Read An Excerpt
HERE
Read Civilian
Reader’s Interview With Evie Manieri HERE
INTRODUCTION: Blood’s Pride from debut
author Evie Manieri, is one of the
big books on Jo Fletcher’s autumn list, and part of the
“Fletcher’s Five” for 2012 according to Fantasy Faction along with
Alison Littlewood’s A Cold Season (Review to come soon), The City’s Son by Tom Pollock (Reviewed HERE), David Hair’s Mage Blood (coming soon!) and Irenicon
by Aidan Harte (Reviewed HERE).
I
must admit I didn’t know what to expect from Blood’s Pride since the title and blurb sounded quite mysterious to
me, so Evie Manieri’s debut was a
most pleasant surprise as the book turned out to be a very good adventure and
fairly original story, all told in a fresh new voice...
AUTHOR INFORMATION: Evie Manieri graduated from Wesleyan
University with a degree in Mediaeval History and Theatre, disciplines that
continue to influence her work in about equal measure. She is enthralled by
intricacy, and when not weaving together the threads of her plots, she can be
found knitting airy lace shawls and singing soprano with New York's Renaissance
Street Singers. Evie lives with her
family in New York.
FORMAT/INFO: Blood’s Pride is 388 pages long and is the first volume
of the Shattered Kingdoms series. August 30, 2012 marked the UK
Hardcover/Paperback publication of Blood’s
Pride via Jo Fletcher Books. The US version (see
below) will be published on February 13,
2013 via Tor. US cover art is provided by Kekai Kotaki.
OFFICIAL PLOT
SYNOPSIS: A generation has passed since the Norlanders' great
ships bore down on Shadar, and the
Dead Ones slashed and burned the city into submission, enslaving the Shadari
people. Now the Norlander governor is dying and, as his three alienated
children struggle against the crushing isolation of their lives, the Shadari
rebels spot their opening and summon the Mongrel,
a mysterious mercenary warrior who has never yet lost a battle. But her terms
are unsettling: she will name her price only after the Norlanders have been
defeated. A single question is left for the Shadari: is there any price too
high for freedom?
ANALYSIS: As
described by Jo Fletcher herself, Evie Manieri is a very unusual new
voice in fantasy. The writing is certainly very interesting, with short,
concise sentences that beautifully depicts the intense course of action and the
hardness of life in the Shadar (the desert where the action takes place). To
provide an example of the author’s writing style, I’ve included the following
extract from the Prologue, which showcases the dramatic impact of Evie Manieri’s ability to draw the
reader into her strange, brutal world:
“The fisherman stood
on the beach, brandishing the spear that he had used countless of times to
pluck food from the waters; now it had tasted blood of a different kind. The
fisherman gazed up at the temple, flushed with hope as he picked out the
white-robed figures gathered on the roof, standing in a line along the edge
high above the beach, lit by the moonlight for all to see. The bedraggled
defenders raised a cheer, and fists were brandished in triumph.
When the first body
plunged into the sea, sending up a column of white foam, the fisherman blinked.
When the second body fell his eyes opened wide, and he stared in horror. The
ashas – their protectors – were killing themselves.”
Some
reviewers have compared Blood’s Pride
to Trudi Canavan in terms of prose,
yet I would not be too quick in comparing Evie
Manieri’s voice to any particular writer. Blood’s Pride is a truly original work in many ways – and this cannot
be stressed enough as it does not happen as often as I would like!
In
terms of characters, Blood’s Pride
doesn’t disappoint either. Admittedly, I found the characters (especially the
Norlanders such as Rho) annoyingly
simple at first, but I was proved wrong after a while. In reality, all of the main
characters, and many of the secondary characters, are multi-layered and subtle,
with complex motives. This is actually another great strength of the book:
nothing is what it seems as Evie Manieri
is very good at manipulating readers one way before twisting things around in the
opposite direction.
