A WHOLE BUNCH OF REVIEWS by Mike Cobley CHUNG KUO - VOL THREE: THE WHITE MOUNTAIN by David Wingrove (New English Library). Hot damn. Now this is what I call an ambitious novel; a Chinese-dominated future world where 36 billion human beings inhabit enclosed cities the size of continents, and live in a stratified Confucian society that has the emphasis on preventing change. To this add intrigue among the seven ruling dynasties, social injustice and criminal corruption, political subversion/ rebellion/assassination, false histories, and secret technological developments (including intelligent androids, virtual reality, and mind control). Then develop a dramatic story in this multiplex reality and show it from dozens of character viewpoints in a novel spanning eight volumes... Wingrove makes the whole daunting assemblage work, nay, sing with a symphonic versatility; majestic splendour modulates into pain and despair with harmonies of symbolism, and all to an ominous and brutal backbeat...get the idea? Okay, now a summary: Volume One, THE MIDDLE KINGDOM, introduced the background with all its social and political problems, especially those of population growth. The struggle for the fate of Humanity is expressed in the conflict between the pro-change Dispersionists (a European cabal of industrialists and businessmen) and Li Shai Tang, the ruling T`ang of City Europe. By the start of Volume Two, THE BROKEN WHEEL, the Dispersionists are finished, their leaders dead or in hiding ... but a then a revolutionary group, the Ping Tiao, rises to prominence and conducts a terrorist campaign against the State. But in the first part of Volume Three, THE WHITE MOUNTAIN, the Ping Tiao badly midjudge their actions in destroying an important fortress and killing thousands of innocents in the process: massive retaliation by the security forces almost wipes them out. Wingrove skillfully avoids cliches by generously imbuing his characters and situations with ambiguity and contradiction: the absolute rulers, especially the T`ang of Europe, are shown as noble, sympathetic characters, while the freedom fighters are callous and brutal. The foremost opponent of the global state of Chung Kuo is Howard DeVore, a former major in the security forces; he works with first the Dispersionists then the Ping Tiao. However, he has his own deep plans to overthrow Chung Kuo, and ruthlessly uses both organisations to that end. But the governing theme is that of change. In THE WHITE MOUNTAIN, corruption and division emerge among the seven T`ang, centred on Wang Sau-leyan, T`ang of Africa, who schemes against Li Yuan, T`ang of Europe after the death of his father, Li Shai Tang. And as above, so below. A third force of rebellion, the Yu, rises to confront the State; their selective assassination of corrupt officials and murderers gains them a reputation for moral principle. Significantly, DeVore has no part in their operations. In THE WHITE MOUNTAIN, Wingrove comes over like some mutant offspring of A.E. Van Vogt and the I Ching, and has created a story of depth and drama that is also hugely entertaining. So if you haven`t read any of the CHUNG KUO books you are definitely missing out on a major in British SF. Go remedy the situation. POSTSCRIPT The number of volumes of the CHUNG KUO sequence now available is five: Vol 1 - THE MIDDLE KINGDOM Vol 2 - THE BROKEN WHEEL Vol 3 - THE WHITE MOUNTAIN Vol 4 - THE STONE WITHIN Vol 5 - BENEATH THE TREE OF HEAVEN Volume 6, WHITE MOON, RED DRAGON, is due for publication in the near *     * *     * HEARTS, HANDS AND VOICES by Ian Mcdonald (Gollancz) Was in Forbidden Planet the other day, awed as usual by those packed shelves, that sheer giga-wordage of stuff. Sure, the serried ranks of StarTrekPernXanthElf SlasherDragons are as intimidating as hell, but all it takes to put them in their place is the appearance of outstanding books like NEUROMANCER, ANUBIS GATES, CHUNG KUO, SCHISMATRIX, HYPERION... And HEARTS, HANDS AND VOICES by Ian Mcdonald. Mcdonald`s prose style has been mainly of a luscious, polychromatic magical realism, broken occasionally by the stripped-down cool of short stories like ISLAND OF THE DEAD, RADIO MARRAKECH, or WINNING. In HEARTS, HANDS AND VOICES, though, the virtuosity is more restrained, far more closely directed, and a sense of genuine menace makes itself felt. There was plenty of spectacular and moving conflict in the earlier novels, DESOLATION ROAD and OUT ON BLUE SIX, while KING OF MORNING, QUEEN OF DAY explored a deeper darkness. But what comes through in H,H & V is anger. Anger at religious bigotry, at the malice of power,at procrastination, at the seduction of the young by hate. The setting is a nanotech-permeated, millenia- distant future full of plastic jungles, semi-sentient houses and vehicles, and malleable plants producing all the basics of life. This exotic profusion is seen through the eyes of Mathembe, a mute teenage girl living in a village in the last sizable province of a once-great empire. Religious and political schisms divide province and village, youngsters hang out in opposing gangs, symbols and slogans define attitudes, while soldiers hunt for terrorists... Yet while Mcdonald`s life in N. Ireland is clearly the source of his anger, H, H & V is no simple transcription of the situation there. Mcdonald`s writings are full of characters pitted against their own limitations as well as darkness and evil: he shows the various ways in which those limitations can be transcended (and the ways in which they overwhelm the characters). In this light, Mathembe is one of his most successful characters: she loses her home then her family, goes from village to city to refugee ship, encounters beauty and terror, love and hate, fulfillment and tragedy. Yet she isn`t the Empress of Everything - she doesn`t end up at the hub of the Evil Empire, confronting the heart of darkness. Mcdonald understands that true mass evil stems from the small evils rooted in individual souls. Mathembe`s search for her mother takes her out to the borderlands where she is forced to confront Hradu, her own brother, whose hate has twisted and trapped him. The end comes with the door of Mathembe`s muteness unlocked by a redeeming technology. It is also a resolution without closure. Strings are left untied, opposing forces are unreconciled, yet the way in which Mathembe`s limitations are transcended is so