Hellstrom’s Hive, by Frank Herbert

Published in 1973

where I got it: purchased used

 
There will be spoilers in this review, if only because they show up early in the novel, and it would be impossible to tell you anything about the plot without spoiling a few surprises. But don’t worry, there are many more surprises I didn’t tell you about.

If you’ve read Dune, you’ll be familiar with Herbert’s odd style of telling a story in third person, yet showing nearly everyone’s internal monologues and thoughts processes as if it were first person.  For people who have never read a Herbert before, it is a strange style, and you’ll get used to it fairly quickly.

Something very strange is going on in a rural valley in the Pacific Northwest. An unnamed government agency has a file on the documentary maker Nils Hellstrom. They know something subversive (probably communism or a religious cult) is happening on his rural farm slash movie studio, but they can’t seem to catch him in the act. And every agent they send in as a lost backpacker or hiker disappears without a trace.  When an agent finds a secret Hellstrom document partially outlining some kind of super weapon, the agency knows it’s time to up their game. We get to know a handful of agents, and in only a few pages (sometimes a few sentences), Herbert digs deeps into their personas to flesh them out into full developed characters with hopes and fears. If you ask me, Herbert has always been a master of subtle character development.

And then we get the story from Nils’ point of view. He’s not harboring communists or making dirty movies.  He’s desperately trying to save the human race. More a culture than a cult, he has helped created a utopian society, one free of fear, jealousy, hunger, and anger. A society where everyone is peaceful and happy, where everyone works in harmony to help the larger group. This perfect society, the only way to save the human race, is based on another on of Earth’s creatures, albeit on most humans find unsavory.

There are so many layers to this gem of a story, I know I’ll be thinking about it for a long while to come. Through the mind of Nils Hellstrom, we get this strange insiders/outsiders point of view of standard human society. How inefficient we are, how selfish and hurtful we are, and how all our hang ups make our society unstable.

And here are the sort of spoilers.  Hellstrom’s farm and movie studio  is only the tip of the iceberg.  Underneath that farmhouse and barn and generator buildings is miles and miles of tunnels, and thousands upon thousands of people. The vast majority of them born into the Hive, they have been genetically bred and modified, injected with hormones and mentally conditioned to within an inch of their life. These Hiveborn live as bees or ants would, believing all humans from the Outside are wild, undomesticated, and dangerous.   In Hellstroms Hive, there is no  unemployment, no illness or racism or selfishness.  The workers know their place and what to do, and they do it, knowing the Hive comes first.  Dead and dying workers return to the vats to become foodstuffs and fertilizer.

The more you think about it, and trust me, you won’t be able to not think about it while reading, the more disturbing it becomes.  Seriously, this is one of the scariest, creepiest books I have ever read. Hellstrom and his people justify everything they do, and their justifications make sense. He truly is trying to save the human race by forcing us to evolve into a more adaptable animal.

The government agents who attempt to infiltrate Hellstrom’s farm simply have no idea what they are getting themselves into.  And yes, there is a weapon, and one of the most mind blowing defences of not using it that I have ever heard: one you create an ultimate weapon, you put the trigger into your enemies hands, for all they have to say is “so use it!”.

If you can find a copy of Hellstrom’s Hive, by all means read it. I’ve read a good handful of Herbert’s non-Dune books over the years (most of them are stand alones), and Hellstrom’s Hive is probably one of the best.

Anthony Burgess (1917-1993, birth name John Burgess Wilson) was an English literature teacher throughout the 1940s, and worked for the British Colonial Service in the 1950’s, travelling to Malaysia and Brunei.   Although gainfully employed during his travels, he often wrote short novels that were openly quite critical of the regimes he was living under. Some books never saw publication due to libel suits.

This multitalented author, linguist, critic, satirist and musician,  is considered one of Britain’s greatest contemporary writers.

