The Flies of Memory by Ian Watson

Published in the UK in 1990; published by Carroll & Graf in December 1991

Although it's been about eight years since he last released a novel, Ian Watson has long been one of the most creative voices in science fiction. The work of a more recent author, the justly celebrated China Miéville, reminds me of Watson's. Both writers stretch the boundaries of the genre; both tend to address philosophical and conceptual issues rather than hard science. As a prose stylist, however, Watson is by far the better of the two.

The Flies of Memory was first published in 1990. Watson envisions memory as a force, like gravity. Memory is "the foundation of reality ... the source of all identity, the only link in a flux of perceptions and events -- not only for living beings but for the physical universe, as well." The counterforce of memory is imagination, the power to break the chain of events that constitutes memory.

Aliens known as the Flies come to Earth to perceive and remember, like tourists with cameras. The Flies, however, have no need for cameras; they absorb memories and then download them into memory tanks. They have come to Earth because their own world is full; there is no room to make new memories.

The Flies catalog memories of reality, but a lost memory can make reality disappear. The accidental death of a fly tasked with remembering St. Peter's Basilica thus causes the building's cupola to vanish. A good chunk of Munich later disappears when humans, bent on securing access to alien technology, cause Flies to die. But does Munich actually cease to exist? According to Watson, it is possible for people (and places) to travel on memory fields; remember a place you have seen and you can transport yourself to that place (at least if you have access to the fluid with which the Flies fill their memory tanks). And so Munich has disappeared from Germany but it turns up ... elsewhere.

The ability to travel on memory fields creates a crisis of faith for Kathinka, a Dutch nun. "If I can fly outside of space and time with the power of an angel -- then why believe in angels?" she asks. Kathinka is one of several characters who tell Watson's odd story from their individual points of view. Martine Leveret can see other people's memories, an ability that makes her a human lie detector. Body language expert Charles Spark is Martine's ex-husband; he's convinced she's crazy. Erika, a teenage girl who contends with the unwelcome advances of the self-proclaimed ruler of Munich after the city relocates, begins to perceive the ghost-like inhabitants of Munich since medieval times -- including a rather memorable face from the 1930s. KGB psychologist Valeri Osipyan has little use for New Age mysticism, but begins to question his sanity, his devotion to rationality, in light of the "web of irrational forces, waiting to erupt" that define his new understanding of the universe. Memory is important to Osipyan; as a matter of honor, he remembers everyone he condemned, because "people should not be erased, as Stalin had erased people."

Some of this richly imagined novel is tough sledding. The final pages, in particular, are almost surrealistic. I read some of The Flies of Memory twice and I'm still not sure I entirely grasp it. Yet the effort the novel demands from the reader is repaid with subtle and enriching ideas. In any event, strong characters and striking prose more than compensate for the occasionally obscure story.

RECOMMENDED

Fly By Night by Ward Larsen

Published by Oceanview on November 1, 2011

An ultra-secret CIA drone disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of Somalia. Word is the recovered aircraft is hidden in a hanger in Sudan. Rather conveniently, a Sudanese aircraft has just disappeared, presumably crashed; rather improbably, the United States has been asked to assist Sudan in the accident investigation, giving the CIA a chance to poke around in search of its missing drone. NTSB investigator Jammer Davis (last seen in Fly By Wire) is recruited to do the poking. The Sudanese airline that Davis investigates, like the suspicious hanger, is owned by an imam who has close ties to a member of the Sudanese military. Too predictably, the bad guys have a mission of violence in mind for the salvaged drone. The target of that mission, however, isn't the sort of target I expected; that aspect of the plot is rather clever. As Davis tries to find a way inside the hanger, he becomes intrigued by fate of the crashed Sudanese aircraft, particularly when evidence begins to suggest that it didn't crash at all.

The characters in Fly By Night are less interesting than the story. Davis is a fairly standard one-note action hero; efforts to humanize him with a daughter who won't return his calls and a beautiful Italian doctor who manages to drink pinot noir with him in Sudan are uninspired. The bad guys are caricatures of evil.

