More Welsh SF

Sunday 28th September: I nearly didn't have anything to write about this weekend. Having had a cold and two very late nights (due to work) during the week, I chose not to join the group for Friday night's visit to the Duchess. I did see Leeds beat Hereford yesterday but, to be honest, I don't think I'm the best football writer in the world. (Cue cries of, "Yes, but you're not the best music/book writer, either!!")

Despite it being two weeks since I last posted book reviews, I was nowhere near finishing the next Alastair Reynolds. I'm enjoying his books but they are quite hard-going. The one I'm currently reading had a short paragraph describing the relative velocities of two objects approaching each other at light speed which I had to re-read a number of times and I'm still not sure I understand it. I wonder if that's why they call it "hard science fiction"... because it's hard to understand?

Anyway, for a few tens of minutes on Friday evening I found myself with some spare time but bereft of said book. There was nothing else for it but to start another one. I chose another Reynolds, but one about a third of the size of his others and with much less dense print.

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003) brings together two of Reynolds previously published novellas. Both are set in the universe of the Revelation Space novels and contain aspects of that universe to tell stories unrelated to the novels.

Have you ever worried over a puzzle, gradually getting closer and closer to the answer, but finally realising that it is to hard for you? Only for it to nag away at the back of your mind until you start looking at it again? If you have, you will feel some sympathy with the characters in Diamond Dogs. They form a team, put together by a Chasm City resident previously thought dead, in order to breach a mysterious spire on a barren world. The spire contains a number of rooms which the team have to enter in sequence, solving mathematical puzzles in order to open each door. As they get further into the spire the puzzles get harder, the doors smaller and the time they are allowed to answer the puzzles shorter. A wrong answer, or no answer in the specified time, results in horrific injuries. Eventually a secret is revealed, but it is not the spire's.

On Turquoise, an isolated water-planet inhabited by the mysterious Pattern Jugglers, a communication blackout put in place as a spaceship is detected approaching causes two young researchers to swim with a Juggler, before they have the proper training. One dies and two years later, as the spaceship arrives, her sister tries to get closure by getting to see the Ultras that she believes caused, if indirectly, the death. Thus starts a series of events that changes the world of Turquoise forever.

The Revelation Space universe, while full of standard SF wonders is a dark place. These two stories show somewhat different sides of it. Diamond Dogs is interesting not for the central theme of the spire and its puzzles - any story which can reference the films Cube and Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as Algis Budry's novel Rogue Moon (1960) is well aware of its roots - but for the somewhat horrific ways that it treats its characters. The injuries sustained by them in the course of their explorations are treated in such ways to let them continue. It is the lengths that the characters are willing to go to to try to find the Spire's secret that makes this story one of the most disturbing that I have read in the genre.

Turquoise Days, on the other hand, is a fairly straight forward adventure story with just the slightest of twists. In other hands, perhaps those of an author handling emotion better, it could have been a tear-jerker. But, while Reynolds writes fully developed characters he doesn't really seem to do emotion. That doesn't, however, make this a bad story. It is exciting in places and sheds a bit more light on the Pattern Jugglers and the worlds that they live on, while using the differences between Human factions as its basis. I also have a bit of a soft spot for stories set on oceanic worlds.

Two more stories that show that Reynolds is, in terms of current British science fiction, up there with Stephen Baxter and Peter F Hamilton.

A Favourite Live Act and A New Discovery

Friday 19th September: One of the things that I like about going out with the group (apart from standing outside chatting and laughing as the evening winds its inexorable way towards morning) is the opportunity to see new bands. Before I started tagging along I thought I had a wide ranging taste in music but, it turns out that, while I owned lots of CDs, the range wasn't as wide as I thought. Over the past couple of years, I have heard many new bands - most small, most local, many good and some great (and, being honest, some not so good) - and found some that I'd willingly pay money to see again and again. I'll come to one of them later...

First up at the Duchess tonight, however, were the Blue Jupiters. Now, I don't listen to enough so-called "indie" music to know one style from another but some of the songs in this set seemed a little paradoxical to me - fast-paced guitars almost covering the lyrics, combined with much more complex playing during the instrumental sections. While there wasn't a great deal wrong, the songs started to feel a bit samey to me. That is until they were joined on stage by a keyboard player and started slowing things down, at which point the enjoyment went up a notch. Not bad overall but I preferred the second half of the set.

