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Red Tentacle Finalist: Osama by Lavie Tidhar

The best advice I ever got about photography was that you shouldn't ever try to photograph the thing itself: the fireworks, the touchdown, the sunset. Instead, turn around and take your pictures of the way the world looks when it's looking at those fireworks, that sunset. Try to capture the way a crowd responds to something, or the way the colors of that sunset bleed across the horizon. The way to access a moment is to try to capture its effects.

A decade after the events of 9/11, it's almost easy to talk about terrorism: suicide bombers and the war on terror and Homeland Security and full-body airport scans. But the thing itself, the event, hasn't lessened in impact; it's no easier to watch footage of the Twin Towers falling now than it was to see it live on television, more than ten years ago. And so, with Osama, Lavie Tidhar isn't writing about the moments of horror that make up the connect-the-dots of modern terrorism. He's writing about their reflections.

Inky Tentacle Finalist: Equations of Life

Equations of Life
Simon Morden
Design by Lauren Panepinto
Orbit

It's the sort of image that might cover a stylish reissue of a sci-fi classic, and thus lends this very new book a preemptive air of cult cool. There is nothing that gives the plot away, nothing so explicit as the post-Armageddon landscape that the novel itself might have called for. I can see this book being a knackered old paperback in twenty years time, still being passed around between friends like a Ballard, an Orwell, or a Burgess: a timeless backpack mainstay. Where it succeeds uniquely is that it hurts your eyes so much you simply have to open the cover and read the thing to make the screaming stop. [Hayley]

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From 16 January to 3 February, members of The Kitschies' judging panel will be discussing all of the 2011 finalists. Each review only reflects the view of that judge, and should not be taken as representative of the panel's collective opinion or final selection.

You can find the complete list of Inky Tentacle finalists on The Kitschies' site. Please join in the discussion below and on our Facebook page.

Red Tentacle Finalist: The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers

One of the great pleasures of adulthood is learning to enjoy anticipation. As a kid, waiting sucks. Remember Christmas, and how you would go to sleep under the tree every night because you just couldn't wait for the morning you'd wake up surrounded by presents? (Or was that just me?)

Waiting takes on yottagrams of angst-filled misery when you're a teenager, though. Thought waiting sucked as a kid? At 16, it sucks even more than you could ever have imagined. Often because whatever you're waiting for is clearly the last key to fulfilment/coolness/adulthood/getting laid, but also because everyone else has had it or been doing whatever it is for a billion years while you just sit there, on your loser pizza-faced teenaged butt, waiting. Waiting is the worst thing ever. Waiting is the end of the world.

And then, one day, you wake up old and boring and looking forward to things like, uh, looking forward to things.

This may seem like a strange introduction to Jane Rogers' lovely novel The Testament of Jessie Lamb, but, at its heart, Jessie Lamb is a novel about a teenager, waiting. Waiting for boys and kissing, waiting to be understood, waiting to be trusted to be able to make her own decisions. Waiting for freedom. Waiting for autonomy. Waiting for adulthood. And waiting for the end of the world.

Golden Tentacle Finalist: God's War by Kameron Hurley

A never-ending war rages on a far-off world. While battles rage at the front, hardened mercenaries and bloodthirsty assassins stalk the outskirts, doing the conflict's really dirty work: bounty hunting, kidnapping and murder. In the shadows, magicians manipulate a form of advanced biotech (now thought of as wizardry), perfecting their sinister arts in bloody ways. While two vast, implacable powers compete in unending war, most people focus only on the grubby mechanics of survival. 

God's War's protagonist, Nyx, is a perfect example of the hardened mercenary. And as a former bloodthirsty assassin, Nyx is two science fictional archetypes in one. When a mysterious alien ambassador interferes in the planet's political scene, and then goes suddenly missing, Nyx is hired (blackmailed, really) into hunting her down. Nyx soon realises that no one, on either side, can be trusted.

That all forms an enticing package, and Ms. Hurley is no slouch when it comes to writing a convoluted plot and crafting explosive action scenes. But God's War goes an extra mile or two with its hard-boiled female protagonist and its non-Western setting. 

Red Tentacle Finalist: Embassytown by China Miéville

The Miévillian mystique is such that I’m generally loath to write reviews of his books. I suspect – I know, in fact – that I’m not the only one. This reticence stems from many sources: his prodigious vocabulary, the text’s obvious depth, his literary reputation and even the critical competition. Unlike other genre titles, Mr. Miéville’s books are regularly poked by London Review of Books and other impressive institutions. Proper criticism, innit.