This
ability to keep readers on their toes gives birth to an intricate and
interesting storyline full of the unexpected. With so many characters, each
with their own many different hidden motives, it is impossible to foresee where
the plot is going, which means you’re in for more than a surprise! On the
downside, every time the narrative switches between one of five different POVs,
there is a small jump forward in time. Considering the complexity of the story,
this can be confusing for the reader as it feels like you missed some of the
action! Then again, maybe I’m just too used to flashbacks and over
explanations, because I can’t deny that these jumps infuse Blood’s Pride with a dynamic feel.
I
also really liked Evie Manieri’s world-building,
which distils information little by little in the course of action, until you
are fully immerged in the Shadar. A side effect of this styling choice is that
it takes longer to get into the world, especially for a fantasy novel, yet the
action is so gripping that before I realised it, the Shadar had became real to
me.
CONCLUSION: Evie Manieri’s Blood Pride
is a dashing first novel, highlighted by an intricate plot well served by
complex and unpredictable characters, and an overall delectable theatrical
quality that sets the book apart from many other fantasy works. Granted, the
history of the Shadari is a bit shallow in this opening volume, and many
questions remain unanswered, but with the big picture promised in future books,
the sequel, Fortune’s Blight, cannot
come out soon enough...
12:01 AM | 
Posted by
Robert |
INTRODUCTION: Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng burst on the literary scene in 2007/8 with the unforgettable debut "The Gift of Rain" longlisted for the Man Booker prize - which is how I found about it as it has been published by UK small press Myrmidon and later by Weinstein books in the US. A first person narration from Philip Hutton, ethnically half English, half Chinese from the upper class of the Malaysian island-state of Penang, the book is of the "blow me away", become an author fan forever kind and a top 10 for 2008.
I kept looking for a second novel from the author for a few years with no success, so when this year's Booker nominations were announced, I was very surprised to actually see that second novel, "The Garden of Evening Mists" there! Of course I got it immediately with huge expectations as you can see in the post I made at the time.
"Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan.
Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice “until the monsoon comes.”
Then she can design a garden for herself.As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to the gardener and his art, while all around them a communist guerilla war rages. But the Garden of Evening Mists remains a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan?
And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?"
"Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan.
Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice “until the monsoon comes.”
Then she can design a garden for herself.As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to the gardener and his art, while all around them a communist guerilla war rages. But the Garden of Evening Mists remains a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan?
And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?"
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "The Garden of Evening Mists" is the most lyrical and beautiful book - as prose and atmosphere go - that I've read in a long time. When opening it a few weeks ago, I almost could not put it down and when the
time came to read it, the whole novel had the same mesmeric quality as the
first paragraph below illustrates:
"On a mountain above the clouds once lived a man who had been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Not many people would have known of him before the war, but I did. He had left his home on the rim of the sunrise to come to the central highlands of Malaya. I was seventeen years old when my sister first told me about him. A decade would pass before I traveled up to the mountains to see him.
He did not apologize for what his countrymen had done to my sister and me. Not on that rain-scratched morning when we first met, nor at any other time. What words could have healed my pain, returned my sister to me? None. And he understood that. Not many people did"
"On a mountain above the clouds once lived a man who had been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Not many people would have known of him before the war, but I did. He had left his home on the rim of the sunrise to come to the central highlands of Malaya. I was seventeen years old when my sister first told me about him. A decade would pass before I traveled up to the mountains to see him.
He did not apologize for what his countrymen had done to my sister and me. Not on that rain-scratched morning when we first met, nor at any other time. What words could have healed my pain, returned my sister to me? None. And he understood that. Not many people did"
"The Garden of Evening Mists" alternates between 1987 and 1951 with reminiscences about the pre-war
and war periods, though Yun Ling's camp experiences are only recounted
in brief, central as they are to the whole book. In the present (1987) action of the novel, she is respected
judge Teoh just retired from the Malaysian Supreme court due to a brain
affliction that has her slowly descending into forgetfulness. Prompted by her old friend Frederik Pretorius, current owner of the Majuba Estate and nephew of Magnus below, she
decides to write down her memories so she can read them when her illness gets worse.
