imminent. Expect it tomorrow.

Fulfils the ‘chapter headings have dates’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Fulfils the ‘a book that features twins’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/050: Olive Kitteridge — Elizabeth Strout

...spring arriving once again; foolish, foolish spring, breaking open its tiny buds, and what she couldn’t stand was how -— for many years, really -— she had been made happy by such a thing. [loc. 3799]

A 'novel in stories', which is apparently the term for something Impressionistically vague, the protagonist glimpsed in the background of what appear to be other people's tales. A couple of the stories do focus on retired school teacher Olive and her kind-hearted, long-suffering husband Henry, the town pharmacist: others feature grown adults who were taught by Olive years ago, a nightclub pianist who plays a song for the couple, their son Christopher, a neighbour's difficulties, a chaste love affair, a woman falling into the sea...

I think Olive is supposed to be unlikeable: she is brusque, moody, judgemental, difficult, disappointed. I warmed to her, and (or?) perhaps identified with her. I liked the understatedness of the prose, the way that all the awful things are matter-of-fact and low-key, the way that Olive's inner state is never labelled or analysed. This is a masterclass in 'show, don't tell'. On the surface everything is fine: on the surface.

I shall be reading more by Elizabeth Strout. Though possibly not if I am feeling low.

Fulfils the ‘lowercase letters on the spine’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

2024/049: Running Close to the Wind — Alexandra Rowland

"Intelligence knows," Avra said airily, "that 'sane' doesn't exist. Nobody is sane. Nobody has ever been sane. Sane is fake. Sane is ..." He waved at his own face. "One of those things you wear to a masked ball."
"... A mask?"
"Yes, thank you, one of those. Behind everybody's sanity mask is someone who is unalloyed batshit in one way or another." [loc. 5067]

Ex-spy Avra Helvaçi is possessed of unusually good luck, a bunch of secret papers from the Shipbuilders' Guild, and a long-lasting fixation on dashing nonbinary pirate captain Teveri az-Ḥaffār. Reunited, the two join forces to become (a) really rich and (b) not dead, with a mutual hope of (c) persuading the gorgeous Brother Julian that vows of celibacy are really boring.

This is a hilarious and heartfelt novel, which I suspect some people will find highly irritating. I loved it and look forward to buying it for all my friends, especially those who are fans of a recent, much-lamented TV show about queer pirates.

Fulfils the ‘Published in a Year of the Dragon’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy: full honest review closer to UK publication date, which is 13 JUN 2024.

2024/048: The Silence Factory — Bridget Collins

"Poor Echo. I wonder sometimes what it would feel like, to be condemned to say what you never wanted to say, while the most important thing of all is beyond your reach." There was a pause that felt as though something unspoken was hanging in the air like invisible fruit, left unplucked. [loc. 1665]

Bridget Collins' third novel for adults, following The Binding (which I loved) and The Betrayals (which I liked), is The Silence Factory, which I'm still considering. It's a novel about the luxury of silence, about power and powerlessness: it features queer romance, dual narratives, abusive relationships, social class and ... spiders, again. (Perhaps the most fantastical aspect of the plot is that nobody in Collins' version of 19th-century England seems to suffer from arachnophobia.)

Part of the book is formed by the 1820s diaries of Sophia, wife to scientifically-minded and ambitious James Ashmore. James has brought her to the Greek island of Kratos, following the trace of a dead scholar's letters about marvellous spiders, the pseudonephila. While her husband becomes increasingly focussed on his work, Sophia befriends a local woman named Hira, and is drawn into the island's secrets.

The larger part of the narrative is the story of Henry Latimer, recently widowed (his wife died in childbirth) and working for his father-in-law, an audiologist. When Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy (great-nephew of James Ashmore) visits the shop in search of a device that will restore the hearing of his deaf daughter Philomel, Henry is struck by the man's charisma: he soon finds himself on a train to Telverton, with a suitcase of auricles and audinets, where he will test Philomel's hearing himself. Telverton is dominated by the silk factory, and Henry has already discovered that Telverton silk has miraculous properties. One side of the fabric confers blessed, luxurious silence. The other side of the silk gives off 'some sort of unpredictable vibration', which has rendered many of the factory workers partially deaf -- or worse. Henry quickly becomes Sir Edward's assistant and confidant, refusing to listen to the warnings of Philomel's governess. All factories have accidents, don't they?

There are no happy endings here, though the conclusion of Henry's story is undeservedly hopeful. I found it hard to like him, though his situation was pitiable: he's spineless, indecisive and blinkered. Sophia and her story were much more engaging, but she too was under the influence of a selfish, privileged man. James was monstrous in his disregard for his wife: Sir Edward's motivation, in his dealings with Henry, was opaque to me. Collins' writing is luscious and Gothic, and she writes powerfully about the gift of silence, and the ways in which women can be silenced, as well as the horrors of industry and the evils to which knowledge can be bent. I think this is a well-written, fascinating and complex book. I am not at all sure that I liked it.

Warnings for ableism, miscarriage, drowning, cruelty to animals, poverty, torture, emotional abuse, capitalism, spiders.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 09 MAY 2024.

Fulfils the ‘picked without reading the blurb’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge: the author's name was sufficient incentive for me to request this from Netgalley.