The Christopher Miles ‘blog’ type thing

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Peter Carey’s novel about America (or the idea of America) is told in the interleaved, alternating voices of Olivier de Garmont, a French commissioner sent to study the judicial and penal system of the new world (but also to escape a revival of revolutionary fervour at home), and his itinerant English journeyman artist-cum-servant, nicknamed Parrot.

Carey’s investigation into the nature of democracy in America is based heavily on the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, and while these musings are fascinating, the real heart of the book is the frequently antagonistic but often strangely tender relationship between Parrot and Olivier.

Parrot’s voice is particularly strong, and while the narrative alternates between the two, the actual telling of the story is more complicated than it first appears. Parrot — a skilled engraver and calligraphist — takes dictation from the short-sighted Olivier (whose handwriting, we’re told, is quite awful), so that there are incidents told from Olivier’s point of view which appear in the sections belonging to Parrot, giving him the opportunity to provide his own commentary.

Carey in historical mode has a remarkable talent for making the reader feel what it’s like to be alive at a certain moment, with unusual but intensely imagined details — convicts being pressed together in a hulk like “wet poultry”, for instance, or an old woman’s “blood-filled hand”. And whenever Parrot opens his heart (which he does often, in rage, grief and joy), the words, and the effect, are magical. He is a complex, fully-realised character — and another of Carey’s orphans.

Many of Olivier’s observations about America are apparently paraphrasings and direct quotations of Tocqueville’s — for example, his ingenious recognition of the rocking chair (an invention of Benjamin Franklin, apparently) as being a symbol of America’s “democratic restlessness”, or when, upon being made to listen to a vocal performance by the young ladies of a Philadelphia family, he notes that “(what they) affect most are its difficult passages”, (which, I have to admit, put me in mind of the vocal gymnastics of the typical American Idol performance). Olivier’s prophecy that America will one day elect an idiot as president is a little obvious for my liking, though it suggests that Carey was coming from a pretty angry place when he conceived the book; this naked transplanting of the contemporary to the historical reminded me of the later sections of Antoni Jach’s Napoleon’s double.

Reading the book as an Australian, and knowing that Carey is ‘one of us’, Parrot and Olivier in America somehow also becomes a book about Australia (there is indeed a period of Parrot’s life set in the penal colony of New South Wales). It’s as though by making these points about America, Carey is making observations about Australia by comparison — though that may be less Carey’s intention and more my imagination. It would be fascinating, though, for America to send us a Carey, an Olivier, to describe our country to us with such penetration and such style.

(Oh, and the Australian edition is a wonder of a thing — frankly, it shits over the design of the UK and American editions.)

Carter beats the Devil by Glen David Gold

Given that the central character of this book is a stage magician, it’s probably not surprising that the reviewers quoted on the jacket, in seeking to praise the book, have borrowed so many phrases from the world of illusion and prestidigitation. It’s certainly an elegant read, full of charm, misdirection and the occasional pyrotechnic.

I was surprised that this book seemed to have been so well received when it was published in 2001. Not because it isn’t good, but because it seems in many ways unfashionable. Gold doesn’t come across as a showy writer, but his precise, effortless descriptions of action and motive are always economical and often beautiful. And he’s brilliant at constructing scenes, particularly in the second half, giving the book all the qualities of a great thriller.

Gold’s finest achievement, though, is his hero, Charles Carter: based on a real magician, but brought to life with all the character and complexity that fiction can supply.

Things we didn’t see coming by Steven Amsterdam

This is an intriguing, curious, eccentric book. The story is driven by a series of near-future cataclysms, yet Amsterdam eschews any sense of doom or apocalypse; instead we have an unnamed narrator adapting and surviving and finding ways to live in an unpredictable, highly mutable world within view of our own.

Like David Mitchell’s Cloud atlas, Things we didn’t see coming is told in a series of disconnected vignettes, each one requiring the reader to reorient themselves in a new world. Amsterdam handles the exposition well (though less so in the later sections, I felt), largely because his character doesn’t ruminate on the disasters and what has caused them (Y2K looms in the first section, and there has clearly been a melting of the ice caps at some point, and a future war appears to leave parts of the population irradiated and riddled with cancers), and because Amsterdam is shrewd about placing his character in revealing, telling and cleverly intersected situations.

In the end, it’s not about disaster, it’s about the before and after. It opens with prophecy, a plea to open our eyes to impending chaos, and it ends with a transcendant acceptance, with eyes literally closed. It’s about our worries — how we worry about the wrong things, how worrying about anything at all is a burden we needn’t carry, provided we have the courage to change who we are, and perhaps even to forget who we are.

Amsterdam’s narrator has no answers; he survives by coming to a way of living that works for him in the moment, and by being prepared to change that way of living as soon as it becomes unsustainable or proves maladaptive. There’s a line toward the end about “good choices for the apocalypse”; I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a working title for the book.

Horn by Peter M. Ball

Great concept, mixing grimy police procedural, online sleaze and the world of faerie. Much straighter than I expected, having read a bit of Ball’s short fiction this year, though that’s no doubt due to the noir trappings.

Looking forward to seeing where Ball takes the sequel, which is being published by Twelfth Planet Press in 2010.

‘To dream of stars: an astronomer’s lament’ by Peter M. Ball, published in Apex Magazine October 2009

A clever alternate history, sparingly but brilliantly evoking a weird version of England in communion with alien entities. Peter M. Ball has published some great stories this year.

‘The lucky strike’ by Kim Stanley Robinson, published in Vinland the dream

A fascinating alternate history concerning an aborted bombing of Hiroshima.