Next up were Dorien Starre, another band visiting from Leeds, although they seem to be playing York fairly regularly. It's strange that, when the band contains a rhythm guitar as well as a lead, that fast-paced style of playing sounds, to me, to be so much better. I have to say that I enjoyed this band more than the Blue Jupiters, even though they seemed to lose their way a little bit towards the end of the set - at one point lead-singer Leo seemed about to continue singing before realising that the song had ended. They redeemed themselves with a final song which I thought was superb. (If only I could remember the title...) A special mention must be given to Andrew Ackroyd who produced some of the most energetic and inventive drumming I have seen in a long time.

Which leads us to the main act - Hope & Social. This is the third time I have seen them (one in their previous guise as Four Day Hombre) and I was a little surprised by the smallish crowd that had turned out tonight. Maybe it's just that the Duchess is bigger than Fibbers and the crowd just looked smaller than usual. Anyway, it starts to become harder to write gig reviews for a band the more that you see them. I've already written about their style of music, audience interaction, general attitude of fun and even some of the songs. The guys are getting towards releasing a new album so tonight's set consisted mainly of songs we had heard before - not that that makes them dull. There is something about Hope & Social that makes them sound fresh every time. Maybe it's the general feeling that they are having such a good time playing on stage, maybe it's the spontaneity of their replies to good-natured heckling from the audience. Even the latest new drummer seemed to be having fun and fit in with the rest of the guys. This really is a top band that deserves wider exposure.

To round off the evening, we headed to our usual haunt of the Roman Bath, where Go Commando were playing covers of well-known rock songs. We caught the last few and, it's fair to say, it was a good job that there was even more audience participation going on. Apart from a pretty good version of Van Halen's Jump, the bits of the act we caught were OK, but nothing special. Most people seemed to be having fun, though.

Finally, mention of a another band that I've only just discovered. While browsing the Breathing Space website, I noticed that they were being supported at a few future gigs by Quecia (pronounced cue-see-a). Out of curiosity I checked their website and found that they had been formed in 2001, were voted best new band by Powerplay magazine in 2002 and had released two albums - This Is Where We Are (2002) and the imaginatively titled Quecia II (2004). Both are available to buy from the website or www.cdbaby.com, where you can also get both albums as MP3 downloads for the bargain price of $5 each. Given the sort of bands that Quecia are supporting - Breathing Space and Panic Room to name just two - I decided to take the plunge and downloaded both.

Unsurprisingly, this is female fronted melodic rock of high quality. There is, for me, an almost tangible thrill in coming across new bands who produce music that I like. A fair few of the bands I have come across recently have links of one form or another to Mostly Autumn and Quecia are no exception and they are just as good as any of the others. I'm not going to review the albums here as I haven't had a chance to listen to both of them properly yet. What I have heard, though, is very enjoyable.

Apparently Quecia played Fibbers a few years ago and one member says that they would love to play in York again. I, for one, would definitely be in line for a ticket. A third album is being recorded now.

A Rare Bit of Welsh SF

Sunday 14th September: No music for me this weekend (but that didn't mean a weekend without going out - last night, Debbie and I went for a very nice Thai meal at York's Siam House, as part of a friend's birthday celebrations.) It does, however, mean that you get me waffling on about my current reads.

I had taken a few Alastair Reynolds books with me on holiday, intending to get a long way into his output while sitting by the pool. Unfortunately, it took me so long to finish the Starchild Trilogy that I only just managed to start his first novel. Nearly three weeks later and I've finished the first two.

Reynolds is a Welsh writer of space opera. He's had short stories published since the early 1990's and his first novel was published in 2000. He is also a trained scientist - a former research astronomer with the European Space Agency.

Revelation Space (2000)
Although Reynolds had already written about the Revelation Space universe in short stories, it remained unnamed until the publication of this novel. In it, Dan Sylveste, archaeologist is trying to determine what event caused the total destruction of the Amarantin on the planet Resurgam. At the same time, a group of Ultranauts aboard a lighthugger spaceship are heading towards Resurgam in the hopes that Sylveste can help them heal their captain, who has fallen victim to the Melding Plague. Also on board the ship is a cache of weapons, some of which are powerful enough to destroy worlds.

The Revelation Space universe is limited by the fact that faster than light travel is not possible, meaning that voyages between the various planets colonised by humans take years. In the main crews and passengers travel in reefersleep but those left behind age normally. Parts of the universe have also fallen foul of an alien plague of unknown origin. This plague corrupts technology, from the buildings of Chasm City on the planet Yellowstone to the nanomachines used by humans to achieve near immortality. The universe also, once, contained a multitude of different intelligences, but most of these have now vanished and it is the reason why that lies at the heart of the story.

