Battle of the Books, Bracket Seven, Championship Round :: The Rise of Ransom City by Felix Gilman vs. The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

We have finally arrived at the championship round of Battle of the Books. In one corner we have The Rise of Ransom City by Felix Gilman. In the other corner we have The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross. I (Amy) have read 200 pages of both these books, and the book I most want to continue reading to the end will be the champion of Bracket Seven of Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books.

The Rise of Ransom City:  Tor Books, November 2012, 366 pages. The Rise of Ransom City is a loose sequel to The Half-Made World, and is Felix Gilman's fourth novel. The Rise of Ransom City reached the championship by winning its matches against Beautiful Monster by Jared S. Anderson & Mimi A. Williams, The Demoness of Waking Dreams by Stephanie Chong, and River Road by Suzanne Johnson.

The Rise of Ransom City is the fictional autobiography of self-educated inventor Professor Harry Ransom. It's set during the Great War between Gun and Line. Ransom and his assistant, Mr. Carver, are traveling through towns in the Western Rim in a wagon carrying their Apparatus, giving demonstrations of Ransom's Light-Bringing Process and seeking investors.

Professor Ransom's lighting process is not electricity, but something else with mystical components. The Apparatus makes Ransom's glass lamps glow without any connecting wires. Unfortunately, Ransom's Process is unreliable, and at worst, can be dangerous.

On the road, Ransom meets a young woman and an older man who he comes to know as Miss Elizabeth Harper and Old Man Harper. (Those who have read The Half-Made World, like me, will likely guess who these characters actually are). "The Harpers" are avoiding the patrols of the Line, and Ransom, who has his own grievances against the Line, allows them to travel with him.

By chance, Ransom finds out that Old Man Harper was a notorious Agent of the Gun. "The Harpers" are being pursued by both the Gun and the Line. Ransom fears for his life.

An Agent of the Gun attacks them in the town of White Rock. Old Man Harper tries to kill the Agent by blowing up buildings. The deadly Agent is destroyed when Ransom makes his Apparatus spectacularly explode. There are casualties. Afterwards, Ransom blabs about "The Harpers'" secret mission. "The Harpers" and Ransom go their separate ways.

Ransom takes a job on a riverboat. He uses the assumed name of Hal Rawlins because his own name has become too conspicuous. He maintains and mimes playing a player piano. Onboard he meets the Great Rotollo, a stage magician, and his wife the Amazing Amaryllis. The riverboat is sunk by a stray rocket from an Engine of the Line. Ransom becomes separated from the other shipwreck survivors.

A penniless Ransom walks to the metropolis of Jasper City. He searches in vain for his sister, whom he wrongly assumed was successful on Swing Street. He gets hired by the Amazing Amaryllis who is doing a magic show herself. Ransom lurks outside the mansion of tycoon Mr. Baxter. A curious newspaper editor interviews "Hal Rawlins" and in the story Ransom implies that he built the player piano. The woman who actually built the player piano, but had to pawn it, Adela Kotan Iermo, challenges Ransom to a duel. Their duel at dawn is fortunately interrupted by an invasion of Jasper City by men of the Line.

The Apocalypse Codex:  Ace Books hardcover, July 2012, 255 pages, cover art by Mark Fredrickson. The Apocalypse Codex is the fourth book in Charles Stross’s Laundry Files series. The Apocalypse Codex reached the championship by winning its matches against Free Radicals by Zeke Teflon, Apollo's Outcasts by Allen Steele, and Quantum Coin by E. C. Myers.

Bob Howard is a computational demonologist working for an ultra-secret agency of the British government called the Laundry, which defends the realm from occult threats. For a project, Bob is assigned to Gerald Lockhart, who heads a small, special department.

The Laundry was investigating the Golden Promise Ministries of American televangelist Raymond Schiller. The Ministries held arena-sized evangelical gatherings in London. Schiller was invited to a breakfast meeting hosted by the Prime Minister. The Laundry, as part of British Secret Service, is forbidden to snoop on cases with ties to Prime Minister's office, but outside contractors Persephone Hazard and her assistant Johnny McTavish have no such restriction. It'll be Bob's job to monitor Ms. Hazard's and Mr. McTavish's investigational activities, but not to direct them.

Bob needs to be prepared for any eventuality. Lockhart helps Bob get a new passport with a diplomatic visa from MI5, and temporary tattoos that with blood magic can be used as telepathic communication devices

Televangelist Schiller returns to the United States. Persephone is provided a ticket to a weekend spiritual course at Schiller's compound near Colorado Springs. Persephone and Johnny travel to Colorado, and Bob rushes to follow.

Bob settles in at a hotel in downtown Denver. He uses the communication tattoos to find out what's going on, and manages to annoy both Persephone and Johnny.

