Artemis

In 2014, Andy Weir successfully realized the dream of transitioning from software engineer and science nerd to blockbuster novelist with the Crown Publishing release of The Martian. I loved it. This year, 2021, he published Project Hail Mary, which reminded me that he had published his second novel, Artemis, four years ago and while I own a copy, I still had not read it. I resolved to remedy that. As I have stated previously, I am a slow reader, but I blasted through Artemis in a week during a handful of reading sessions including a particularly relaxing one at the beach.

Andy Weir returns to a first person perspective, this time telling the story as Jasmine, a twentysomething of Saudi descent who was raised on the lunar colony Artemis. Jasmine is intelligent and has great potential, but instead of applying herself in a science or a trade that would benefit the colony, she works as a porter making deliveries much to the disappointment of her father, also a resident of Artemis. Jasmine makes ends meet by moonlighting as a smuggler, a side hustle with particular synergy with her work as a porter. The colony’s lone star of justice, Rudy, has his watchful eyes on Jasmine but has not yet been able to catch her in the act. When Jasmine is offered a dangerous but lucrative assignment by a wealthy benefactor, she jumps at the opportunity. When the job goes bad, she is forced to run for her life, but when you live in an enclosed lunar colony, there aren’t many places to run to.

As in The Martian, Weir’s science explanations are in layman’s terms, allowing people who aren’t NASA geeks (and I use that term with utmost affection) like him to participate in the story and understand the science of lunar colonies. Did you know that while moon dust looks soft and pillowy, it is actually composed of very small balls of spiky rock and if you breathe it, it will shred your lungs? Good safety tip. Weir uses his knowledge and fandom of the history of manned spaceflight and space exploration to craft a believable lunar colony.

Jasmine is headstrong and smart. She has a mouth on her that gets into trouble as often as it gets her out of it. She has quite a bit of baggage that she has not yet unpacked, but it informs her actions, misguided though they may be. What I did not like about Jasmine was the oversexualization of her character. She has a reputation for sleeping around and nearly every interaction she has with a male character includes the topic of sex in some form. At one point in the story, she is trying to obtain some information and dresses like a prostitute to gain access to a restricted area. At another point, she meets a brilliant engineer friend who wants her to test out a new product he has designed. That product is a reusable condom and he has chosen her to test it because he knows she is promiscuous. One or two of these things throughout the novel would have seemed normal, but all of it packed into this three hundred page story felt gratuitous. After the fifth or sixth occurrence, I thought “wow, this is why female readers hate it when men write from a woman’s perspective”. I brought this up to my mother who also read the book and she said she none of it bothered her and suggested Weir was making a point about gender hypocrisy in sexuality.

The story of Artemis is a lot of fun. Whereas The Martian was a survival story, Artemis is a heist caper. While the main chapters tell the story in the first person present, the first half of the novel also includes letters Jasmine wrote to her Earthbound pen pal beginning in childhood and continuing as the two grow into adulthood. These letters help explain more of Jasmine’s state of mind and how her smuggling operation began. I enjoyed these glimpses into her past.

Not as brilliant as Weir’s stunning debut, Artemis is still an entertaining science fiction story. It is an accessible novel that could be enjoyed by people who only read science fiction casually. Even those who enjoy digging into the deep and challenging stories written by hard SF authors like Kim Stanley Robinson will enjoy the lighter themes of Artemis.

The Water Knife

All I wanted was a glass of water.

I usually have a beverage of some kind while I am reading. Maybe a tankard of ale for fantasy novels like Angus Watson’s excellent West of West trilogy. Wine feels right for elegant science fiction like anything written by Kim Stanley Robinson. Whisk(e)y for Raymond Chandler. But, while reading The Water Knife, I craved only water. It felt so precious and rare while reading this book due in large part to author Paolo Bacigalupi’s beautiful prose. Even while writing about a grim subject such as water wars between states in a near-future American Southwest, Bacigalupi paints such wonderful images of the parched and dusty land that just reading the words siphoned all of the moisture from my throat. Beer and wine did not at all sound appealing. Only a glass of water felt like the right beverage to have by my side.

Paolo Bacigalupi has forged a successful career writing in a science fiction sub-genre called climate fiction (or cli-fi for short, but do not ever call it that in my presence), a category I have only recently heard about. Some of the best books are reflections of the author’s time. Throughout the world right now, people are arguing about climate change. This is an ecologic argument on one side, an economic argument on the other, and a hostile one on both. Another issue at the core of society right now is the ever-widening wealth gap. Where I live in the United States, both subjects are frequently discussed by political candidates as they race toward the next election. In The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi shines a blinding spotlight on both of these issues and establishes a firm connection between them. While I hope the novel’s setting does not come to pass, it certainly seems like we are racing down that road at a breakneck pace.

