Analog SFF, September 2010 (29 page)

Coyote Destiny

Allen Steele

Ace, 337 pages, $25.95 (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-0-441-01821-5

Series: Coyote 5

Genre: Other Worlds

The planet called Coyote, 46 light years from Earth, first appeared in Allen Steele's 2002 aptly titled novel
Coyote
(based on stories that had appeared in
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
). The next two books,
Coyote Rising
(2004) and
Coyote Frontier
(2005), completed a trilogy describing the settlement of Coyote, growth of human civilization on the world, and the political troubles of the colonists. In the end, advanced aliens helped Coyote's people build a hyperspace starbridge to allow near-instant travel to and from Earth (as well as other planets).

Steele thought he was done with Coyote, and he moved on to two other novels (
Spindrift
and
Galaxy Blues
) set in the same universe, but away from Coyote's lush riverscapes. Readers, however, weren't ready to leave. As Steele himself says, “Readers continued to insist that I write more about the world I had created, and after a while I came to realize that, although the original story arc was complete, I wasn't finished with the place yet."

Thus came
Coyote Horizon
(2009) and
Coyote Destiny
(2010). These two form a continuing narrative, but it's not necessary to read one in order to enjoy the other.

So what is it about Coyote that so grabs the readers? First, there's Allen Steele's writing. He tells sometimes-complex stories in a very straightforward way, and his characters are realistic and appealing. Fact is, Allen Steele is just a good storyteller, so we readers are already inclined to enjoy any place he takes us.

Second, Coyote is a compellingly interesting place. It's a Mars-size moon of a gas giant, there are rivers all over the place, and the biology and ecology are fascinating. In both geography and biology, Coyote falls squarely between the familiar and the exotic. It's an immediately comfortable place for the reader, although the opinion of the first settlers may have differed.

Third, Coyote is a place of hope. The first three books concern the struggle between collectivism and individualism, between society and individual freedom. These are themes that resonate well with Western readers. As the series progresses and things on Earth get more and more dire, Coyote becomes the shining beacon, the future of the human race. It's hard not to feel good about a place like that.

In the previous book,
Coyote Horizon
, religious revolution came to Coyote in the form of an alien philosophy book. Human Hawk Thompson, putting the alien philosophies into practice, became the leader (
chaaz'maha
) of a powerful new cult.
Coyote Horizon
ended with Thompson's death in a terrorist bombing that also destroyed the starbridge, thus severing Coyote's link to Earth and the rest of the Galaxy.

After a brief prologue,
Coyote Destiny
opens twenty years later. The starbridge is rebuilt, but for some reason there has been no contact with Earth. Jorge Montero is recalled from an exploration mission, along with his comrade, Inez Torres, to find his world turned upside down.

For one thing, Inez (on whom Jorge has an unrequited crush) turns out to be Inez Sanchez, daughter of Hawk Thompson and Jorge's cousin. For another, a ship from Earth has arrived with shocking news: Hawk Thompson, the
chaaz'maha
, survived the blast and is alive in Boston. And finally, the terrorist is also still alive, and loose somewhere on Coyote. And he's planning worse.

So Jorge and Inez are off to Earth to find Hawk, while another group goes in search of the terrorist.

What follows is a story with plenty of action, adventure, politics, religion, exotic locales, and fascinating aliens. It brings the story to a satisfactory ending, but we can trust that this isn't the last we'll see of Coyote. I hope.

Geosynchron

David Louis Edelman

Pyr, 520 pages, $16.00 (trade paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-59102-792-8

Series: Jump 225 3

Genre: Cyberpunk

Now let's talk about a place you
wouldn't
want to visit in person: the future of David Louis Edelman's Jump 225 trilogy. It's a crazy, dangerous world filled with crazy, dangerous people—and boy is it fun to read about!

If you've read the previous two books (
Infoquake
and
MultiReal
), please skip ahead while I attempt the impossible: describing Edelman's madcap future in a nutshell.

Take one part Silicon Valley, one part Wall Street, one part Libertarian philosophy, and several large parts of neuro-biological nanotechnology. Stir together, add a few Machiavellian schemes and assorted psychopaths, connect the whole thing to a couple high-voltage lines, and allow to simmer for a few centuries. What you wind up with is a world of corporate power gone mad and software become the basis of reality. After the Autonomous Revolt of AIs devastated the world centuries ago, the tyrannical Defense and Wellness Council took control. Thousands of corporations (fiefcorps) market nanotech-based programs that run not on computers, but on, in, and around the human body itself. The road to success is to work for a fiefcorp that can become powerful enough to dominate.

Into this world is born Natch, a gifted programmer and total sociopath—which means he has just the skills he needs to succeed. Natch gets involved in a civil war between two of the world's richest and most powerful people: Margaret Surina and Len Borda. Along the way, Natch gains access to a new technology called MultiReal, which allows the creation and manipulation of multiple realities. By the end of
MultiReal
, though, Natch is infected with Black Code, a mysterious virus that render him blind and helpless, and his side seems doomed to defeat. Meanwhile, violent rebellion against the Council has sprung up worldwide.

In
Geosynchron
, the concluding volume, Natch awakens and moves from peril to peril while the world falls apart around him. No, literally: MultiReal and similar technologies have become weapons in the civil war, weapons that threaten reality itself.

Natch might just be the only person who can save the world, but there are two huge obstacles to overcome. First, he has to save himself. And second, he has to be convinced that this world he ultimately despises is
worth
saving.

This is the kind of book that jumps you in a dark alley, steals your wallet, and races away daring you to keep up. It's an adrenalin rush from beginning to end, and if it takes a few chapters to get your bearings, you don't really mind. Don't worry if you haven't read the first two books:
Geosynchron
contains a helpful synopsis to get you up to speed.

