Review: Lost Mars

Classic science fiction.

I’d like to describe this as good old-fashioned science fiction, but not only is that not quite true, but it’s probably an oxymoron, how can you have old-fashioned science fiction?  Although, ‘oxymoron’ is a word that would fit neatly into this collection of stories, possibly Martian terraformer worker slang to describe one who is profligate or unwise with their air supply on Mars.

‘Lost Mars’ is a collection of short stories about the red planet edited, very well, by Mike Ashley, beginning with a short story from H. G. wells published in 1897 and concluding with a shirt story from 1963 by J. G. Ballard.  This proves not just the enduring attraction of romantic fiction about the red planet, but that if you want to write science fiction, it does no harm at all to have two initials instead of a first name.

The stories are varied in style and tone, but there is a theme.  Fittingly for a collection of stories written and published many years ago, forgotten by some and presented here to be freshly discovered in this exceptional collection, many of the stories are about archaeology.  There seems to be an overwhelming belief, usually inspired by the popular scientific theories of the time, that although Mars might be a dead world, it was once host to an advanced civilization, now long gone, the legacy of which is there to be discovered.

This book really is a treasure, and every story is a gem.

The editor has also contributed in no small way to the reader’s enjoyment.  The introduction, so often the part of the book one flips past so as to not prejudice enjoyment or, worse, encounter spoilers, is a thoughtful and informative piece.  Each story comes with a very brief introduction.  The editor has a voice here, but he does not outstay his welcome.

The stories themselves are superb.  I found myself noting down the names of those science fiction writers that I was unfamiliar with, as based on the strength of their stories here, there are authors here that should make their way into any science fiction lovers’ To Be Read pile.  Science fiction fans always have a To Be read pile, as science fiction fans rarely leave any second hand bookshop without grasping a really lovely, if slightly foxed, paperback edition of a ‘classic’ possibly long out of print, the cover of which would now not be acceptable as a result of the MeToo movement.  You know the ones.

This, then, is one of those books that you make time to read, by not doing other stuff.  This is a ‘just another ten minutes’ short story collection.  This is the sort of short story collection where, after making the deal with yourself that you will stop at the end of this story, leads you to start the next one, just to enjoy the contrast.  Just another ten minutes.

It’s the classic case of a book you race through and regret finishing.

The collection tracks the trajectory of the development of thoughtful science fiction.  Although perhaps ‘development’ is not quite the word because the first story is just as good as the last.  The stories could be in any order, but it’s fascinating to read them chronologically.

Although you could be forgiven for flipping straight to the Bradbury as a visitor to an art gallery would go straight to the da Vinci, his story is, heresy alert, among equals here.

There’s a delightful H. G. Wells short story that, like all great science fiction, is much more about the human condition than the alien one, a charming oddity from a forgotten, except by those who know better, writer that’s effectively a postcard from the past, a fabulous repost to the Menace From Space genre, a great tale of prospecting in a harsh environment that just happens to be set on Mars, a corking tale of an expedition to Mars, and The Bradbury, which is the gateway to the modern era of tales which concludes the collection.

Finally, a word about the edition.  A tremendous front cover redolent of every science fiction magazine you ever held and loved as a child.

Recommended.

Step(ford)

Back in what blokes of a certain age are pleased to call 'the day' (an epoch defined by football supporter scarfs being made of natural fibres) ordinary people sought their affirmation from workmates, friends or acquaintances.  The famous, of course, got their affirmation from their fans in terms of record sales, ticket sales or, if you were not famous but toiled at the typewriter-face, book sales.  The obscure sought their affirmation in poetry prizes.  But for the 'ordinary' man, it was enough to be esteemed in the club house, the pub or your bell-ringing chapter.

The proliferation of media brought the democratisation of celebrity.  In particular, the digital revolution made it easier, quicker and cheaper to publish magazines, and so the rise of the lads mag allowed soap starlets to appear as almost unrecognisably glamorous versions of themselves (that is, on a beach nearly naked, as opposed to behind a TV soap set bar scowling), while reality shows turned 'normal' people into celebrities.

Society adapted by introducing new classes of celebrities, C, D, DD, E and so on.