What makes The Water Knife so good and so frightening is the story’s plausibility and recognizable setting. While the novel is classified as science fiction, it is not a far future tale flung to the stars. This is a near-future story with so many familiar elements that ground the story in the world we know and set the hair on one’s neck abuzz with the sense of imminent danger. One character drives a Tesla and wears a bulletproof jacket from the Calvin Klein fashion brand. Another drinks Dos Equis beer and wears an air filter mask from REI. Current water companies like Aquafina get a nod and a real nonfiction book about the American Southwest’s difficulty with water, Desert Cadillac, is cited by frequently by multiple characters in a reverent tone. “It’s the bible when it comes to water,” says one of them.

As a water knife, Angel Velasquez does dirty work for the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) at the bidding of its ruthless boss, Catherine Case. A former gang member recruited from prison for his ability to respond to evolving situations, his aggression, and his intelligence, Angel’s reward for his service to Case is a permanent residence in Cypress 1, a new arcology complex being built in Las Vegas. The Cypress complexes are self-sufficient communities contained within a single high-rise building and are climate-controlled to protect occupants from the frequent dust storms and triple-digit temperatures outside. They include luxury residences, shopping centers, coffee shops and restaurants, parks with ponds and waterfalls. They are also protected by paramilitary security forces. One must have a pass to enter a Cypress arcology and to live in one, one must either be ridiculously wealthy or be like Angel Velasquez whose job it is to eliminate threats to SNWA’s water supply and cut the flow of water to cities that the SNWA determines no longer deserves it. Here is one of those familiar elements that should make the reader uncomfortable. The SNWA is a real entity formed in 1991 to acquire and manage water resources for southern Nevada.

When Angel is sent to Phoenix, Arizona to investigate rumors of a potential new water source, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is investigating the brutal murder of a lawyer who may have had information about the water source Angel is trying to secure. Lucy is tough and tenacious and motivated to get the story despite multiple warnings from both cops and shady characters to leave it alone. Lucy is the moral compass of the novel, struggling to reconcile what she wants to do with what she feels she has to do.

Maria Villarosa is a young refugee from Texas, brought to Phoenix by her father who scored a job as a construction worker on Phoenix’s own version of the Cypress arcology. Named Taiyang after the Chinese company that is building it, the Phoenix arcology offers the same amenities as the Vegas arcologies and people are just as desperate to earn the right to live there as they are in Vegas. An accident leaves Maria on her own, homeless, fighting to survive in a dying neighborhood ruled by a violent man nicknamed The Vet. Maria is a survivor and not about to give up. Living as a refugee on the streets has toughened her despite her young age.

While on the surface,The Water Knife is an entertaining story, I was affected by the examination of class struggle. The ultra-wealthy have migrated from their gated communities to the fortresses of the Cypress and Taiyang complexes. Everyone else must live outside, suffer through harmful dust storms, and endure triple-digit temperatures even after sunset. The inhospitable nature of the desert is reasserting itself and only the haves are living in anything resembling comfort. Everyone else has sunburns, wears masks to prevent their lungs from filling with dust, and waits in line at water pumps to purchase a gallon at a time. There are already places in the world where this is very nearly the truth and if one looks at the state of water supplies in the American Southwest and California, one can imagine it happening here as well not too far in the future. It is a real problem with which our society is faced and one that feels too big to comprehend, too far along to correct. What worries me is that it is also the kind of problem that often results in violent rebellion.

One of Bacigalupi’s inspirations was Marc Reisner’s 1986 book Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water, which examines the danger of the region’s diminishing water supply. As a child growing up in my home state of California, I can recall droughts resulting in water rationing. We recently exited a seven-year period of drought that inspired many changes in landscaping practice. Where once verdant lawns and lush trees adorned housing lots, I now see many more native desert plants and succulents, more dirt and rockscapes. While it does return the region to a more natural environment, it probably will not prevent the grim future Bacigalupi portends in The Water Knife because humans are short-lived, selfish beings that will destroy everything around them to ensure their own comfort.

I tend to read a book, enjoy it, maybe write about it, and then move on, but this book has stayed with me and affected my routine. I have always been conscious of my water usage, but now I am even more careful. When once upon a time I may have dumped unused water down the sink, I will now take it outside and water plants with it. I take shorter showers. I am more conservative when washing dishes. Perhaps the most notable change in me, however, has been my increased intake of water. I now seem to drink water as though it will soon be taken from me. If we are not careful, it may be taken from all of us.