Then everything goes to hell. Two possessed religious zealots with guns knock on Bob's hotel room door. Bob unintentionally kills them with an impromptu incantation. The men were zombies controlled by bug-like parasites. Meanwhile, Persephone runs away after seeing a classmate being "Saved" by ingesting one of these parasites in a communion service. Johnny is ambushed.

Bob reports to Lockhart and is told to return to the UK immediately. But Bob can't just leave Persephone and Johnny in this mess. And a huge winter storm is set to hit Colorado.

The Battle:   This final match-up features The Rise of Ransom City, a steampunk fantasy set in an alternate world inspired by the Old West, going up against The Apocalypse Codex, an occult science fiction British spy thriller. These books are vastly different in setting, tone, and writing style. After reading the first 200 pages of each of them, I really want to finish them both.

The Apocalypse Codex has been building up to its weird conflict, ratcheting up the tension. There are horrific elements, such the alien parasites and the women held against their will by the Ministries. But also there are laughable situations throughout, such as Bob being questioned by USA customs at JFK, and Bob's sarcastic humor as narrator. I found it interesting that events were set in Colorado, where I live. At the point I had to stop reading, Bob and his charges, Persephone and Johnny, are each facing dangers, and the Golden Promise Ministries looks like a potential global threat.

The Rise of Ransom City has been rambling along, with Ransom having various encounters. I liked the old-fashioned story telling style, and the quirky details, such as Ransom's meetings with the otherly Folk. Harry Ransom is an interesting, eccentric character. It's funny that he can't use his own name because his big mouth started tales making it infamous. I enjoyed how Ransom and Adela went gradually from being opponents in a would-be duel to falling romantically into each other's arms.

But, in my opinion, the plot format of The Rise of Ransom City, as a fictional autobiography, didn't particularly help it in Battle of the Books. It was like I read several separate episodes in Harry Ransom's life. There was tension building up to the "Miracle" at White Rock, but afterwards Ransom and the plot took off in a new direction. Hopefully all will be tied up satisfactorily in the end, but I have to make my decision based on reading only a little more than half the book.

These two books reached the championship round because I enjoyed reading them. I'd recommend both of them. It was a good battle, but as far as which book I want to continue reading more, I'll go with the book that I think has greater plot momentum.

THE WINNER: The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

The Apocalypse Codex wins Bracket Seven of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books. Congratulations to Charles Stross as our newest Battle of the Books champion!

To see the completed bracket, click here.

I'll hand the Battle of the Books back to Aaron, who has a whole new bracket full of 2014 books. Stay tuned for more book battles to come!

Battle of the Books, Bracket Seven, Second Semifinal :: Quantum Coin by E. C. Myers vs. The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

Our second semifinal match in Bracket Seven of Battle of the Books features Quantum Coin by E. C. Myers going up against The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross. The book I (Amy) most want to continue reading after 100 pages will reach the championship round.

Quantum Coin:  Pyr books, October 2012, 331 pages, cover art by Sam Weber. Quantum Coin is the sequel to Fair Coin, which was E. C. Myers' first novel. Quantum Coin reached the second round by defeating The Path of the Fallen by Dan O'Brien and narrowly getting by Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson.

Quantum Coin begins with Ephraim Scott at Senior Prom. Ephraim was waiting for his date, Jena, but when he spotted her, strangely she was no longer wearing her prom dress. Soon he realized that she wasn't Jena at all, but Zoe, an analog of Jena from a parallel universe. Ephraim met Zoe in his earlier adventures. Then Jena returned. Seeing Jena's apparent twin, Zoe, puzzled their friends Nathan and the actual twins Mary and Shelly. They all went somewhere more private so Ephraim and Zoe could explain.

Zoe came seeking Ephraim because Nathaniel, a forty-something analog of Nathan who works at the Everett Institute, called for help. After Zoe's arrival, Nathan's video camera began capturing ghostly images of people from parallel universes.

Ephraim, Zoe and Jena attempt shifting to Nathaniel's universe, using Zoe's controller and Ephraim's coin, but they are blocked from arriving. Upon returning, Mary and Shelly merged into one girl. Next they successfully shifted to Zoe's universe, where Zoe can communicate with parallel universes via her Korean grandpa's old ham radio. Eventually they make radio contact with Dr. Jena Kim, an older analog of Jena and Zoe, who works with Nathaniel. They are given a narrow time window when they're allowed to shift to the Institute's universe.

The Everett Institute is operating on a skeletal staff due to funding problems. Nathaniel shows Ephraim, Zoe and Jena around. He introduces them to Dr. Kim, who is demanding and doesn't inspire their trust. Apparently universes are collapsing together. Dr. Kim believes that the only person who could possibly understand what's wrong is the founder of the Institute, Hugh Everett III (who, in our world, was the physicist who proposed the many-worlds quantum theory), but unfortunately he's dead. After some arguing, it's decided that Ephraim, Nathaniel and Jena will search parallel universes for a suitable analog of Dr. Everett. Zoe will stay and keep an eye on Dr. Kim.

