The Lightning Stones by Jack du Brul

Published by Doubleday on August 11, 2015

Philip Mercer is typical of the modern thriller hero. He has a doctorate, is a former science advisor to the president, has connections all over Washington and the world, and plays action hero in his spare time. Women throw themselves at him and Mercer is so determined to prove he is a “real man” I had the sense that he is hiding some insecurity about his true inclinations. Seriously, does anyone in the current century still feel the need to make fun of “man purses”? In any event, Jack Du Brul gives Mercer more machismo than personality, making him a fairly dull action hero.

Mercer is a geologist who happens to be in a mine shaft that is invaded by a group of commandos who kill a bunch of scientists, including Mercer’s mentor, before making off with a mysterious object. Since they commit this crime in a pitch-black environment, why do they need to “kill all the witnesses”? Only to give Mercer an excuse to get in on the action. Despite a chase involving a front-end loader (a standard prop in thriller movies), Mercer can’t prevent the killers’ escape. Naturally, he swears to get revenge, because that’s what geologists do.

Du Brul’s prose isn’t bad, although it would have been improved by stronger editing. Too many clunky passages and phrases like “harsh and unforgiving land” and “hail of lead” and “a riot of hot lead” and “lead filled the air” get in the way of Du Brul’s storytelling.

Mercer postures himself as the voice of reason on the issue of climate change, all the while belittling anyone who takes the issue seriously. To advance his argument, which amounts to a contention that there’s no need to regard global warming as a problem or to take action in response to it, Mercer sets up strawman arguments and knocks them down. That’s a lot easier and a lot less honest than having characters engage in a serious discussion. Mercer’s oft-repeated claim that scientists are incapable of projecting future trends from historic data made me wonder how he ever managed to serve as a presidential science adviser (unless he served a president who wasn’t interested in science). Nobody claims that predictions of climate change can be made with precision but to say that they can’t be made at all is just foolish.

It’s also a little baffling that Mercer (who isn’t a climate scientist) repeatedly expounds the myth that global warming has inexplicably “paused,” a claim that was debunked by an NOAA study that was recently published in Science. Mercer’s willingness to overlook facts that don’t support his agenda, coupled with his consistent portrayal of environmentalists as “freaks” and terrorists, betrays a political agenda that overshadows the novel’s dramatic content.

I don’t care one way or another about the political opinions expressed by fictional characters (even the fanciful declaration that Herbert Hoover “remains one of the most respected presidents this nation ever produced”), but when a writer feels the need to use fiction to advance a political agenda, it diminishes my interest in the novel. And when an author’s character derides others for using science to “push an agenda” while the author is using a novel to do exactly that, it diminishes my respect for the author -- particularly when the author distorts facts to achieve that end.

To be fair, one or two action scenes generate a fair amount of excitement. When the story wasn’t diverging from the plot to lecture the reader, it held my interest. If there had been more action and less pontification, I might have given this novel a guarded recommendation, although even if Mercer kept his political opinions to himself, I would still be troubled by the fact that he is such a shallow, self-impressed character.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Time Loves a Hero by Allen Steele

First published as Chronospace in 2001; published digitally by Open Road Media on May 19, 2015

Time Loves a Hero was originally published as Chronospace. In the introduction to this edition, Allen Steele explains that Time Loves a Hero was his original title, and that the title change was made by an editor who thought it would attract fans of Oceanspace, his previous novel. Frankly, I think Chronospace is a better title but Steele doesn’t, so there you have it.

One of the pleasures of Time Loves a Hero is that a central character is a lifelong science fiction fan, which gives him a chance to mention stories and authors and magazines that will evoke a sense of nostalgia in readers who are lifelong science fiction fans. Gregory Benford is even a character in the novel, although in a unique way (about which, I will say no more).

The central character, at least in the chapters that take place in 1998, is Zach Murphy, sometimes known as David Murphy. In the chapters that take place 300+ years later, the central characters are time travelers (chrononauts) who are studying the Hindenburg disaster by taking the places of two passengers who died in the explosion. As all devoted sf readers know, the risk of time travel is that history will be changed by seemingly inconsequential actions. The potential creation of a time paradox and the ensuing creation of new or alternative timelines becomes the novel’s focus.

Since Murphy begins the novel as a NASA astrophysicist and is suddenly working as a paranormal researcher, apparently without noticing the transition, it is clear to the reader that something has happened to Murphy's time stream. We learn what happened, at least in broad terms, in the novel’s second half.

The story is engaging and fun, although it takes a left turn at some point in a way that makes the resolution a bit too easy. Actually, things are left unresolved to a large extent, which is the novel’s only real disappointment. Time travel novels are always a little disappointing (unless Connie Willis writes them) because the paradox is difficult to address in a convincingly, but Steele handles it well enough to make Time Loves a Hero one of the better efforts in the time travel branch of science fiction.

RECOMMENDED

The Incarnations by Susan Barker

Published in Great Britain in 2014; published by Touchstone on August 18, 2015

Wang Jun’s mother tells him that “being born into this world is hell” and that he will be “crushed with countless millions all your life long.” His father tells him, “Like mother, like son.” Who is Wang Jun? Even Wang Jun doesn’t know the answer. He is the product of a horrific childhood and, perhaps, of difficult lives that he experienced in earlier incarnations.

When taxi driver Wang Jun finds a letter above the visor in his taxi from a person who claims to be his soulmate, he complains to the police about a stalker. Subsequent letters tell Wang about the soulmate’s past incarnations, all involving relationships with someone who is presumably Wang, although in past lives Wang was not always a male. In between letters, we learn about Wang’s marriage, his child and his childhood, his confinement in a mental health institution and the friend who caused him to question his sexual identity. We later watch Wang confront a moral crisis as he tries to understand his needs and desires.