Blue Mars

It took me two decades, but I finally did it. I read the final volume of Kim Stanley Robinson's landmark Mars trilogy. I had read the first two volumes, Red Mars and Green Mars, in college but then life got in the way and I never managed to start the third book. I do not often make New Year's resolutions but this year, I resolved to finish the trilogy. After so many years, I was concerned that I would not remember any of the characters or events of the first two hefty stories and the third volume would be nebulous and inaccessible. Kim Stanley Robinson adeptly reintroduces his loyal readers to the key members of the First Hundred, the original colonists of Mars, and of the pivotal moments of the previous two volumes, weaving in references to the discoveries, the betrayals, the revolution. Before too long, I was deep into book three, living on Mars with Sax and Ann and Michel and Maya, worrying with them about the future of their new home planet and the society they created.

The longevity treatments have successfully extended the lifespans of the First Hundred and those who followed them, with many of the original colonists living more than two centuries. Back on Earth, overpopulation and a great flood send hoards of immigrants fleeing to the new Mars with its forests, oceans, and clean air. So what happens when population booms and the elderly are living long lives in defiance of nature and not passing on like they are supposed to? Now you have a crisis of culture and ideology as well as population. Blue Mars explores these themes along with the environmental question of whether it is right to propagate to new planets in the name of human survival. As with the previous novels in the trilogy, chapters are presented from the perspective of alternating characters, giving readers an equal exposure to the variety of scientific ideas and socio-political philosophies that haunt the people driving the future of the planet. In addition to members of the First Hundred, readers also hear from their children, themselves now advanced in age thanks to the longevity treatments. They are Martians with full lifetimes lived as the first humans native to a planet that is not Earth and they have very different goals from their parents, conflicting ideologies for their planet.

During this time, we also learn that mankind has now successfully established colonies on other planets as well as Mars and that there are outposts in the asteroid belt. The scope of the story grows beyond just the conflict between Mars and Mother Earth as now multiple planets, each with their nationalistic pride and needs, compete for resources in a solar system that, due to improved interplanetary travel technology, is rapidly shrinking in size. It is analogous to the consequence of commercial air travel on Earth in the mid-20th century. When it takes less than a day to travel to the other side of the world when it used to take months, the world shrinks dramatically and cultures homogenize.

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite authors as I have stated in my articles on Shaman and Aurora. He explains enough of the science--or invents it--that the story sounds plausible and he then surrounds that science with developed characters with whom I find myself relating in so many ways. His science fiction stories are not just a speculation of wild possibilities. They are human stories at their core. The best stories are and Robinson's stories number among the best I have ever enjoyed.

Blades of Winter

During the Spring of 2016, I read a back issue of Analog (November 2014). The Further Reading section of the magazine suggested several novels including G. T. Almasi's debut Blades of Winter. Analog's description of the book interested me enough that my brain filed the title and tucked it into the fleshy folds of my brain. Nearly a year later, I was browsing the fiction section of my bookstore when I saw the title again, emblazoned across the image of a redheaded young woman, stylish and sexy in her black leather outfit, perched on a rooftop in Paris with her assault rifle. I felt that brief electric surge of recognition and knocked the book into my shopping basket.

Blades of Winter is the first installment of the Shadowstorm series. Through some awkward blocks of exposition, readers are informed that this is an alternate history. Hitler's Germany was one of four victors of World War II along with China, Russia, and the United States of America. The victors carved up the world, creating large swaths of territory operating as vassal states of these major powers. Do you recall the real nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia after World War II? In Blades of Winter, the new world powers engaged in an arms race like no other, involving human cybernetic modification. This is the adventurous aspect of the novel that most interested me. As the story opens, we are introduced to protagonist Alix Nico, a nineteen-year-old Level 4 Interceptor as she gets herself into some bad trouble in New York City. This opening scene is --if I may be blunt-- badass and a wonderful introduction to the setting and our hero. The author does a great job of dangling carrots, enticing the reader to charge forward so they can learn the truth about whatever Alix just did and how she possibly could have accomplished such an impossible feat. It reminded me of the first time I watched Neo dodge bullets in The Matrix.

Alix is a member of ExOps, an American shadow organization populated by skilled military operatives who have undergone invasive surgeries to enhance themselves with advanced cybernetics to increase their field effectiveness. The other major powers have their own organizations though, so Alix and her colleagues enjoy no significant advantage on the field of battle. ExOps agents are sent into the field in small strike teams. Team members are awarded levels commensurate with their experience and operational success and earn cool titles like Infiltrator, Vindicator, and Liberator that describes their battlefield role. How would you like to have Vindicator on your business card? Alix is young and brash, constantly pushing the limits of her ability, often endangering herself and her team much to the chagrin of her superior officers. Her behavior is understandable though, as her father was the most talented ExOps figure in history until he disappeared. Alix has big shoes to fill and a legacy to live up to.