The Apocalypse Codex:  Ace Books hardcover, July 2012, 255 pages, cover art by Mark Fredrickson. Charles Stross is a well-known Scottish science fiction author, who has written around twenty books. The Apocalypse Codex is the fourth book in his Laundry Files series. The Apocalypse Codex reached the semifinals by defeating Free Radicals by Zeke Teflon and getting by Apollo's Outcasts by Allen Steele.

Bob Howard is a computational demonologist working for an ultra-secret agency of the British government called the Laundry, which defends the realm from occult threats. HR sent Bob to a management training class for the regular civil service. At a bar, Bob met Gerald Lockhart, a higher up in the Laundry, who Bob will be assigned to for a project.

Gerald Lockhart heads a small department called Externalities. Lockhart contacted private intelligence agent and witch Persephone Hazard. Persephone Hazard and her assistant Johnny McTavish were introduced in the first chapter, which told of a caper in which they carefully broke into Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle which inspired Disneyland's Castle, and replaced a displayed forgery with the real occult amulet. Also Bob reads Ms. Hazard's dossier.

The Laundry has concerns about the Golden Promise Ministries of American televangelist Raymond Schiller. Their investigation of the televangelist unfortunately encountered ties with the Prime Minister's office, where the British Secret Service is forbidden to snoop. Persephone Hazard (aka BASHFUL INCENDIARY) is an external contractor with no such restriction. It'll be Bob Howard's job to monitor Ms. Hazard and Mr. McTavish's investigational activities, but not to direct them.

Bob needs to be prepared for any eventuality. Lockhart takes Bob to MI5 to get a new passport with a diplomatic visa, and to another office to be issued temporary tattoos that can be used as communication devices. Bob also gets a gadget that looks like a compact camera, but with a special SD card it becomes a SCORRPION STARE gun which can turn things to stone.

Meanwhile, the televangelist Raymond Schiller has breakfast with the Prime Minister and some senior ministers and industry leaders. Schiller is using a glamour to gain influence over others. After the meeting, we learn that Schiller's Golden Promise Ministries are unexpectedly researching brain neurochemistry.

The Battle:  This match-up has a YA science fiction book featuring parallel universes going up against an occult science fiction British spy thriller.

In Quantum Coin, I appreciated the distinctly different personalities of Jena and Zoe, the analogs who looked like twins. I liked that Jena was reading books that don't exist in our universe, such as Jane Austen's unfinished Sandition. The uncomfortable situation of Ephraim traveling with his girlfriend and an analog of his girlfriend who's his friend, was humorous. Ephraim was understandably unsettled that his analog in the Institute's universe is presumably dead.

I think Quantum Coin started fairly fast, with Zoe's unexpected arrival from her parallel universe, even with the information imparted about their gizmos. But the next fifty pages, shifting to the Everett Institute, in my opinion couldn't quite maintain that fast pace. There didn't seem to be the sense of urgency I expected about parallel universes collapsing at the Institute.

On the other hand, The Apocalypse Codex is chugging along. The first 100 pages seems to be all set-up and outfitting for action. We learn about Bob's secret agency office job, his bosses, and about some rules of operation at the Laundry. Bob is introduced to the external contractors on the project. There are enough otherworldly details, such as Bob signing official documents in blood, to make this a fantasy, and not a spy thriller. The author's wit and sarcasm keep this readable.

No clear evil plot or threat is evident yet, but trouble is foreshadowed. At nearly page 100, some creepy stuff about televangelist Schiller was revealed.

Here’s something Bob Howard's temporary boss, Gerald Lockhart, tells Bob:

"Ninety-eight percent of management work in this organization is routine. The other two percent is a tightrope walk over an erupting volcano without a safety net. Congratulations: here’s your balance pole."

Both these books are entertaining. I'd like to, and plan to, continue reading both of them. But for Battle of the Books I need to pick which book I'd rather continue reading after only 100 pages. Parallel universes are cool, and I liked the characters in Quantum Coin. But I'm more curious about what the heck will happen next in The Apocalypse Codex.

THE WINNER: The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

The Apocalypse Codex advances to the championship round to face The Rise of Ransom City by Felix Gilman.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Aaron's Take on the 2014 Hugo Nominees for Fiction

Today is the day to cast your ballots for the Hugo Award. Since this seems to be the year for block voting, if you don't know how to vote, I will gladly tell you . . .

Aaron's Ballot for Best Short Story
1. Sofia Samatar - Selkie Stories Are for Losers
2. John Chu - The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere
3. Rachel Swirsky - If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love
4. Thomas Olde Heuvelt - The Ink Readers of Doi Saket

To me, this is a group of three well-crafted stories and one brilliant one. Selkie Stories Are for Losers is elegantly written and in only a few pages creates a memorable main character, a young woman who is hurt and fearful after being abandoned by her mother but who is brave enough not to give up on love. At the same time, the story is an insightful commentary on an entire sub-genre of fantasy stories. This is the kind of piece the Hugo Awards were created to recognize.