As soon as Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, the race was on to totally democratise if not celebrity, then at least the ability to publish your image.  Blogs were alredy a thing of course, but now thanks to the iPhone enabled rise of platforms like Faceache, Instatwat and Twutter, you too could publish a picture of you in your pants on a beach, instead of your normal pose of scowling at the regulars behind a bar.

Most importantly, the world could swipe right to show their approval.  Instant affirmation.

(There is also the down-side of putting your pants above the parapet; negative reaction.  'No publicity is bad publicity' has morphed, in the information age, into 'Haters gotta hate' and then 'Haters back off' as a coping strategy for those who are offended that anyone might leave a negative comment about the photograph of them on a beach in their pants, particularly a comment that includes the term 'beached').

So the digitally connected and needy (in a Ven diagram, these circles would probably overlap more than is actually healthy) have a way of affirming not just their beach-pant selfie, but their food choices, their fashion choices and their hateful views.

(Also, see the rather excellent episode of 'Black Mirror' (the 'Twilight Zone' for the digital age) where your social status, as determined by the 'likes' you get in your interactions with others in everyday life, determines your place in society.  Your quality of life determined by having to be pleasant to others?  If that's not a dystopia for misanthropes, what is?).

Essentially, digital approval has allowed people to outsource their affirmation.  What used to be a role performed locally in the club house, pub or bedroom has moved offshore.

So far, so familiar.

Those of us who have, arguably, grown up reading science fiction and fantasy (a very easy bunch of people to spot, they are all bitter as Hell at the success and popularity of 'Game of Thrones', as in their youth an affection for, and ability to talk fluently about, fantasy was a more reliable way to ensure a lasting state of chastity than entering a secure religious community) have long been aware that a Robot Uprising is not only highly likely but, having tried to buy crisps from a self service check out, has already bloody started.  The real threat from robots is taking our jobs, something car-assembly line workers found out about twenty years ago and supermarket check out staff are finding out now.  If Ned Ludd were alive today, he'd buy a (hand-made) cricket bat and be off to Waitrose to show his disapproval with one over the pavilion style whacks to the crisp-denying bastard machines that have replaced the humans there.

The Fitbit has replaced the offshore affirmation industry, it has automated affirmation.  Sometime in the afternoon or evening, a slight buzzing on your wrist announces that you have walked 10,000 steps.

This is, apparently, cause for celebration, at least that is what your watch is telling you.  That's right, your watch is telling you that you can feel smug and happy about this achievement.

How does it feel to have your mood dictated by a watch?  Let's just hope that the next upgrade doesn't include a malice option whereby any failure to reach the magic 10,000 steps results in a chide.  Or worse.  These watches link to your smartphone, conveniently buzzing when you get a text message, usually a second or two after your 'phone bleeps, bongs or buzzes depending on your preference.  What's to stop the watch wresting (or even wristing) control of your 'phone and texting your friends and family informing them that you only trudged half of your allotted long march of the day, possibly beginning the text 'Not judging but...'.

The only time any machine should be able to make you feel happy is when you unbox it on Christmas morning.

Iain Banks - ‘Troubled teens, turbulent atheists and really, really big guns’

It's been a year since Ian Banks passed.

Did he not get the memo?  His job was to turn out two books a year, one science fiction, the other of a genre of his choosing, until further notice.  Unfortunately it would appear that the universe had other ideas.

I bloody loved his books.  How does one judge what one’s favourite book is?  How about the number of times tou have re-read it?  Or how much you identify with it?  Or maybe you just happened to read it at a special or important moment in your life?  Or maybe reading the book was the special or important moment in your life.  Certainly, my copy of ‘Espedair Street’ looks well loved, as does my copy of ‘The Crow Road’.  Knowing that there are not going to be any new novels published, I’m going to have to slow down on the re-reading.

And god how I loved the sci-fi stuff.  Science fiction as it should be, with spaceships the size of, well, huge space ships, sardonic robots with loads of ordinance packed away in them, and proper aliens, and cool weapons and robots too.  There was probably some stuff in there about using the art form to examine the human condition but fuck that, I’ll save the introspection for the re-read.

