The "Christmas Effect"

Christmas is a time of giving. And receiving! Consequently, book-reading post-Christmas is dominated by a load of new books, often stacked up because of the pre-Christmas embargo on new purchases. Anyway, as a result, I've another Alastair Reynolds to document. Unlike my previous posting on this author, this book, Century Rain, has nothing to do with Revelation Space. It's free-standing and, like the similarly disconnected novel, Pushing Ice, it's all the better for it.


The novel begins unconventionally for a science fiction novel with a jazz-playing private detective, Floyd, who works in Paris in the late 1950s. An ex-patriot American, Floyd has been brought in by a wealthy patron to investigate the mysterious death of an unusual visitor to Paris, an ostensibly American woman with an obsession for collecting newspapers, books and music records. Originally discounted as a suicide, her death, and her suspicious behaviour, leave behind too many unanswered questions for Floyd. His efforts to resolve the mystery increasingly attract the attention of the local police, hitherto uninterested in the case, but also that of some very strange children. Before long his path crosses with that of the "sister" of the now apparently murdered visitor.

That's the first strand. The second involves a future historian, Auger, exploring the remains of Paris for valuable artifacts. The Earth has been destroyed in a holocaust driven by nanotechnology, and humanity has split into two opposing groups, the Threshers and the Slashers, the former opposing nanotech, the latter still keen to use it to recover the Earth. After devastating wars, the two groups have come to an uneasy accommodation. With their more advanced technology, the Slashers have begun to access an alien-built wormhole-like transit system that allows them to explore the galaxy. Auger, after being disgraced in an accident in Paris, is given a chance to make amends by continuing the work of a recently deceased colleague. Sent down the entrance of one of these alien portals in Phobos she emerges somewhere familiar but different.

The intersection of both of these narratives within the covers of same novel makes it obvious that they will come together at some point. When they do it's actually not quite as satisfying as one might like, but by then the novel has built up enough of a head of steam to carry it off to the end.

One particularly deleterious aspect of the latter part of the novel are a series of interminable action sections that take place in Auger's "world". The early novel is carefully paced, with its structure gradually, and skillfully, put together. The late novel contains a number of long-winded descriptions of rather uninteresting sequences involving a lot of action. Action, while working well on the screen, rarely works well on the page. It's just difficult to hold choreographed action in your head for more than a paragraph or two. Wearing my "scientific reviewers" hat, I'd have suggested that the novelist trim these action portions down, perhaps instead focusing on the reality-disjoint experienced by the detective Floyd when he discovers that his reality is not at all what it appears. The novel is also a bit thin on the reason events take a turn for action at the end - I was never entirely clear on why the Slashers were up to what they were up to.

An interesting decision made by Reynolds is not to explain, or even really explore, the reason that Floyd's world exists. The reader is given only tantalising glimpses of what the purpose of Floyd's world is, and its creators (who also appear to have built the handy portal system) are almost completely off-stage. That they are not completely off-stage may suggest that Reynolds intends to visit this fictional universe again. Although, interestingly, the motivations of the aliens who created the worlds, of which Floyd's is an example, don't appear to be a major concern of any of the novel's characters. Perhaps they've just decided that, in the seeming absence of the aliens, it's too big a mystery to tackle in their lifetimes.

Anyway, despite my misgivings about the action sequences, this is another great novel by Reynolds. What I've not remarked on so far is the style of the writing in the early sections involving Floyd. Reynolds does a great job bringing noir sensibilities to this world. Floyd seems (in a good way) to have stepped straight from a Raymond Chandler novel. This extends to the relationship that Floyd gradually forges with Auger. Reynolds also does a good job presenting a slightly different 1959 to that we've experienced. WW2 hasn't happened in this world, and the consequences are nicely and subtly drawn out (including a fleeting crossing-of-paths with, I presume, an aged Adolf Hitler).

Finally, this novel again shows that Reynolds works best in creating a new world, much like in Pushing Ice. While there are definitely ways that Reynolds could take this fictional universe forwards (more, in a way, than with Pushing Ice), it might be better if he left its possibilities tantalisingly unrealised.

Shorter is better

More Alastair Reynolds. But short stories rather than a novel this time, Galactic North. All set within his Revelation Space universe, but only some with direct connections to existing narratives set there. However, those that aren't directly connected usually shed light on parts of this future history that have hitherto only been hinted at.


Short stories are definitely a strong point for science fiction. They allow the author to explore an interesting idea without the expectation of character development. Several of the stories here go one step further in a way by allowing the author to dispense even further with characterisation since several of the characters are known to readers already (though this does create potentially interesting trade-offs between new and familiar readers). Anyway, the stories here represent excellent examples of the short story form while additionally being satisfying for readers already familiar with Reynolds' Revelation Space.

The first two stories deal with the character Nevil Clavain and his "defection" to the Conjoiner faction of humanity. The stories slot nicely into gaps in Reynolds' novels and flesh out relationships between various characters. They're also good stories in their own right, particularly the second one which approximates a good whodunnit on an alien world. The final story in the collection, Galactic North, initially takes place during the Revelation Space novels but, through time dilation, takes in a much broader sweep of history. It reveals the long term outcome of the conflict between humanity, the Inhibitors and the human-made Greenfly. Possibly a mistake on Reynolds' part to lay out in some detail what might have made for a good novel down the line. Still, he's certainly left himself wriggle room, and I'm sure he's smart enough to milk his future history some more.

Other stories in the collection take the form of a love story set in Revelation Space, Weather; a spy story dealing with modified humans used as slaves in the oceans of Europa, A Spy In Europa; the undoing of a collector of rare and exotic animals, Grafenwalder's Bestiary; and an adventure aboard a ghost ship with a conscience, Nightingale.

For readers unfamiliar with Revelation Space, the stories will likely be particularly exciting since they draw, teasingly, on a rich and carefully thought-through history and geography. However, there's a lot here for readers, such as myself, who are more familiar with this universe. Being short, and not forced to create a grand narrative, they also avoid some of the problems of fatigue that Reynolds' novels suffer to a degree from (Pushing Ice being a notable exception). Avoiding detailed characterisation also works to Reynolds' advantage here (much as it has done for other science fiction authors like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov).

Anyway, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for further volumes like this one by Reynolds.

Straight from the airport lounge

Last Light by Alex Scarrow is a classic airport thriller with a difference. Rather than positing sinister events put into motion but ultimately set to rights with the world put back to normal, this novel has the idea of Peak Oil and the long-term consequences of this "Big Idea" at its core. Things are very much not back to normal by its end.


Structurally the novel follows a single family separated by vocation, marital difficulties and public school. Events in the outside world, the shutdown of oil production, conspire to fuel a crisis that rapidly spreads globally embroiling this family in a desperate fight for survival. One strand follows the oil engineer father as he struggles to return to London from the oil fields of Iraq. Another follows his wife as she struggles to return to London from a job interview in Manchester. Another follows his daughter as she struggles to return to London from UEA with an assassin on her tail. Can you see the pattern there?