For the vast majority of the novel, I enjoyed the experience but in the early chapters, I found myself criticizing the author's writing in isolated pockets. At one point, Alix is under enemy gunfire and has taken cover behind a "crate of stuff". Stuff? I was irritated that Almasi cheated me out of a better picture of the situation by plopping a nondescript "crate of stuff" in the scene. Similar descriptions are used elsewhere, but I finally understood what was happening. It was not Almasi being lazy, it was narrator Alix being a teenage superspy concerned more about being shot than reading the shipping label on the crate of stuff to find out whether she was hiding behind a box of teddy bears or replica 15th century Ming Dynasty vases. Alix cares about survival, earning more powerful and cooler cybernetics, and taking out the bad guys. She does not care a lick about what is inside the crate of stuff behind which she is hiding. Once that realization clicked, I instantly forgave Almasi for what I had decided was bad writing and gave him credit for character development.

Throughout Blades of Winter, readers are treated to a globetrotting adventure as Alix and her team are deployed to exotic locations in an attempt to unravel a conspiracy that may reveal the true fate of Alix's father. The info-dumpy alternate world history blobs aside, Almasi does a good job of setting the tone and style of his novel through the use of chapter interstitials such as of newspaper articles, data files, and operation reports. These brief excerpts provide useful information and are a welcome break in the fast and frantic pace of the story.

I do not often read action novels like this, but I found myself enjoying Blades of Winter and plan to seek out the second volume of the series, Hammer of Angels. It is popcorn cinema in print form and just as I leave a fun action film feeling entertained, so did I feel as I read the last page of Blades of Winter.

Wastelands

I do not often read short stories. There is no good reason for this other than I find myself picking up a full-length novel most of the time when I am in the mood for fiction. On rare occasion though, I find myself with a short story collection in my hands. I discovered Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams sitting on the New Science Fiction Releases shelf at my local bookstore… X number of years ago. Holy smokes, I just opened the book to the publisher page to check the book’s publication date and found the retail receipt, yellowing and so faded that the print is barely legible. February 23, 2008.  Okay, so I have owned this book for nearly ten years. Like I said, I do not often read short stories.

A couple of years ago, however, I decided to read a short story between each book or two. This would allow me to continue reading something while putting my thoughts together for my blog entry about the previous long-form work. The practice has worked rather well and I have read some excellent short stories recently, be they in short story collections like Wastelands or in literature magazines like Tin House or Analog.

Wastelands is an impressive anthology of post-apocalypse stories written by some literary stars like Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, and Octavia Butler. It also introduced me to several writers who may be known to more prolific readers than I but who are new to me. Discovering a new writer is such a treat and that is the greatest benefit of anthologies such as these. All of the stories in Wastelands are good and some are downright great. I read the book over the course of a few years and do not recall every story, but a few notables stand out in my memory. “Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels” by George R.R. Martin was the first story in the collection that elicited a palpable emotional reaction. Cory Doctorow’s “When SysAdmins Ruled the Earth” is funny, not in a comedic way but rather in its truth and plausibility. I suppose that makes it frightening as well, but all of the stories in Wastelands are frightening in one way or another. “The Last of the O-Forms” by James Van Pelt and “Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus” by Neal Barrett Jr. follow resourceful wasteland entrepreneurs traveling from town to town with their carriages of curiosities, trading pleasure and fascination for another gallon of rare gas or a hot meal. I found myself amused that, when civilization falls and society reverts to tribalism, there may still be traveling showmen doing what they know how to do to, hoping the people they meet want what they have to offer enough to pay for it. “Killers” by Carol Emshwiller tells the story of a young woman struggling to survive in a remote town years after a domestic war has plunged her nation into a pre-industrial period. Maybe the war still wages. They do not know because the men who went off to fight it more than a decade ago have not returned and the modern society and infrastructure has collapsed so there is no news, no radio. Then a mysterious man appears at her window one night, filthy and starving. Who is he? Dale Bailey’s “The End of the World As We Know It” was a different kind of apocalypse story. It was deeply personal and the second story in the collection to cause some feels. I loved Bailey’s writing style and would like to read more from him. There are many more stories in this anthology, all of them well worth reading.

The most terrifying aspect of apocalypse fiction is that so many of the situations presented in the stories can actually happen. Perhaps these tales can serve to as a warning and help us prepare. Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse is a great anthology, the first compiled by editor John Joseph Adams. He has opened my eyes to the true value of story anthologies and you can bet I will more willing to grab one off the shelf if I see his name on it. I highly recommend it for fans of the apocalypse subgenre, but I think any science fiction fan would enjoy it. Even readers of more mainstream novels like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road will find a lot to like in this collection even if they claim to not enjoy genre fiction.