I even loved ‘Raw Spirit’, where Banks essentially drives around distilleries, takes the tour, loads up his boot with scotch and, as far as I can work out, bills the lot to his publisher and writes it off against tax as ‘research’.  Cheers!  There’s probably more to it than that  but I’ll save it for the re-read.

I’ll miss Iain Banks.  I met him a couple of times at book signings and, despite the fact he was hugely popular and had probably been signing books for sweating fanboys like myself for days if not weeks, he had great charm and always seemed flattered that somebody was interested in his writing, and wanted a book signed.  And a hardback at that!

Harry Harrison R.I.P.

I can’t believe that Harry Harrison has passed away.

If there was any justice, the untimely death of an author would result in a rush to buy his or her books and stories the same way that the untimely death of a singer results in an increase in sales of their music.

This would mean that the death of Harry Harrison would have at least one good effect, knocking ‘fifty shades of shite’ and its spawn off the top of the bestseller chart.

But the death of an author does not have the same effect because those that already know and love them have their books and so reread them instead of reading them for the first time. Because while Mr Harrison’s sad passing may not have a beneficial effect, his life certainly did, as even my feeble collection of his books can attest.

Harry Harrison wrote grand science fiction for boys. The Stainless Steel Rat books were rattling good yarns. They had space ships, they had ray guns, they had humour and subtle social satire lost on me, lying in my bunk in a caravan during the summer holidays, reading with the intensity that only a young boy can, devouring adventure. Maybe it’s just the pages getting yellow, or the glue getting brittle, but I like to think that that paperback actually has that caravan-in-the-summertime smell, like hot Tupperware and air so hot and still you have to fan it to breath.

Reading ‘The Stainless Steel Rat’ was more fun than going to the beach.

And Slippery Jim diGriz wasn’t just confined to the pages of a paperback, he was a comic book hero. 2000AD, my staple stapled reading, was home to the comic book adaptation. Because I got my 2000AD on a Saturday morning my back issues smell predominantly of bacon roll and grease rather than caravan and sun cream, but I still thrill at the spaceships, the ray guns and the hero who is a crook and more moral than any upright citizen.

Harry Harrison wrote dystopian visions. A trilogy of books: ‘Homeworld’, ‘Wheelworld’ and ‘Starworld’. Read decades ago for the first time and then re-read in a burst of literary gluttony a couple of years ago and seeing the books with adult eyes, the effect like seeing a painting restored. The social commentary, and not just any commentary, but my kind of commentary. Highlighting injustice and prejudice and seeing science fiction reading like an edge of the seat thriller, with ray guns!

‘Technicolor time machine’, ‘Bill the galactic hero’ and ‘Star smashers of the galaxy rangers’ are to me the literary equivalents of favourite movies, ones that you ration yourself watching, but from which random scenes pop into your head at the oddest moment - and from which scenes you recognise in other books, in movies, in comics or on television.

Any science fiction fan learns after the first ten or twelve times not to explain to their date that the scene where the hero does that thing, with the girl…that’s from (insert short story written in the 1970s here). Any science fiction fan knows that Hollywood screenwriters spend 10% of their time at a typewriter and the remainder playing Dr Frankenstein with bits of genre stories they think nobody else has read.

Mr Harrison was influential.

He influenced me, at least. Made me a more voracious reader, probably made me a better person, or a more tolerant one anyway.

Everyone will be suggesting the best Harry Harrison story, or their favourite, so let me be no exception and join the celebration. There’s a story from 1965 called ‘Mute Milton’ which, in my collection of ‘The best of Harry Harrison’ (I pity the editor who had to make the choice of what constituted that, back in the day when I bought this, when a paperback cost £1.50 band new in a proper shop when the NET book agreement was still in place, before you could just publish a 10,000 pager in kindle edition). Mr Harrison himself introduces it as ‘an angry story’.

I read it, I got angry, I was a better person by the time I finished reading it.

Harry Harrison, Rest In Peace.