In the United States, we mostly know Anthony Burgess because of the movie A Clockwork Orange. A cult classic, if you’ve seen the movie, I highly recommend the book. It’s much easier to swallow than the movie, and is an amazing read. Famous for his biting satire of contemporary society, Burgess was always more proud of his works of philosophical literature, literary criticism, and his music. Talented in linguistics as well, Burgess was fluent in French and German at a young age, and during his time overseas he taught himself Malay, and Farsi. You can see his love for languages while experiences the strange slang in A Clockwork Orange.

Reading a handful of articles about Burgess, I wish that I had been a literature major in college, so I’d have the foundational education to appreciate more of his works. He deserves to be known for more than just the shock cult film A Clockwork Orange. He always viewed that novel as one of his weakest works.

Later in his life he lived all over Europe and spent a number of years in the United States, teaching creative writing at Columbia University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and University of Iowa. Although lucrative, his extensive travels and obvious avoidance of his home country may have been to avoid paying taxes.

Have you read A Clockwork Orange or any other Anthony Burgess novels? What did you think, and would you read him again? If you had friends or family who studied creative writing, literature or English at the universities mentioned above during the 1970′s, ask them if they remember their creative writing professor!

The Wanting Seed, by Anthony Burgess

published in 1962

where I got it – garage sale

In this Dystopian futuristic London, Earth’s population has exploded,requiring government involvement to keep population under control. Solutions include limiting families to one birth, allowing a high infant mortality rate, and doing anything to discourage pregnancy. Energy is scarce, so nothing is wasted, and dead bodies are used as fertilizers and energy. Most people subsist on government supplied rations of artificially created foodstuffs.  Burgess writes so perfectly smoothly that you don’t even feel the disturbing qualities overtake the story. By the time you realize what’s happening, it’s too late to put the book down.

The story follows Tristram Foxe and his wife Beatrice-Joanna. Tristram is a scholar and school teacher, and Beatrice-Joanna  is having an affair with her brother in law, Derek, who is a government official.  in a future where procreating families are looked down upon, homosexuality is a highly promoted lifestyle choice as a way of having a perfectly healthy sexual relationship where children are impossible. Many heterosexuals act homosexual in public, as overt homosexuality has become a way to further one’s career opportunities. Derek, for instance, flirts with men all day long, but visits Beatrice-Joanna as often as possible. Beatrice-Joanna becomes pregnant by Derek (after purposely misusing her government supplied contraceptives), and when Tristram finds out the child may not be his, he kicks her out, and she goes north to find shelter on her sister’s farm.

Their marital troubles aside, society is falling apart around Tristram and Beatrice-Joanna. The government has started to threaten random blood testing  of women for pregnancy, further enforcement of government supplied contraceptives, and social pressures for sterilization.  Ranks of the angry unemployed are hired as junior police officers and general goons to keep the populace terrorized.

When the food riots begin, meat starts to show up on street corners being barbecued. People who have never had anything more meat-like than soy are suddenly enjoying steaks and ribs three meals a day.  I know what they are eating, if you take the creepyness factor up another few notches, I bet you’ll figure it out.   No pun intended, but this is just the beginning of the biting satire.

Burgess’s “infodumping” is done through Tristram attempting to educate the young men in his class. His lecture about the cycles of goverment is most enlighting: The first phase is the belief that Man is generally good and should be lightly punished as all mistakes are simply accidents,  followed by a more totalitarian phase where the government feels continually disappointed in people’s supposed inability to be good and clamps down accordingly, followed by a phase of massive guilt where the government realizes if they back off people will step up and take the opportunity to be good again.  Each step is a gut reaction to the previous one, and it is a vicious cycle.

As the novel progresses, we see a high speed version of this transition, with society quickly transitioning from vilifying heterosexual trends to glorifying free love, fecundity and orgies. Everyone so wants to be a good citizen, so they go along with whatever lifestyle the government happens to be promoting that week.

Even with the cultural changes through out the story, overpopulation is still a problem. If the government now feels guilty over stopping women from having children, they will have to find another solution to their population problem. And don’t worry, they do. And it’s just as disturbing.

If this book was anything, it was terrifyingly creepy.  The populations that do and believe whatever their government tells them.  A startling story of a possible future, jam packed with satirical social commentary. This was my second Burgess, and it will not be my last. His prose often borders on poetic yet is so easy to read, and you can’t help but feel for the characters, even if you don’t agree with everything they are doing.

