#151. SWASTIKA NIGHT By Murray Constantine

Published : 1937
Pages : 196
Overall Mark : 8/10

Seven hundred years after Nazism achieved power, Hitler is worshipped as a god. The fascist Germans and Japanese struggle to maintain their populations. An Englishman named Alfred is on a German pilgrimage. According to official history, Hitler is a tall, blond god who personally won the war. Alfred is astounded when shown a photograph of Hitler before a crowd. He is shocked that Hitler was a small man with dark hair and a paunch. And Alfred’s discovery may mean his death...

MURRAY CONSTANTINE (1896-1963)
A pseudonym for the feminist SF writer Katharine Burdekin. Born Katharine Cade, she was the younger sister of Rowan Cade who created the Minack Theatre in Cornwall. In addition to her Utopian and Dystopian fiction, she wrote several children’s books, including The Children’s Country under the pen name Kay Burdekin. Her best-known work remains Swastika Night, written as Murray Constantine – a pseudonym that was not confirmed until two decades after her death.

VERDICT
I actually enjoyed this book, with its bleak look at a future that could have happened if Hitler had won World War II. It’s amazing to read when you realise that this book was actually published before the war had even begun, so Burdekin not only comes up with a dystopian future based on a fiction but also predicts the war itself. The idea that Nazism moves its focus onto women once it has all but wiped out anyone else they deem unfit to be part of the so-called master race is a scary one as women are portrayed here as being treated like animals or something almost sub-human. An interesting parable of what could quite easily have been.

#150. A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY By Vernor Vinge

Published : 1991
Pages : 538
Overall Mark : 6/10

This is the story of Pham Nuwen, a small cog in the interstellar trading fleet of the Qeng Ho. Both they and the Emergents are orbiting Arachna, a dormant planet which will shortly wake up when its On/Off star relights after decades of darkness. Both groups hope to exploit the coming age of technology and commerce on Arachna.

But while the Qeng Ho seek only to trade aggressively, the Emergents’ plans are far more sinister, amounting to little short of genocide...

VERNOR VINGE (1944-)
Vernor Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, a computer scientist and science fiction author. He is best known for his two epic space operas A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) and A Deepness in the Sky (1999), both of which won the Hugo Award and were shortlisted for the Nebula. He is the winner of 5 Hugos, 4 Prometheus Awards and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, among many others.

VERDICT
This was pretty slow paced and at times I couldn’t tell where Vinge was going with the narrative, but eventually things got a little interesting. Like the previous book, I found it hard to follow what was happening that was of any real importance, but the characters were still fun to read about even if I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure at all times what their plans or motivations might be.

#149. ALWAYS COMING HOME By Ursula K Le Guin

Published : 1985
Pages : 525
Overall Mark : 6/10

A long, long time from now, in the valleys of what will no longer be called Northern California, might be going to have lived a people called the Kesh.

But Always Coming Home is not the story of the Kesh. Rather it is the stories of the Kesh. Stories, poems, songs, recipes – Always Coming Home is no less than an anthropological account of a community that does not yet exist, a tour de force of imaginative fiction by one of modern literature’s greatest voices.

URSULA K. LE GUIN (1929-)
Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the finest writers of our time. Her books have attracted millions of devoted readers and won many awards, including the National Book Award, the Hugo and Nebula Awards and a Newbery Honour. Among her novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and the six books of Earthsea have already attained undisputed classic status. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

VERDICT
It’s hard to judge this as a novel as it is more of a fictional anthropological guide to a made-up society. Le Guin does an awesome job of creating a world from the basic elements right up to the most important parts, but it is quite the challenge to wrap your mind around. There are stories interspersed between studies of the Kesh, but these are few and far between and just as hard to read as the rest of the book. It’s worth the effort to some extent, but it’s inaccessibility makes it more of an oddity than a must read.