Born in 1923 into a very rich Straits Chinese family - educated in the English schools, speaking English natively and not speaking Mandarin, so derisively referred to by some as "bananas", yellow on the outside and white on the inside, while Yun Ling's father's first official public words in Mandarin when he learns it late in life for political reasons are precisely "I am not a banana" - in Penang, Yun Ling is the third child and second daughter, being very close to her older sister Yun Hong. One of the early defining moments in her life is in 1938, when the family visits Japan and the 18 year old Yun Hong becomes obsessed with the art of the Japanese Garden .
After the occupation and as sole survivor of three years in an ultra-secret Japanese work camp in the jungle, Yun Ling has two main goals - find out where the camp was and honor Yun Hong's memory by having a Japanese Garden created on her Kuala Lumpur estate by famed exiled Aritomo, former Imperial Gardener about whom the girls heard for the first time in the late 30's when he came to Malaya and settled near the plantation of the former business associate of their father, Boer war veteran Magnus Pretorius who was then a big tea producer with his world famous Majuba brand.
Born in 1923 into a very rich Straits Chinese family - educated in the English schools, speaking English natively and not speaking Mandarin, so derisively referred to by some as "bananas", yellow on the outside and white on the inside, while Yun Ling's father's first official public words in Mandarin when he learns it late in life for political reasons are precisely "I am not a banana" - in Penang, Yun Ling is the third child and second daughter, being very close to her older sister Yun Hong. One of the early defining moments in her life is in 1938, when the family visits Japan and the 18 year old Yun Hong becomes obsessed with the art of the Japanese Garden .
After the occupation and as sole survivor of three years in an ultra-secret Japanese work camp in the jungle, Yun Ling has two main goals - find out where the camp was and honor Yun Hong's memory by having a Japanese Garden created on her Kuala Lumpur estate by famed exiled Aritomo, former Imperial Gardener about whom the girls heard for the first time in the late 30's when he came to Malaya and settled near the plantation of the former business associate of their father, Boer war veteran Magnus Pretorius who was then a big tea producer with his world famous Majuba brand.
"Aritomo gazed at me for a while. ‘It was the longest winter I had ever endured. I could not wait for it to end. I was nineteen when I became one of the Emperor’s gardeners,’ he said. ‘I used to see his son, Crown Prince Hirohito, in the palace gardens. I was just a year older than him."
Yun Ling gets a legal education, works in the
Japanese war crimes cases and later as a public prosecutor against the mostly Chinese communist guerrillas who had started waging war against the
British administration and the Malay majority in 1948; however in 1951
she resigns after a disagreement with the colonial authorities and comes
to the highland and her family friend Magnus to try and convince
Aritomo to build the Garden.
It is also a troubled time for the country as the guerrilla war - "the Malay Emergency" - very active in the uplands where the action takes place is at its peak and the terrorist have just scored a major victory in assassinating the British governor, while Yun Ling is a marked woman too for her prosecution work.
It is also a troubled time for the country as the guerrilla war - "the Malay Emergency" - very active in the uplands where the action takes place is at its peak and the terrorist have just scored a major victory in assassinating the British governor, while Yun Ling is a marked woman too for her prosecution work.
But despite
desperate pleas from her father, whom she now blames to a
large extent for her and Yun Hong's imprisonment in the camp, Yun Ling
decides to stay and accept Aritomo's offer of apprenticeship.
"I looked at him, this man who had made his home in these highlands, who watched over his garden as one vague season replaced another, as years passed and he grew older.
‘A garden borrows from the earth, the sky, and everything around it, but you borrow from time,’ I said slowly. ‘Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of reach.’
