PLEASE NOTE: The freebie will be available longer, until Monday April 29, in certain timezones (especially Europe).
About ALIEN BEACH:A VISIT TO THE ISLAND CALLED EARTH...
What might have happened if aliens had visited our world, the real world, in the very recent past? What would NOT happen?
On a tiny Pacific atoll nicknamed ALIEN BEACH, a group of men and women come face to face with amphibian visitors from space.
They must learn to understand these enigmatic visitors, before the planet is thrown into a war that cannot be won... and in doing so, come to understand themselves.
Book Review: THE CITY AND THE CITY (2009) by China Miéville
This highly original novel is thematically related to China Miéville's novel EMBASSYTOWN (2011). Both books are based on how language and abstraction can shape our perception of reality. It's a detective story, mixed with Magical Realism, and cannot easily be classified as either Science Fiction or Fantasy.
(Tellingly, the novel has won awards in both genre categories.)
Imagine there's a city-state named Beszel, located somewhere in the Balkans part of Eastern Europe. It's post-Soviet, not wealthy, and a bit backward - like, say, Romania in the early 2000s.
An experienced police detective in Beszel, Inspector Borlu, starts investigating the brutal murder of an American woman. But the investigation soon extends to another city-state, named Ul Qoma.
The inspector's work becomes involved with the complicated political entanglements and historical rivalries between the two cities... and he tracks down a possible conspiracy connected to the murder.
Now, where do you think that other city Ul Qoma is located? Next to Beszel? Across a river? Underground?
No. Both cities exist in the same place.
And yet, the people living in one city are forbidden to admit that the "other city" is there (this rule applies both ways).
So citizens of both Beszel and Ul Qoma have to live as if they know the other city formally exists - as a separate place and rival culture - but never admitting the presence of (or bumping into) the "other people" among them.
Obviously, this state of things complicates Inspector Borlu's work - there are convoluted rules for "crossing over" from one city to another, and a secret police to keep the order.
The murder investigation allows the reader to get to know the two cities in great, gritty detail. They feel very much like realistic, lived-in places with an Eastern European sensibility.
By far, the greatest feat Miéville pulls off is to describe how the protagonist and the other characters go about not seeing (or "unseeing") the parallel city with all its people and activity. Even down to mundane details such as: How do you drive a car in urban traffic, when you're not allowed to see (or bump into) half the traffic?
This really shouldn't work - and yet the reader is pulled in.
The ending was not what I expected. I had anticipated something different, as it seemed the story was building up to some big revelatory or mysterious climax.
The book circle I'm in had a very interesting and lively talk about THE CITY AND THE CITY. When we discussed the ending, someone put it like this: The climax may seem anticlimactic, but is consistent with China Miéville's recurring themes. He's very much into writing "anti-romantic" or "anti-mythological" stories.
Nevertheless, the book is absolutely worth reading. If I would compare THE CITY AND THE CITY with the works of another author, I'd say Jorge Luis Borges comes close.
As with EMBASSYTOWN, a grain of doubt remained in the back of my mind. I "got" the concept, but even so... was it too illogical? Too self-contradictory? (Like when a child has a new, weird idea and gets very excited, but the grownup can see the fundamental logical flaw that makes the idea unworkable.)
Even when I admit that small doubt, THE CITY AND THE CITY remains a fascinating, thought-provoking experiment in Magical Realism. Recommended.
(FOOTNOTE: There is a BBC miniseries adaptation of the novel. Are you curious about how the TV series visually solved the problem of showing people not seeing something that exists in front of them? So am I.)
Novellsamlingen DET BLINDA RUMMET innehåller en stor del av mina tidigare publicerade noveller. Flera av dem har aldrig tidigare varit översatta till svenska.
Här finns halsbrytande fantasier, satir, skräck, humor och massor av science fiction.
Boken har fått lovord:
"Yngves noveller är innovativa och tidstypiska." - Tora F. Greve, författare och redaktör
"A.R. Yngves noveller är fantasirika och pulpdoftande, inte sällan kryddade med en god portion humor." - Patrik Centerwall, författare
"Yngves berättelser kombinerar Isaac Asimovs obevekliga logik och Philip K. Dicks oförutsägbara märkligheter. En fascinerande läsupplevelse!" - KG Johansson, författare och musiker
Den svenska novellsamlingen DET BLINDA RUMMET kan beställas som pocket här:
What surprised me when I began reading this novel was its frank description of the horrors of China's political turmoil in the 1960s and 70s. (I had assumed such books would run into state censorship.)
It was tempting to interpret THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM as criticism of the Communist regime in the guise of SF... but as I read on, it became evident that the author has much bigger fish to fry. The novel carries a very serious message about the search for extraterrestrial life.
The plot has three interwoven threads: the tragic life of the scientist Ye Wenjie, the hunt to uncover a massive conspiracy against science itself, and the history of an extraterrestrial civilization pitted against Earth.
There is a lot I really like about this book. It is mostly well written, there is not an ounce of unnecessary text, it knows what it wants to say and makes a clear, reasoned argument. This is "highbrow" SF of the finest order.