While absorbing all of the elements of a classic potboiler, the novel is saved, to a degree, by its rather real-world premise and by its all-too-convincing exposition of what could happen if, suddenly, our energy supplies dried up. It certainly isn't saved by its writing, which reads, more or less, like a screenplay treatment. Characters serve only to advance plot or to introduce ideas the author wants to discuss (not dissimilarly to the Master Of The Potboiler: Michael Crichton). And the plot is simply a relentless drive forward through event after lethal event. Which isn't to say that it's not a compelling read. While it is slightly shorter than Brick Lane, I finished it in less than three days. Short, punchy chapters do help here.

I say "saved to a degree" because it does fluff it towards the end. While comprehensively managing to avoid the cliched happy ending, it does slip up in unfolding its sinister plot. Rather than making the plot a far-fetched-but-still-credible tale of contemporary oil/government interests, out of the blue it instead posits a rather ridiculous centuries-long conspiracy in which just about every event of the past 1000 years has been carefully choreographed by a group of unspecified "evil do-ers" (who, of course, see themselves as Mankind's saviours). This struck me as both preposterous and unnecessary. It's impossible to see how such a conspiracy could both massively engineer civilisation while remaining completely invisible. I can see how individual events in history could be stage-managed without leaving many fingerprints, but the whole of Western history? The novel would have actually worked better if the nature of the conspiracy was left unspecified.

Anyway, a compelling if trashy read. With a bit of luck, the message at its core will get a few more people thinking about how we cope with the end of oil. This is almost certainly within my lifetime, but it doesn't appear that anyone's really thinking hard about it. I fear that the Julian Simons of this world have got their message across too successfully.

Film then Book, or Book then Film?

Brick Lane by Monica Ali follows the life of a Bangladeshi woman and her journey from her childhood in Bangladesh through to adulthood and an arranged marriage in London.


Nazneen leaves Bangladesh and her motherless sister at the age of 18 to marry the much-older Chanu and live in the United Kingdom. Over the years that pass, Nazneen is never able to see her sister, but maintains a link via letters reproduced in the novel. A major strand in the novel is how the lives of the two sisters diverge from one another, driven by their geographical locations and their arranged/love marriages.

While living in London, Nazneen begins a family, giving birth first to a son who dies an infant, then later to two daughters, to whom Bangladesh affords few attractions. Chanu, keen to return a "big man" to Bangladesh plans the family's move back to Bangladesh throughout the novel, to the dismay of his daughters, but with mixed feelings for Nazneen. Keen to re-establish the link with her sister, she also wishes to protect her daughters, all the while gradually assimilating herself into life in the UK.

Part of this assimilation sees her becoming a seamstress to provide money for the family, but this brings with it the temptations of another man. The resolution of this strand is contrasts strongly with related events in her sister's life. The novel also explores in the opposite of assimilation, painting the life of an immigrant to the UK in the 1990s and 2000s; taking in the events of 11th September 2001 and the consequences of its fallout for Muslims.

So far, so descriptive. Judging simply from the time I took to read this novel, I clearly had trouble with it. Most of this stalling stems from me having seen the film of the novel shortly before reading it. [Begin: digression into novel-to-film transitions ...] Like so many films of novels, this fillets the novel in the process of rendering it into a 2-ish hour experience. In my experience, this is a much, much better approach than slavishly squeezing every detail of a novel into its cinematic incarnation. This latter path leads to films where, essentially, a lot of stuff happens, and quickly. The best films allow the story they contain to evolve organically at a pace that suits visual storytelling. This, however, favours shorter novels, where characters can be fleshed out gradually, detail by detail. And shorter novels rarely attract the same adulation that long, detailed novels inspire in readers. Anyway, this is hardly discussing the book, so I'll stop. To summarise quickly though: if you are translating a novel to the screen, fillet the novel to avoid too much happening at once.

Back to the novel. Despite me taking ages over it, it was a good and interesting read. The characters, especially Chanu and Nazneen's sister, are particularly well-drawn. For instance, one's perception of Chanu changes through the novel, but not because he does things that change how he comes across. Instead, the reader (this reader anyway) gradually comes to understand him better, and this casts his earlier actions in the novel in a different light as the novel unfolds. The evolution of Nazneen's sister is similarly involving, although in contrast this involves events in her life. And, of course, Nazneen herself is a compelling creation, gradually evolving from a "girl from the village" into a woman more confident in her juggling of the traditions of her childhood with the modern west.

Getting back to the film for a minute, as already noted it did a great job filleting the novel. While the novel has more (and more fully developed) characters, the film focuses in on Nazneen's immediate family, allowing it to avoid compressing in subplots that, while good in the novel, would only complicate a film (e.g. Nazneen's friend's son's struggle with drugs). The film does miss a couple of tricks though. Less significantly, it skips over the troubles that afflicted the real Brick Lane, and which form the backdrop towards the end of the novel. It replaces this with Nazneen simply pursuing her daughter into a tube station. Not sure why. A more significant lapse with the film is, I feel, its handling of Nazneen's sister. In the novel, while she does make a series of mistakes in her life, it's clear that much of what happens to her is largely beyond her control. In the film, by contrast, her seemingly romantic adventures from her letters are ultimately used to portray her as a prostitute (or something similar). That's not something that I think is intended in the novel, though she does seem to drift from one Sugar Daddy to another. This narrative device does actually work in the film, but just doesn't seem faithful to the character in the novel.

Finally, to return to the title of this post: film then book, or book then film? Obviously the latter, but I did admire the skill by which this novel was turned into a film.

While I remember ...

Just while I remember, I need to write something down about Brick Lane, Last Light, and Galactic North at some point. Polished all of those off in the last couple of weeks.

What happened to December?

The usual run up to Christmas and New Year is what happened. Still, that only really applies to the tail end of December - prior to that simple laziness conspired to leave my blog vacuous (well, vacuous-in-the-lack-of-words sense).

Sticking to tradition, my birthday involved a trip up to London for various art exhibitions and get-togethers with friends. The big one was "Pop Art Portraits" at the National Portrait Gallery. Although it wasn't particularly large, it covered a good range of artists (including favourite Warhol), and also afforded a chance to see 2007's Photographic Portrait Prize. We also took in the Millais exhibition at Tate Britain. Although I tend to write-off artists from his era as typically "chocolate-boxy", this was really enjoyable. Finished the day off with dinner with C's friend A, and with Dr. M. Good to see both as ever. I've promised to do more evening trips up to London to see Dr. M - they're always a lot of fun, but I so rarely make the effort. I'd make it a "New Year's Resolution" if I weren't so likely to break it.

