Zima Blue And Other Stories (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
INDIVIDUAL STORY THOUGHTS BELOW (so you can skip my review if you want)A while back I was toying with the silly notion that an author's short story collection is a bit like an album, and that the stories within are individual songs: varying in length, style and quality. While reading the collection Zima Blue by my favourite SF author Alastair Reynolds, I started to think about a concept album based on the collection, with songs having the same titles and coming in the same order as they are in the book, with each song reflecting somewhat the tone and content of each story. Yeah I know, what a wank. I couldn't shake the idea though.So I was thinking about what kind of album Zima Blue would sound like, and — maybe because they're my favourite band, and their otherworldly lyrics and production have earned them the label "space-rock" — I thought it might end up a bit like a Muse album: bombastic, spacey, dark, catchy. And British. As I read each story I tried to think what kind of song it would be.Stories like "Beyond the Aquila Rift", "Angels of Ashes" and "Spirey and the Queen" would be the punchy, tight songs with slick production that stick in your head and get a lot of radio play, while "Signal to Noise" would be a slower, stripped-down affair with more emotional lyrics (and "Cardiff Afterlife" would be its outro, or refrain, repeating the same theme but with a darker feel). "Understanding Space and Time" would be a kind of cheesy ballad that Muse often does (eg: the song "Invincible" from Black Holes and Revelations), that inevitably becomes bigger and rockier as the song goes on.The album's centrepiece would be the three-track rock epic made up of "Hideaway", "Minla's Flowers" and "Merlin's Gun", with a symphonic structure, layers of strings and orchestration, and a choir or two. Basically the album's version of "Exogenesis Symphony" from the album The Resistance. "Everlasting" however would be the short, kind of bland song that really should have been a b-side. And "Zima Blue" would end the album on a rather introspective note. You know the kind of song that a lot of bands save for last on their albums.If you're not rolling your eyes by now, you can apply this idea to Reynolds' other collections. Galactic North is obviously a concept album, as all the stories are set in the same universe. The limited edition Deep Navigation fills in the gaps by collecting the stories that were left out of the other two for whatever reason; so it's a bit like a b-side collection. But the metaphor kind of breaks down when you think too hard on it. Wouldn't a short story collection be more of a greatest-hits compilation, due to the period of time it covers? And what does that make individual novels? Really long songs?Yeah it's kind of dumb. Rather than continue, I'm just going to talk about the stories as stories from now on. Below are my thoughts on each story, which I wrote as I read them, which is why they start brief and get longer as I progressed. I've put an asterisk next to the ones which I thought were the best of the book. Last thoughts: an excellent collection, reminding me more and more why I love Reynolds as an author. Pity about that one bad story, though.-----* = favouritesThe Real Story - Off to a good start with an interesting story about identity and a colonized Mars. I can see elements in the worldbuilding that were reused in/from Chasm City (not sure which came first).*Beyond the Aquila Rift - Starts out like a fresh take on Pohl's Gateway, turns bittersweet, then turns again into something disturbing. Space opera of the highest quality in only 35 pages!Enola - A short but sweet story about AI, compassion, and post-apocalyptic Sydney!Signal to Noise - A rather sad story involving the death of a spouse, the quantum-dialling of parallel universes, and the sending of sensory data between them. Greg Egan does this kind of story better, I think.Cardiff Afterlife - A tiny little vignette looking at the darker side of the technology from the previous story. Also very Greg Egan-esque, also okay.*Hideaway - The first of three stories featuring the character Merlin. A gripping astrophysical mystery of the kind that Reynolds does best, with a fantastic universe for a backdrop and a killer action centerpiece set in the stormy atmosphere of a gas giant. It's everything that makes Reynolds' books brilliant distilled into a 45 page novella.Minla's Flowers - A lot to like about this novella. The character Merlin is great, he reminds me of the benevolent travelers of the novel House Of Suns, in his adventures helping lesser civilizations. I also loved the mystery of the whetstone, and the multiple meanings of the novella's title. It's a story format I've seen before (main character observes the evolution of a culture while traveling through time, in a sense) but done so well by Reynolds.*Merlin's Gun - A really cool final chapter of the Merlin saga, with great action and revelations. And I recognised the star system that they arrive in for the story's climax! Sneaky Alastair Reynolds! I agree with Reynolds (in his post-story notes) that this saga is like Revelation Space turned up to 11. I hope he writes more and more stories in this setting.