profound, so full of potential for change, that the story echoes and resounds beyond the final page, living on in the reader`s mind. Which is a departure from his previous novels, and from most SF published in the UK. If writing is about making choices then Mcdonald has chosen well in subject matter, characters, the events of his story, and its resolution. His skill in melding them into a meaningful, emotive whole puts him head and shoulders above the great majority of British (and American) SF and fantasy writers. HEARTS, HANDS AND VOICES in unique, touching and bizarre, horrifying and hopeful, and sets a benchmark of excellence for the whole field. So next time you`re in your local SF book store, tell the ElfSlasherDragons to sling their collective hook, dredge the shekels from you pocket and damn well buy this book. *   * *     * THE GLASS HAMMER by K.W. Jeter Smooth, this book. Like the finest liquer/whisky/rum you`ve ever tasted, cut with razor-cold despair and an angst that has to be savoured to be believed. Jeter was and is still considered to be one of the original cyberpunks, though he doesn`t have anything like the street-chic populist aura of the likes of Gibson or Sterling. But with THE GLASS HAMMER he showed that he could jack it with the best. Set in a gritty near-future, the novel`s protag is Ross Schuyler who drives his racer across the Arizona desert, smuggling black market computer chips to L.A., while dodging explosive particle beam pulses from government satellites in orbit. The surreal twist is that Schuyler, and all the other driver-smugglers, are stars in a widely-syndicated TV show made by a company called Speed Death Productions. The novel is told in a combination of flashbacks and real-time, both from Schuyler`s viewpoint and from the viewpoint of the cameras that track his movements. Interspersed with all this are excerpts from a autobio/docudrama of his life which highlights the book`s main theme, namely the way in which reality is distorted by TV, by filmed, re-enacted versions of reality. The mood of THE GLASS HAMMER is hard-edged, lean. Schuyler is caught up in both the smuggling operation and in the strange half-lies that TV is telling about him. Conspiracy haunts him and a terrible doom seems to draw its nets about him as one by one his fellow drivers are killed by satellite lasers till there is only himself. In flashback we can see how he got to where he is, his involvement with the unearthly, all- female sect, the Godfriends, and how he fathers a child around which a bizarre religion grows. THE GLASS HAMMER is not an easy read; the focus jumps back and forth and alters between real-life and the TV film version of his life. But it is this series of contrasts and contradictions that make the book so unique and such an essential part of the cyberpunk canon. Get hold of it if you can, and find out what it means to have your head played with. *     * *     * THE ANUBIS GATES by Tim Powers This is the real thing. This is adventure story- telling at its finest. It`s all here, from wizened, immortal Egyptians scheming to bring back ancient Egyptian gods, to time travel, to a body-hopping spirit, to mind-stomplingly weird beggar lords in the sewers beneath 19th century London, death and resurrection, evil twins, grotesque medical experiments - it is all brilliantly fused together in a novel that`ll have you breathless right to the end. Brendan Doyle is an American scholar who travels to Britain to help Darrow, a mysterious millionaire, with a project involving the works of Coleridge. Once there he discovers that Darrow has perfected a bizarre form of time travel that will take them back to 19th century London, to an inn where Samuel Taylor Coleridge is due to give a lecture. Doyle, and a small party of rich, paying companions, travel back to the very place and time. But then Doyle becomes embroiled in the intrigues of a pair of Egyptian magicians who are scheming to bring back the gods of ancient Egypt and destroy the British Empire. Then the book gets really weird. Suffice to say that Doyle, now lost and apparently abandoned by Darrow, find himself the quarry of a band of beggars commanded by the evil Horrabin who is working in league with the magicians. After several confrontations he finds himself catapulted further back in time to 16th century London where he befriends a band of scholars who are dedicated to opposing the plots of the Egyptians who are also active in this era. The story twists and turns with breathtaking energy, full of surprises and terrible wonders. Powers keeps you guessing right to the end in a virtuoso performance of narrative genius. Highly recommended. CAPSULE REVIEWS HYPERION and FALL OF HYPERION by Dan Simmons Some books deserve to be put together in a pile and torched to the sound of hallelujahs. From time to time, however, there appears a novel or two whose mere existence seem to cancel out all the dreadful abominations reamed out by no-talent hacks the world over. The two HYPERION books are just such works. Set in a far-future, the Hegemony Of Man spans the stars with the aid of matter transportation and near-godlike Artificial Intelligences. But on the planet Hyperion a dreadful creature called the Shrike appears from artifacts known as the Time Tombs, and sets in motion a majestic drama that sweeps the whole of Humanity towards a terrifying nemesis. While the Hegemony of Man teeters on the edge of catastrophe, seven pilgrims travel to Hyperion and the Time Tombs, each driven by a strange and personal fate. Conspiracies abound; the Ousters, outcasts from the Hegemony, skirt the edges of the disaster while the AIs pursue enigmatic schemes. Utterly, utterly essential reading. STEEL BEACH by John Varley Varley was a 70`s wunderkind of American SF back before cyberpunk was even a protoglint in Bill Gibson`s eye. His first novel, THE OPHIUCHI HOTLINE, was a vibrant, string-of-surprises kind of a novel, full of workable weirdness and plausible madness. STEEL BEACH is set in a similar future, all biotechied to the hilt and soaked in the consequences of nanotechnology. Hildy Johnson is a top Lunarian tabloid journalist who becomes entangled with the obsessions of politicians, intelligent computers, and the Church of Celebrity Saints. The book is a wild ride, phantasmagoric and unpredictable, and may just improve your karmic status (but don`t quote me on that).