Christmas was also preceded by the so-called "Biomodellers Lunch" ...
... which went pretty well again. Better, I'd say, than last year's. This time round we managed to persuade more of the attendees to visiting drinking establishments post-meal. Then again, this time round we stacked the deck with "biomodellers and friends" who were much easier to persuade.

Christmas was the traditional jet-ride home to Scotland. Begun, this time, with a non-traditional rental car puncture just outside Perth (which, annoyingly, I'm going to have to pay for). Anyway, got to see my parents, brothers and friends as per usual. Managed to squeeze a hike in with G ...
... and finally met brother S's new girlfriend. The latter experience is now somewhat less clear on account of alcohol consumption. Also caught up with the various offspring of my friends. Everything seems to be going in the right direction there - not least in the toilet-training department (after 2006's debacle). G's daughter has come on hugely since my last visit - I was particularly impressed with her training in politeness. Spectacular for one only 18 months old.

New Year (back down south) afforded an evening with A, J and my god-daughter. It was nice, though things will be better once said god-daughter's a bit more settled. Only rarely did we get A and J at the same time.

Manifesto

A short post (actually - exactly the sort of thing I should be doing, my posts take too long to compose, and I'm too careful in doing it!). Paul Morley made an interesting point last night on Late Review. Reviewing an item about a manifesto by Vivienne Westwood, he noted that everyone should have one. Though he disagreed with aspects of her's, notably it seemed to be Torygraph in content, he admired the statement of ideas. Perhaps I should do the same? I certainly caught myself articulating my views on environmentalism (re: Lovelock's pipes and climate change) to RSL yesterday. I didn't really realise that I'd thought them through that well before. Perhaps I'm just impressed with the sound of my own voice? Anyway, a manifesto seems like a good idea ...

Seminars

Two interesting seminars this week. The first was by John Houghton, ex- of the IPCC, and was a public lecture on climate change for a UK organisation known as Christians in Science. It was part of a series that this organisation has been running in Southampton, and the third that I've attended.

Anyway, strictly speaking, it wasn't interesting for the scientific content. That was tailored for a general audience, so only really covered material that I'm very familiar with. That said, he was able to reinforce points on the consequences of increasing aridity, and on the net transfer of wealth from the developing to the developed world despite aid and trade.

The interesting content of the talk lay in its discussion of climate change through the prism of religion. Bar a disparaging remark directed at unnamed scientists (i.e. Dawkins) who suggest an incompatibility between science and religion, the thrust of Houghton's religious message lay in stewardship of the Earth. While none of what he said was new to me, it was interesting to see an authoritative defense of the Earth from this angle. Were I religious, I would think the arguments he presented would be very persuasive. To the extent that one wonders what certain ostensibly religious leaders of the Free World would say in response. Dissembling is my first thought.

The second seminar was NOCS's Friday seminar. Unexpectedly, the speaker, Richard Watson, was one that I requested a long time ago. I can't entirely remember why I requested him, but I suspect that his work was being misused by ID evil doers. Anyway, he's a computer scientist working in a group that applies lessons from Nature to computer science problems, though his work also travels the other way, suggesting how Nature may work in return.

The focus of his work is the development of algorithms for solving optimisation problems (e.g. locating function maxima in multi-dimensional space). His thesis is that conventional evolutionary algorithms for doing this are both ineffectual and inefficient. Gradual evolution based on sampling the immediate "environment" is good only for finding local maxima, with the global maximum often impossible to reach.

His innovation mirrors symbiogenesis from biology, where separate organisms combine in symbiotic evolutionary relationships. By allowing computational elements to combine their "traits", rather than simply recombine or mutate them, Watson finds that the resulting algorithm is considerably more effectual and efficient. Watson went on to present results from earlier in the week where he further tweaked his algorithm so that computational elements, rather than combining randomly, chose combinations with other elements that they "encountered" (not quite sure how this was defined) most frequently. This seemed to be a quantum leap, with the already efficient algorithm increasing massively in efficiency (= time to solution).

Watson draws parallels between his algorithm and the evolutionary leaps involved in events like the evolution of cells, prokaryotes, eukaryotes, multicellular eukaryotes, sexual reproduction: events that are not easily explained by gradual evolution. Since several of these events involve symbiogenesis, the parallel was convincing to me. He argues that the natural analogue of his algorithm provides an alternative to standard Darwinism, particularly where "irreducible complexity" may seem a hurdle. This may be why he attracted the attention of IDers (and me). His argument is not that this mechanism replaces Darwinism, but it does offer a distinct alternative mode for evolutionary innovation. As it involves the coming together of evolutionary lineages, it is not something that is perceived as common (though horizontal gene transfer is now a much more widely accepted process in prokaryotes), and this may reflect it being an infrequent process in the wider world.

That said, after the seminar DIR made the observation that it may have some relationship with punctuated equilibrium - certainly his simulation results were very suggestive of this. I was more interested in whether, in an "evolution of evolvability" sense, there would be features of extant organisms that would be suggestive of this. I was thinking of, for example, adaptations to encourage HGT, but it's not something I know much of, and it's not something that Watson has thought much about either (after all, he's a computer scientist, not a biologist).

Anyway, for a rather specialised evolutionary topic, Watson gave a very good seminar. Perhaps over heavy on background, but that's ideal for students. And he's certainly given me something to think about regarding evolution. Something that, particularly pleasingly, won't come as much comfort to evil IDers.

Many Worlds

Caught an interesting science programme on BBC4 the other night. It dealt with the infamous Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, but from the perspective of the musician Mark Everett (or E), son of the scientist who developed it, Hugh Everett. While I knew of both of these people separately, I was completely unaware that they were related, let alone father and son.

The programme followed Mark as he travelled the US meeting up with Everett's colleagues and with scientists currently working with Many Worlds. The programme devoted some time to the theory itself, but focused more on Everett's life and academic career, and with Mark's relationship with his father. While it probably overstated the importance of Many Worlds, and may give some viewers the idea that this interpretation is the most commonly accepted one among physicists, it was really quite charming.

Mark, who hitherto understood very little about his father's work, gradually came to some understanding of it, and was able to make sense of father's life and certain key events in it. He also came to realise the importance of his father's work, and the modern relevance of the Many Worlds interpretation. A particularly choice moment was when he dug out some old audio tapes from his father's stuff (Everett died in 1982). These recorded conversations with friends and scientific colleagues about his ideas. However, in the course of playing through them, Mark found a recording of their pet cat purring, a boastful recording of himself and, best of all, a conversation his father was having that, in the background, had Mark learning to play the drums.