*Angels of Ashes - The anthropic principle as applied to asymmetrical supernovae; robots; aliens; quantum probability; holy wars on Mars... WHY IS THIS NOT A FULL LENGTH NOVEL? (PS: I can definitely see parallels between the religions/founders in this story and the novel Absolution Gap)*Spirey and the Queen - A space opera story of rather a different flavour to Reynolds' usual fare, thanks to a bucketload of inventive jargon like "neurodisney" and "quackdrive". Feels a bit Miéville-ish in that way. The future history of this story is fascinating (humanity divided into corporate factions with logos et al), and I enjoyed the themes of surprisingly benevolent AI evolving beyond the petty wars of humans.Understanding Space and Time - A story that starts off about the last human alive having cosmological conversations with an either holographic or hallucinated Elton John; then moves exponentially through both time and increasing alien weirdness. The story has a certain cheekiness about it that feels like Douglas Adams or Red Dwarf, although slightly more sombre in its subject material. I have to wonder though, why Elton John?Digital to Analogue - A disappointingly weak (but short) story involving viral dance music, mainly made up of a lot of musical/audio engineering jargon. Kind of similar to a few stories I've seen China Miéville do. But it's from very early on in Reynolds' career so I can forgive how silly/underdeveloped it is. I don't know whether it speaks more to my tastes or to Reynolds' strong areas, but none of this collection's stories set on Earth are anywhere near as good as the off-world ones.Everlasting - Groan. Yet another story about quantum probabilities and many worlds theory. Hardly interesting at all, in ideas, setting or characters. This is probably the worst story in an otherwise brilliant collection.*Zima Blue - A damn clever idea for a story, and I'm happy to see the return of future reporter superstar Carrie Clay. The idea of an artist capturing the attention of humanity with his bigger and (ridiculously) bigger artworks, only for the meaning behind them to be something so humble and touching, was top-notch. A great final story in this fantastic collection.
Alastair Reynolds is apparently a fairly big deal in recent science fiction. The fact that I didn't know this and, in fact, didn't even know his name before picking up his Zima Blue & Other Stories for the A-Z Reading Challenge (X, and Z are always such devilish letters to find interesting books for...), well, that just goes to show how out of touch I've been from the SF world.Reynolds is a British science fiction writer. I have to admit that my SF reading has been very heavily American--with Douglas Adams, Arthur C Clarke and H. G. Wells being my primary authors from across the pond. According to the interwebs, he specializes in dark hard science fiction and space opera and has won the BSFA award for best novel as well as being nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Hugo Award for Best Novella, Locus Award for Best First Novel, Locus Award for Best Collection. This collection most definitely represents his affinity for dark hard science fiction.There is a lot of war here...war dependent on all sorts of scientific weaponry that I don't even pretend to understand. War between various offshoots of the human race as well as war against mysterious "others" who may or may not be evil aliens. These are the darkest of the stories as we try to figure out who the bad guys really are. The best stories of the collection--"Signal to Noise," "Angels of Ashes," "Understanding Space & Time" and "Zima Blue" --manage to mix that dedication to hard science with interesting human stories without allowing the scientific details to overshadow the human. Among them, my favorite is "Understanding Space & Time"--I love the infusion of Elton John and "Rocket Man" into the story. I am also interested in the main character's search for enlightenment and how Reynolds ties that into quantum physics. While the two related stories "Hideaway" and "Merlin's Gun" also have a good story to tell, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what the heck all these terms meant. I was distracted to the point that the denouement in each case lost much of its punch. I also think it would have helped if the stories had appeared in the order they were written--"Merlin's Gun" first, followed by its prequel, "Hideaway." Many of the confusing details in "Hideaway" would have been much clearer.I'm not adverse to hard science fiction. I do think, however, that stories that depend on it and which employ author-generated terms to explain such science should succinctly explain the terms. No long, drawn-out lectures--just enough to let the average reader understand what's going on. That's a difficult task for a short story, and that may explain why most of the world-building hard science fiction stories that I really appreciate are novel-length rather than short stories. All that said, Reynolds is a good story-teller. I've enjoyed my venture into more recent British science fiction and am very glad that the A-Z Reading Challenge led me to his book. There are some very ambitious creations here involving alternate timelines, the augmentation of the human memory, and reality itself. Three and a half stars.This was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
What do You think about Zima Blue And Other Stories (2006)?
