Undercity by Catherine Asaro

Published by Baen on December 2, 2014

Six thousand years ago, aliens kidnapped some humans, plunked them down on a planet called Raylicon, and left them to fend for themselves. We learn about Raylicon history in the kind of information dump you would expect to see scrolling across the screen at the beginning of a Star Wars movie. I assume much of this is developed in the novels that form The Saga of the Skolian Empire, none of which I have read. Fans of this universe might like Undercity more than I did.

Book I of Undercity sets an ordinary PI action story in a matriarchal society. Bhaajan, formerly a major in the Pharaoh's Army of the Skolian Imperialate and now a PI, returns to her homeworld of Raylicon where she has been hired by the House of Majda to find a missing prince. He is presumed to have run away but has no experience living outside the palace and, per tradition, has rarely been seen by a woman outside the House of Majda.

"Bhaaj" is picked for the job because of her training, discretion, and augmented strength and speed, but also because she grew up in the undercity below the City of Cries. The plot involves murder and betrayal and shootouts with the addition of flirtation and romantic undertones and swoony reactions to dreamy men that do not quite fit within the tone of the story Catherine Asaro is trying tell. The "if you love him, set him free" theme is also a little cheesy.

The end of Book I (originally written as a stand-alone) segues into Book II. Bhaaj stays on Raylicon not to advance her sexual opportunities with dreamy men but because she is hired to help the military stop smugglers who are stealing Skolian technology and selling it to slave traders. Bhaaj is charged with tracking down the traitors by using her undercity contacts. Telepaths make an appearance (they access a half-explained version of hyperspace called "the Kyle, a universe where physics as we knew it had no meaning") setting up a plot thread that develops more fully in Book III. Bhaaj no longer has the opportunity to get swoony with the prince but she does get it on with a rogue from the undercity who she knew in the old days.

The plot requires Bhaaj to assemble a little army of undercity children and to give them a silly name (the Dust Knights of Cries). Much of what happens after that is predictable but, with the addition of a stirring soundtrack, it might make a successful movie.

Asaro explains that the undercity is under the city and that it exists on different levels, but doesn't paint a detailed picture of it. That's disappointing. The politics of the world could have been brought into sharper focus. Character development, particularly of secondary characters, could have been stronger. The undercity dialect could have been more imaginative; to my ear, the undercity inhabitants sound like Canadians, yah.

Bhaaj gives the Dust Knights a moral code worthy of the Boy Scouts. That might make Undercity a good choice for juveniles. It also has a strong message about taking pride in who you are even if you grew up filthy. Undercity lacks the depth of strong adult sf but some of the story is entertaining. I mightrecommend it for younger readers and, as I said, fans of the Skolian Empire series might appreciate this new addition. I did not find sufficient merit to recommend it to other sf fans.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Human Body by Paolo Giordano

Published in Italy in 2012; published in translation by Pamela Dorman Books on October 2, 2014. As you can see in the comment section of this post, the book was translated by Anne Milano Appel.

The Human Body follows several Italian soldiers, beginning on the day before they leave on a mission to Afghanistan and ending after they return home. The Italians are charged with maintaining a "security bubble" after American soldiers have cleansed the area of people they identify as insurgents. "Security" includes such tasks as protecting the military's washing machines from sandstorms. We know from the prolog that Lt. Alessandro Egitto (the only doctor at the Italians' Forward Operating Base) will receive a four month suspension for an "incident" that occurs during the mission. We do not learn the nature of the accusation, however, until the final chapter.

The reader spends most of the novel's first half becoming acquainted with the characters, including Egitto, who is dealing (not particularly well) with a dying father and an indifferent sister back home. Only a couple of the Italians in uniform are female. One of those is an intelligence officer who has a history with Egitto. Again, we do not understand her full importance to the story until the novel is nearly finished.