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novelette
1. Aliette de Bodard - The Waiting Stars
2. Ted Chiang - The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
3. Mary Robinette Kowal - The Lady Astronaut of Mars
4. Brad R. Torgersen - The Exchange Officers
5. NO AWARD
6. Vox Day - Opera Vita Aeterna

In the novelette category, my vote goes to Aliette de Bodard, one of the finest young writers in the field. The Waiting Stars exemplifies her work's excellent craft and striking empathy. The other nominees are all good, until you get to the last one.

It would perhaps be more fun if Opera Vita Aeterna were more amusingly bad than it is. Instead, it reads like a lot of stories sent round for critiques in writers' groups: an amateurish effort by an author with some ability who doesn't seem to know yet how to construct an actual story. Opera Vita Aeterna could not have sold to any professional market in the field, and it's doubtful it could have sold even to a semipro, because it's dry and dull and simply does not tell a story. Only one real event takes place in the entire piece and, incredibly, it takes place offstage, even though the primary viewpoint character is there when it happens. Shame on the block of voters who stuffed this turkey onto the ballot. I suspect few of them even read it, yet they nominated it for reasons that have nothing to do with what the Hugo Awards should be about. (And because I do respect what the awards are supposed to be about, my reasons for rating it below "No Award" are unrelated to the author's political views or the offensive way he expresses them.)

The good news is Opera Vite Aeterna is the only one of the Correia slate of nominees that is not written at a professional level, so the embarrassment is not so deep as it might have been. The Brad Torgersen story in this category, for example, is a solid example of the Analog style of writing, even if that style isn't much to my tastes. (Brad, by the way, can transcend that style when he chooses, for instance in his brilliant novelette "Ray of Light.")

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novella
1. Catherynne M. Valente - Six-Gun Snow White
2. Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages - Wakulla Springs
3. Brad R. Torgersen - The Chaplain's Legacy
4. Dan Wells - The Butcher of Khardov
5. Charles Stross - Equoid

Snow White as a Western is a great concept, and no doubt many authors could have done it credit. But could anyone else have turned it into something as striking and captivating as Six-Gun Snow White? Catherynne Valente is a marvel.

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novel
1. Ann Leckie - Ancillary Justice
2. Charles Stross - Neptune's Brood
3. Larry Correia - Warbound
4. Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire) - Parasite
5. NO AWARD
6. Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson - The Wheel of Time

I hate to say it, but this strikes me as a lackluster group of best novel nominees. Ancillary Justice is by far my favorite, the most original, the best written, and the most thought-provoking of the group. But then, if we're using thought-provoking as a criterion, Neptune's Brood is the only other nominee to try. The Correia and Grant novels are entertaining but have little to say. I choose Correia over Grant because of the writing quirks in Parasite that annoy me: multiple passages that don't advance the story (minor character drove me home and told me about her dog for five pages), and the fact that the main character's dialogue and the same person's first-person narration are in markedly different voices.

I rate The Wheel of Time below No Award, because it was a terrible precedent to allow that entire series on the ballot at once. I already feel badly for whichever friend of mine writes a brilliant novel in the near future and gets stuck on the Hugo ballot opposite the entire Discworld series. Here's hoping the rule gets clarified to keep multi-volume series off the ballot in future.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Seven, Second Round :: The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross vs. Apollo’s Outcasts by Allen Steele

After some delay, due to issues such as stinking rabbits getting in my basement, here's our fourth and last, second round match in Bracket Seven of the Battle of the Books featuring The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross going against Apollo’s Outcasts by Allen Steele. The winner will be the book I (Amy) most want to continue reading after 50 pages.

The Apocalypse Codex:  Ace Books hardcover, July 2012, 255 pages, cover art by Mark Fredrickson. Charles Stross is a well-known Scottish science fiction author, who has written around twenty books. The Apocalypse Codex is the fourth book in his Laundry Files series. The Apocalypse Codex reached the second round by defeating Free Radicals by Zeke Teflon.

Persephone Hazard and her assistant Johnny McTavish parachuted into Bavaria at night. They carefully broke into Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle which inspired Disneyland's Castle, and returned an occult amulet to its rightful place, and removed the forgery from the display.

Bob Howard is a computational demonologist working for an ultra-secret agency of the British government called the Laundry, which defends the realm from occult threats. HR sent Bob to a management training class for the regular civil service with a cover story that made him hugely unpopular. At a bar, Bob meets an older man, Gerald Lockhart, who is a higher up in the Laundry. Bob will be assigned to Lockhart's department for a project.

Lockhart visits the London townhouse of Persephone Hazard, who is an intelligence officer and witch working for him. Lockhart wants Persephone to take Bob on her next suitable excursion. So they can privately discuss a situation that has come up, Persephone fires up a summoning grid, a "pentacle with attitude", opening a circle in another universe.

