Sagramanda

The Importance of Being Ernest

Ernest Lilly reviews two Pyr books over on SFRevu. I’m glad that he seems to like both, while being upfront about what he sees as weaknesses in the works too. But I read these two reviews late last night, rather hurriedly/tiredly and didn’t – I confess – glance at the byline. When I was done, I was struck by how remarkably well written they both were. As a former full-time, now occasional, journalist, I appreciate the well turned phrase, whether its being turned in the service of one of our authors or not. So when I read both reviews back to back, I wasn’t surprised to discover both stemmed from the same source. Ernest is the Sr. Editor of SFRevu’s as well, though by no means the only reviewer. But I wanted to pause to give a shout out to some good writing before continuing with your regularly scheduled Pyr plug. Now…

Ernest says a lot of good things about Alan Dean Foster’s Sagramanda, which you can check out for yourself, though what struck me the most is his concluding remarks:

“Alan Dean Foster is a master of creating alien worlds for his protagonists to deal with, but his near future India is more complex and alien than anything he’s attempted yet. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it doesn’t feel like India as much as it feels like one of his created worlds, though I admit I’ve never been there, and Foster, an accomplished world traveler, had undoubtedly done thorough research on the ground. In the end, Sagramanda’s strength is the author’s willingness to engage in cross cultural conversation with people who may well emerge as the technological leaders of this century, but it’s only the beginning of a dialog which will hopefully lead to understanding on both sides. To achieve this, Foster needs to keep the story going for another few books, though Sagramanda has a stand alone feel to it.”

The city of Sagramanda is definitely a character in its own right. I don’t know that the other (human) characters from the book need to continue, though if New York has a million stories, a city of 100 million – even a fictional one – surely has a few more to tell, right? And Ian McDonald, who wrote the other big Indian novel out now, keeps spinning off new kyberpunk tales. Why not?

Meanwhile, Ernest puts Joel Shepherd’s Crossover on his highly recommended list and includes a sidebar that notes the books similarity to Masamune Shirow’s landmark work Ghost in the Shell. Again, I encourage you to go read the review for yourself, while I mull over something from his concluding remarks:

” I liked Crossover both for the hot cyber combat action and the chunks of exposition that the author drops from time to time. Call it perverse, but I think the discussion of technology and philosophy is one of the things that makes SF more interesting than mainstream fiction. As a result I’m all for spending a few paragraphs or even a page or two musing about the humanity of machines, or the cultural subtext of warfare, or why androids need breasts. A more aggressive editor might have trimmed this book back a bit, but I’m glad it didn’t happen.”

I don’t know what I would have done if the manuscript had come in on loose leaf, as opposed to my taking on board a book that was published some years ago in another territory. For N. American debuts of existing work, unless the author expresses a strong desire to revise something specific into an “author’s preferred edition,” and not counting the correction of any typos that have come to light, I prefer our edition to match the original published edition for the sake of history. I know that if I bought a US book, then read that 50 pages were cut from the Australian or UK edition, I’d be rushing out to see what those 50 pages were. In fact, I held off buying the US edition of the aforementioned Masamune Shirow’s latest work of manga, when I heard the US edition was missing 12 pages deemed too “mature” for an American audience.

But in Joel’s case, I would like to think I would have resisted the urge to trim the fat here if I’d come to the work cold. For one thing, as Ernest points out, once you get through the first chapter, “the action comes fast and hot by the end and never lets up thereafter.” For all the above talk of philosophy and grand ideas, this is one hell of an action story, with machine pistols blazing and bionic women leaping out of flying cars from hundreds of feet in the air. Joel really knows his combat, too, and manages to translate the kinetic feel of anime into prose better than I’ve ever seen done before. But what I always loved about the Shirow is the way that amid all the violence and hardware fetishization, suddenly the comic book will go into a discourse on geopolitical theory or some social/ethical concern and that’s vital for the tone of the work as well.

Plus, I’ve cited Joel’s book several times now, on blogs and on convention panels, as a perfect example of entertainment plus depth, in my ongoing insistence that these are not mutually exclusive concepts. Joel’s work is rife with politics and philosophy, as well as sex and combat. Just like its clear inspiration, it manages to marry both rousing adventure and rousing speculation – and while not perhaps a perfect book by all assessments, I hope I would have recognized these asides as central to the work he was creating.

Now, with all these Ghost comparisons, it should be said that Shirow usually seems to insert these dialogues into the mouths of naked anime girls in a shower or massage scene. Joel, for his part, leaves out that slightly uncomfortable/puerile aspect, trading the somewhat exploitive scenes for a more mature, balanced portrayal of his many strong female characters. Oh, the sex is still there and then some, but it feels sexy not sexist; it’s a sexuality that owes more to the well-drawn characterization and tension of something like the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle than it does to Shirow’s work. Several female readers asked me recently, in fact, how Joel was able to write women so convincingly, and we not surprised to learn that he also writes about women’s basketball as well. So, I guess what I’m saying is – remove the doll-like anime women from Ghost in the Shell, insert Lucy Lawless, equals great book.

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Tigers and Monsters and Critics, Oh My!

