Upcoming

Spent the journey in this morning writing four short reviews (which involved reading more than a dozen books) for a roundup, to arrive and discover a large ad had sold, and they wanted two very short ones. Oh well. I suppose I may be alble to do the next one a bit sooner for that reason. What I hope you'll get soon in the Telegraph is Paul McAuley's Cowboy Angels and Charlie Stross's Atrocity Archive and Jennifer Morgue.

What's been held over from today is the Peter F Hamilton and Hunter's Run; but there are a few other books I'd like to have included, so I can add them to that pair and get another one soon, I hope. It's much harder to write 150 words on something in sf - especially if you've ploughed through 650 pages of PFH, for example, which you can only really write about if you've read the previous two 650pp tomes in the same series, than it is to knock out 850 words on anything else. Still, I suppose I asked for it.

Future Classics: Schild's Ladder arrived this morning. It doesn't really glow in the dark, or not very successfully.

Fairyland

OK, wow. And the same effect seems to have been evident with others who hadn't got round to it earlier. I'm not sure I have much to add to that very intelligent view, except to wonder if it isn't the reverse. Couldn't one read the conclusion as a retreat from understanding the story as purely fantastic at the end? Surely that's simply the subjective view we're getting? As we know from the beginning of the book, Alex can mess around with your perception (a thoroughly sf premiss - I prefer the philosophy spelling).

I also raced through Blood Music, it having been a while. Bloody hell, it's good. But would the ending of that not seem fantastic, or at least transcendent, were the earlier stages not so rigorously scientifically based?

On to the next lot. Thanks Niall.

Future Classics

Nice Gollancz have sent me seven paperbacks (though they list eight in this series) with very snazzy covers. I've got them all already. I've read them all already, except for Paul McAuley's (I beg your pardon - having been declared a future classic, he's now Paul J McAuley) Fairyland. I'm ashamed of that, because Mr McAuley is a very nice man indeed, who has bought me several pints. The least I can do is read his books. His very good new book is called Cowboy Angels. Multidimensional Americas. But I will review it properly. So now I will read Fairyland.

But from the standard of the other titles, Gollancz may be on to something with this rebranding exercise. Evolution features a flock wallpaper ape. The Separation has classy brown paper aeroplanes (if you've got the original Scribner paperback, you'd be horrified at how much it's worth; they only printed about five of them, being bastards and idiots. Mr Priest got the last laugh there). I don't understand the Dan Simmonds cover, but it's one of the most in your face first sentences in sf. Revelation Space is appropriately shiny. And so on.

My doubt is Altered Carbon. Entertaining, yes. Successful, undoubtedly. Classic... well, maybe. Perhaps Ryman and Harrison and Banks and Mieville and Grimwood and Roberts and MacLeod and lots of those other folk don't need pushing as future classics. The list is (in no order):

Hyperion, Dan Simmonds
Evolution, Stephen Baxter
Fairyland, Paul J McAuley
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
The Separation, Christopher Priest
Blood Music, Greg Bear
Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan

The missing one - listed inside - is Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan. He has strong views on quotations on book jackets (he's agin the idea), and I wonder if that has caused some difficulty with it. I will ask people who might know.