His eyes turned bleak. I had overstepped the bounds between us. ‘It is the same with you,’ he said, a moment later. ‘Your old life, too, is gone. You are here, borrowing from your sister’s dreams, searching for what you have lost.’
We sat there on the verandah, each of us adrift in our own memories, our tea slowly relinquishing its heat into the mountain air."
Things happen, things are not quite as we think they are and lots of stuff is actually connected, though Yun Ling (and us) start putting the pieces together only in the 1987 thread, when she returns there after 34 years - in his will Aritomo left her everything, but while she maintained the property she never wanted to visit.
In a subplot, a controversial Japanese art historian who wants to write a definitive account of Aritomo and his work after his 1938 exile, manages to get Yun Ling's approval to come there and work with her on the project and his interesting story and the connections with everything are woven very skilfully into the tapestry also.
"For a long while he does not say anything. Finally he begins to speak in a slow, steady voice.
* * *
* * *
‘It was raining on the morning I was scheduled to die. I had not slept. All night the rain had blown in from the South China Sea, the water lashing the thatched roofs of our billets. The monsoon should have already ended, yet the rains still came, day after day.
‘Colonel Teruzen, my flight instructor, was already on the verandah, looking out to the beach. Lightning flashed between the low-lying clouds and the sea. ‘No flying today,’ he said when I went to join him. His relief was evident. He was forty years old that year, and I knew he would survive the war. And for that I was glad."
‘Colonel Teruzen, my flight instructor, was already on the verandah, looking out to the beach. Lightning flashed between the low-lying clouds and the sea. ‘No flying today,’ he said when I went to join him. His relief was evident. He was forty years old that year, and I knew he would survive the war. And for that I was glad."
Overall "The Garden of Evening Mists" is just great stuff, the best literary novel of the year for me and a top 5 for sure - actually I could easily see it as #1 depending on how it will wear in time - and the clear favorite for me in the Booker longlist, though I think that if it makes the shortlist it would be a good achievement too.
When considering the course of epic fantasy as a genre since its inception with Lord of the Rings, I can’t help but recognise its debt to, and continued reliance on, the study of history. Tolkien was not a historian but he was a renowned scholar of Anglo Saxon literature and its to this influence that we owe many of the tropes of epic fantasy. However, Tolkien’s seminal work is really a blend of successive European eras that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. Whilst the Hobbits of the Shire exist in a medieval world of inns, developed agriculture and clearly delineated geographical boundaries (south farthing, east farthing etc), the world of men is an altogether more Dark Age place, echoing the epic of Beowulf with its magic jewellery, endless lineages and culture of heroic monster slayers. In comparison the world of Elves seems more akin to the reduced lot of the indigenous Celts of Britain following the Saxon invasions; an increasingly marginalised people, worshipping trees and composing ballads on the fringes of a growing empire. It may be stretching a point, but the ever busy dwarves and downtrodden but productive orcs of Mordor could be read as Tolkien’s reaction to the march of industry and loss of romantic ideals following the advent of the Enlightenment.
That other principal progenitor of modern fantasy, Robert E. Howard, also borrowed extensively from history in creating the Hyborian age across which Conan strode with broadsword in hand. Although the world of Conan is not strictly speaking a second world fantasy, he exists in a mythical forgotten age between fall of Atlantis and “the rise of the sons of Aryas” (read ‘Aryans’ - Howard, sadly, was a bit of a racist). He felt little compunction in including Picts and pseudo-Vikings in this apparently prehistoric land, along with the gods of the Celts and Egyptians, none of which were contemporaneous.