The Golden Promise Ministries are somehow involved in the situation. Persephone and Johnny go to an arena-sized evangelical revival service led by Pastor Raymond Schiller.

Apollo's Outcasts:  Pyr Books, November 2012, 307 pages, cover illustration by Paul Young. Allen Steele is an American science fiction writer. He's written around 20 novels, including the Coyote series. He has won three Hugo Awards for his short fiction. Apollo's Outcasts reached the second round by defeating Blood Zero Sky by J. Gabriel Gates.

Apollo's Outcasts is set in 2097. Jamey, who is sixteen and physically disabled due to weak bones from Lunar Birth Deficiency Syndrome, and his seventeen year old sister, Melissa, and are awakened after midnight and told to pack an overnight bag for an unexpected and unexplained trip.

Their father, Dr. Stanley Barlowe, stealthily drives Jamey, Melissa and their old sister, Jan, out of the Washington DC area to the space launch facility at Wallops Island. The President is dead in an apparent coup, and Dr. Barlowe fears being arrested for signing an ISC (International Space Consortium) petition. He and two other parents who work for ISC are sending their kids to the Moon to protect them. The other kids are Jamey's best friend, Logan, and Eduardo and Nina Hernandez. At the last minute, a government car arrives with a teenage girl named Hannah. The parents decide that Hannah must go on the shuttle, but there are no more seats. Jan, Jamey's oldest sister, volunteers to stay.

The kids are quickly examined and outfitted. Jamey is put in a padded cocoon to cushion his body during the high-g launch. The countdown is moved up when federal marshals show up. Hannah says they're after her. The shuttle is launched by magnetic catapult and it outruns several chasing jets. The LTV (Lunar Transfer Vehicle), which they're in, is jettisoned. The LTV pilot, Capt. Gordon Rogers (an homage to Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers?), evades an anti-satellite missile, but when the weapon explodes a fragment penetrates the LTV’s hull. The kids race to find and seal the hole before they lose their air.

The Battle:  This match-up features an occult science fiction British spy thriller going up against a YA science fiction book with political intrigue.

After 50 pages of The Apocalypse Codex, we've been introduced to the characters, and they've gotten their assignments to work together. Admittedly, some recap is needed because this is book four in a series. But no immediate, likely supernatural, threat yet been revealed, so the plot hasn't really left the starting gate. Yet the writing is sharp and witty.

On the other hand, Apollo's Outcasts starts fast, with the characters on the run from a threat that becomes very real. There's tension building. But the exact reason why they are threatened, the details of the political conflict, are not yet specified. The former Vice President, and new President, apparently orchestrated a national emergency.

The kids in space in Apollo's Outcasts are a nicely diverse group. Jamey is physically disabled. Eduardo has some sort of mental impairment. The Hernandez kids are Hispanic. Melissa tends to be whiny. Hannah is undoubtedly important politically. Half of the kids are girls. This is looking like a YA space adventure.

In The Apocalypse Codex, Bob is a sarcastic, thirty-something IT guy whose job runs from the boringly mundane to the dangerously weird. In this series, advanced computer science can lead to dark magic. I got a kick out of Bob zoning out during training class and having a song running through his head (four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire; and though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all). Persephone Hazard is a kick-ass woman of many talents, inspired by the British comic strip character Modesty Blaise. I'm curious why they are investigating the American televangelist's church.

For Battle of the Books, I'm not necessarily saying one book is better that the other. I'm picking which book I'd rather continue reading. For this round, I'm judging these books after reading only 50 pages. Both books are good and readable, which made this decision difficult. The battle came down to that I tend to personally enjoy fantasy strangeness over speculative realities.

THE WINNER: The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

The Apocalypse Codex advances to the semifinal round to face Quantum Coin by E.C. Myers.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Seven, First Round :: The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross vs. Free Radicals by Zeke Teflon

Our seventh match-up, and second to last, in the first round of Bracket Seven of the Battle of the Books features The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross going head to head with Free Radicals by Zeke Teflon. The winner will be the book I (Amy) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

The Apocalypse Codex: Ace Books hardcover, July 2012, 255 pages, cover art by Mark Fredrickson. Charles Stross is a well-known Scottish science fiction author, who has written around twenty books. The Apocalypse Codex is the fourth book in his Laundry Files series.

In the prologue Bob Howard, the protagonist of the series, introduces himself. Bob is a computational demonologist working for an ultra-secret agency of the British government called the Laundry, which cleans up and defends the realm from occult, Lovecraftian threats. It's been nearly a year since Bob's last dangerous mission. He's only now recovered and returning to the job.

Chapter one begins with Persephone Hazard and Johnny McTavish secretly parachuting at night into Bavaria. They land on the roof of Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle which inspired Disneyland's Castle. They break in and drill through the parquet floor. Persephone creeps into the space between floors, and returns a jeweled, occult amulet to its rightful place and removes the forgery from the display. Meanwhile, Johnny deals with a deadly, dog-like entity which enters their warding circle.