I’ll be posting a short bio of Anthony Burgess tomorrow.

Random useless information – I got this book at a yard sale, and it wasn’t in very good condition then, but I really wanted to read it.  By the time I finished it, the binding was literally falling apart in my hands.  There was something romantic about that, about being that particular book’s last parent. I hope it had a good life, I only knew it for a short time.

But you survived! You deserve a prize!

How about a hard cover Limited Edition of John Scalzi’s The Sagan Diary, with stunning cover art by Bob Eggleton?

here’s the blurb:

Fans of John Scalzi’s “Old Man” universe, prepare yourselves: there’s a long new story in that universe, told from the point of view of one of the series’ most intruiging characters.

Subterranean Press is proud to present The Sagan Diary, a long novelette that for the first time looks at the worlds of the Hugo-nominated Old Man’s War and it’s sequel The Ghost Brigades from the point of view of Lieutenant Jane Sagan, who is a series of diary entries gives her views on some of the events included in the series. . . and sheds new light into some previously unexplored corner. If you thought you knew Jane Sagan before, prepare to be surprised.

If you’re a fan of his Old Man’s War series, you’d probably be interested in this.  I’m interested in it too, but as husband and I both received copies, even if I give one away, I’ll still have one to read.

This contest will be open until the evening of Sunday, Jan 29th, Eastern Standard Time.  It’s open to anyone living on planet Earth, however if you live outside the US the shipping might take a while.

Sounds great you say?  How do I enter, you ask?  All you have to do is leave a comment in this post telling me an author you’d love to meet at a convention.    The winner will be contacted within a few days after the give away closes.

Good luck!

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Come on.

this is me.

of course there is a massive fangirlish Scott Lynch post.  If you’re not a fan, or you don’t know who he is, or you don’t care, skip this. It’s 100% fangirl drooling.  But now I can say I’ve met him!!

if you’re just here for updates on Republic of Thieves,  it’s about two thirds of the way to the bottom.

He was very nice. and tall. and has a lovely voice. and didn’t freak out too much when my attempts at wit came out horribly awkward.  Sunday morning I was pretty much following him around like a puppy.  Luckily his girlfriend (the wonderful Elizabeth Bear) was cool about it. Apologies that this may not be perfectly in chronological order. Epic ConFusion was that kind of weekend.

There was a mass autographing session on Saturday afternoon.  Not knowing how crowded it was going to be, I got in line early, planning to find Lynch’s table as soon as I got through the door. Not only was his the first table I went to, but I was the first person in line for his autograph.  I awkwardly said something about how I came to this con just for him, and that I’d been stalking him online, and if he registered for a restraining order against me by the end of the weekend I would feel like my mission was completed.  He politely signed my well loved copies of The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies:

For Andrea: You need to set more things on file to get a restraining order. Cheers and Best Wishes, Scott Lynch

about 20 minutes later, I ran into a friend who was having authors sign the back of her t-shirt. I wondered out loud if Lynch would sign the back of my shirt. She said “go ask him”, and handed me her sharpie marker. I did.  He did.  Scott Lynch touched my shoulder.   

The most valuable FMA shirt in existence.

In fact, I think I’ll bring that shirt with me next year, and have other folks sign the back of it.

Later that evening I was hanging in the con suite (which was lovely), and was chatting with someone who recognized my Fullmetal Alchemist shirt. Scott and Elizabeth (are we on a first name basis yet?) were sitting on the otherside of the room, minding their own business, while I was surreptitiously adoring his long hair.  It was a long skinny consuite, so it was impossible to not over hear other people’s conversations.   Lynch probably heard my mind getting ready to pull his name into the conversation, so he said something like “that shirt is now worth considerably less”, and I replied with “I’m never going to wash this shirt”.  Confusedly, the woman asked why the shirt was suddenly worth less, and I said it was priceless because he (pointing to Lynch) signed it.  She said “who is he?” and I said “he writes the best, most incredible fantasy I have ever read”.   Things may have gotten close to getting something on file.