Ward Larsen's writing style is workmanlike. He adds authenticity to the story by including overwhelming detail about the science of aviation and crash investigation. At times, he goes overboard; whenever he finds an opportunity to add a flying metaphor or to give the reader a pilot's outlook on life, he takes it. Too often Larsen's prose comes across as a lecture. Occasionally the tone is a bit smug.

Notwithstanding the ordinariness of its characters and despite its occasional predictability, Fly By Night is a satisfying read, both as a puzzling mystery and as a competent action story.  It's a light read that doesn't demand (and likely wouldn't withstand) deep thought.

RECOMMENDED

The Unknown Soldier by Gerald Seymour

First published in Great Britain in 2004; published by Overlook Trade Paperback on March 28, 2006

Gerald Seymour is one of my favorite writers of espionage fiction. Toiling in the shadow of John Le Carré, Seymour's work is largely overlooked by the American audience. Seymour doesn't have quite the stylistic grace of Le Carré, but he is -- at his best -- nearly Le Carré's equal as a storyteller. While The Unknown Soldier isn't Seymour's best work (Home Run remains my favorite), the novel features some of Seymour's most intriguing characters.

Seymour structures the plot as a series of interlocking storylines, each following a set of characters that, for most of the novel, lack any connection to the others. The key character, known both as Caleb and Abu Khaleb, has managed to talk his way out of Guantanamo by adopting the identity of an innocent cab driver. For reasons that don't become apparent until the final chapters, Caleb is making his way across the Earth's largest sand desert, the Empty Quarter in the Arabian Peninsula. Sparsely populated by camels and itinerant Bedouin tribesmen, the Empty Quarter serves as a hiding place for Caleb's al Qaeda masters. A good part of the novel describes the arduous journey Caleb makes across the forbidding terrain and the conflicts that arise between the untrusting terrorists who accompany him.

Other characters include Beth Jenkins, a lonely geologist working at the Shaybah oil extraction plant; Samuel "Bart" Bartholomew, a disgraced physician who works in Riyadh, where his income depends upon the information about his patients that he provides to British intelligence officer Eddie Wroughton; Juan Gonsalves, Wroughton's American counterpart; Jed Dietrich, a Guantanamo interrogator working for the DIA;, and Marty and Lizzy-Jo, the pilot and sensor operator of a Predator that prowls the windy skies above the Empty Quarter. Each character comes fully alive. Their individual stories are more interesting than the slowly unfolding explanation for Caleb's trek across the desert.

As is characteristic of Seymour's novels, The Unknown Soldier is solidly plotted. Dramatic tension builds as the characters, carrying out their own missions and agendas, end up working at cross-purposes. Thriller fans looking for fast action, gunplay, and heroes who save the world from evil fanatics might be bored by The Unknown Soldier, as well as Seymour's other novels. This is a novel of intrigue and intellect rather than daring exploits.

Readers who want a clear, unambiguous ending in which the good guys defeat the bad guys should probably never read a Seymour novel, particularly not this one. I didn't mind the unresolved nature of the story's conclusion but I don't think it had quite the punch that Seymour intended. Perhaps there have been so many novels about terrorism in recent years that I've become jaded, but the open-ended, supposedly ominous ending didn't resonate with me. For that reason, I thought The Unknown Soldier was worth reading for its characters, less so for its story.

RECOMMENDED

Mercury's Rise by Ann Parker

Published by Poisoned Pen Press on November 1, 2011

Mercury's Rise is the third novel in Ann Parker's Silver Rush mystery series. The story takes place in Colorado. Ann Parker provides enough period detail to create a convincing 1880 background, although I can't say I was enthralled by her detailed descriptions of the garments worn by her female characters (readers with a stronger interest in the history of women's fashion might react differently). In any event, as she makes clear in an author's note, Parker's research about Colorado in 1880 was thorough.

Mercury's Rise starts with a death, then fills in the back story. Inez Stannert and her friend Susan Carothers are taking a coach from Leadville to Manitou (a city known for its mineral springs and favored by patients suffering from consumption). Inez is traveling to Manitou to meet her sister, Harmony, who has been caring for Inez's son, William, for the last year. Another passenger, Edward Pace, has an apparent heart attack and dies, shortly after drinking one of the tonics the irascible Dr. Prochazka had prescribed for Edward's wife, Kirsten Pace. Kirsten suspects foul play, leading Inez to investigate. The mystery deepens when other targets of homicidal mischief begin to appear.