In chapter two, Bob Howard is being sent by HR to attend a week-long management training class for the civil service. Never mind that Bob works for an ultra-secret agency, he's given the cover story that he's a network security manager working on unpopular vehicle number-plate (license plate) recognition.

Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia: See Sharp Press, June 2012, 303 pages. Zeke Teflon is a pseudonym of a nonfiction writer and performing musician. This is his first novel.

Free Radicals is set in the not-too-distant future. It's twenty years after the Troubles when EMP bursts destroyed electronics, including people's high-tech implants. Nano buildings have collapsed into ruins. Floating billboards show Uncle Sam urging the reporting of suspicious activities, and advertise emigration to the stars.

Kel (Kelvin) Turner wakes up surrounded by empty beer cans. He discovers that he has a wound on his head. Only after listening to his messages does he recall what happened. Yesterday Kel went to see Mig, his girlfriend, carrying a bottle of vodka. Mig was out. Kel got drunk with, then intimate with, Mig’s roommate. Mig is extremely pissed off.

There's a flashback about Kel's ex-wife. She got full custody of their young son and Kel didn't even get visitation rights. Twice after Kel merely tried to find out about his son, he was attacked by thugs.

Kel and several musician friends play a gig at Retro, an old-fashioned club. Kel is a guitarist. Mig comes in disguised as a "diesel dyke." The audience is unappreciative of their music. Drunks start calling for "Free Bird" and other oldies. A trio of Homeworld Protectors walk into the club and brutally haul off Kel. Apparently Mig reported Kel as a terrorist.

Kel is sentenced, without any defense or jury, to be deported to Extrasolar Penal Colony Number Three. Kel is put into cold sleep and shipped in a coffin-pod. He is one of thousands transported. Upon arrival, techs revive Kel and the other surviving prisoners.

The Battle: This match-up features an occult science fiction British spy thriller going up against a science fiction as social commentary misadventure.

The Apocalypse Codex is written in a sharp and witty manner. The characters seem to act and interact intelligently. What the occult amulet does isn't thoroughly explained. So far, Bob Howard is only dealing with the civil service bureaucracy. But Bob's office job can be curiously odd. In the preface, Bob says he's tasked to "keep an eye on some departmental assets that are going walkabout." No specific occult danger has been revealed, not yet anyway.

Free Radicals tells about Kel, a middle-aged man who has been screwed over in life, especially by women. This story line didn't play that well for me, but may work better for a male audience. The cynical, dark humor made this readable, for example, the song lyrics for "Abductee Blues" about extraterrestrials with a rectal probe.

There was more violence and sex than I needed, but it didn't seem gratuitous. Kel gets beaten up more times in the first 25 pages than I think any protagonist deserves.

The dialect of the judge who sentenced Kel to deportation, apparently a Black American, struck me as too politically incorrect, such as calling Kel Turner "Mistah Turna."

After 25 pages, I'm not sure where either of these books will go. But I know that I'd rather read about the clever characters fighting some occult threat to the world.

THE WINNER: The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

The Apocalypse Codex advances to the second round to face either Apollo’s Outcasts by Allen Steele or Blood Zero Sky Coin by J. Gabriel Gates.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Aaron's Take on the 2010 Hugo Nominees :: NOVELETTES

Best novelette is the most difficult category for me to rank this year. I find three of the nominees outstanding——the Eugie Foster, Rachel Swirsky, and Peter Watts stories——and have trouble selecting between them. The good news is I will be happy if any of them wins the award.

After much deliberation, my top ranking goes to Rachel Swirsky's "Eros, Philia, Agape." It is arguably not quite so ambitious as the Foster and Watts stories, but the execution is flawless. The protagonist of "Eros, Philia, Agape" acquires a male robot programmed to develop a personality that conforms to all her desires, yet somehow this proves not enough for a lasting relationship. I recommended this story when it first appeared, and I stand by my assessment that it is a wonderfully subtle meditation on universal issues about identity and love and marriage and family and parenting.

My second choice by the narrowest of margins is "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster. This is a beautifully written story built on an intriguing premise, a world where each person puts on a different mask every morning and subsumes herself within the role that mask represents. The whole society is thus comprised of individuals lacking, or at least unaware of, individual personalities. Not surprisingly, our protagonist(s) ends up questioning this way of life, but Foster's resolution of the story was not entirely satisfying to me.

"The Island" by Peter Watts is perhaps the most intellectually fascinating of the nominees, combining a provocative first contact scenario with the politics on a starship engaged in an eons-long journey to construct wormholes for interstellar travel. But it didn't grab me emotionally as the Swirsky and Foster stories did. Watts is not entirely successful at conveying his protagonist's despair, and he waits far too long to reveal important things that she knew or should have known much earlier.