Scott did a reading from Republic of Thieves. it WILL be hitting bookstore shelves this year, possibly in June. He is contracted for 5 books, and if the publishers decide they like him, he will get 2 more books (trust me, they like him).  Book 3 is where things start to ramp up, with the series moving towards some type of large war.

Scott Lynch reading from The Republic of Thieves

I can’t give you any RoT  spoilers, because he didn’t. He described RoT as being the “awkward teenage years” of the Gentlemen Bastards.  The portion he read involved Locke and Jean, and Sabetha and the Sanza twins,and teaser: there was a bedroom scene.  Locke is obviously in love with Sabetha, but hasn’t figured out how to tell her, so he basically lets her beat the crap out him whenever she wants. There was much in the way of awkward teenagedness,  beautiful swear words, and giggleworthy moments. Scott even got to use his LOUD voice.  Twas truly lovely.

I followed him to the “Women in Combat” panel on Sunday. He was very well spoken, and seemed genuinely interested in discussing how to write a female character in a physically dangerous situations.  Being a firefighter, he’s got some experience in dangerous situations.  I’d pretty much been following him around for like 18 hours at this point, and I didn’t want to freak him out too much.  So I decided to freak out his girlfriend instead.  this may not be verbatim, but it’s pretty close:

me: thanks for letting me stalk your boyfriend all weekend, I just love his books so much.
Elizabeth Bear: it shows you have good taste.  and you’ve got great hair! Scott, she’s got better hair than you!
me:  wow, thanks!  Scott’s are the books that I read when I want to feel better. They’re theraputic for me when I need to escape my life.
Elizabeth Bear: you read his books to feel better? I worry about you.

Well, she didn’t try to kill me.  Cuz she totally could have.  I think she was also part bodyguard.

I guess the moral of the story is Scott Lynch is as cool as I’d hoped he’d be.   I’m happy he came to EpicConFusion, I know being surrounded by throngs of crazy hyper people isn’t one of his favorite things. He seemed to be doing okay, or at least was putting on a very good face. And now I want to read Elizabeth Bear. And I’ll get to read Republic of Thieves sometime this year.

Dear Scott – thanks for making Epic ConFusion so awesome for me.  I promise not to awkwardly stalk you next time.

This is part THREE of my Epic ConFusion posts. Click accordingly for parts ONE, TWO and FOUR

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Oh was there a lot of cosplay, and it was awesome!  I saw at least two Inuyashas, a spot on Doctor Who and River Song, two Tardises (Tardisii?  Tardisae?) two Jesuses (again, Jesusi? Jesii? Jay-Z’s?), What I thought were Mokono hats (you know, from xxxHolic and Tsubasa?), possibly some furries, at least one The Dude, a Hunter S. Thompson, a few Trekkies, some Star Wars aliens, Doctor Frankenfurter, buckets of top hats and other crazy hats and goggles and random victoriana, and quite a bit of cross dressing.  Husband and I played “guess the gender” a few times.

I learned something very important during this con.  I learned that I haven’t a freakin’ clue how my stupid digital camera works. So most of my pictures came out like crap. Here are a few badly taken pics, and some links to much better image libraries.

extra feet??

Look Ma, I found Jesus! or at least one of them.

Alright, enough of my awful photos, here’s some pro and semi-pro albums:
Al Bogden’s Gallery
Dave Hogg’s ConFusion Flickr
Davroz’s albums

But much better than learning that I’m digital camera clueless, was learning about the crazy amazing hilariousness that is the Rocky Horror Muppet Show.

Yup, it’s exactly what you think it is. Created by indie musician and Filk master Tom Smith, Rocky Horror Muppet Show answers the classic question of what if the Muppets tried to do Rocky Horror on the Muppet Show?  (what, that isn’t a classic question? since when?) And of course, since it’s the Muppet Show, everything goes horribly wrong, Kermit (and Tom Smith does a beautifully spot-on Kermit. It was truly unreal) nearly has a nervous breakdown, and the guest star (in this case, Jim Hines) ends up helping Kermit figure out a solution before the end of the show.  You know all the songs from Rocky Horror, right? they’re all written to 4/4 timing. As any filker will prove to you, you can sing just about any 4/4 song to the chords of any other 4/4 song.  It was hilarious, it was awesome, you need to go google it RIGHT now, it was for mature audiences only, and it was standing room only.