As Howard demonstrates, one reason why fantasy authors find so much inspiration in history is the simple fact that it saves a lot of work. Why spend time creating an entirely fictional chronology, culture and belief system when any reference library has it all for free? This is not meant to denigrate the work of authors who tend to mine the past for plots, among whom I include myself. David Gemmell’s Rigante series, for example, makes a positive virtue of its pseudo-historical setting. The first two books, Sword in the Storm (1999) and Midnight Falcon (2000), are a retelling of the Roman conquest of Celtic Europe, except this time the Celts, embodied in fierce warrior folk the Rigante, get to win. The next two books, Ravenheart (2001) and Stormrider (2002), propel the narrative forward eight hundred years finding the Rigante now an oppressed northern hill tribe facing off against religiously inspired southern invaders, essentially a reworking of the conflict between Scotland and England during the Cromwellian Protectorate. However, Gemmell is never a slave to real world chronology, mixing in shades of the exploits of Rob Roy, the later Jacobite rebellions and the colonisation of North America along the way.
It’s this freedom enjoyed by the fantasy author that makes the employment of historical elements such a powerful tool. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing and Aspect Emperor series can be read as reimagining of the crusades, with a hefty dose of modern philosophy and Tolkien mixed in. Bakker has concocted a world every bit as morally and politically complex as Europe and the Arabian peninsular in the 12th century, with a plethora of different nations, cultures and belief systems fighting ever more destructive wars. Similarly, George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire could be described as historical fiction without the history, the endless feuds of Westeros a restaging of the Wars of the Roses on a greatly enlarged canvas.
The parallels to historical reality in Martin’s work are rarely obvious, his often short-lived characters embodying the spirit of brutal medieval Europe without being brazenly allegorical. Scheming ultra-bitch Cersei Lannister bears some resemblance to the formidable Queens of France and England in the 13th -14th centuries, but is an undeniably great fictional creation in her own right. Sadly, history has always been rich in Joffreys (President Assad, I’m talking to you) and, for all their pretensions to chivalry, one of the few real medieval knights who came close to displaying the decency and courage of a Ned Stark was 11th century Spanish hero Rodrigo DÃaz de Vivar - known to history, and Hollywood, as El Cid. Although, Scotland's Robert the Bruce runs him a close second (if you overlook the whole stabbing a man to death in church stuff).
Re-watching the old Charlton Heston epic was in fact one of the starting points for my own Raven’s Shadow series; the concept of a man set apart by honour and loyalty in an age of betrayal and war was a major element in the genesis of my main character Vaelin Al Sorna. I also owe a debt to Philip Ziegler’s The Black Death (1969), possibly the most readable account of the plague that claimed an estimated third of the European population in the 14th century, for my own similarly apocalyptic Red Hand. The crusades were at the back of my mind in conceiving of King Janus’s unjust war on the Alpiran Empire, but recent events in Iraq, and the opium wars in China during the early 19th century, were probably more of an influence.
Not all epic fantasy is so reliant on history however, the world of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series reflects many typical elements found in slaveocracies throughout the ages, most closely, but not exactly, resembling the serfdom of Tsarist Russia. However, its mostly urban setting and inventive world-building make it a distinguished outsider to the cod-medieval club. Those seeking perhaps the ultimate imaginary slaveocracy should look no further than the exquisitely horrible world of Ricardo Pinto’s Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy, an often gruesome magnification of the excesses and intrigues typical of ancient Rome, but played out in a completely original world with few obvious parallels to our own.
The influence of history on epic fantasy has been considerable, and certainly a component in its success as a genre. But that success is dependent on a willingness to engage with the truths history has to tell us rather than the myths. Tolkien’s Middle Earth is a richer and more interesting place for his sombre recognition that for one culture to flourish others often have to die. The world of men ultimately cannot tolerate the world of elves any more than the Saxons could tolerate the Celts or European settlers could tolerate the Native Americans. The knights of Westeros would be a dull bunch indeed if they didn’t embody the brutality and self-serving ambition of the real medieval knight, as well as the courage and loyalty of which they were also capable. History is inspiration for the fantasy author and, if employed with respect and insight, possibly an education for the reader, even if it’s all made up.
