Book Review - Century Rain (Alastair Reynolds)

Century Rain is a futuristic sci-fi thriller from Alastair Reynolds. It opens in the 23^rd century, where humanity has divided into two factions – the machine-augmented Slashers and the more conservative Threshers – and the Earth has been deserted in the wake of a machine-led catastrophe. War between Slashers and Threshers is looming, especially over who gets to possess the Earth, which has been overtaken by machines. An archeologist named Verity Auger is approached by the Securities Board of the Threshers (aka, the secret service) to investigate a secret phenomenon; an immense metallic sphere capable of housing a planet. Inside is a replica of the Earth set during an alternate 1950s. Auger is called on to retreive some top secret documents from Paris, while evading the hostile Slasher forces that have already penetrated the planet.

One thing you can say for Alastair Reynolds is that he knows how to convey a sense of scale. Like his other works, this book spans vast swathes of space, sometimes even bending the laws of reality to give his universe an even greater scope. Even then, this feels like only one portion of a much bigger story. We keep getting hints of other events, like the past wars between Slashers and Threshers, and the Nanocaust which destroyed the Earth. The biggest event is the creation of the spheres, which we're kept in the dark about. We never find out who created them, or “how” or “why” for that matter. While it can feel like a bit of cheat to string the reader along for 500 pages with no clear answer, I like how Reynolds keeps certain things back, making his universe feel so much bigger. He's tackled similar themes in other works like Pushing Ice, where another super-advanced civilisation creates an enormous structure capable of containing a planet. I imagine you'd have to read all his novels to really understand it, given how he likes to loosely thread them together.

The alternate Earth is a different addition to his other books. This is the first time I've read Reynolds trying to write a “historical” piece. The concept of averting WWII has been around a long time, but Reynolds handles it in a fascinating way here. Here the War hasn't been averted, but greatly shortened, lasting a few months as the Nazis failed to take France due to unseasonally heavy rain (caused by the artificial climate of the sphere). Without the arms race that followed, the human race didn't progress technologically and is still stuck in a 1930s type world without television, computers, and most crucially, spacefaring technology that would reveal the truth about their world. Technology is not the only change though; because the Nazis never got as far as the Final Solution, there was no widespread condemnation of Fascism and global movement towards civil rights. The alternate France is clearly moving down the Fascist route again, while our protagonist (an American PI named Wendell Floyd) can only helplessly watch.

While Reynolds loves to play around with his universe and invent all sorts of weirdness, I didn't think his characterisation was that strong. It's not that he doesn't try; we spend a lot of time with Auger and Floyd, finding out about their pasts, their motivations, and their relations with the other characters. Reynolds does a lot to make these people three-dimensional and interesting, but for some reason, I didn't feel as invested in them as I should have. I suppose the hyperfuturistic setting is part of the problem. Reynolds's universe is certainly alien, but it's so alien that I sometimes struggle to connect with the people in it. The constant presence of technology, which has become almost omnipotent in its development, also makes the universe feel a bit too dettached from ours, as technologically-driven as our world is.

The scenes in alternate Paris were the best for me, as here the characters felt strongest. The relatability of the setting may have helped here. Floyd's situation was one that I think almost everyone can relate to. He has a choice between continuing his life in France with its – limited – security, or he can go to America with his one-time flame, Greta, and risk starting a new life there. Between a corrupt society, precarious job and unfulfilled ambitions, this is certainly not easy reading, but it's still the part of the book I feel works the best. I thought the slow-burning romance between Auger and Floyd was decently handled. I'm glad Reynolds didn't make it too saccharine, or go the other extreme and have them clash so much that their feelings didn't feel plausible. That said, I didn't think their relationship was remarkable – it didn't stay with me long after finishing the book – but it was enough to fill up the middle portion of the story.

Something else I feel this story could have needed was a bit more humour. Reynolds doesn't often try for humour, and when he does it's usually characters quipping in life-or-death situations, a style I don't really care for. Most of the time, his work comes off as po-faced and too serious, which can make be hard to engage with sometimes.

The technobabble can also be overbearing sometimes. Reynolds spends a lot of time discussing wormholes, nanotechnology, secret communications, and God knows what else. It's just about legible if you pay attention, which can be difficult when the plot slows down. Be warned, the plot slows a lot in this book, especially near the beginning and the end. The final section consists of our heroes travelling through space, trying to stop a superweapon being deployed on Floyd's Earth. It lasts about a hundred pages but I feel it could have been pared down a bit. This is another tactic Reynolds uses to show how enormous the universe is, by having his characters take ages to get from A to B, which is understandable if you want to convey realism. But did it really have to be done this much? By this point, I was just trying to finish the book as quickly as possible.

One last thing I want to touch on are the villains. The most predominant are those weird kids on Floyd's Earth, who in reality are genetically-modified soldiers which have stuck around a bit longer than their sell-by date, and are now starting to malfunction in psychotic ways. I love to see this sort of genre-bending, and Reynolds uses it to great effect here. The children behave like ghouls from European folklore, yet also serve as a warning about the limits of technology – the merging of Old and New World symbols is definitely one of my favourite things about this book.

However, these are only grunts. The real villains, the ones pulling all the strings are far, far less interesting. In fact, we only meet one of them briefly, and for the rest of the story, all we see of them are the tail-lights of their receding spaceship. Hardly what you'd call memorable.

With all that said, I'd still reccommend Century Rain for any sci-fi fans out there. Its eye for the grandiose and spectacular may feel alienating, especially when it comes to making the story feel more personal, but it's still well worth checking out.