Tom Smith is a fucking genius, and I got to hang out with Will Frank (twitter handle @scifantasy) afterwards!  He’s also incredibly cool. Go follow him on twitter.

This is part Two of my EpicConFusion posts. Click accordingly to read parts ONE, THREE and FOUR

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Ahh, the panels.

This was where I needed one of those time spinner things Hermione has, because at times I had to choose between three different panels that I wanted to go to.  There were that many, and there was that many hours straight of good programming.  I have this undiagnosed blood sugar issue thingy, and it means I shouldn’t go hours upon hours without eating.  When given the choice between going to yet another panel and eating, I chose wisely: I went to the panel (and then started shaking).  They were scheduled to be 50 minutes long, which included  Q&A time, so everyone would have 10 minutes to eat and potty break inbetween. The way it really worked was most panels went over, the next group would have to kick the previous group out, and people were late to their next panel.  Surprisingly, that turned into a win-win for nearly everyone.  I have no idea when the authors got to eat or go to the bathroom.

Highlights of the panels I attended include (and sorry for the horribly blurry photos):
Worldbuilding 101, moderated by Cat Rambo, with Patrick Rothfuss, Peter V. Brett and Brent Weeks – there was discussion of how to introduce the reader to your world, and how much information to give and when. Infodumping is the classic no-no, and the authors seemed to agree that it was best to give the reader less that you think they need to know. . . so they are interested in always wanting to learn more instead of feeling like they are getting inundated with information.  Building the world through characterization, because if you’ve got good characters, you can overcome just about anything.

Patrick Rothfuss, Brent Weeks, Peter Brett and Cat Rambo

Trilogy, the base unit of Fantasy?  moderated by Joe Abercrombie, with Brad Beauliea, Saladin Ahmed, Michelle Sagara West and Jay Lake – Everyone seems to be writing trilogies these days, but why?  It was brought up that most of use grew up with either Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or both, so our mind is already attuned to trilogy = greatness.  Publishers seems to like trilogies, it allows them to “test” out an author, yet give that person more than one book.  But large bookstores seem to shy away from carrying anything beyond book 2 in a series, so it carries challenges too.  Even more, what happens if you write your three books, but the character’s stories aren’t done yet? Ongoing episode series were also discussed a little.

Saladin Ahmed, Michele Sagara West, Joe Abercrombie, Jay Lake and Brad Beaulieu

Non-Western Fantasy, moderated by Peter V Brett, with Saladin Ahmed, Kameron Hurley, Christian Klaver and Howard Andrew Jones –  Finally, authors are starting to move away from Mideval european settings, and many writers, it seems, are moving into “the desert”. It came up, is this a reaction to current politics, and although some people thought it was, I realized no one makes a big deal out of fantasies that take place in Egypt or Greece or The mediterranean, but once you move into a desert culture, suddenly it’s a big deal. There was some discussion about “pasty white guys” writing outside their experience, and Saladin Ahmed’s response was that he’s a guy from Detroit, who in a sense, is also writing outside his experience.  Hurley said she’d gotten mail from readers asking why she was pushing a certain religion, or even atheism (she’s not pushing either, as anyone who has actually read her books would know). The concensus seemed to be to do as much research as you can, and place your story wherever the hell you feel like it.