"Overtime" by Charles Stross is a Christmas entry in Stross' Laundry series, in which superspies battle Lovecraftian horrors despite the constraints of their Dilbertesque bureaucracy. Their high tech office includes, for instance, a rotary phone, because "the NDO's office budget was misfiled years ago and nobody knows the correct code to requisition new supplies." This is an entertaining story that does everything it sets out to do, but is just not as memorable as the previous three nominees.

Nicola Griffith's "It Takes Two" is an engrossing story. Griffith does a wonderful job of putting the reader into the skin of a woman falling in love. Add to that the tension from the reader's suspicion that something is not right about this love affair, and the first half of the story works very well. Unfortunately, we then find out what's not right, and the story abruptly stops working. There is no believable reason for the protagonist to have agreed to the elaborate procedure described, and her stated reason for agreeing (she didn't want to feel uncomfortable going to a strip club) is so flat-out preposterous that the whole story falls to pieces.

Finally, Paul Cornell's "One of Our Bastards Is Missing" is an inoffensive SF locked room mystery, involving a strange disappearance at the wedding of a British princess. There is nothing wrong with this story but neither is there anything award-worthy about it. I can only assume it made the ballot thanks to a certain segment of fans (you know the ones——they talk funny and they nominated every eligible episode of Doctor Who) who are fascinated with the royal family.

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novelette
1. Rachel Swirsky - Eros, Philia, Agape
2. Eugie Foster - Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast
3. Peter Watts - The Island
4. Charles Stross - Overtime
5. Nicola Griffith - It Takes Two
6. Paul Cornell - One of Our Bastards Is Missing

Aaron's Take on the 2010 Hugo Nominees :: NOVELLAS

Best novella is a strong category this year. Even though this is certainly the fiction category with the fewest eligible works published, the voters managed to find six worthy nominees. All of the nominees will have their supporters——several of the nominated authors are popular with the Hugo voters, plus Kage Baker will have a sympathy vote due to her untimely death——but my guess is John Scalzi will win a Hugo for the third straight year, his first in a fiction category.

Kage Baker's "The Women of Nell Gwynne's," a steampunk mystery with a group of prostitute/spies as lead characters, is mostly light entertainment but does have an appropriately dark edge when showing us why some of our heroines would choose this life. The tale features some wonderful dialogue and is great fun to read, but the whodunit does not satisfy and the story feels less complete than the other nominees. My guess is "The Women of Nell Gwynne's" was meant as the first in a series of stories about these remarkable ladies——see for instance my recommendation for The Bohemian Astrobleme——which sadly will now never be completed.

"Palimpsest" by Charles Stross is a time travel story on a very large scale. While it begins with the cliché of a time traveler killing his own grandfather, the tale quickly moves on to grander and more original issues about the fate of humanity over the next billions, even trillions, of years. The folks directing human destiny control time travel technology, although oddly their grand plans mostly involve moving planets around, not time travel. Stross throws plenty of interesting ideas at us, but fails to include strong enough characters to provide the emotional hook to carry us through this type of Stapledonian epic. The main character has very little personality, and his two girlfriends have none at all.

"Act One" by Nancy Kress, a former story recommendation of the week, explores the morality of an attempt to impose genetic modifications on humanity to give everyone a greater sense of empathy. This is a near-future story on a much smaller scale than "Palimpsest," but the superior characterization makes "Act One" more successful overall.

James Morrow is the best satirist in our field, and one of the two best ever along with John Sladek. "Shambling Towards Hiroshima" exemplifies his trademark dry humor. The protagonist is a Boris Karloff-style creature-feature actor, called on during World War II to give the Japanese a demonstation of the damage that will be inflicted, if they don't surrender, by a fearsome weapon the United States has developed: monstrous fire-breathing lizards. Morrow has great fun writing of the B-movie culture of 1940's Hollywood, but he doesn't quite manage to combine this with his serious point as seamlessly as in his best work. The goofy monster movie material takes over the story, while the endnote as to the morality of weapons of mass destruction feels tacked on.

Ian McDonald's "Vishnu at the Cat Circus" is the fascinating life story of a genetically engineered slow-aging super-genius who was instrumental, along with his unmodified brother, in the radical transformation of India. In contrast to "The Women of Nell Gwynne's," which suffered because it felt like the opening chapter of a larger unfinished work, "Vishnu at the Cat Circus" is impressive because it stands alone very well yet also is a terrific capstone to Ian McDonald's series of stories (as well as the novel River of Gods) set in a future India.

While all the nominees in this category are very good, my favorite is John Scalzi's "The God Engines," the thought-provoking story of Ean Tephe, captain of a starship powered by an enslaved god, captured and harnessed by the god Tephe worships. Not surprisingly, Tephe comes to doubt his faith in his own god, but from there matters do not play out as you might expect. The tale is an interesting blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror elements.