Croydon Tours

Croydon has, for many years, closely resembled downtown Kabul after a heavy night on the bombing. Driving a tram link through an already deeply unlovely environment left the place littered with the sort of water and twisted metal filled craters that one expects as the result of a laser-guided MK 12 'beardbuster' warhead, not the installation of a light rail link. Now that the dirt has settled and the tram is actually in place, Croydon still resembles downtown Kabul due to the large number of unemployed people milling about, the amputees (the tram link runs along the street and the locals have yet to learn how to dodge) and the violence, looting and burned-out buildings.

Tough to say when the rot set in, after all, the used to be an aerodrome here, the last word in glamour and being a target for the Luftwaffe, but even flying Nazis couldn't do as much damage as the council, who sealed the fate of the place when they removed all of the trees from the town centre and replaced them with a howling sense of hopeless desolation.

Put it this way, the crushing negative energy of Croydon is such that even M&S can't escape it's pull. Croydon is the home to rather a large M&S and, usually, such stores are a place to purchase a prawn sandwich and restore ones sense of equilibrium. If, on a shopping trip anywhere, one is feeling buffeted by the winds of fashion, typhoons of commerce or just struggling with the suspicion that the store has fitted a web cam in the changing cubicle to prevent shoplifting and provide the staff with hysterical footage of 'really I am a size twelve' women trying to struggle into a pair of size twelve jeans without the aid of thigh corsets, magic or being slathered in lard, then you can always pop into M&S to regulate your breathing while stocking up on sensible pants.

Not so in Croydon. The best way of describing the M&S in Croydon is to liken it to one of those KFC wannabe places, a fried chicken shop that can't quite meet the the exacting standards of KFC ('never more than 30% beak') but wants to attach itself to the idea of a brand (see also, any drink with the word 'cola' in it, and yes, I mean you Pepsi, you real deal wannabe you - the acid test: who ever asked for a rum and Pepsi?) so that drunk people will wander in by mistake. The M&S in Croydon is like a flagship experiment by a company that specialises in a homogenised brand dedicating at least 30% of their marketing, signage and shop floor look to reflect the locality, instead of the usual M&S shop design strategy (copy John Lewis). Unfortunately, the local look is 'Croydon', and so the store is shabby, crowded and overrun with morlocks.

H G Wells lived in South London and the influence of the area is plain to see in his works. Who has not returned from a trip to Croydon and not thought that it could really benefit from being levelled by a Martian heat ray? Croydon 2012 is pretty much all the evidence you need that H G Wells did actually possess a time machine, travelled forward in time to M&S, took one look at the creatures shambling around in the gloom, jumped back on his chrono-cycle, pedalled for home like Victoria Pendleton when she has forgotten to set the video to record 'come dine with me' (she's a massive fan, that's Victoria's secret) and started writing. It's a testament to his creative skill that after a visit to Croydon 2012 he wrote an entire novel and not just the word 'fffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkk!' stretched over 200 pages.

That somebody is offering tours is heartening. After all, they do Jack the Ripper tours in the East End, and ghost tours in York (and why, if ghost tours are so bloody authentic, do they never go through walls?), why not tours of Croydon? Directions to the station where trains leave for London every twenty minutes must be worth eight quid of anyone's money.

A change of scene - movies

If you want to change your universe, then surely one of the best ways to do it is to sit in a dark room, devoid of distraction, and watch adventure, excitement, action, romance and drama unfold in front of you in spectacular technicolor, to a rousing soundtrack, eating popcorn. People have even started sporting glasses to allow them to see things in three dee and immerse themselves even more. And buying larger sizes of popcorn. With the 'bucket' now the standard size, can the 'barrel', 'bin' or 'skip' be far behind?

Life on the screen, even in two dimensions, can be much more attractive than life in the aisles, especially if you have just run out of popcorn. Glamorous and heroic types leap into action, fall in love and step in time with the plot, the music or the werewolves depending on your taste in flicks. Even if the film is unrelentingly dire, the will be something about the way the hero wears a sweater while staring moodily out of a window into the rain that makes you think 'hummn, nice chunky sweater'. Even 'the horse whisperer', a film so without merit that when having to sit through it I was rather hoping that the vet would turn up and shoot me, has pleasant scenery.