Inez is a strong, independent woman in a time and place that has little regard for the concept of gender equality. Inez is a saloon keeper in Leadville; her taste for whiskey is met with disapproval in the more genteel environs of Manitou, and her role as a business owner is viewed with suspicion by the men who surround her. Inez is more than a little distressed at the sudden reappearance of Mark, the husband she had intended to divorce on the ground of abandonment. Mark has an explanation for his disappearance but Inez doesn't know whether to believe him. Mercury's Rise gives equal attention to Inez's domestic problems and to the mystery Inez investigates.

Although Parker's prose is competent, her pace is slowed by redundancy as characters tell other characters facts that the reader already knows. For my taste, there's a bit too much soap opera in Inez's relationships with Mark and with her meddling Aunt Agnes. The mystery, on the other hand, is intriguing, even if the culprit's identity isn't difficult to guess. The motivation for the crimes is credible. Parker appears to have done her research into nineteenth century medicine and divorce law. Parker integrates an interesting discussion of medical science's developing understanding of the cause of tuberculosis into the plot. A twist on the domestic subplot in the final chapters, after the murder mystery is resolved, is less interesting and not very convincing. The story of Inez and Mark continues long after the murder is solved -- too long to sustain my interest. In short, I liked the mystery; the soap opera, not so much.  

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Published in Sweden in 2008; published in translation by Thomas Dunne Books on October 11, 2011

The Earth and its creatures consist mostly of water. When water gets its evil on, it is a formidable and dangerous element. Even without a supernatural infestation, oceans (particularly at night) are frightening to behold. In Harbor, John Ajvide Lindqvist imagines the waters of the ocean as a diabolical force.

In 2004, a little girl named Maja disappears while visiting a lighthouse with her parents, Anders and Cecelia. Her disappearance on the small, isolated island of Domarö is impossible to explain. When Anders returns to the island a couple of years later, a series of eerie events suggest that Maja is trying to contact him. Anders later learns that Maja is not the first island resident to have disappeared, and that the island harbors secrets from generations past.

Anders is one primary character; another is Simon, an aging magician and escape artist who has lived on Domarö for years. In 1996, Simon pledges himself to a Spiritus, a dark little creature that resembles a centipede. When Simon drools on the Spiritus, he gains some of its life force; holding the Spiritus in his hand empowers Simon. Despite Simon's connection to the island, its life-long residents have kept a secret from him: the secret of the sea. It is the secret that animates the novel and that Anders must eventually understand if he is to make sense of Maja's disappearance.

As the plot develops, John Ajvide Lindqvist surrounds his characters with menacing images: a cardboard cutout of an ice cream man seems vaguely sinister; the wind-swept sea conveys a feeling of dread; the distant growl of a moped signals danger. Even swans are best avoided on Domarö. This is artful storytelling.

Unfortunately the images of horror are more interesting than the actual horror. The problem, I think, is that there are just too many different manifestations of evil: the dead return to life in ghost-like fashion, the living are possessed in zombie-like fashion, a malevolent force dwells in the deep ... the riot of horror themes becomes a bit much, particularly with the addition of the Spiritus. While the Spiritus is the most imaginative of the supernatural forces at play in Harbor, its existence (and the role it plays at the novel's end) is almost too convenient. Having voiced that small complaint, however, I must give Lindqvist credit for tying it all together at the novel's end.

Harbor works best as a novel of psychological horror -- the horror not just of losing a child, but of a parent's realization that he never really knew his child. As a tale of supernatural horror, the novel is creative but not particularly frightening. The lengthy story is nonetheless entertaining. There are stories within stories in this unusual novel: stories of smuggling and stagecraft and love and Nordic adventure. Often the stories provide background, explaining, for instance, why two kids who went missing came to be treated as island outcasts and how Anders' father died. The stories of individuals confronting fears and hardships in an isolated environment showcase Lindqvist at his best, and provide sufficient reason to read Harbor.

RECOMMENDED