Saladin Ahmed, Christian Klaver, Peter V Brett, Kameron Hurley and Howard Andrew Jones

Women in Combat, moderated by Carrie Harris, with Jim C. Hines, Scott Lynch, Kristine Smith, and Kameron Hurley (this was when I started following Myke Cole to his panel, and ended up following Scott Lynch). Opening with some jokes about if we were going to get any demonstrations (specifically Jim Hines vs Scott Lynch), this quickly turned out to be one of the more interesting panels I went to, and probably the only one where the audience was split about 50/50 male/female.  The topic was not only how should female characters be written in dangerous scenes, but why do authors insist on having their female characters do these things, and how are readers reacting?  Hines put it wonderfully, saying he wrote his Princess series (about fairytale princesses who kick major ass) for his daughter.  Hurley said when she was doing her Masters Degree in South Africa that she was so inspired by the ANC who recruited 20% women and allowed them to be in very dangerous situation. Everyone agreed that there is no reason women shouldn’t be able to do all the things men do.  Lynch said something about fantasy being wish fulfillment, and why shouldn’t women have that too? He said he’d gotten near hate mail about there being too many women in “male” roles in Red Seas Under Red Skies. Kristine Smith said when told her father about her developing military SF series that featured a woman, his question to her was “where is the guy who saves her?”  the audience was speechless.  The conversation flowed into not just women characters in traditional male roles, but any character who didn’t fit the default description of male, white and heterosexual. One of the best panels I went to.

Carrie Harris, Kameron Hurley, Jim Hines, Scott Lynch and Kristine Smith

by the way, Jim Hines isn’t as short at he looks in this photo. He’s leaning way back, and Kameron Hurley and Scott Lynch are leaning way forward.  and Lynch is a fairly tall guy.  I heard him referred to as “the Viking” more than once.

I have returned from EpicConfusion!

And it was incredible.  I was in geek heaven. Everyone’s first con experience should be like this.  There were authors hanging around, authors doing organized and well planned panels, authors autographing stuff (not just books!), and plenty of cosplay, humorous music (Rocky Horror Muppet Show!) and every flavor of crazy and fun.  I met so many wonderful folks, authors, artists, other.  Rothfuss was incredibly friendly, Lynch was gracious, Elizabeth Bear said I had pretty hair, Abercrombie may not be aware how irresistible that “British rogue” thing is to American women, Ahmed wins for nicest guy and best hair, Kameron Hurley is insanely interesting, Myke Cole gave me a hug anyways, and Peter Brett let me interrupt his dinner to talk about a panel he’d just done (btw, don’t interrupt peeps who are trying to eat. It was a total asshole thing I did), and Jim Hines is even more hilarious and friendly than I expected, even when he was completely exhausted and I was bugging him. When people found out it was my first con, they told me I picked a good one. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, and I was not disappointed.

I’ve so much to tell. . . .  and so many blurry photos to post (wait, what? my camera has a low-light setting? Why didn’t someone tell me that before!).   To keep you from having to slog through stuff you might not be interested in, there will be a post on fun/funny author interaction (that’s gonna be this one, by the way), panels, cosplay and of course, Scott Lynch gets a post all to himself.

I was that girl who faux pas’ed my way through my first con by hijacking conversations and bothering people and talking to anyone and everyone who looked interesting (including the goth cross dresser) and now I’m gonna be that girl who gives WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION. read at your own risk, and don’t say I didn’t warn you!

There will be a giveaway for peeps who survive all of these ridiculous posts.

here’s some fun and funny author stuff, with much in the way of TMI.  autography pics are near the bottom.  Stay tuned for at least two more posts. I am typing as fast as I can.

Apologies that none of this is in chronological order.

First funny story. Husband and I had just gotten there and were standing around the hotel lobby, and I whispered to him “your 2 o’clock. Guy with the curly hair and the beard. That’s Patrick Rothfuss!” and husband says “that guy? the one with the tramp beard?”  And continued to refer to Pat as “tramp beard” all weekend.  But then Pat showed up wearing a Serenity t-shirt, and suddenly husband thought he was pretty damn cool. See how cool his shirt is?

Saladin Ahmed was on one of the first panels I went to.  I stopped him afterwards and introduced myself, and he knew who I was!  An author (who I kinda stalk on twitter) knew who I was! How cool is that?  By the way, if you haven’t looked into Ahmed’s debut novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon, I highly suggest you give it a try. I’ll know I’ll be getting a copy when it hits bookstore shelves in a week or two.