My own view on Many Worlds is that, while I don't subscribe to it, I find its solution of the "measurement problem" strongly preferable to that of the "standard" Copenhagen interpretation. I simply refuse to buy the idea that measurement is an important factor in the lives of subatomic particles. At first glance, this seems a reasonable deduction given that quantum objects appear to switch from waves to particles when measurements are made of them. The large number of possibilities inherent in waves is instantly decreased to a single actuality by the act of measurement. But it's unclear (to me anyway) what "looking at" a quantum object does to it to make this happen. Many Worlds resolves this by stating that all of these possibilities actually occur, but do so in their own separate universes, such that we only see one outcome (i.e. we, too, are split across multiple universes). While this does elegantly sidestep the measurement problem, it does so at the great expense of an ever-expanding number of universes. I'm not prepared to make that leap. My own view is more along the lines of the neo-realist Bohm interpretation. In my understanding of it, this posits that quantum objects have hidden variables associated with them, such that they are composed of both wave and particle components. These hidden variables explain the dual behaviour of the objects but measurement is not a special process. Of course, this interpretation fails Occam's Razor by profligately introducing unobserved (possibly unobservable) hidden variables. Still, it allows me to continue believing in an external world that carries on regardless of our actions.

The "I" in CIA

A non-fiction review this time: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tom Weiner. First up, a confession: I bought this book as a birthday present for a friend, but read its opening chapter and found myself drawn in. Needless to say, I won't be mentioning this to my friend.



This is a long and generally detailed look at the history of the CIA from its inception immediately after the Second World War up until the present day (earlier this year in fact). Mostly because of the defining nature of the CIA's relationships with different presidents, the book is primarily structured by succeeding presidential terms, with it further divided to delineate CIA activities in different geographical arenas.

However, despite changes in presidents, enemies and arenas, two surprising themes run through and unify the history presented. The first is that, even after sixty years of evolution, the CIA has never truly come close to satisfying the role of centralising intelligence that it was set up for. The second is that, contrary to general public perceptions, the CIA has almost never been a successful organisation, and has consistently misread signals leading its paymasters into either complacency or shadow-boxing.

That the CIA has never gotten to grips with its main task stems in part from its founding members' interests in covert operations. Rather than serve as a clearing house for the collation and analysis of information drawn from military, diplomatic and other sources, from the beginning the CIA has expended considerable effort engaged in exactly the sort of "dirty tricks" that its name is synonymous with. Many of these have served legitimate or semi-legitimate purposes, but, contrary to the stated rationale for its existence, they have dominated its focus and have been the source of many of the historical troubles it has experienced.

The degree of incompetence of the CIA certainly came as a surprise to me. Mission after mission after mission have been executed with either poor planning, operational support or follow-up assessment. That the CIA is covert has given its management carte blanch to tag its many failed missions as "top secret", and to avoid what would be necessary oversight in just about any other organisation. The infrequent successes that it has experienced have been shamelessly, and successfully, flouted by its directors, to the degree that public perception is of an amoral but effective organisation. The book has certainly set me straight on the robustness of this perception.

As a book, this is engagingly written and never boring. Occasionally it is complicated by jumps backwards and forwards in time to follow particular avenues, but these aren't too confusing. One aspect that is somewhat confusing is the long list of players that enter, exit then frequently re-enter the stage. Short of viewing the CIA purely from a organisational vantage point (i.e. "the director did this", "covert operations did that"), it's not obvious how to get around this and, to be honest, the evolution of the CIA has been too strongly influenced by a succession of key individuals to avoid mentioning them by name. The text is supplemented by a large number of often detailed footnotes, so particular points can be checked for clarification.

An obvious concern with a book on such a topic is the nature of any bias introduced by the author. Especially with an ethically-challenged organisation like the CIA (to reveal my own bias). From what I can judge, the book appears to avoid allegations of bias by sticking closely to sources, and by simply being so thorough. Dozens of missions and operations are described, running the full gamut from well-known successes/failures to events in backwater countries that have long since receded into history. I think that all of my own knowledge of the CIA was more or less covered in the book, suggesting that it presents a representative sample of their work, and does not skew things towards their unsuccessful activities. I'm sure, however, that certain political viewpoints will not share this assessment.

Concerning politics, it's interesting to read about the approaches different presidents have taken to the CIA. First of all, without exception, all have taken a strong interest in it. Some, such as Nixon, seem to have taken a very negative view of it, and have actively shunned it at times. Others, such as JFK, have made considerable use of it. Interestingly, almost no presidency comes out well in its dealings with the CIA. The exception is Jimmy Carter who, contrary to what one might expect, took strongly to the organisation, but viewed it as a tool to accomplish human rights goals (as well as its conventional anti-Soviet role). One of the interesting uses he put it towards was undermining the then-Apartheid South African government, in direct opposition to previous CIA operations that aimed to support it as a bulwark against Communism. Ultimately, even Carter came unstuck using it, but his is the only presidency not to be tarnished by it (at least as far as this book presents things).

The book's final analysis is not a positive one for the CIA. As noted already, the organisation has singularly failed at becoming what it was originally intended to be. Furthermore, the (unpredicted) end of the Soviet Union robbed it of a sense of purpose that has not been replaced well by Islamic extremism. The book closes damningly with the fiasco surrounding Iraq and its "weapons of mass destruction". The certainty professed by the CIA on these, which practically anyone could see was bogus, has comprehensively dented the respect and trust placed in the CIA (however misplaced that already was). Although only briefly dealt with, the ebbing of experienced CIA staff to private security companies seems a longer-term problem for the organisation. This creeping privatisation of "security" generally seems a rather worrying trend.

Overall, an impressive tome. I'm sure that its central messages could be distilled into a much shorter volume, but that would trim the supporting material and lose the authority of this edition.

A final note: for all of the dubious efforts of various presidents and CIA operatives, the actions of William Casey (from 1981 to 1987) stand out as plumbing new moral depths. While I was already aware of the outlines of the Iran-Contra Affair, the depths to which Casey dragged the CIA in conducting this operation were very revealing to read about. More generally, his handling of the organisation is remarkable for how spotlessly clean it makes the rest of the CIA's operations appear by way of contrast. It seems incredible to me that there are people out there who defend people such as this. Regardless of politics, purely pragmatic or utilitarian analyses of the reign of such people should stop anyone capable of rational thought in their tracks. The anointing of the likes of Oliver North as near-saints would suggest otherwise.

Unconvincing games

Another book for the Charity Shop run. This time a "science fiction classic": Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.


Published originally in 1985, derived from an earlier short story, this is a book I've heard a fair bit about over a long period of time. I originally heard about it during my first working trip to the US in 1992 (from AMG), but it took C purchasing it for my birthday for me to finally get round to it. The book has attracted a large fan-base, several sequels, and even some rather odd endorsements from military organisations.