TV Review - Better Call Saul (S02E01) "Switch"

It's hard to believe that already a year has gone by since the premiere of season 1 of Better Call Saul. Season 2 opens with a reminder of where Saul (Bob Odenkirk) ended up after escaping the carnage wrought by Walter White; working at a Cinnabon cafe in Omaha. The episode opens with some tropes we've come to expect from Vince Gilligan; extreme close-ups, ironic soundtrack, and a dreary disillusionment with modern society. At the end of another long day, Saul gets locked in the dumpster area, where the only way out is an alarmed fire escape. His dilemma in the opening scene reflects the deeper one he faces in Albuquerque; should he wait around for someone to get him out (or offer him a job), or should he plough ahead and take a risk (in this case, getting arrested or fired)?

The episode then cuts back to where Saul (still going by Jimmy McGill) was at the end of Season 1; turning his back on the legal profession to live out a life of directionless hedonism. Jimmy's forced to question every choice he's made since coming to Albuquerque; if all his efforts to become a lawyer have been to win his brother's approval, why should he bother when Chuck has no faith in him anyway? The possibility of redemption arrives in the form of Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), the one person who still refuses to let Jimmy throw his life away. As Kim tries to talk Jimmy into taking up the offer to work at Davis & Main, Jimmy rebuffs her with his own philosophy. Both arguments make sense given the characters' situation, and the episode toys with the audience's expectations about which way Jimmy will go in the end.

The scene leads to a lengthy sequence where Jimmy and Kim con an obnoxious stockbroker (Kyle Bornheimer) into treating them to dinner, in exchange for spinning him a yarn about their long-lost wealthy uncle. The script wisely doesn't tell us why Jimmy approaches him in the first place, or what his angle is when he plays up the role of a dupe. It's only when Jimmy and Kim run out on the check that Jimmy's motivations are made clear to us, and to Kim: scamming people is fun, and when life doesn't reward you for your hard work, why not have a little fun? This scene plays out like a lawyer's patter, with snappy dialogue and exuberant performances to lull the viewer in, not getting to the point until the very end. The closest analogue I could think of from last season was Jimmy's meltdown at the retirement home, where an innocent game of bingo turns into a truly unpleasant sob story. It's a form of storytelling that Gilligan clearly enjoys, and it's used to excellent effect here.

We also see it in the episode's other plot. Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) is unimpressed with the decisions made by his “boss”, Daniel Warmolt (Mark Proksch), and, in a most characteristic way, calmly walks away when he knows it's not worth his time. Warmolt had only a small role last year, but there are hints that he could become more central here. I certainly hope so, as this is a character with a lot of mileage – with his luminous runners and outrageous compensatory Hummer, one could read him as a more comical Walter White (if we didn't already have one). His Fargo-esque accent underlines how much of an outsider he is in sunbaked New Mexico. Endearingly, Warmolt lacks the most basic understanding of how to be a successful criminal, like not to call the cops when you've clearly got a dark secret in your home.

Tuco's lieutenant, Nacho (Michael Mando) also returns, still as menacing as ever. Interestingly, it's periphary characters like these that are currently driving the plot, as Jimmy, Kim and Mike don't really do much this week. Not that I'm complaining. The season's only just beginning and it's already itching to go places, throwing all manner of questions at us.

How does Jimmy go from a respectable lawfirm to a strip mall? What does Warmolt have behind his wall? Why wasn't Jimmy supposed to turn off that switch?

Answers to all these and more coming soon!

Book Review - The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett)

Private investigator Sam Spade is hired by a young woman to find her sister, fearing her disappearance is connected with her troublesome boyfriend, Phil Thursby. When his partner is shot while tailing Thursby, Spade starts to unravel a much deeper and more complicated case, centering around a coveted black falcon, a medieval artefact worth millions of dollars . . .

Being a noir novel, The Maltese Falcon is not without its complexity when it comes to plot. However, I feel the story works because of its relative simplicity. Dashiell Hammett's prose is less grandiose than the likes of Raymond Chandler. He doesn't add philosophical musings to the story, but merely describes what is happening in the present.

Although the book follows Spade, we aren't given an insight into his thoughts unless he talks about them out loud. Hammett likes to describe Spade's facial expressions, but leaves it up to the reader to decipher them. In this way, the characters are constantly kept at arm's length, keeping their motivations in the dark which leaves the reader more freedom to interpret them how they want.

Because the book avoids introspection, Hammett's focus on external description is heightened. He has a keen eye for detail and creates a vivid impression of what his characters look like. Spade is described at the start as a “blond satan”, and the V's of his face – eyebrows, nose and mouth – are emphasised (something here). Other characters, like Gutman or Joel Cairo, also get in-depth descriptions, which makes the world of the text feel more vivid, and its characters more memorable.

The lack of introspection also leaves Spade's relations with other characters often open to interpretation. I thought his relationship with his secretary, Effie Perine, was the most interesting. There's a mutual affection there, though friction sometimes comes into it. Spade likes to play at being brash and cocky, whereas Effie is more straightforward and can find Spade exasperating sometimes. Hammett gives away enough to keep the reader interested, without making explicit if their relationship has romantic potential, or is more of a friendship or avuncular dynamic.

I thought there were also seeds of an interesting dynamic between Spade and his partner, Miles Archer. Spade clearly doesn't like Miles, and doesn't respect him either as he has an affair with his wife, Iva. However, Miles is killed early on in the story, and Iva only appears in a few scenes, meaning this subplot is not explored as much as I think it could have been.

I also thought Bridgit O'Shaughnessy, the woman who comes to Spade at the start, could have been developed more. She milks the damsel in distress trope a few too many times, and her teary pleas for help come off very repetitive. Hammett at least doesn't take long to show she's not as innocent as she lets on, but the fact that it doesn't lead to any big change in her personality or behaviour leaves her feeling a bit flat as a character.

Despite its weak points, I'd still reccommend The Maltese Falcon to any crime fans. I'll also make sure to check out Hammett's other works in the future.