If it is hasn't become clear in my previous Reynolds reviews, I like his work. And this collection of short stories reminded me again why, most of the stories were very, very good. Some were not quite that good, but most were, and that is more than enough. I like how, even though he is known for his space operas, they always are so very human.Zima Blue, the title story, was either the first thing I read of Reynolds', or at least it was the first one that made such an impression that I wanted to read more of his work. And now, after re-reading it, it feels like I've somehow... come home (I just had to, sorry). I still think it is most definitely the best story in the collection, in the middle of all those other (mostly) good stories. It just stands out, somehow, and it says so much about humanity (or maybe just me) that I think there might've been some extra moisture in my eyes by the end. I just have a soft spot for bittersweetness, I guess.An easy way to get to know Reynolds' work, this one. I might've met his work through general SF short story collections, but this one has quite a lot of variety, too, if you wish to know what the hype is all about.
—Anna
I often wonder at what is it that makes some authors better at short stories than others. AR can craft a superb space opera, of that there is no doubt, but his short stories are a mixed bag, some are excellent, others I don't quite get. But then surely that's the beauty and purpose of short stories, to be more adventurous and therefor not all will please all of the readers every time. Some of these - like in the companion volume Galactic North - are effectively out-takes edited from the Revelation Space series, others feel like the meat of a novel that never quite made it - three stories that flow seamlessly one to another - you may wonder why this is 3 short stories here rather than a novella. Also the many 'multiverse' themed stories were not as good as the rest. Surely we've heard enough of quamtum mechanics now, not to every tome have a character explain - 'oh it's like that can in a box you were telling me about'Personally, although I really enjoyed many of the stories in this volume, I look forward to reading a full novel next time. More SPACE OPERA please
—Duncan
Having tried to struggle through the overwritten sludge that is China Mieville's Perdido Street Station it was an absolute joy to drop that brick of a book at page 140 and immerse myself in these beautiful short stories of Reynolds. I'd gone cold on Reynolds recently having struggled with his House of Suns novel. This was partly to do with the fact that it was an audio book and that the guy reading it had all the presence of a hat stand. That aside Zima Blue has reawakened my faith in Reynolds to tell a damn good tale and to tell it well. I don't read a lot of sci- fi, well not as much as I used to, and that's mainly because I found a lot of it was quite soulless and cold, with ideas given precedence of characters. Reynolds loves a big idea and there are plenty of those here but he also takes the time to draw out believable characters that you can care about, characters that you want to stick with. He leads you deftly through these tales, always showing, never preaching and handles the science in a clear and concise manner that I found easy to grasp ( and I'm no scientist. ) Many of the stories deal with our take on reality weather that's alternate earths that are contacted through a research lab in Cardiff ( Signal to Noise & Cardiff Afterlife ) or characters that push the barriers of comprehension by augmenting their own mental abilities ( Understanding Space and Time & the title story Zima Blue. ) I particularly like the stories that were sent in the present day with no overt sci-fi bent ( Digital to Analogue & Everlasting. ) I found the brief notes at the end of each story very useful as they give you an insight into the creative process and the vagaries of publishing. Each note details what lead up to the story, how the idea was developed and when and how it was finally published. If you like science fiction and you like short stories then this book is for you. I'll definitely give Mr Reynolds' novels another go after this.
—Garrie