It tells the story of a young child, Ender, bullied at school but identified by the authorities as possessing certain strategic talents. These talents are desperately sought because humanity is on the losing side of a war with an alien race, the insectoid buggers (yes, indeed - what was Card thinking?). Along with other children, Ender is taken away from his family to enter a training programme that builds on and enhances the strategic skills that have been identified in them. This programme, which takes place in space, primarily consists of exercises in which Ender and his fellow students "play" strategic wargames, with themselves taking roles as playing pieces. At the same time, Ender confronts bullying from his fellow students, gradually triumphing both in this and the wargames played. As time passes, these wargames involve to take on more aspects of the fights with the aliens (no, I can't say "buggers") that they aim to train the students in. This success leads to Ender taking increasingly senior roles in the wargames, ultimately becoming the commander-in-chief of his fellow students. After a particularly long-winded and brilliantly-resolved fight it is revealed to Ender that this game was not what it appeared. It was not a game at all, and Ender was, in fact, fighting the aliens by proxy. His success in the game reflects a defeat for the aliens. As it happens, a terminal defeat, since his gameplay involved a devastating attack on their homeworld. The novel finishes with celebrations across human civilisation, but with Ender on the alien homeworld where he begins to atone for his unwittingly genocidal actions, by raising young buggers from pupae.

As I noted already, I knew a bit about this novel before I started. What I knew appealed to me, the theme of atonement by a powerful character, in particular, I'm a sucker for. However, reading the novel was quite a different experience. Firstly, right from the start, it got me shaking my head and disbelieving it. Bizarrely, Ender is only 6 years old when the novel starts, but has an interior life of someone much older. Suspension of disbelief on this scale, this early on, is unnecessary in a novel. Although Ender is supposed to be special, this sort of set-up in simply not credible. Making him a young teenager, and therefore more justifiably aware of himself, would have made far, far more sense. Anyway, there are other problems. He has a brother and sister who are also special, and who play key roles in propaganda events back on Earth, again while still very young. Another unconvincing turn of events.

More practically, the novel is medium-long in length, but stretches its central story too thinly. Despite being a gameplayer myself, I couldn't get excited about the games described during the novel, they just got in the way between plot advancements. I presume the author was aiming for character development here, but that's hard to pull off when the novel's characters are hobbled from the get-go by appearing unrealistically wise and self-aware for their ages.

Most importantly, I just didn't like Ender at all. Primarily because he's just very annoying, which makes it hard to get behind or care about his evolution through the book. The nature of the events at the end of the novel make these sections with him more interesting, but you have to wade through a lot of "character development" that just doesn't seem realistic to get there.

My suspicion is that the short story would work far more successfully. By focusing on the key themes, a lot of the peripheral aspects that annoy me in the novel would drop away. Perhaps I'll read that at some stage. Anyway, in summary, this is a "classic" with feet of clay. I can see why it might appeal, but its execution leaves a lot to be desired. I suspect its focus on childhood appeals to some readers, while its novel approach to military activity appeals to others. It was probably more unusual and exotic when first released, so I'm doubtless being too harsh, but it's important to be honest about how novels hold up against time.

Charity shop run

Time again to purge the library and create space. First up are two more novels by Neal Asher:

• The Skinner
• The Voyage of the Sable Keech

These novels form a pair (from the so-called "Spatterjay sequence") that coexist alongside his other Polity novels (see my earlier post). Like much of the Polity novels, they take place outside the Polity, this time entirely on a planet known as Spatterjay.


A major background component of both novels is Spatterjay's ecology which, while implausible, is at least quite imaginative and merits some discussion. The whole ecosystem is infected with a virus that, as part of its own survival strategy, conveys impressive resistance to injury and imbues remarkable regenerative powers to infected organisms. Short of being completely consumed, animals on Spatterjay can survive, and recover from, extreme damage. Of course, complete consumption is part and parcel of the ecology, but these regenerative powers allow, for instance, Spatterjay fishermen to catch aquatic animals, strip them of much of their flesh, then return the "carcass" to the ocean for it to regenerate (the mechanism behind the regeneration of the carcass but not the flesh is not fully, well, fleshed out).

Humans arriving on Spatterjay (in the past, relative to the novels' timelines) were also infected by the virus, which conveyed the same strengths to them. Known as hoopers, they now live indefinitely, with age conveying greater and greater strength and resilience. Physical risks are now far less important to hoopers than the danger that ennui brings in their long lives. Many of them (almost all of the characters in the novels) live as fishermen on the planet-wide ocean where, among other resources, they harvest a chemical known as sprine. This is an anti-viral agent used by animals known as leeches to kill their virally-infected prey, but it also serves the desire for suicide that many hoopers are driven to by their massively extended lives.

Against this backdrop, The Skinner sees the arrival of an unusual police officer to Spatterjay, Sable Keech. He is intent on tracking down the remains of a gang of hoopers who, in an past conflict between the Polity and an alien empire known as the Prador, sold humans into mind-controlled slavery with the Prador. The leader of this gang, Jay Hoop, is known as the Skinner because of his penchant for skinning fellow hoopers.

However, Keech hasn't arrived alone. As befitting a Neal Asher novel, there are a number of other plot strands, most of which arrive at Spatterjay alongside Keech. These include: one of the members of Hoop's gang, come to clean up any remaining evidence of their crimes; an emissary of Earth's second sentient lifeform - hornets; and one of Hoop's Prador contacts, also come to "take care" of outstanding business. And, this being a Polity novel, the explosive meetings of these various individuals take place beneath the watchful eyes of a Polity AI, and a ragtag group of free AIs that work for it. Throw in some sentient indigenous flying aliens who act sails for the hoopers' vessels, and the stage is set for all kinds of revelations, double-crossings and Mexican stand-offs.

Although The Skinner is fairly pulpy science fiction (much like the rest of Asher's novels that I've read), it creates a world that's never uninteresting, and one that carries the reader along. Among its many imaginative, if gruesome, details is that Keech is actually a corpse, a so-called reification - his personality is stored in some AI form while his body is a mummified shell. On top of this, during his stay at Spatterjay, he undergoes a form of reanimation to restore his body to life. Another Asher-esque aspect is his focus on a bloody ecology. The violent goings-on between his characters are paralleled by inter-species blood-letting in the natural ecosystem.

Also similar to Asher's other works is the treatment of his characters. His "good guys" may suffer, but they generally triumph; his "bad guys" usually come unstuck in assorted unpleasant fashions or, if they're just amoral, are sometimes lucky to escape with a severe beating. Having read several of his novels now, it does somewhat deflate the action when you know that, chances are, your favourite characters will make it to the final page. Still, as this is science fiction, we're already quite far from the plausible.

The Skinner's sequel, The Voyage of the Sable Keech, in keeping with the general rule of Asher's work, is enjoyable but definitely a case of diminishing returns. The novel's central strand this time is the endeavor by a reification to set up a sort of tourist pilgrimage for other reifications that aims to follow the story of Sable Keech - the first reification to successfully be restored to life. This strand is complemented by the further working out of several others from the first novel. These include another strand involving Asher's ever-entertaining AIs, and a further one following a surviving Prador from the first novel who turns out to be not so bad.