War provides the background, leading to a pivotal moment of lethal violence in an eventful second half, but most of the drama in the first half comes from internal battles. A male stripper/prostitute who left behind an unplanned pregnancy wrestles with the contents of an email that will say yes or no to an abortion. A virgin wants to stay alive so his mother (the only woman in his life) will not feel the pain of his loss. A soldier worries that his internet chatmate might be a guy pretending to be a female. Some characters worry about their inhumane treatment of innocent Afghan families while others loath every Afghan as if they were all Taliban.

In the end, the novel is about the impact of the war on the soldiers. The men cope (or fail to cope) with fear, with guilt, with anger, with loneliness, with worry that they will be just as lonely when they make it home. Egitto describes himself as turning into "something abstract," something that is no longer a human being. Another soldier, facing death, regrets all the squabbles he had with a woman when (he realizes) he should simply have been satisfied to receive her love and understanding. Another is haunted by a small act of selfishness that leads to a tragic consequence. A colonel reflects upon his inability to remember the faces of the men who die under his command. One of the men, after returning home, is assured that he will soon become "the man he was before," but he knows that is neither possible nor desirable.

War changes people but, as key characters realize, so does the act of living. We cannot control all the events that change us, the novel suggests, but how we respond to those events is what matters. Paolo Giordano's keen illustration of that lesson earns The Human Body my strong recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Published by Simon & Schuster on December 30, 2014

Considering that I laughed all the way through The Rosie Project, it didn't surprise me that I started laughing on the first page of The Rosie Effect. Don Tillman, the narrator of the Rosie novels, is now a familiar character. In this case, familiarity breeds glee. This novel might not be quite as funny as the first, if only because the character of Don is less startling in this second encounter, but I still enjoyed it.

The Rosie Effect begins after Don and Rosie have been married for ten months. They are living in New York. Don is teaching at Columbia and Rosie is pursuing her doctorate. Don has managed to make new friends (he now has six), has abandoned the Standardized Meal System, and has agreed that sex should not occur on a fixed schedule. His otherwise orderly life is nevertheless unsettled by an unscheduled pregnancy that makes Rosie's emotions even more impossible for Don to predict.

The pregnancy also raises yet another problem that Don finds perplexing: Is Don fit to reproduce? Opinions are mixed. To address the issue, Don embarks on The Baby Project (i.e., he prepares for "baby production and maintenance"). His efforts are hampered by an interfering social worker who is offended by Don's lack of social skills. His life is further complicated by Gene, one of his six friends, a philandering psychology professor who comes to live with Don after his wife boots him out of the house.

As readers of The Rosie Project know, Don possesses the intellectual rigor of a dedicated scientist but has a shortage of empathy. Rosie has plenty of intellect but usually balances her left brain with her right. In pregnancy, however, Rosie is all about emotion despite her unwillingness to concede that the pregnancy might challenge her. Don's desire to understand Rosie's behavior in terms of its evolutionary origins and to offer "helpful" solutions is, like the rest of the novel, hilarious -- to the reader, but not to Rosie.

Much of Don's thinking makes perfect sense (to me, at least). For instance, having told Rosie that he loves her, why should he ever need to tell her again? After all, love is a "continuous state" and only a change in that state would produce relevant information that needs to be conveyed. The Rosie Effect has some insightful things to say about relationships (and some good advice for men), particularly relationships that might lead to reproduction.

While the novel makes a number of serious points about relationships and the value of truth versus deception, its most important lesson concerns the need to be true to oneself -- even if you are socially maladapted. I value The Rosie Effect and The Rosie Project for the lighthearted approach they use to make serious points, but I value them more for the consistent laughter they provoke.

RECOMMENDED

Polaris by Jack McDevitt

First published in 2004

Jack McDevitt is a skilled but uneven storyteller. His best work is found in his series of novels featuring Priscilla Hutchins. While the Hutchins series tends to be classic space opera that has characters charging around the galaxy and encountering aliens (or the artifacts left behind by long-dead alien races), the novels in the Alex Benedict series read more like mysteries. Benedict makes his living acquiring and selling antiquities. With his pilot, Chase Kolpath, Benedict zips around the galaxy solving puzzles that are related to recent acquisitions. Actually, Chase does most of the running. Benedict's strength is his reasoning ability; physical exertion is something he prefers to avoid. Chase's strength is her ability to improvise ways to keep Benedict from getting killed.