Sandy Amazeen of Monsters and Critics on Alan Dean Foster’s Sagramanda:

“…gripping thriller set in India’s not too distant future. Foster’s adroit touch weaves tradition and technology together as he develops a fascinating range of antagonists negotiating Sagramanda’s back streets and fashionable neighborhoods. India’s diverse culture adds a nice layer of depth to this enjoyable, fast moving techno drama.”

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Love X 3 from the LJ

This from the LIBRARY JOURNAL September 15, 2006 Issue:

Foster, Alan Dean. Sagramanda: A Novel of Near-Future India. Pyr:Prometheus. Oct. 2006. c.290p. ISBN 1-59102-488-9. $25. SF Taneer is an Indian scientist who has stolen a secret project code from a multinational corporation. On the run from both the organization and his unforgiving father, he meets and falls for Dephali, a beautiful woman of India’s untouchable class. Add a farmer-turned-merchant, a Kali-worshipping Frenchwoman, a chief inspector, and a man-eating tiger and the result is a fast-paced urban adventure set in a near-future India of high technology and desperate people. The prolific author of the Pip and Flinx novels (his latest, Trouble Magnet, publishes in November) adds to his considerable body of work with this polished hybrid of page-turning action and taut suspense that belongs in large collections. [For another novel about a future India, see Ian McDonald’s River of Gods.-Ed.] SF/FANTASY By Jackie Cassada, Asheville Buncombe Lib. Syst., NC

Meaney, John. To Hold Infinity. Pyr: Prometheus. Sept. 2006. c.529p. ISBN 1-59102-489-7. $25. SF When newly widowed biologist Yoshiko Sunadomari travels to the planet Fulgar to reconnect with her estranged son Tetsuo, she discovers that he has run afoul of the Luculenti, the planet’s genetically changed ruling elite, and is now wanted for murder. Yoshiko undertakes a mission to clear Tetsuo’s name, putting herself directly in the path of Rafael Garcia de la Vega, whose nefarious schemes hold the planet in social and political turmoil. The author of the Nulapeiron Sequence (Paradox; Context; Resolution) has crafted a far-reaching vision of a future filled with potentials for both darkness and light, as seen through the eyes of a remarkably gifted and devoted woman. An excellent choice for most sf collections. SF/FANTASY By Jackie Cassada, Asheville Buncombe Lib. Syst., NC

Williams, Sean. The Blood Debt. Pyr: Prometheus. (Books of the Cataclysm: Two). Oct. 2006. c.476p. ISBN 1-59102-493-5. $25. FANTASY Sal Hrvati’s estranged father has brought a creature from the Void Beneath into the world, and now Sal and his friends embark on a quest to find his errant father. Their journey takes them on a search for magical artifacts on the floor of the great crack in the earth known as the Divide. The second installment in the author’s “Books of the Cataclysm” series (after The Crooked Letter) follows the adventures of three companions who battle the unknown to save their families. Set partly in the modern world and partly in a fantasy environment drawn from archetypal myths and legends, this epic belongs in most fantasy collections. SF/FANTASY By Jackie Cassada, Asheville Buncombe Lib. Syst., NC

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Science Fiction Gets Global with Two Novels of 21st Century India

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2006

CONTACT: Jill Maxick
800-853-7545 or jmaxick@prometheusbooks.com

Science Fiction Gets Global with Two Novels of 21st Century India

Amherst, New York—Science fiction authors have always been a forward-thinking group, so it shouldn’t be any surprise that they are turning their attentions to addressing the technological rise of the nation of India. Now, Pyr, the SF&F imprint from Prometheus Books, has published not one but two novels set in this emerging superpower.

Ian McDonald’s Clarke- and Hugo-nominated River of Gods, published March 2006, has been hailed as “a major achievement from a writer who is becoming one of the best SF novelists of our time” (Washington Post, May 28, 2006). Set in the year 2047, on the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of a nation, River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures—one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. McDonald’s novel, like the best of speculative fiction, projects the India of today forward to the middle of the 21st century, to a time when artificial intelligences of almost godlike capabilities exist amid a country still torn between ancient superstitions and fantastic technologies.

As for his reasons for setting his science fiction in South Asia, McDonald says, “Sometimes you just stand up like a meerkat and see where the future is coming from. In this case: one billion English-speaking people, the world’s biggest democracy, education education education, a vibrant enterprise culture and six thousand years of history . . . Jai Hindustan!

Best-selling author Alan Dean Foster brings his vision to bear on an even-nearer future. With its subtitle “A novel of Near-Future India,” Sagramanda (to be published October 3, 2006) presents a fast-paced and gripping techno-thriller set in an India just around the corner from today. Foster imagines the fictional city of Sagramanda, city of 100 million—this is the story of Taneer, a scientist who has absconded with his multinational corporation’s secret project code and who is now on the run from both the company and his father. Sure to appeal to both SF fans and mystery/suspense enthusiasts, Sagramanda has been described as an “unpredictable thriller, whose multiple threads Foster juggles like the professional he is” (Publishers Weekly, August 21, 2006).

“One sixth of humanity lives in India and the other five-sixths hardly know anything about it,” says Foster. “I thought people should. They’d better.”

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