I suspect this sequence of novels has a shorter life than Asher's other Polity novels, but I certainly give him full marks for imagination. Execution? Well, probably not - this is pulp. But enjoyable pulp.

Hurled into the abyss

Bar a few minor hurdles (e.g. is subsistence £20 or £25 per day? which value was used in the signed-off budget???) and some "last-minute" heavy editing of the bonus sections (objectives, beneficiaries) with TRA, the proposal was completed and fired into the abyss a whole 23 hours early. I just have to sit back now with my fingers crossed.

Well, I say "sit back", but I'm already involved in finishing off a further proposal. No rest for the wicked, apparently. This one I'm a contract mercenary on, though I've played a much larger role in its formation than I have on previous standard proposals. There are issues though: it only part funds me, so that should make for some interesting financial contortions if it's funded; our observational colleagues have trimmed back our original ambitions to what they think is actually do-able (well, do-able on 30% funding!). This trimming makes it a whole lot less interesting in a way, but since I wouldn't be doing the donkey work in the lab, I can hardly complain. Instead, I now have to focus more on modelling a coastal time-series station - should be fun given that I've only ever been open-ocean up till now (and have avoided coastal locales like the plague they are).

Anyway, that's the proposal update for now. More will doubtless follow after their assessments ...

Bearing down on the deadline

The past few weeks I've been stuck creating a NERC fellowship proposal at work. There have been ups and downs galore, but now, as the deadline closes in (1st November 2007, Thursday, 4pm) things are gradually coming together. Not necessarily in the sense that the proposal is being refined and perfected, but more that its obvious dents and imperfections are being hidden under make-up, and the collaboration cast-list is being whittled down.

The proposed research itself, in particular, has gone from seeming like a good idea, to (in some respects) a well-honed Achilles. It sounds good, but a poke and a prod in the right place may unearth its weaker spots. I don't think it's absolutely fundamentally flawed, but it has big ambitions, and gambles a bit on the outcome of portions of the work. Still, the truth will out in the end.

Assembling my cast list has certainly been an interesting experience. While my immediate colleagues have graciously offered their staunch support, I've been tip-toeing around some of my more remote colleagues to get their support. It's a side of science I've not had to deal with much before, but it can be quite an effort. As it's proposed research the benefits are all in the future and are partially illusory. So to get someone onboard, one has to convince them that there's something in it for them too. I do feel that, on this occasion, I have more to gain from the support of some colleagues than they are liable to gain from the association! Still, collaboration is partly the long game, and I might find myself on the other end one day.

Anyway, I didn't want this to go unrecorded (the rest of this blog makes it look like I do nothing else but sit around reading science fiction and watching films). I'm sure that as soon as the proposal's been fired off I'll gradually start forgetting the effort it took to create it. I might remember again should I be recalled to defend it in front of a panel, but the odds aren't good, and a skilled panel may yet fell my Achilles.

Once Upon A Time At The Cinema

I forgot to add that we saw a rather brilliant film yesterday at the HL, Once. It sounded like an earnest, rather worthy piece that I'd ordinarily hate: a drama with a whole lot of music spliced in; heavily hyped by reviewers left, right and centre; lo-fi and cheap with lots of "soul"; et cetera. But I was completely blind-sided by it.

Nutshell synopsis: A depressed, 30-something musician is scraping a living repairing vacuum cleaners with his father, and busking on the streets of Dublin. During the day he plays crowd pleasing numbers that bring in the Euros, during the evening he plays songs he's written himself. One evening he meets a Czech woman who compliments him one of his self-penned songs. He finds out that she too is a musician, leading to them duetting in a music shop. He introduces her to more of his work, and she agrees to put lyrics to some of his music. Buoyed up by this success, they arrange a recording session in a local studio, and recruit some fellow street musicians. In the background, the two are gradually drawn to one another, but romantic history intervenes: he is still in love with an ex-girlfriend, she is married, though estranged, and has a child. Ultimately, they decide together to give their past loves second chances, and the man departs for London, both to find his lost love and to try to sell his music.

The above probably sounds awful, but this is an extremely romantic film, certainly up there with similar films like Before Sunrise / Sunset. The budding relationship between the two central characters is extremely well played and convincing. However, more importantly, the film's use of music is quite spectacular. It's not a classical musical where reality pauses while a song is sung. Here things are naturalistic (a "diegesis" according to the Wikipedia) and the songs flow from the narrative. This isn't forced at any point, and the writers have squeezed songs into the action extremely cleverly. And the songs are extremely good. Perhaps a bit ballady for my tastes, but I'm more forgiving when songs are used in service of a film. The high point is the song they record at the studio, "When Your Mind's Made Up", but the others don't disappoint either. Even the comedy songs that the man plays on the back of a bus to describe his failed relationship.

Anyway, I'm not usually one for romantic films, but every now and then one comes along, and this is certainly one of my favorites. It'll sound pretentious, but it's one of those films that refreshes my faith in cinema as a form. Capable of moving one without recourse to cheap sentimentality, et cetera ...

Man Booker

2007's Man Booker Prize was announced this week. Much to C's surprise, it was the finalist that she liked least (Enright's The Gathering). Too much the classic depressing Irish novel. With that domestic assessment, I've neither read it, nor will. I have, however, recently read two of the other finalists.


The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid takes the form of an extended conversation between two strangers over a traditional dinner in Lahore, Pakistan. Actually, it's really only one side of the conversation, that of a young Pakistani man regaling his dining companion with the story of his previous life in the United States, and how, post-September the 11th, this life unraveled and he returned to Pakistan.

The title of the novel would appear to relate to how the man went from being someone almost proud to be an adopted American, to someone who may harbour less than friendly intentions toward it. On this latter point, the novel is somewhat ambiguous on how far the central character has gone. His dining companion is an American man, who may even be a government operative, but much of the description here is sketchy.

Structurally, the novel generally works really well, with the conversational tone succeeding in portraying the central character quite warmly. That he's always extremely polite certainly helps make him engaging. The life history that he describes is also told in quite a compelling fashion, with two strands, the professional and the personal, woven well together. The first strand documents his rise from a scholarship at Princeton to a job with a prestigious management consultancy, while the second describes his parallel infatuation then budding, if doomed, relationship with a female friend.

My only complaint with the novel is that its ending seems rushed, and is might be seen as a little too ambiguous as a result. The narrator's journey from wannabe-American to possible anti-American fundamentalist happens over a rather short period of the novel, and only describes his present life in Pakistan in a somewhat sketchy fashion. And, after spending almost the whole novel having dinner, things pick up rather too quickly in the final few pages. The ending could be read in a number of ways, at least partially because there's very little time to develop or describe what happens.