John Scalzi has emerged in the past five years as one of the field's most capable authors, but at times he relies too heavily on snappy dialogue, rather than attempting something with more depth and emotional impact. "The God Engines" is thus a breakthrough work for him. Scalzi sets aside his usual sardonic humor in favor of original, intricate world-building and a compelling protagonist caught in the teeth of a dilemma from which there may be no way out. All of Scalzi's fiction is entertaining, but "The God Engines" is his best yet.

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novella
1. John Scalzi - The God Engines
2. Ian McDonald - Vishnu at the Cat Circus
3. James Morrow - Shambling Towards Hiroshima
4. Nancy Kress - Act One
5. Charles Stross - Palimpsest
6. Kage Baker - The Women of Nell Gwynne's

Aaron's Take on the 2008 Hugo Nominees :: NOVELS

Of the five novels nominated for this year’s Hugo, one is easily my favorite, one is far-and-away the worst, and the other three are difficult to rank.

Starting with the good news, I thoroughly enjoyed The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. For me, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union worked on every level. It is an excellent alternate history, cleverly following through on the implications of a single alteration of history – that the Jews who settled in Israel after World War II were driven off and relocated in Alaska – while at the same time using that variation on history to illuminate aspects of human nature and Jewish culture. The novel also works well as a murder mystery. Most importantly, it is an outstanding character study of Meyer Landsman, the detective seeking to solve the central mystery. Based entirely on the novel’s own merits, I would love to see The Yiddish Policemen’s Union win the Hugo Award. The fact that the author is a Pulitzer Prize winner yet would actually be pleased to win a Hugo is merely a nice bonus.

Moving to the bottom of the list, sometimes a singer writes a song that requires a voice stronger than his own, and he would be better off handing the song off to someone else to perform. That is what happened to Robert Sawyer with Rollback. In Rollback, an octogenarian couple undergoes rejuvenation therapy, but it only works for the husband, so he is suddenly sixty years younger than his wife physically. This would make for a heart-wrenching story, in the hands of a writer skilled in conveying complex human emotions. Robert Sawyer is not. His strength is scientific speculation, not human drama. His dialogue is wooden and dull, his characters so one-dimensional that it is obvious even Sawyer does not conceive of them as real people. Then again, perhaps it is best that the protagonist is such a non-believable character, otherwise I would have been very annoyed with him for moping through most of the novel over his terrible misfortune of being given an extra sixty years of life. A further disappointment with Rollback is that Sawyer's future year 2048 is terribly unimaginative, indistinguishable from the present day but for a few housecleaning robots and passing references to the weather being a little warmer than it used to be. Nothing else has changed, or if it has, the main characters are oblivious to it. They go around quoting Seinfeld and Star Trek and Lost in Space, but never make a reference to anything past the turn of the century. I hate to think that there are any people, even at the age of 87, so detached from the world around them; if there are, you wouldn't want to make them the viewpoint characters of a futuristic science fiction novel.

Ranking the remaining three novels is a close call for me. In the end, I’m going with Halting State by Charles Stross as my second choice, because it is successful as entertainment but also has something interesting to say. Halting State starts with a premise that sounds silly, the investigation of a crime that occurred within an on-line role-playing game. But the novel goes at it with such gusto that I found myself drawn in completely, and was easily able to suspend my disbelief even when the initial crime broadens into intrigue and espionage of global import. The novel is fun to read, and (in sharp contrast to Rollback) also has a lot of interesting speculation and commentary on our near future.

For me, the remaining two nominees suffered from opposite deficiencies. Ian McDonald’s Brasyl is an interesting novel. I like the concept of a science fiction novel about Brazil, alternating between past, present, and future timelines, interconnected through the device of quantum physics. Yet I found Brasyl rather difficult to get into. It takes the story too long to get moving, and the writing style of the present and future threads is off-putting. The entire novel is loaded with Portuguese terminology and the present and future scenes add an ultra-hip sensibility that I gather is meant to convey the feel of Brazilian culture, but for me made the novel too difficult to read.

Conversely, John Scalzi’s The Last Colony, about efforts to establish a new human outpost on a faraway world, is easy to read and quite entertaining but rather less ambitious than the other nominated novels. It is the third in Scalzi’s series begun with Old Man’s War, and suffers from Scalzi's determination to resolve various loose threads from the previous two volumes. The story does not present its individual characters with the kind of internal conflicts that were a strength of the prior novels (for example, Jared Dirac's identity crisis in The Ghost Brigades). The Last Colony has an enjoyably fast pace and some snappy dialogue, but a bit less to say than the earlier two Old Man books, notwithstanding all the galactic politics that come into play in the second half of the novel. Scalzi has a strong following and will surely get more shots at the Hugo; I would like to see him win it for a work with more depth.

Aaron's Ballot:
1. Michael Chabon – The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
2. Charles Stross – Halting State
3. Ian McDonald – Brasyl
4. John Scalzi – The Last Colony
5. Robert J. Sawyer – Rollback