Loitering in the bar and bothering people who were trying to enjoy a decent meal, I got talking to Myke Cole.  He said he was on his way to a panel he was on, and he was rather engaging and it sounded interesting, so I said I’d follow him.  I was about to walk into Myke’s panel when Scott Lynch walked into a different panel.  Can you guess who I followed? It ended up being an incredible panel on Women in combat (more on that later).  A nearly debilitating sugar crash caused me to walk out of Myke’s next panel.  I later apologized for ditching his panel(s), and he still gave me a hug.  Myke’s book, Shadow Ops: Control Point is hitting store shelves in about a week. He’s a great hugger, go get the book.  I don’t usually do straight up military SF, but he said it’s Military SF meets high fantasy.. . . so i think I’ll be giving it a shot.

Chatted with Jim Hines a bit, I told him I was very much looking forward to Libriomancer, complimented him on his recent blog post about imitating the poses of women on the covers of urban fantasies . He said he was thinking of doing a calendar, I said I’d buy it, and then I suggested tramp stamps. He smiled and gave me a goblin press on tattoo. Patrick Rothfuss with Oot on shoulder, was walking by, and Jim offered a goblin tattoo to Oot, who wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.  It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

The mass autographing session on Saturday was amazing.  I’ve been to smaller author signings at bookstores, but never something like this.  Pat Rothfuss definitely had the longest line, but everyone’s lines moved very quickly, even with authors chatting with people for a few minutes.  My first words to Pat Rothfuss were something along the lines of “I love you so much, Name of the Wind turned me into a fantasy fan, and I’ve gone on to tell everyone I know to read it”, which sort of explains the message in my Princess and Mister Whiffle. Pat also had the specialty golden stickers (you know, those stickers that say “this shit is not for kids. seriously.”) for those of us who didn’t pre-order the book.  Mr. Rothfuss is as friendly as they come.

I stupidly didn’t bring any Robin Hobb books with me, but I did stop at her table and tell her how amazing Assassin’s Apprentice was for me, and that I’d gone on to buy more of her books and suggest them to others, and that she helped turn me into a fantasy fan.  I wonder if she realized how many authors referred to her works during panels?  a LOT.  She was very gracious, a little on the shy side.

Joe Abercrombie signed my copy of Magic and Dark Swords anthology. I told him his First Law Trilogy spoiled me for epic fantasy, and he laughed and said thanks.  He is incredibly witty and very handsome.  My attempt at keeping up with his wittyness was embarrassing.  My photo of him came out very blurry.

Although I didn’t have any of their books with me either, I chatted a bit with Kameron Hurley and Sarah Zettel. If you haven’t read these two ladies, I suggest you start. Their books are probably marketed military sci-fi, but they write these incredible stories that aren’t at all about what they are about. And that’s why you should read them.

Everyone was so incredibly friendly. For me, authors are a cross between rock stars and superheroes, I felt honored just to walk up to these folks and say “I love your stuff, it changed my life”.

and yes, I got Scott Lynch’s autographs. Lots of them. on things other than books. He gets his very own post.  More on that , and more TMI later!

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Edited to Add:

this is post one of Four. Read my other Epic ConFusion posts here, here, and here.

I’m not sure what the interweb accessability in the hotel room will be. . .  so you may not hear from me until Monday. You can expect multiple posts and buckets of photos.

And what does the future of Vintage SciFi Month hold? Anthony Burgess (if you’re not reading him, you should) and more Arthur C. Clarke.

Well, off to pack, take care of my eight page to-do list, and see how many books I can cram in my suitcase with the hopes of getting them autographed!

published as a novel in 1952, based on short stories written in the 1940′s

where I got it: purchased used

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With an incredibly immersive and involved story, Van Vogt manages to use very few words to imply so much about characters, the environment, and complex political situations. I was happily surprised at how few pages it took me to feel like I was “in” the story.  And another happy surprise, a female main character, who is also in a position of power, along with a handful of other female officers! How wonderfully unexpected!