There are so many ideas crammed into this novel that it is hard to do it justice in a short review. Vast spaceships, alien artifacts, nanotechnology, weapons (large and small) and different factions of humanity all vie for space in what is a complex book. I didn't find it an easy read, but for different reasons that I sometimes struggle with older novels. It's not the style of writing, nor the language used, it's the sheer scope of the novel. Once I got properly into it, though, I found it hard to put down and, apart from the slightly bizarre ending, found it a very enjoyable read.

Chasm City (2001)
Chasm City is set before the events of Revelation Space, but is not a true sequel. It does feature the origins of a hunting game which one of the characters in the earlier novel is playing when first introduced and, indeed, I think that the character herself (unnamed in this novel) is seen briefly at the end of the story.

Tanner Mirabel is a security specialist who, after one assignment goes horribly wrong, travels to Chasm City to hunt down Argent Reivich. Arriving at the city, he finds it mutated by the Melding Plague, rather than the utopia he was expecting. Hunting Reivich through the city, he comes into contact with many of the strange factions of humans living there.

Or, rather, that is how the novel starts. By the end of it the origins of the Melding Plague have been revealed, identities have been turned on their heads and Mirabel's dreams (both sleeping and waking) of Sky Haussman, founder of Sky's Edge, Mirabel's home world have been explained.

I found Chasm City to be an easier read than Revelation Space, despite it being full of mostly unlikable characters. Mystery is laid upon mystery and action sequence follows action sequence, making it a much livelier read. The main character, however, is the city itself. As Mirabel travels through the city, discovering its various locations and inhabitants, it seems to come to life.

Like the first novel, the ending is a little strange. In this case, however, it is more a case of having to work out who exactly is who by the novel's end, rather than any sort of implausible ending.

So far, I'm enjoying exploring Reynolds' universe and, with another four books of his in my to read pile, three of which are set within the Revelation Space, I hope to continue doing so.

Barefoot in the Bath, Revisited

Saturday 6th September: When you actually sit down and think about it, there are numerous venues in York where you can see live music for free . Although I speak from a position of limited experience (at last count I think I have only been to four such venues, although I have seen quite a few bands at one of them), I'm fairly certain that the majority of bands appearing at such places are covers bands. There are the odd exceptions, bands that perform their own material - the excellent Breathing Space spring to mind, although I have also paid to see them - but, for the most part, you can hear a lot of the same songs or, at least, the same style of song, weekend after weekend.

It's for that reason that I pick which covers bands I go out to see. The excellent, although now somewhat fractured, Hazzard County are always worth seeing, as were (are?) Freeway. There are probably others that I haven't had the good fortune to encounter yet. There are few, however, that I would go out of my way to see. In fact, so far, I have only come across one.

Tonight at the Roman Bath, it was the Chantel McGregor Band. I've seen (and mentioned) them before and there was little chance that I was going to miss tonight's gig.

The band has had a slight line-up change from the last time they were in York. Chantel and drummer Martin Rushworth have been joined by new bass-player Lincoln J. Roth (how much of a rock and roll name is that??!) who, incidentally, stands a good chance of pushing Brian May into second place if they ever both enter a Brian May look-alike contest... I can't find any mention of why the previous bass-player is no longer with the band, but tonight was only Roth's fifth gig. You couldn't tell - his lively playing, on stage exuberance, funky solo and familiarity with both the material and the other two members of the trio made it seem as though he had been part of the line-up forever.

Chantel herself (the small-statured strummer with a predilection for kebabs) looked more relaxed than the last time she played. I can't think of any obvious reason for this. If anything, the crowd was bigger than last time (one of the gang, turning up late, had to sneak in the back way after being refused entry at the front). Once again, she played brilliantly, with a seeming lack of any effort and managed to keep the audience entertained both with the music and with her stream of consciousness ramblings between songs. This time, there was no mid-set break and the band played for well over two hours, treating us to some of the best in rock and blues. Some of the songs were the same as last time, others were new. The set included, but was not limited to, covers of Jimi Hendrix (All Along t'Watchtower, Voodoo Chile, Purple Haze, Red House), Fleetwood Mac (Gold Dust Woman), Eric Clapton/Cream (Badge, Stormy Monday), Jethro Tull (Too Old to Rock and Roll) and Joe Bonamassa (Miss You, Hate You), as well as others that I can't find artists for - Up In t'Sky, One Of These Days, For The Love of God. I've left Chantel's broad Yorkshire versions of the titles in the list - those and her constant use of "Ta" brought even more smiles to the audience.

As expected, the playing was brilliant, with all three members of the band giving superb performances. As I have said before, it is too easy to run out of superlatives when talking about this band and, in particular, Chantel herself. She really does have to be seen for her playing to be believed. Unfortunately, according to her website, there are no more gigs planned for York for the rest of the year.