It is captivating, to gaze into an oblong of excitement where people have adventurous and glamorous lives, seemingly unencumbered by the fits of rage that grip any normal person whenever they accidentally see one of those BT adverts on the telly.

And it's quite right and proper to be transported somewhere else for the length of the film, this is, after all, an escapist media. It's when people take the movie home with them that things start getting interesting, and sometimes a bit weird.

It can be as simple as using your iPod to lay down a soundtrack to your life, complete with theme tune and specific sounds for particular activities. Who would not, given the opportunity, want to have music composed for them to accompany, for instance, a montage of images of squeezing veg and deliberating over wine while on a visit to the supermarket. And would that drive to the garden centre not be a bit more interesting with some bespoke chase music? I once drove through the centre of London with the theme to 'The Professionals' on a loop and it was bloody terrific.

The worst offenders, even worse than the sort of people who like to talk about continuity errors on Internet message boards, are the sci if and fantasy fans who dress up as characters from their favourite movie and go to conventions. What strikes me as odd is that you get loads of different characters from loads of different franchises all mingling together, it's like the ultimate crossover event.

The problem is though that the bar has been set incredibly high. Ever since Carrie Fisher put on that gold bikini, there has only been one acceptable choice of costume for anyone at least half decent looking at a science fiction convention. The problem is that Carrie Fisher was indulging in quite a lot of drugs back when they shot Return of the Jedi, the sort that keep you thin. She was not indulging in quite a lot of cake, the sort that result in comments like ' are you sure you are on the right end of that 'slave Leia' chain.

But at least plump Leia's make the effort, and this is appreciated. On the other hand, painting yourself blue head to toe and repeatedly correcting people that you are from Pandora, actually, will not stop them yelling 'smurf!' at you at every opportunity.

A change of scene - escaping into a good book

A good book can often be a means to escape, as anyone who has read 'The Shawshank Redemption' knows. A compelling thriller that drives you on to turn the pages in a hurry to get from chase to court room to electric chair to the page where the publisher explains that the author died leaving the book unfinished to anger management classes is a classic route, and a good book an be an immersive experience, causing the real world to drop away around you. This is quite understandable if the real world is, say, public transport, or prison, less so if that world is a beach or hotel pool. Presumably one can enjoy Harry Potter at any time, while sunburn and snacks served to you on a lounger are not part of everyday life for most folk.

The power of the written word can be demonstrated in two ways, the first is that one occasionally sees otherwise normal looking people walking along reading a book. Actually preferring to find out what happens to their favourite character next than look where they are going. The second is the reaction that coming across somebody with the same last name as you in a book elicits. Mostly, the reaction is to hope that the character does not, at any time in the next three hundred odd pages, commit an act of gross indecency with a goat. And while we're at it, is it just me, or is the 'gross' tacked on to any accusation of indecency with a goat wholly unnecessary?

Readers escape into other various other worlds. They can be dark and gritty reflections of the real world, with familiar landmarks seen through a glass darkly; Rebus's Edinburgh for instance, rather less mime and rather more murder than usual. Or they can be like our own but twisted, like Neil Geiman's London. Or they can be magically distorted, like Hogwarts.

The mother load of escapist fiction is science fiction and fantasy, especially where a group of writers create and populate a shared universe or where one writer creates a saga so vast that one feels that the time spent reading it roughly equates to the time they actually spend living in the real world in any one week. Certainly, by the time I finished 'Game of Thrones' I was surprised that I didn't have chain mail ring marks puckering my arse where I'd been sitting on my armour.

Just as fanciful as science fiction is romantic fiction, with the odds of some rich good looking guy falling for the quirky fat girl about the same as somebody developing instantaneous interstellar travel in their shed, although this seems to be the plot of quite a number of novels in each genre respectively (fat girl finding love = romantic fiction, space ship in shed = science fiction, for the avoidance of doubt. Geeky guy finding love with quirky girl = plot of the sitcom 'Big bang theory'). Guys read books about space ships in sheds because they would like to live in a world where they could look out of the shed window and see the rings of Saturn rather than a compost heap, presumably women read romantic fiction because they would like to live in a world where lots of dairy in the diet and romantic perfection are not mutually exclusive.