InterstellarNet: Origins

Edward M. Lerner

FoxAcre, 290 pages, $23.00 (trade paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-9818487-4-7

Series: InterstellarNet 1

Genre: Alien Beings

Faster-than-light travel is such a commonplace convention in SF that we seldom consider the flip side: a universe in which FTL does not exist. In this book, a collection of short pieces that originally appeared in
Analog
and a few other venues, Edward M. Lerner uses such a universe to great effect.

Just because we can't travel between the stars, there is no reason we can't communicate with alien races. In the present day, a SETI-like program receives a signal from intelligent aliens. Before long, the U.N. gets in on the fun, settling the question of whether we should reply or not, and who's going to be in charge of everything we learn.

Over time, Earth becomes part of InterstellarNet: a communications network based on trading intellectual property, new technologies, and the like. AI agents are put in charge of the negotiations, but there are still a lot of surprises.

These are mainly nice little puzzle stories, reminiscent of Isaac Asimov's early robot stories. They're certainly enjoyable enough. Even if you read the ones in
Analog
, you'll get a few extra stories here—and it's nice to have them all in the same volume.

A second volume is in preparation.

The Business of Science Fiction:

Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing

Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg

McFarland, 269 pages, $35.00

(trade paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-7864-4797-8

Genre: Nonfiction

Between them, Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg have published over 150 books. Both are legends in the field. When the two of them get together to discuss the state of SF and the publishing industry, who wouldn't be interested in what they say?

Well, for more than a decade, these two hardworking writers have been doing just that in the pages of the
Bulletin
of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Now 26 of these dialogues have been collected in one volume, and it's every bit as fascinating, educational, and downright fun as you'd expect.

The topics break down into three main subject areas: Writing and Selling, The Business, and The Field. Under the first heading, topics range from the marketplace to conventions to collaborations. In the second section, they discuss such mysteries as agents, professionalism, print-on-demand, and the irresistible “really dumb ideas.” And in the third section these two writers, who have been part of the SF scene forever, talk about the history and future direction of the field.

Obviously, if you're an aspiring writer (I think there are one or two still around), you won't want to miss this volume. At $35 it might seem a little pricey, but if you think of it as a textbook for a writing class, it's a bargain. One caveat, though—the publishing industry is currently in the grip of enormous changes, and what was good advice ten years ago might be less applicable two years from now. Still, an awful lot of what appears here is timeless.

For the non-writing fan of SF, this book might be a harder sell. If it helps, this is a fun and engaging read—Resnick and Malzberg are good writers, after all—and there's a fair amount of interesting gossip about the SF publishing world (nothing salacious or titillating, I hasten to add). If you have any interest in what goes on behind the scenes of the books and magazines you read, this is a painless way to find out.

Copyright © 2010 Don Sakers

Don Sakers is the author of
A Rose From Old Terra
and
Dance for the Ivory Madonna
. For more information, visit
www.scatteredworlds.com
.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Dear Dr. Schmidt:

I'm writing to thank you for your editorial “The Rest of the Data” in the 2010 April
Analog.
It said many of the things I would have said had I written about Dr. Kooistra's “Alternate View” article: global warming is global, not limited to US measurements, and many other data such as glacier retreat indicate that global warming is taking place. This is not necessarily a bad thing: we are about 4,000 years overdue for an ice age.

However, there is one thing I would have said that you didn't discuss, nor was it mentioned in any of the letters on the article in that issue.

Global warming is not about absolute temperatures; it is about trends in the temperatures. Even if the US temperatures are skewed, their trend, if any, should still be valid. And there is clearly a warming trend in the temperature readings taken in the past 30 years, since the changes to the thermometers cited in the article.

I recently renewed my subscription for another two years, and look forward to many more thought-provoking editorials, articles, and stories.

Jeffrey R. Carter

Mesa, AZ

Stanley,

Thank you for responding to Jeff Kooistra's article. I agree that known systemic errors can be corrected (with an error term).

I presume that you wrote the editorial prior to the publication of the “loss” of data by the English IPCC group (I've forgotten the precise name) and the computer code with the fudge factor multiplier. Also included in the suspicious activities are the discarding of the recent Little Ice Age and the warming that produced the name “Greenland."

I am a Global Warming skeptic to the extent that I believe too much of the discussion has had the flavor of a new religion or at least a political campaign. I am not a climatologist or a meteorologist and don't have access to the data and cannot make a reasoned argument pro or con. As a long-time science fiction reader, I can imagine several reasons for actual warming—or cooling. As a professional data analyst, I also understand the problems of generating good forecasts of data trends.

I am worried on the one hand that the politically proposed remedies for Global Warming will cause more harm than doing nothing. On the other hand, I am worried that the revelations of problems with the IPCC reports will create a “boy crying wolf” effect.

The readers of
Analog
certainly include a large number of independent thinkers who could generate a decent analysis of the situation, given the data. Is this possible?

Dean Hartley

Hi,

I just finished reading Mr. Kooistra's “Taken on Faith” Alternate View piece. As I read it, I could not help but think that there seems to be a consistent separation between religion and science. This separation seems fundamentally wrong because the commonly accepted definitions of “the universe” state that the universe includes everything that exists everywhere. If these are true, then the universe must include God if God exists.

It seems reasonable to expect that the proof of God's existence will be more difficult than proving Mr. Ford's existence using only the Model T, if only because Mr. Ford put his last name on the Model T. But in light of Mr. Kooistra's comment that “. . . the universe cannot be mathematically inconsistent with itself,” it seems reasonable to think that somewhere someone will eventually discover and unleash the math of God.