AUTHOR INFORMATION: Anthony Ryan is a pseudonym used by the author as his day job prevents him from using his real identity or his real picture (Cover picture is not of the author). This particular pseudonym was selected by the author for the following reasons revealed in an email: "It was the name of a character from a best forgotten (and deserveredly unpublished) crime novel that I wrote in my early twenties. I just liked the sound of it, and it has fewer syllables than my real name". However we do know certain facts such as the author has an academic background in history, works fulltime as a researcher and currently lives in London.
NOTE: Silhouette picture courtesy of Life Tints blog. Robert E. Howard picture courtesy of Swanie. El Cid movie poster courtesy of Moovida DB.
The Orthogonal Universe
by Greg Egan
What would it be like to live in a universe with four dimensions that were all essentially the same?
The universe we inhabit has three dimensions of space and one of
time, and though relativity has taught us that there is no absolute
notion of time that is shared by everyone, the whole variety of
directions in space-time that different people might call “the future”
is entirely separate from the set of directions that different people
might call “north”.
What would be the outcome if that distinction were erased, and there
were four dimensions that were all as much alike as “north” and “east”?
Such a universe is the setting for a trilogy of novels that I’m
writing, with the overall title of Orthogonal. The first volume, The Clockwork Rocket, was published in 2011; the second, The Eternal Flame, has just been released by Night Shade books in the US, and will be out from Gollancz in the UK in October.
Since time as such is absent from the Orthogonal universe, a
first guess might be that it would resemble a snapshot of the world we
see around us at a single moment, albeit a snapshot with four dimensions
of space rather than three. Worse, it would be a snapshot with no
backstory: no sequence of prior events to organize and enrich the
subjects caught in the flash. It would consist of nothing but
scattered, isolated objects with no history or duration.
But it turns out that this guess would be wrong. What we see around us at a single moment takes the form it does because of
the existence of our own fourth dimension. It doesn’t make sense to
throw out that entire dimension, and then replace it by simply mimicking
what we originally saw in the remaining three.
So forget about snapshots. A more methodical approach would be to
take the equations that govern the behavior of matter and energy in our
universe, and make the smallest possible changes to them needed to put
all four dimensions on an equal footing. With the advent of relativity,
the equations of modern physics already come very close to treating
time and space even-handedly, often with the only difference being a plus sign appearing before a quantity involving distances and a minus sign
before a similar quantity involving times. If we rewrite the equations
slightly, turning those minus signs into plus signs, we can start to
make solid predictions about the nature of a universe where all the
dimensions are fundamentally the same.
Perhaps the most important thing to emerge is that, despite the
absence of a special time dimension, objects still end up with a kind of
persistence. In our own universe, we talk about the “world
line” of an object: the path it traces out in the four dimensions of
space-time as we follow its position over time. But even when we get
rid of time, the equations tells us that there will still be world
lines!
To see why this is true, the easiest place to start is to think about the kind of waves that we can expect the Orthogonal
universe to contain. In our universe, both light and matter have
fundamental wavelike properties, and it’s the geometry of these waves
that underlies the way objects move.
The simplest wave imaginable in the Orthogonal universe
consists of an endless series of equally spaced wavefronts, like an
idealized version of the waves you might get by shaking a long flat
board in calm water. In the figure below we only see two dimensions,
but that’s enough to show everything that matters, because as we move
along the other two dimensions nothing changes.
We’ve called one dimension “distance” and the other “time”, but as
far as the geometry is concerned there’s no difference: there’s nothing
special about the time dimension. We’ve also drawn a white arrow that
runs at right angles to all of the wave fronts, and gives us an
indication of the direction of the wave.
We’ll call the distance between wavefronts along the “distance” axis the wavelength of the waves, and the distance between wavefronts along the “time” axis the period of the waves.
Now, let’s compare this to another example, where we’ve taken exactly
the same kind of waves but changed their direction slightly with
respect to our “distance” and “time” axes.