Still, I really enjoyed this one. Though its shortness will doubtless have helped there!

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, while otherwise completely different, again takes the form of a story narrated by a single character. The novel describes near-present day events on a small Pacific island torn apart by what appears to be a local conflict. The narrator is a 13 year old girl, part of a community consisting mostly of women and children, since the men are all off fighting. To give the children some semblance of an education, and to keep them occupied, the village arranges for classes to be given by a strange white man who lives among them. This man, Mr. Watts, uses Great Expectations as a framework for his lessons, first reading it to the students then, later, having them reconstruct it from their memories.


Again, one of the strengths of this novel is the central narrator. Her 13 year old world is quite brought to life, and her gradual absorption into Great Expectations is handled very convincingly. The conflict the girl encounters between the reality of Mister Pip from the novel and the reality of the God that her mother unflinchingly teaches about is a particularly believable and interesting idea (which, given my predilections, is obviously likely to appeal to me). It sets up a dynamic that makes later events all the more poignant.

All that said, there are a small number of elements that don't entirely stack up for me. Firstly, the horrific denouement of the island conflict occurs extremely quickly which, while not unrealistic, isn't emotionally satisfying to my mind. The extreme violence is offset by its brevity which seems to take something away from it. Bad things happen but, almost before you know it, the novel has moved on.

Secondly, the novel goes into fast-forward towards the end. The narrator escapes the island and, in a matter of pages, is reunited with her father, grows up and apart from him, leaves for university where she later completes a thesis on Charles Dickens, and then visits key locations from Great Expectations on a trip to England. Then, finally, she tracks down the first wife of Mr. Watts, but the novel provides surprisingly little context for this and flits away all too quickly. What seems like a meeting designed to illuminate earlier events neither establishes very much nor pointedly fails to establish much either (i.e. the narrator doesn't make a big play about the opacity of the lives of others, et cetera).

Despite these shortcomings, Mister Pip was still well worth reading for the quality of the writing. I'm almost certainly being too harsh, expecting a tidy or trite ending which, were the author to have written it, I'd have complained about.

A.N. Other Nature "publication"

A second post today to note the publication of a letter (in the conventional sense) in the science weekly, Nature. The letter (well, "correspondence") deals with James Lovelock's recent suggestion that "ocean pipes" should be used to funnel nutrients from deep water up to the surface where phytoplankton (finally - plankton make it into the blog!) can consume them and, in doing so, draw anthropogenic CO₂ from the atmosphere. It sounds great, until one remembers that it's not just nutrients that come up the pipe.

Anyway, by a rather modest amount of text editing and discussion, I managed to wangle myself onto the author list (JGS, DIR and me), making this my second appearance in Nature this year (bizarrely, my previous appearance spawned two further mini-appearances including an [electronically] published photograph). I might even appear a proper scientist to the untrained eye. Though "correspondence" really doesn't count for much.

Aside from this letter, I'm doing some more work in the background with OCCAM to explore Lovelock's scheme, but it looks a total no-hoper (though slightly less of a no-hoper since I found an error in the underlying assumptions of earlier simulations that I'd done). This work may yet turn into something publishable that'll hopefully put paid to this sort of misguided scheme. Of course, none of this has stopped someone in the US from trying to crank money out of these ocean pipes. Still, their hearts are probably in the right place (with their wallets not far behind).

Photography 101

We attended our first "Photography For Beginners" lesson last night at Wyvern Technology College. Being the proud owners of a Sony digital SLR that has all manner of manual and automatic control settings, we thought it was about time we learnt how to use them. Or even what they were.

Anyway, the class size was about 14, with the majority having SLRs or SLR-style cameras ("bridge" cameras according to the tutor; i.e. bridging between compacts and SLRs). For an ostensibly "beginners guide", the course did accelerate off hard - by the end of the evening we'd already covered practically all of the functionality of manual cameras. Detail was a little thin on the ground at times, but we did shutter speed, f-numbers, white balance, slow sync, manual / automatic focus and film speed (ISO).

I can't say that I understood everything that was said, but I now have a much better feel for these functions than I ever have before (I'd possibly have been able to half-define some of them before). The proof of the pudding will be using the camera to explore the effects of these function. Roll on the weekend.

Anyway, while the tutor was rather brisk in his treatment of the above, and seemed to assume rather a lot about our existing knowledge, he was certainly up for taking questions from the floor, and expanding when people didn't follow him. He's a professional photographer in RL, and teaches BTEC courses as well, so I'm confident that the course will work out.

Coupland complete

Finished The Gum Thief. Hmmm. Definitely one of Coupland's minor novels, but not bad. By way of summary ...


The novel takes the form of "journal entries" written by about five different characters, together with chapters from a (short) novel one of the aforementioned characters is writing. There are two central characters, Roger and Bethany, co-workers at a Staples outlet (cue classic Couplandian discourses on printer paper and shop floor etiquette), but as the novel progresses a few more barge in to offer their perspectives. Roger is a 40-something divorcee, who has lost a child and is spiraling downwards with alcohol and a dead-end job. Bethany is a early 20s goth, somewhat lost in the world, with a mother she hates and a no-good boyfriend. The novel begins with Roger recording his thoughts in a journal (just like here!), but drifting into imagining Bethany's life. However, Bethany accidentally finds his journal and, after initial displeasure at being parodied, joins in by interleaving her thoughts with Roger's. Roger then begins to augment his entries with a domestic drama of a novel about novelists, while Bethany joins in with short stories about what it's like to be a piece of toast (again, classic Coupland). Eventually, the wheels come off of Roger's life, and Bethany is stood up by her boyfriend on a trip to Europe. However, the bond they've formed, and the other people they've brought into their lives, offer a lifeline that brings both of them back to a happier equilibrium.

As noted already, there's a fair bit of classic Coupland in this novel. Product placement, diatribes about the emptiness of modern living, clever existentialist conversations, ..., they're all here. However, as is the generally unsatisfactory plot. To be fair, he doesn't throw it away with a deus ex machina this time. There are two minor strands during Bethany's Eurotrip where she meets, improbably, Johnny Depp plus a regular customer from her store back home. They're a bit more low key than similar stunts Coupland's pulled before, and don't derail things. But the novel would clearly have been better without them [*]. Still, overall it's probably still one that fans of Coupland will get something out of.

How does it fit into the wider scheme of things? Well, I skipped Coupland's later novels (post-Microserfs) in my earlier post. But I suppose I could rank them now (at least how I see them now).

I'd definitely put Hey Nostradamus! top of the pile. Although, as a theme, it's becoming over-done, it does the whole high school shooting thing in a very convincing way, even if it does have one character narrating from beyond the grave.

