Paul J. McAuley

The genre of science fiction has a number of problems that work against it. One of them is that if an author is sticking strictly to what we know about a particular environment or setting, their stories might turn out to look very similar to other works that share that setting - and therefore may falsely give the impression (to an inexperienced reader) that the genre only offers a limited range of new experiences. Paul McAuley's The Quiet War suffers from this drawback.

The story is set partly on a future Earth where ecological disaster has resulted in devastation - the "Overturn" - and the growth of Brazil as a new world superpower, holding sway over both North and South America. The rest of the story is set amongst the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. For those used to absorbing their science fiction through visual media, we are firmly in the territory of The Expanse, which is unfortunate, as this novel precedes The Expanse by a couple of years. But the resemblances are there: an Earth in recovery from disaster, interplanetary travel via advanced fusion-drive spaceships, colonies on Jovian and Saturnian moons whose inhabitants are thought of as "Outers", and those colonies are dependant on a range of innovative technologies to create habitable environments.

And yet: McAuley's specialism is in botany and biology, and his colonists rely on genetic and bio-engineering to better adapt to their surroundings. This is one of the early issues with the book, as in the first quarter, McAuley does rather go a bit overboard on the info-dumping. Get past that, and there is a reasonable story about interplanetary political intrigue, with high-tech action set pieces to satisfy those who like that sort of thing. Characterisation is adequate, though McAuley introduces two characters in the opening chapters who then disappear for a large section of the book. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Dave 8, a cloned super-soldier created by the Brazilian government - or rather, one of the more important generals from the pre-eminent family in Brazilian politics - for unspecified missions in space. Dave 8's training is delivered in a Catholic seminary, and this setting and the internal doubts and questions of Dave 8 probably form the more interesting character of the book, precisely because a Catholic assassin may well be outside many readers' experience.

Otherwise, the casual reader might think that this was a bog-standard work of "military science fiction", which it is not. And it certainly isn't a fast-paced adventure story. Yet for those willing to engage with this book on a more intellectual level, there is plenty to engage with.… (more)

I've had mixed experiences with Paul McAuley novels. I loved [b:Austral|33673959|Austral|Paul McAuley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1495059075l/33673959._SX50_.jpg|54549061] for its environmental themes, but wasn't that keen on [b:The Quiet War|1375179|The Quiet War (The Quiet War, #1)|Paul McAuley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329375914l/1375179._SY75_.jpg|1365077] or [b:Cowboy Angels|1375148|Cowboy Angels|Paul McAuley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327277249l/1375148._SY75_.jpg|1365050]. I enjoyed the ideas in all three, while not really liking the plots of the latter two. [b:Beyond the Burn Line|60760108|Beyond the Burn Line|Paul McAuley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657643183l/60760108._SY75_.jpg|95806129] likewise has really interesting ideas, yet I'm ambivalent about how they were explored. The pace is slow as the protagonists are ordinary people, experiencing regular setbacks and bad luck. When their lives get caught up in events of global importance it is relatively glossed over. Thus I found the world-building detailed and thoughtful, without being caught up in the plot.

[b:Beyond the Burn Line|60760108|Beyond the Burn Line|Paul McAuley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657643183l/60760108._SY75_.jpg|95806129] is set tens of thousands of years in the future. Humans are extinct and a different kind of intelligent mammals know them as 'ogres'. In the first half of the novel, a minor scholar finds a lost document that suggests humans may have visited cities built by the previous dominant species, bears. However his investigations into the truth of the matter are stymied by domestic matters. The second half of the novel has a different protagonist, although the matter being investigated is essentially the same. The new protagonist gets bit further with it, while also encountering bureaucratic hurdles and interpersonal discord.

I appreciate what McCauley set out to do here: explore really big themes around intelligence, colonialism, historiography, and coexistence via characters who are random ordinary people of the distant future. It's interesting to see the machinations of powerful beings in a fragmentary and distant way via their impact on individuals. That said, I think the character voices could have been stronger and the details of daily life in the future more fun. A bit more humour might have made the narrative more compelling although the AI did her best to inject it occasionally. The serious points were well-made while not being terribly enjoyable to read.… (more)

After enjoying a non-fiction book about rewilding recently ([b:Wilding|38891828|Wilding|Isabella Tree|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1521964296s/38891828.jpg|60437379]), I was delighted to realise that this is essentially a sci-fi novel on the same topic. While the central plot is is a snowy chase similar to [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|18423|The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #6)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1488213612s/18423.jpg|817527], it is as far from being a straightforward thriller as Le Guin’s novel. The story is being recounted by the protagonist Austral, who is both contemplating her past and justifying her choices. Her family were ecopoets, a group that sought to introduce dynamic biodiverse ecosystems to Antarctica as climate changed melted the ice. The political economy of the future world is delineated with remarkable clarity within a first person chase narrative. There is a depressingly convincing progression of events: attempts to create new ecosystems and ways of living in Antarctica are eventually controlled and exploited by capitalism; grand geoengineering projects are doomed to fail thanks to short-termism.

Austral the protagonist ends up trapped in poverty and crime after her mother dies and she’s stuck in a state orphanage. Her status as a Husky, genetically modified to cope with extreme cold, is a barely veiled allegory for indigenous populations and refugees. Thus ‘Austral’ feels very timely, as it confronts questions about borders, climate change, geoengineering, biodiversity, racism, and xenophobia. The central narrative voice is strong and compelling enough to bring all this together. Balancing weighty themes with a thrilling adventure plot is no mean feat and I was really impressed by how well McAuley pulled it off. I was also sufficiently invested in Austral to find the final twist very moving. An excellent climate change novel, to recommend with its urban sibling [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1471618737s/29570143.jpg|49898123].… (more)

'Cowboy Angels' is an exciting combination of crime noir, spy thriller, and science fiction. The idea is that Turing Gates, or portals into parallel worlds, have been discovered. Because they were discovered in America, the government decided to use them to create a pan-American empire. The thread of imperialism that runs through the world-building in the novel is distasteful but strikingly convincing. Only America has access to the Turing Gate technology, unlikely as this seems twenty years after its discovery, and the rest of the world is referred to only in terms of being their enemy or ally.

The plot is probably more noir mystery than anything else, despite most of the main characters being former or current spies. It centres around two main characters, Adam Stone and Tom Waverly, who are former colleagues, apparently still friends, and intermittent adversaries. Both of them are hard-boiled types, violent at the slightest provocation, protective of women, fond of liquor, and with a clipped style of speech. Their relationship reminded me somewhat of Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder in the TV show 'Justified'. I thought Tom's daughter Linda was used rather well in the plot, but otherwise there was rather a dearth of female characters. This echoes noir tropes and reinforces the masculine atmosphere of the parallel-world empire. The body count seemed notably high, about equivalent to that in Richard Morgan’s novels. I guess this demonstrated the lack of value the characters placed on human life, but it was still rather unrelenting.

I enjoyed 'Cowboy Angels' more for the world-building than the plot, which was convoluted in the extreme, or the characters, who remained close to cyphers. The ways in which history diverged were interestingly shown, and it was fun to guess which reality was closest to our own. The dialogue became most interesting when the characters discussed politics. I liked some of the little details, like the Elvises. What I really took from it, though, is that America is too macho for its own good in every parallel reality that has transpired.… (more)