The separation between these waves — measured directly from wavefront
to wavefront — is exactly the same as before. But because the wave’s
direction compared to our axes is different, the wavelength (measured
along the “distance” axis) has grown shorter, while the period (measured
along the “time” axis) has grown longer. We’ve drawn the waves with
the longer wavelength in red and the waves with the shorter wavelength
in violet, but the waves as such are actually identical in the two
diagrams; all that’s changed is their relationship to our chosen axes.
What happens if we combine several waves with slightly different directions? The result will look like this:
We see a series of points where the wavefronts intersect and
reinforce each other. These points all lie along a line that runs at
right angles to the wavefronts themselves — and this is how a
world line appears! If these waves described something like light, the
line where they reinforced each other would be the world line of a pulse
of light. If they were the quantum mechanical waves describing some
kind of matter, the line would be the world line of an elementary
particle.
Just as in our own universe, we can imagine successive
three-dimensional slices that intersect these world lines at slightly
different points for each slice, giving a picture of objects moving
about. So even without an official time dimension, we naturally end up
with concepts of change and motion that are very similar to those in our
own universe.
What’s more, all the simple geometry that we learned in school that
applies to distances in space now works just as well across all four
dimensions. Everyone knows that the shortest distance between two
points is a straight line, and that any detour or zig-zag only adds to
the distance. In a universe with four dimensions of space, what a
living creature would experience as “the passage of time” must really be
a form of distance, so the shortest time between two events must
also involve a straight line. Taking a detour when traveling from
event to event can only add to the time experienced by the traveler — in
stark contrast to the situation in our universe, where relativistic
time dilation means that less time passes for space travelers.
It’s that very simple twist that underlies the plot of my Orthogonal
trilogy. An alien civilization in the universe I’ve described are
facing a catastrophe that threatens to destroy their planet in a matter
of years, and their current technology is nowhere near sophisticated
enough to avert it. But by sending a group of travelers on a long
interstellar journey, those travelers will have a chance to spend
several generations trying to develop a solution, even though the
“straight line distance” to the catastrophe is just a few years.
Once the spacecraft ends up with its world line at right angles to
that of the home world (orthogonal to it, hence the title of the
trilogy), no time at all will be passing back home during that stage of
the journey, no matter how long it lasts for the travelers. What sets
the minimum time for the whole journey, as measured on the home world,
is the time it takes for the spacecraft to achieve that orthogonal state
— and as with a racing car trying to take a bend, the turning radius
depends on the force that is applied to make the trajectory change
direction.
The reversal of the usual kind of time dilation is only the beginning
of a long list of strange phenomena. The speed we measure for any
object or particle depends on the angle its world line makes with our
own, and since any world line is as good as another in the Orthogonal
universe, there can be no special speeds, such as the speed of light is
special for us. Light will be able to travel at any velocity
whatsoever, but the geometry of the waves means that the speed will be
tied to its wavelength, and hence its color.
Light of a shorter
wavelength — bluer light, in our own vocabulary — will travel faster
than longer-wavelength light. Just compare the first two wavefront
diagrams: when the direction of the wavefronts in the second diagram
makes a larger angle with the time direction, indicating a greater
velocity, the wavelength becomes shorter.
So when the aliens in this universe look up at the sky, every star’s
light will be spread out into a tiny spectrum, with the violet light
showing the star’s most recent position, while the red light shows the
star’s position centuries earlier — since the slower red light will have
taken longer to arrive.
It’s possible to map out the way this altered geometry leaves its
mark on everything, from the microscopic structure of matter to the
shape of the universe. More detail can be found on my web site, but if you don’t want to spoil too many surprises it’s best to read the novels first.
******************************************************************
I want to thank Greg Egan for this wonderfully comprehensive post and I will note that The Clockwork Rocket has been my top sf and sff title of 2011 for its combination of the sense of wonder you glimpsed above and wonderful characters you get to care about, however alien they are from some points of view.
