Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction

I thought I would try to do an occasional blog entry about what I’m reading or watching. Wonder how long I’ll keep it up?

I just finished Tom Holt’s latest novel “May Contain Traces of Magic”. We have a standing order with Sign of the Dragon (a UK bookstore) to send us books from certain authors as soon as they come out. Tom Holt is one of them. Terry Pratchett is another. So is Dick Francis. We used to get Dorothy Dunnett until she passed away. Anyway, “May Contain” is another one of Tom Holt’s humorous British modern fantasies, set in today’s world but with magic happening on the sidelines. It’s one of those low key funny books that Holt is so good at. As usual, his hero is a ‘shlub’. Not very heroic, put upon, not too bright, a bit cowardly – this time as he’s a salesman for an outfit that sells magical doodads – a portable folding parking space (item BB27K), pocket universes (item JH88C), and the best seller, item DW6 (nobody really knows why that sells so well or what it is used for). There’s also demons, the secret behind SatNavs, government anti-demon agencies, old Norse Gods, time travel – the usual Holt stuff. How can you not love a book with two references to Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson? I’m a fan.

I’m now in the middle of reading “The Thirteenth Child” by Patricia Wrede, the first in her new Frontier Magic series. So far, so good. It’s a coming of age novel set in an alternate world in the 1850’s. Magic works, mammoths are still around, along with some magical creatures and other dangerous creatures. They tend to be out west, mostly kept on the other side of the Great Barrier. It’s Pat Wrede, so, of course, it’s good. The main character is Eff, a young girl, a fraternal twin. Since she was born before her brother, Lan, that made her the thirteenth child in her family and made Lan a double seventh – the seventh son of a seventh son. That means that, she may be tainted and he will be a major wielder of magic. They move out west when her father gets a chance to be a professor of magic at a land grant college. The family dynamics and world building is very nicely done and we get to see Eff and the others around grow up and change. Haven’t finished it yet, but I’ve stayed up later than I’ve planned reading it. As a note – there is a bit of controversy over the book in the blogosphere. She has no Native Americans in her alternate version of North America. I did notice that and wonder about it. She has Africans, ex-slaves, as major characters, and discussions and use of African and Asian magic, so it’s not a matter of blindness to people of color. Maybe it’ll be explained in later books. I’m looking forward to them.

That’s two fantasies in a row, I’ll have to read some good old hard SF next.

– posted by Mike Zipser