Grand Captain Lady Laurr Gloria Cecily commands the Earth ship Star Cluster on their ten year mapping mission of the Megallanic Cloud. As their mission comes to a close and they are readying for the interstellar trip home, they come across a lonesome weather station, manned by a suicidal meteorologist named Watcher. What is a weather station doing out in the middle of no where, where humanity has barely been, and why in the world did he kill himself after he had been given medical care on board the Star Cluster?  Against the strong suggestions of the rest of the captains on the ship, Grand Captain Gloria Cecily decides to dive back into the Magellanic Cloud to search for possible colonists.

The government of Earth is a singular government, and does not tolerate any independent human colonies.  Revolts are either put down, or the populations involved are killed. If there are human colonists living in the Magellanic Cloud, they will be absorbed into the government of Earth.  But these people do not want to be found!

After the Grand Captain  and her chief psychologist Nelsor take a guess at who these hidden people may be, the story splits, following Gloria Cecily in some chapters, and then switching to  the point of view of Peter Malty, who is a “mixed man” living among the Dellians in the Cloud.   It’s been nearly 15,000 years since the expulsion of the Dellian people from the galaxy. The Dellians followed a special kind of mind manipulation with the goals of intense intelligence, pure logic and unbelievably high IQs that caused many to be referred to robots, even though they were still human. Their “normal” human caretakes became known as the “non-Dellians”.  In the rare event that a Dellian and non-Dellian were able to have a child, the result was a superbeing. Called the Mixed Men, these superbeings were capable of reading minds, and mentally manipulating others with ease.

Curiousity for the Mixed Men turned into fear, which quickly led to hatred, extermination and expulsion.  The Dellians, non-Dellians, and secretive Mixed Men have been living in hiding in the Magellanic Cloud for the last 15,000 years.  Perhaps in another fifteen thousand, the Mixed Men will be seen as equals by their own people. Until then, Maltby and his underground can only plan, and wait.

With his superbeing powers, Maltby  allows his ship to be captured by the Star Cluster. His goal is to slowly take over the minds of the crew so he can learn about these humans, and destroy them if necessary.  Once Chief psyhcologist Nelsor figures out his plan, she comes up with something so much more subtle.

See how quickly this gets complicated? And I haven’t even told you anything yet about the space weather and the technologies on board the ship, not to mention the politics of the Dellian culture and the dangers of the Mixed Men.

And yes, there is weather.The ship has entire departments of astrogators and meteorologists, analyzing and mapping storms.  It’s someone what explained, but I believe the “Storms” they are trying to avoid are radiation and other waves that would blast out of supernovae?  Again, not sure, and scientists probably had no idea at the time what “space weather” might have entailed, or not. The references to astrogators and meteorologists lent a deliciously nostalgic feeling to the whole story, like we were on a giant sea-going ship in the middle of an endless ocean, with only the night sky to guide the way.

Van Vogt couldn’t possibly have been the first science fiction author to come up with the idea of a “transporter”, but his definitely is the coolest. Called the “matter transmitter”, it breaks you down into your bits and pieces, send the bits and pieces to where you want to go, and then puts you back together again. Grand Captain Lady Laurr Gloria Cecily uses it all the time to get from one part of the ship to the another, because this ship is miles long (It kept bringing to mind the infamous line “The ship is too big. If I walk, the movie will be over”).  But here’s the brilliant part, that I wish Star Trek had latched onto: because you are being scrambled back together again at the other side, who is to say you have to be put back together again exactly the way you were?  These future humans use the Matter Transmitter as a medical device, fixing war wounds and injuries as they are transporting people. How  brilliant is that?

The first two thirds or so of Mission to the Stars was absolutely incredible.  Immersive, imaginative, innovative, I loved it and couldn’t put it down.  The end of the story takes an incongruous direction and gets very strange and disconnected, proving this was indeed one of Van Vogt’s “fix-ups”, where he took a handful of short stories that followed the same characters and attempted to smush them into one coherent novel. But all in all, Mission to the Stars was a total winner, probably one of my better Vintage/golden age reads yet!