#148. THE CHRYSALIDS By John Wyndham

Published : 1955
Pages : 200
Overall Mark : 8/10

David’s father doesn’t approve of Angus Morton’s unusually large horses, calling them blasphemies against nature. Little does he realise that David and his friends have their own secret aberration, which would label them as mutants. And mutants, as everyone knows, should be burned. But as the children grow older it becomes more difficult to conceal their differences from the village elders. Soon they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery – and death – or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands...

JOHN WYNDHAM (1903-69)
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris started writing short stories in 1925. He wrote under many pen names, eventually settling on John Wyndham for his modified form of science fiction, which he called ‘logical fantasy’. He is best-known as the author of The Day of the Triffids, but he wrote many other successful novels including The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned).

VERDICT
It’s amazing how much of this book seems to have been borrowed from over the years by comic books; from the mutants feared and hated by society for being different, to the appearance of an actual spider-man, this book is a must read for anyone who has ever been a fan of comic books or dystopian fantasies. Wyndham does a wonderful job of creating a world that instantly feels familiar in a child-like friendly way, then pulls the rug out from under us to reveal how truly terrifying other people’s hatred can be.

#147. THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH By Walter Tevis

Published : 1963
Pages : 185
Overall Mark : 8/10

Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien from the planet Anthea, an advanced world that has been devastated by a series of nuclear wars. When he lands on Earth, disguised as a human, it’s with the intention of saving his own people from extinction. Patenting advanced Anthean technology, he soon begins to amass the fortune he needs to help his people. But there are some who are suspicious of Newton’s company’s innovative products, and suspect there is more to this man than meets the eye...

WALTER TEVIS (1928-84)
While studying at the University of Kentucky, Tevis worked in a pool hall and published a story about the game for an English class. It was a theme he would later revisit in the novels The Hustler and The Colour of Money, both of which were adapted into Oscar-winning films. Among his other works, The Man Who Fell to Earth and Mockingbird are considered masterpieces of science fiction.

VERDICT
This is an intriguing look at how humanity might treat an alien visitor if they were to come across one. I love the idea that the alien, Newton, decides to try and make money by inventing amazing things, yet doesn’t actually seem to have any plans for his future. The ending is a little bittersweet, but it does give plenty of closure to his predicament and leaves the reader wondering if there have been visitors that we’ve never been told about...

#146. FAIRYLAND By Paul McAuley

Published : 1995
Pages : 376
Overall Mark : 8/10

The 21st century. Europe is divided between the First World, made rich by nanotechnology and genetically engineered Dolls, and the Fourth World – refugees displaced by war and economic upheaval. In London, Alex Sharkey, a designer of psychoactive viruses, is trying to stay one step ahead of the police and the Triads. But his troubles really start when he helps a scary, duper-smart girl called Milena quicken intelligence in a Doll, turning it into the first of the fairies...

PAUL MCAULEY (1955-)
Paul James McAuley was born in Gloucestershire on St George’s Day, 1955. He has a Ph.D in Botany, worked as a researcher in biology at various universities, including Oxford and UCLA, and for six years was a lecturer in botany at St Andrews University, before leaving academia to write full time.

VERDICT
This is such an odd world that McAuley has created yet, as someone who was born and raised in London, it is oddly familiar too. Slightly reminiscent of the works of both Philip K Dick and Isaac Asimov through its use of robots as a metaphor for humanity, this story tells the history of how robotic slaves called Dolls rise up against their masters and create their own species, the fairies. This is both funny and dark, and manages to make feel real a story that is otherwise pure fantasy.

#145. THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS By John Wyndham

Published : 1951
Pages : 272
Overall Mark : 8/10

When Bill Masen wakes up in his hospital bed, he finds a population rendered blind and helpless by the spectacular meteor shower that filled the night sky the evening before – a newly-blinded population now at the mercy of the Triffids. Once, the Triffids were farmed for their oil, their uncanny ability to move and their carnivorous habits well controlled by their human keepers. But now, with humans so vulnerable, they are a potent threat to humanity’s very survival...

JOHN WYNDHAM (1903-1969)
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris started writing short stories in 1925. He wrote under many pen names, eventually settling on John Wyndham for his modified form of science fiction, which he called ‘logical fantasy’. He is best-known as the author of The Day of the Triffids, but he wrote many other successful novels including The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned).