Miss Wyoming is probably up next. Its improbable event is a main character being the sole survivor of a plane crash, although that's where it starts from rather than being something the that the novel pulls out of thin air halfway through. Another main character is a dead ringer for the drug-fatality Hollywood producer Don Simpson, although the novel rather tenderly rehabilitates him. It seems silly now, but I rather liked how Coupland took this celebrity car-crash from near his lowest point (i.e. he doesn't die in the novel) and spun meaning and redemption into his life. But, then, I'm always a sucker for redemption stories.

Although flawed, I reckon JPod is probably next. Here's what I said about this (to AMG) when I'd read it ...

Well, first of all, it's really not, as the blurb would have it, "'Microserfs' for the Google generation". In terms of its use of geek language and computer programmer-speak, it does resemble 'MS' very strongly. It also has much of the same sort of humour, possibly more in fact. What it doesn't have is the characterisation that brought Dan, Karla and the gang to life in 'MS'. I think it's got something to do with the way that Coupland uses extreme plot developments to move things along. He isn't happy to let characters develop on their own, so instead sets up a series of hoops for them to jump through. Some of the hoops are plausible, some less so. The net effect is that I didn't like the characters in the same way as those of 'MS'. I didn't feel I'd grown close to them, or cared so much about what happened to them. While the dilemmas that face the casts of both novels are somewhat similar, 'jPod' resolves them fairly soullessly. This isn't all bad, since it allows Coupland to be treat his characters (which include a version of himself - not as bad an idea as I thought it was at first) more humourously. He also gets some more politics in with some commentary on corporates. But at the end of it, it just felt like 'MS' with the heart sucked out of it. It's actually still a very good read, easily one of his better novels in the last decade ('Hey Nostradamus!', I think, is the best post-'MS'), but 'MS' it ain't.

Next up Eleanor Rigby, another novel which, while having some great Coupland-esque moments, doesn't quite stack up in the plot stakes. Utterly bizarrely, its deus ex machina involves an inexplicably radioactive meteorite, but the plot also crumbles under a rather unconvincing lapse of memory. I don't doubt that these things can happen to people, but I didn't buy it here.

Then we have All Familes Are Psychotic, a bizarre tale involving all sorts of improbable plot connections. It does, however, have one of my favourite Couplandisms in it:

One person in six million will be struck by lightning. Fifteen people in a hundred will experience clinical depression. One woman in sixteen will experience breast cancer. One child in 30,000 will experience a serious limb deformity. One American in five will be a victim of violent crime. A day in which nothing happens is a miracle, a day in which all of the things that could have gone wrong didn't. The dull day is a triumph of the human spirit, and boredom is a luxury unprecedented in the history of our species.

This captures something that's often forgotten about modern life. That for all the problems it appears to assault us with, it's really a remarkably safe and stable time to exist. Certainly, to my mind, compared to the sort of life that our ancestors, even recently, enjoyed. Or, rather, didn't enjoy. Anyway, aside from this, the book's just too mixed-up to my mind.

And that takes us back to Girlfriend In A Coma, which I've already ranted about ...

[*] For reference, this whole thing Coupland has about introducing improbable or semi-religious events is something I'd steeled myself to ask him about when I saw him at a book-reading in London. I was all set to do it, but before I had a chance, the person in the queue behind me hijacked him, and steered him onto a conversation about Chuck Palahnuik, another novelists she'd name-droppingly recently met. Curses. Still, I at least shook his hand. Anyway, maybe I should drop him an e-mail?

Waterstone's crime spree

Not quite as interesting as that title. Out tonight to use up a friend's tickets to an evening of crime writers at one of our local Waterstone's shops (Above Bar). Unusual (in my limited experience) in that it had four authors on the billing: Mark Billingham, Graham Hurley, Meg Gardiner and June Hampson. Of them, we'd only heard of Hurley, since he's a local writer whose crime novels take place in Portsmouth. Now having visited my beloved Wikipedia, I realise that Billingham is by far the most famous of the four (i.e. the only one with an article about them!).

Format for the evening was an introduction from each of the writers in turn, followed by a passage or two from their most recently published works. After all four had finished, it was turned over to questions from the floor.

First up was Billingham. As noted already, we didn't know him from Adam, but found his introduction very amusing (an anecdote about meeting Mickey Rooney at the Beeb). As it turns out, in a previous life he was a stand-up comedian, and seems to have been involved in a number of famous TV and radio comedies. So, retrospectively, his performance was unsurprising. Anyway, he read two sections from his novel, both of which were quite good. Certainly drew you into the novel somewhat, although they were a bit clichéd in a way.

Next up was Hampson. Another local writer, this time from Gosport. Most interesting was her route into writing. After a couple of abusive marriages and a career running a market stall in Southampton, she slipped first into writing stories (presumably short stories) and then, more recently, novels. I wasn't terribly convinced by the two passages she read out though. The first (her main character is about to power-drill the head of a naked man she's tied to a bed) sounded like a terrible cliché topped off with an abrupt character transformation (after she comes close to using the drill, she's bought off by an unconvincing promise). The second, which took place at the opposite end of the novel, was overshadowed by the complete reversal of the situation in the first - the main character is now (unconvincingly) in love with said naked man. Admittedly, we did skip over the whole central section of the novel, but still ...

Then we had Gardiner, an American writer now living in the UK. She gave quite an engaging introduction, but the novel fragment she chose was terrible. For starters, it wasn't really crime fiction. It was clearly a thriller. But it was more like a screenplay for a run-of-the-mill Hollywood potboiler than for a novel. You could almost visualise how the scene she was describing would be shot. She may just have chosen poorly (i.e. an action scene), but I wasn't buoyed up much by her description of the rest of the novel.

Finally, we had Hurley. Much, much better all round. His introduction gave a lot more insight into how he goes about researching his books, and was told very humourously. Interestingly, he again had a TV background originally, but he had also been a "conventional" novelist before his publisher suggested that he try writing crime fiction. What was particularly interesting was that, as he tells it, he wasn't convinced by this idea at all, and it took some doing to get him on his way. Anyway, his introduction dealt with all of the background research involving the transport police that he did just for the opening chapter of his latest novel. This chapter itself was altogether much better written than anything the other authors had read out (it dealt with the start of the day for a train driver who finds, and hits, a body on the tracks). I doubt I'll ever read it, but his was certainly the first work I'd turn to from the evening.

Questions and answers after the readings were very interesting, and most amusing. We got stuck first on the topic of why female crime writers seem more violent that male writers (it pertained to some firefight that Ian Rankin recently found himself embroiled in). I'm not sure that we reached any sort of conclusion on that, beyond that female writers "seem to prefer" writing about dark motivations, or something. Most of the other questions covered similar ground to what these Q&A sessions usually seem to. We even had a painful session with a struggling writer. Still, it wound up being both interesting and informative. And overall the evening passed much more enjoyably than we'd imagined for an evening of genre fun.