‘The merchant and the alchemist’s gate’ by Ted Chiang, published in The best science fiction and fantasy of the year Volume Two, edited by Jonathan Strahan

One of the finest things I’ve read this year — a concept that’s as well thought out as the best hard science-fiction, told in a perfectly judged voice evoking the best fantasy and fable. If Ted Chiang was prolific as well as being a genius, I think I’d have to murder him out of envy. As it stands (he publishes relatively rarely), I may only have to wound him.

‘The haunting that Jack built’ by Andrew J McKiernan, published in Aurealis: Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction #42

An effective merging of small town Australiana and European horror.

‘Anda’s game’ by Cory Doctorow, published in Overclocked

Doctorow has cornered the market in hip, clever, of-the-moment sci-fi. This isn’t even sci-fi, really — it’s a story about the industrial relations, espionage and the economics of MMORPGs. Ingenious.

‘The vision’ by Jonathan Lethem, published in Men and cartoons

Despite a convenient, slightly artificial set-up, this is a quietly powerful, sleight-of-hand piece about shame, secrets, and pride. There were a couple of distracting typos in this edition, but that’s more than made up for by the kooky back cover design, which pastiches the cheesy ads for X-ray glasses and hand buzzers and things you used to get in comic books. Looking forward to reading more.

‘Michael Laurits is: drowning’ by Paul Cornell, published in Eclipse Two, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Not so much a complete story as a metaphysical non-sequitur about the possibility of life after (or during?) death within a sophisticated, near-future social networking environment. Cornell’s narrative approach is a clever one, allowing him to explore his ingenious concept through a series of tantalising journalistic sketches. And as with his Doctor Who work (in print), he has a great knack for worldbuilding through well-chosen incidental details.

‘The rabbi’s hobby’ by Peter S. Beagle, published in Eclipse Two, edited by Jonathan Strahan

I suspect I’ll be looking for more of Beagle’s stories set in the post-World War Two Bronx, as this one is; the period is so well-rendered. For a moment I thought this story was going in a particular direction, then it went in another — and though the supernatural element is a little familiar, the resolution is nicely elusive.

Little brother by Cory Doctorow

This is the sort of book you read at a certain age and it blows your mind. There’s a great sense of verisimilitude to the sections on hacking, it feels totally fresh, and I doubt it will feel dated five or even ten years down the track. Things do start to get a little overblown toward the end. I didn’t totally buy the extremes to which the villains go, for instance — but maybe that’s me displaying exactly the sort of complacency Doctorow is warning about.

‘Hodge shall not be shot’ by Peter Craven, published in The Australian Literary Review September 2009

Craven uses the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Samuel Johnson’s birth to look at the art of biography as pioneered by James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson.

‘Shouts and whispers’ by Geoffrey Blainey, published in The Australian Literary Review September 2009

Blainey reviews Thomas Keneally’s Origins to Eureka, the first volume of Keneally’s planned history of Australia.

‘The annals of Eelin-Ok’ by Jeffrey Ford, published in The faery reel: tales from the twilight realm, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling

A beautiful, generous, life-affirming story that totally honours its unusual premise. I will always remember Eelin-Ok and his too-brief residency in that castle on the beach. Jeffrey Ford continues to amaze.

Moonraker by Ian Fleming

The only 007 novel set entirely in England. Fantastic opening act at M’s club, Blades, where Bond outsmarts the villain of the piece, whom M suspects of cheating at cards. It’s a totally unusual assignment for Bond, but a thrilling one. And Fleming knocks out some great descriptions, like when he describes a flock of seagulls, startled by an explosion above the cliffs of Dover, as looking like “black confetti” against the sky.

The writer’s tale by Russell T Davies & Benjamin Cook

Fantastic!

Devil may care by Sebastian Faulks

Fun, addictive, but not quite up to the standard of Fleming’s early books. Feels more like a novelisation of an unmade Bond film.

‘The last to be found’ by Christopher Harman, published in The Year’s Best Fantasy And Horror 2007 (Twentieth Annual Collection), edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant

This story genuinely creeped me out; I haven’t felt so absorbed in a tale for a long time. Not one to read on your own in a strange house in the middle of the night, let’s put it that way.

‘Pol Pot’s beautiful daughter’ by Geoff Ryman, published in The Year’s Best Fantasy And Horror 2007 (Twentieth Annual Collection), edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant

Another plank in my argument that Ryman’s lack of profile outside the sf community is the literary world’s loss. A startling, very human fantasy of the here and now, in a Cambodia that is real but somehow other.

‘Exhalation’ by Ted Chiang, published in Eclipse Two, edited by Jonathan Strahan

This story deserves all the accolades it’s received — despite a seemingly stilted and unpromising opening, the story follows its thought-experiment through to a startling, mind-expanding (literally) conclusion.

‘Heere be dragons’ by John Birmingham, published in Dreaming again, edited by Jack Dann

First Fleet meets zombies. Love the voice in which the story is told, and the splattery, gobbety events related therein.

‘Neverland blues’ by Adam Browne, published in Dreaming again, edited by Jack Dann

As plausible a theory as any concerning the ultimate fate of Michael Jackson. (Hint: he becomes a spaceship.)

‘The very pulse of the machine’ by Michael Swanwick, published in Tales of old Earth

A story with a genuine ‘sense of wonder’ moment. I like Swanwick’s weird, magical, sexy stuff — but then I come across a story like this and I’m reminded just how good he is with straight sf too.

‘The final writings of Baron Sir Heinrich Proteus von Zuse, botanist’ by Adam Browne, published in Aurealis: Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction #40

Adam Browne is unlike any other writer in Australian speculative fiction; here he gets away with another of his stories that aren’t stories — at least, not the sort you usually get in Aurealis. A remarkable writer, in my opinion.