VERDICT
This was definitely not what I was expecting. Far from the monster movie feel I thought this was going to have, it is much more similar in theme to modern books like The Road (except this was enjoyable). The fact that the blindness that inflicts the population of the world may have been caused by man rather than an alien race, and that the Triffids themselves were already living among mankind and took the blindness as a cue to attack, makes it a much more effective read.

#144. FEERSUM ENDJINN By Iain M Banks

Published : 1994
Pages : 279
Overall Mark : 4/10

It is the time of the Encroachment and, although the dimming sun still shines on the vast, towering walls of Serehfa Fastness, the end is close at hand. The king knows it, his closest advisers know it, yet still they prosecute the war against the clan Engineers with increasing savagery.

The crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent, an emissary who holds the key to all their futures

IAIN M. BANKS (1954-2013)
Iain Menzies Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. His first SF novel, Consider Phlebas, was published in 1987. Acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation, he continued to write both mainstream fiction (as Iain Banks) and science fiction (as Iain M. Banks) until his untimely death in 2013.

VERDICT
This was the first book by Banks I’ve ever read, and I suspect it may be my last unless another one rears its ugly head in the SF Masterworks collection. Every fourth section of this book was written in a strange dialect of text message short hand that was very troublesome to read, yet these sections were the best parts. On the whole the rest of the book was confusing and really didn’t engage me in any way. My advice – don’t bother with this book, it’s just too much hard work and not enough reward.

#143. NORSTRILIA By Cordwainer Smith

Published : 1975
Pages : 275
Overall Mark : 9/10

Rod McBan 151st is the last scion of one of the oldest farming families on Nortstrilia, only source of the immortality drug ‘stroon’. But he’s also a telepathic cripple, ever at risk of being culled under the government’s draconian population laws. To protect himself, he uses his not-strictly-legal computer to play the market and amass an unimaginable fortune. But after an assassination attempt, McBan discovers that having enough money to literally buy the Earth is no good if you’re too dead to spend it.

CORDWAINER SMITH (1913-66)
Cordwainer Smith was the most famous pen name of US foreign policy adviser Paul Linebarger. Smith held a PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins, served in the US military during the Second World War and acted as an advisor to President Kennedy. Although he only published one novel, Norstrilia, Smith is well regarded for his short fiction, the majority of which is set in his future history of the Instrumentality of Mankind.

VERDICT
This is one of the best SF or fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. McBan’s transformation into a simple farmer to the owner of the entire planet earth is cleverly executed and paced so well that it makes the unlikely storyline feel plausible and makes for a fascinating, though short, read. Once you’ve read this, you’ll find yourself believing in cat people, talking apes, and giant sheep with the ability to extend human lifespans.

#142. A FIRE UPON THE DEEP By Vernor Vinge

Published : 1991
Pages : 579
Overall Mark : 6/10

Millennia hence, an unknown force has partitioned space into ‘zones of thought’, which dictate a mind’s potential – from superintelligence in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths. When an ancient Transcendent artefact is used as a weapon, an awesome destructive power is unleashed. Fleeing this threat, a family of scientists is captured by an alien race with a harsh medieval culture. A rescue party is assembled to retrieve them – and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.

VERNOR VINGE (1944-)
Vernor Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, a computer scientist and science fiction author. He is best known for his two epic space operas A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) and A Deepness in the Sky (1999), both of which won the Hugo Award and were shortlisted for the Nebula. He is the winner of 5 Hugos, 4 Prometheus Awards and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, among many others.

VERDICT
Although I whizzed through this at a reasonable speed, and at no point was bored, I found it hard to understand what exactly was going on. I got the kidnapping parts and the dog creatures, and this was all fun and thoughtful, but the whole Blight attack felt like it went over my head and I didn’t really get to grips with it until close to the end of the book. Perhaps I hadn’t gotten into it at the beginning, and because of this I missed much of the important setup, but this didn’t stop me from enjoying the dramatic conclusion to an imaginative work.