This
month we are featuring 36 books. There are more than twice as
many new sff and related releases this month in traditional
publishing not to speak of the countless indies from Amazon and
Smashwords but we are limiting ourselves to books that will be
reviewed here or are similar with such. For the full schedule of September 2012 titles known to us, you can consult the Upcoming Releases page.
The
release dates are US unless marked otherwise, though for books
released in the UK and US in the same month but on different dates
we generally use the US date and they are first
edition unless noted differently. The dates are on a best known
basis so they are not guaranteed; same about the edition
information.
Since information sometimes is out of date even in
the Amazon links we use for listings, books get delayed or
sometimes even released earlier, we would truly appreciate if you
would send us an email about any listing with incorrect
information.
*********************************************************************
“The Eternal Flame” by Greg Egan, September 1, 2012. Published by Night Shade Books. (SF).
"John Saturnall's Feast" by Lawrence Norfolk, September 4, 2012. Published by Grove (MISC).
"The Garden of Evening Mists" by Tan Twan Eng, September 4, 2012. Published by Weinstein Books (MISC).
“The Kingmakers” by Clay Susan Griffith, September 4, 2012. Published by Pyr. (STPK).
“The Map of the Sky” by Felix J. Palma, September 4, 2012. Published by Atria. (MISC/SF).
“Slow Apocalypse” by John Varley, September 4, 2012. Published by Ace. (MISC/SF).
*********************************************************************
“The Blinding Knife” by Brent Weeks, September 11, 2012. Published by Orbit. (FAN).
“The White Forest” by Adam McOmber, September 11, 2012. Published by Touchstone. (MISC).
“The Malice of Fortune” by Michael Ennis, September 11, 2012. Published by Doubleday. (MISC).
“Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top” edited by Ekaterina Sedia, September 12, 2012. Published by Prime Books. (ANTHO).
“At the Edge of Waking” by Holly Phillips, September 12, 2012. Published by Prime Books. (Collection).
*********************************************************************
“Midst Toil and Tribulation” by David Weber, September 18, 2012. Published by Tor. (SF).
“The Forge of Darkness” by Steven Erikson, September 18, 2012. Published by Tor. (FAN).
"The Painter of Silence" by Georgina Harding, September 18, 2012. Published by Bloomsbury (MISC).
"The Exile's Violin" by R. S. Hunter, September 18, 2012. Published by Hydra (STPK).
“Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan” by Robin Maxwell. Release Date: September 18, 2012. Published by Tor. (MISC).
*********************************************************************
“The Well of Tears” by Roberta Trahan, September 18, 2012. Published by 47North. (FAN).
"The Black Count" by Tom Reiss, September 18, 2012. Published by Crown (MISC/NF)
“Winter of the World” by Ken Follett, September 18, 2012. Published by Dutton. (MISC).
“Fallen Masters” by John Edward, September 18, 2012. Published by Tor. (MISC).
“Something Red” by Douglas Nicholas, September 18, 2012. Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books. (MISC).
*********************************************************************
“The Diviners” by Libba Bray, September 18, 2012. Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. (YA).
“Crown Thief” by David Tallerman, September 25, 2012. Published by Angry Robot. (FAN).
“The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One”, September 25, 2012. Published by 47North. (SF).
“The Indigo Pheasant” by Daniel A. Rabuzzi, September 25, 2012. Published by ChiZine Publications. (FAN).
“Janus” by John Park. Release Date: September 25, 2012, ChiZine Publications. (SF).
*********************************************************************
“Helix Wars” by Eric Brown, September 25, 2012. Published by Solaris. (SF).
“The Mongoliad: Book Two” by Various Authors, September 25, 2012. Published by 47North. (MISC).
“Bad Glass” by Richard E. Gropp, September 25, 2012. Published by Del Rey. (MISC).
“Sons of Thunder” by Giles Kristian, September 25, 2012. Published by Bantam. (MISC / US Debut).
"Great North Road” by Peter F. Hamilton, UK September 27, 2012. Published by Tor UK. (SF).
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