The background is China just before the Olympic Games, when the longstanding practice of spitting on the sidewalk drew government fines and meager efforts were made to quash obvious corruption. The clash between a controlling government and out-of-control free enterprise is depicted in small details that create a convincing setting.

The stories from the past draw upon key moments in Chinese history from the seventh century to the twentieth. Some are the stuff of myth and legend. Others have a more realistic feel, although even those are infused with spirits and visions. They are all fascinating, but the segment that takes place during Mao’s Cultural Revolution is the most affecting. It is a captivating piece of writing.

Back in the present, much of the story is driven by Wang’s assumptions about the identity of the letter writer, the impact of the letters on Wang, and the unfortunate actions he takes in response to them. That gives the novel the flavor of a mystery or a story of psychological suspense. There are also stories of unconventional relationships scattered through the novel, although they involve tragic love more than giddy romance.

The letter writer’s actual identity (at least, the most recent one) is surprising to both the reader and to Wang. Its revelation forces a reinterpretation of the earlier letters. The novel’s ending is powerful and unexpected. The Incarnations is, in short, a skillful tale that combines tragedy and humor, history and modernity, revealing the darkness and richness of China and the enduring nature of the human spirit -- even when the human has no desire to endure.

RECOMMENDED

Jury Town by Stephen W. Frey

Published by Thomas & Mercer on September 29, 2015

The notion of “professional jurors” has been floated from time to time, usually by insurance companies that think people who work full-time as jurors will award less compensation to injury victims than jurors who are randomly chosen from the community. It’s a bad idea that, for obvious reasons, never gains traction, but it forms the interesting (albeit unbelievable) premise upon which Stephen Frey built Jury Town.

Former Governor Victoria Lewis, who believes her father was once an innocent victim of a rigged jury, proposes to replace Virginia’s system of choosing jurors at random with a pool of 200 professional jurors who would decide all civil and criminal cases. That seems like a system that would be ripe for corruption but the system proposes to solve that problem by having the jurors listen to evidence on television while living in a compound, isolating them from potential bribes. Their impartiality would be guaranteed by cutting them off from contact with the outside world. They live in a remodeled prison but they’re paid a lot of money to do it.

Without internet access or news coverage, the professional jurors would be remarkably ignorant of current affairs, which hardly makes them ideal representatives of the community, which is what a jury is meant to be. In criminal cases, the system would probably be unconstitutional, but in Frey’s novel the Virginia Supreme Court has managed to railroad the project into existence. The process of selecting the jurors for their two year terms is a secret that the public isn’t entitled to know. None of this is remotely plausible but this is a work of fiction so I was willing to roll with the premise at least initially. Unfortunately, I lost my willingness to suspend disbelief well before the novel's end.

Against this background, the plot involves a group of people known as the Grays who operate a widespread jury tampering scheme, influencing verdicts for their own financial gain. The novel’s other key player is Angela Gaynor, a state senator who aspires to a U.S. Senate seat with the endorsement of her best friend, recently retired from the NBA. The Grays need Gaynor’s opponent to win reelection. There are also a couple of fellows who are trying to make a killing with online gaming software and a Chinese investor. Both of these collateral plotlines get tangled up in the main story in ways that are hard to believe, but they are no harder to believe than the main story.

Conspiracy thrillers have become increasingly outlandish over the years. Jury Town is hard to swallow on a number of levels. I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of a good story but Jury Town challenged my ability to do that. Talking about all the things I didn’t buy would require revealing too much of the story, so I will only say that the Grays, Lewis, and other characters do a number of things that advance the plot while detracting from its credibility. And as evil characters go, the foot-stomping Grays (all predictably holding high level government positions) are too silly to take seriously.

I like Stephen Frey’s ability to move a story forward and to fashion protagonists that exhibit human flaws. He is particularly strong when he relies on his financial background. In Jury Town, however, he moved away from his strength and built a story on a weak premise that collapses under the weight of the implausible story it supports. Granted, Jury Town is an easy read with some fun moments. I suspect that readers who are able to buy into the premise will enjoy it more than I did.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss

First published in 1958

Having recently reviewed the digital release of Brian Aldiss' Hothouse, I want to give a shout-out to Aldiss' first science fiction novel. Non-Stop was published in various paperback editions in the United States under the title Starship.

The plot of Non-Stop is ingenious: a generations ship travels on a seemingly non-stop journey through space, its mission long forgotten, carrying descendants of the original crew who now live in warring tribes, some foraging for food in the jungle that has overgrown the ship's aft corridors while guarding against those who live on the more organized "forward" decks. Legends tell them they are on a voyage through space, but lacking windows, they have no understanding of the meaning of space; they picture it as a darkness where distant lanterns burn. The concept of religion perseveres, but it is a religion based on the teachings of "Froyd": they pray for Consciousness to save them from the Subconscious and use "Expansion to your ego" as a ritualized greeting. Aldiss creates a clever and fully realized future for this lost ship: instead of saying "to hell with ...," for instance, inhabitants say "to the hull with ...."

The story follows a small band of explorers who make their way from the aft region known as Quarters to the Forwards, where they hope to learn the truth about their environment. Apart from some "why would they do that?" moments, the novel works not only as a well-written adventure story, but also as sort of a Lord of the Flies commentary on how easily civilization can descend into chaos and superstition.

RECOMMENDED