It's refreshing to read SF that comes from a Chinese perspective! Cixin Liu breathes new life into a very old theme - "first contact."
It also contains original ideas and some amazing, memorable scenes.
The only weak part was the depiction of the extraterrestrials themselves - they struck me as behaving too much like Earthlings to be credibly "alien."
Does THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM's message hold up to scrutiny? If it does, it could influence the course of humanity's future. You should read the novel and make up your own mind.
Strongly recommended reading.
2. THE DARK FOREST
THE DARK FOREST (2008) by Cixin Liu
THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM ended in a huge cliffhanger: Can humanity survive an impending alien invasion?
You must read the third book in the series to find out how this story ends, because the sequel THE DARK FOREST leaves many questions unanswered.
THE DARK FOREST is mainly about preparing humanity for a terrible future - and how hope can survive.
The novel also develops the argument made in THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM - about the inherent danger of alien civilizations... I am not sure where I stand on that subject, but I think that far too much science fiction isn't taking it seriously.
THE DARK FOREST suffers from being the middle book in a trilogy. It is very clear about what it wants to say, but it is unevenly written (or translated??).
The "flatness" of the characters, a typical feature of "Hard" Science Fiction, gets worse here - because the author struggles to give the characters depth, but he doesn't completely succeed.
There are several plot twists - some are good - and a major one that is quite weak (humanity wandering stupidly into an obvious trap, with disastrous consequences).
Despite these criticisms, I just had to read the book to see what would happen next. I recommend it with a caveat: if you're not engaged in the main plot or the trilogy's "big ideas," THE DARK FOREST may bore you.
Me, I'm engaged and then some...
3. DEATH'S END
DEATH'S END (2010) by Cixin Liu
This novel is the third and final part of a trilogy that began with THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM and continued with THE DARK FOREST.
I really enjoyed the first book in the series. The second book didn't reach the same heights as the first... but the third part really succeeds. This is seriously epic stuff, spanning the far future and painting a vision of the ultimate fate of humanity.
The plot involves spectacular super-science, scale and size being used repeatedly to evoke gigantic change, vast passages of time... and destruction on a cosmic scale.
You might think that the human characters would be utterly dwarfed by the sheer scale of the story. But the author still manages to make the characters and their actions matter.
I noted that in all three books, Cixin Liu has a great knack for building a crisis and raising the stakes. Disaster is heaped upon disaster, until the odds against the protagonist seem hopeless – and then, at the last minute, comes an almost miraculous rescue, solution or escape from certain doom.
Speaking of doom – the THREE-BODY PROBLEM trilogy is based on an extremely bleak premise. I had to finish the trilogy to see just how far the author would go with his ”Dark Forest” hypothesis. I won't spoil the plot, but I was impressed that he took his idea and ran with it.
You may appreciate THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM as a standalone novel, but the two sequels do not stand on their own. I recommend the whole trilogy for readers of ”hard SF” with a grand, epic sweep and for its unique, somber vision of the universe.
A new Substack piece on the connections between science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, director Paul Verhoeven, Internet memes, and the Swedish hit game HELLDIVERS II. Read it HERE:
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (1959) by Shirley Jackson
I had heard many good things about this novel - Stephen King has praised it - and I had seen the movie adaptations before I finally read it. (Haven't seen the Netflix series, though.) And I think it's a remarkable piece of fiction - a successful fusion of psychological horror and the "haunted house" story.
The novel centers around the character Eleanor, who starts out with a clear hint of mental problems... and grows increasingly unhinged as she stays in the haunted Hill House. Somehow Hill House comes to haunt Eleanor, until she loses her mind. How this happens is never really explained, but it works perfectly as an uncanny tale.
One detail struck me: Even for a novel written in the late 1950s, all the characters have way too good manners. No one swears, whatever happens - and they're Americans! (I've grown so used to Americans cursing all the "effing" time...)
A recurring theme in THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is parental issues.Eleanor seems to have been psychologically damaged by having to take care of her sick mother. Hill House was designed by a terrifying, creepy father figure. One character laments that he "never had a mother." I leave it to you to figure out how the parental issues are woven into the haunted house itself...
Another striking subtext - not a value judgment, just an observation - is how "gay" the principal characters are. Not one of the male characters seem the least bit sexually interested in women, but the female ones flirt with each other repeatedly and become infatuated with each other.
(I'm not sure how important this subtext is to the story. In any case I assume it was too sensitive for 1950s audiences and had to be "masked" somewhat.)
As for the ghosts, the reader never gets to see them. Rather it is the house itself that is evil.
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is both a psychological thriller about a disturbed, lonely person and a weird, modern ghost story. It will make a lasting impression on you. Highly recommended.
The title Captain Ishtar Vs. the Federation's Most Wanted is a C64 retro game in the works - not yet released. It's the sequel to Captain Ishtar, released in 2022 by Psytronik Software (UK).
Read more about these game projects on my Patreon page:
Patreon.com/ARYngve
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