Polaris starts with the disappearance of the captain and passengers from a ship called Polaris that positioned itself to watch a star explode. Decades after the empty ship is recovered, Alex finds some artifacts that belonged to the missing travelers. After a number of attempts are made on the lives of Alex and Chase, it becomes clear that the artifacts may hold a clue to the disappearances -- a clue that someone does not want Alex to find.

Polaris moves at a good pace and the mystery is intriguing, although the solution is a bit too obvious. Characters are carefully developed but they are not as compelling as the characters in the Hutchins series. Alex is sort of aloof and not particularly likable, although Chase supplies a winning personality for readers who want to root for someone. My complaint about this series is that it does not give the sense that it is set in the far future. It could, in fact, be set in the present, but for the addition of convenient space travel and flying cars. Still, the novel is fun. It isn't the best in the series (Seeker might be) but it always held my attention.

RECOMMENDED

The Republic of Užupis by Haïlji

Published in Korea in 2009; published in translation by Dalkey Archive Press on October 14, 2014

I can't pretend that I understood The Republic of Užupis but I enjoyed it. I'll try to explain why although I'm not certain that I can.

The Republic of Užupis is at least in part about the disappearance of nations and the loss of identity experienced by a nation's inhabitants once the nation no longer exists. Užupis is actually a poor but artistic neighborhood in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania (the word užupis means "the other side of the river" in Lithuanian). Užupis declared itself an independent republic on April Fool's Day in 1997 -- a declaration that no country, including Lithuania, takes seriously, despite Užupis' adoption of a constitution, currency, a flag, and a president.

The novel's protagonist, Hal, insists that Užupis is an actual republic. While the story follows Hal's search for Užupis, the novel offers insight into the impact of conquest and political change on people who lose their homelands, an experience common to many Eastern Europeans as borders have been redrawn and divided nations have gained new names or lost old ones. The question that Haïlji contemplates is serious -- What becomes of a people who have lost their country? -- but he explores it with a playful (if puzzling) touch that makes The Republic of Užupis a pleasure to read.

Hal, an English speaking Asian from the country of Han, lands in an unwelcoming Lithuania and promises immigration officials he will soon depart for the Republic of Užupis. He isn't sure where to find Užupis but he has a postcard that says he can take a taxi across the border from Vilnius. Although nobody he talks to knows where Užupis might be found, a taxi driver takes Hal on a roundabout trip to the Hotel Užupis. A group of drinkers at the hotel bar assures Hal that Užupis is no republic and that "the Republic of Užupis" is a mocking reference to the poorest area in Vilnius.

Hal insists that he was born in Užupis and has family photos to prove it. He even has his father's medal, awarded by the President of Užupis. He wants to return to bury his father's ashes if only he can find his homeland. He meets people who claim to know about the history of Užupis but they are vague when asked where it is. Others deny it ever existed. Hal hears the Užupis national anthem and encounters several people who speak Užupis, a language he understands perfectly although he can't speak a word of it.

The story achieves new levels of weirdness when Hal learns that another Asian once came to Vilnius in search of Užupis -- an Asian very much like Hal. A number of similarities between past and present events occur that seem strange to the reader if not to Hal. They give the novel the air of an absurdist mystery, as do the arguments characters have about whether certain other characters are living or dead. Was the poet Urbanos just seen in Užupis or did he die years ago in Belarus? Is his famous poem about Belarus or Užupis? And if he is long dead, who fathered the young boy who is said to be his son?

How does one regain a lost country? That's the central question in this charming novel. One character answers that the key lies in regaining the country's lost poetry. There is a certain poetry in this novel -- meaning is very much a matter of interpretation; like poems, the novel can be understood in different ways. I don't know that I ever developed a good theory about its meaning (particularly the foreshadowed ending) but I easily became lost in the narrative and enjoyed being baffled by it all.

RECOMMENDED