As a result, I'm intimidated. Hopelessly so. When I’m asked why I like China Miéville, I stammer; make jokes. I go shy. I know I missed things. Hell, I know I missed most things. What if I get it wrong? 

I know this is ridiculous. Mr. Miéville himself often tends towards the deconstructivist (a word I learned from his books) view and refuses to grant that his books even have a correct interpretation. There’s no way to read a novel wrong, and, even if there were, he'd be the last to say.

But the question isn't solely about being right, but having something to say at all.Given the surfeit of intellectual analysis of Embassytown, what can I, the beer-swilling Eddings fan, contribute to the conversation? Embassytown has been compared to Joyce, Augustine, Hegel and Brontë. What can my contribution be - “ZOMG spacemonsters"?!

In a word: yes. For progressive and intelligent, I suggest a visit to Anne’s review from last April. I’m going to take the road less-travelled and regard Embassytown solely as a piece of entertainment.

Underground Reading: Exiles of ColSec by Douglas Hill

A month ago, I reviewed The Last Legionary Quartet. This had been my only Douglas Hill series to date and, upon rereading it for the first time since childhood, I was pretty pleasantly surprised. When Darren Goldsmith mentioned a second series by Mr. Hill in the comments, I decided to take the plunge. Plus, given his description - "young offenders exiled to a planet with psychic trees" - how could it possibly go wrong?

It doesn't. Exiles of ColSec (1984) is indeed a young adult book about juvenile delinquents on a planet of psychic trees and it is kind of awesome.

In a future dominated by a big nasty authoritarian government, the last real rebels are the disaffected youfs on the fringes of society. When they're caught by the CeeDee's (Civil Defenders), the children are sent to an Antarctic prison colony to labor away their sentences. At least, so they say. The real truth of the matter is that the kids are packaged up and shipped off to far-flung planets. They're a combination of Robinson Crusoe and mine canaries, used to test whether or not the new worlds are worth colonising properly. The prisoners are stranded on the planet for six months, then ColSec (Colonization Section) follows up with proper explorers.

(There are so many flaws in this logic that it boggles the mind. What's the advantage of deliberately not preparing the kids? As they know the planet isn't a poisonous hellball in advantage, what more are they going to learn by dumping kids there? What if the kids ruin the planet by antagonising the natives or setting fire to the air or something? Why is there a labor camp in Antarctica anyway? Isn't that expensive?!) 

New Releases: Further Conflicts, edited by Ian Whates

Yesterday, I went through Conflicts (2010), a collection of flamboyantly science fiction stories from NewCon Press. Further Conflicts (2011) is, if anything, even better.

While Conflicts took thirteen different views of war in SF, the sequel is a slightly weirder, much more challenging anthology. There are very few tales of the military SF "status quo" in Further Conflicts. The stories all take exception to traditional notions of heroism and glory.

The collection kicks off with Dan Abnett's "The Wake". Mr. Abnett has examined military SF from every angle, but this low-tempo, low-key piece came as a surprise. 

A group of two dozen soldiers await their next assignment at a remote relay station. A popular member of their crew has just been killed in action, so in defiance of all regulations, the team treat themselves to a boozy wake. Things, of course, go wrong. There's a bit of action, but the real twist comes in Mr. Abnett's final lines. The enemy "Scaries" are pretty creepy, but the chilling disdain that the soldiers' distant commanders show for their own men is far more horrifying.

Underground Reading: Conflicts, edited by Ian Whates

Last week, I mentioned that genre literature has a tendency to downplay the horrors of war. If I had to guess, this is probably the twin legacy of a) its roots in medieval epics and b) the modern "kill to level up" gaming mechanic (tabletop and video). Either way, it was a rather flippant statement and has provoked a bit of discussion.

I still stand by this for fantasy. Even in the present wave of low fantasy grittiness there are only a few books that deign to point out that war is actually, you know, kinda bad. (First among those is probably Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes. Per usual, I'm also going to recommend KJ Parker as well, with the Scavenger series.) Kids, killing isn't cool - even when it is the nefarious subhuman Other.

However, when it comes to science fiction, I think I did the genre a disservice. Since the sixties, SF has actually done a fairly remarkable job of depicting the horrors of war and its many fellow horsemen. Two of the best examples are recent ones - Ian Whates' spectacular anthologies: Conflicts and Further Conflicts. 

First up, Conflicts.

10 Recommendations for Your New e-Reader

Well, according to everything we've read (mostly from the Amazon News Corps), something like 112% of humanity just received some sort of digital e-reader thing for the holidays. 

In the off-chance you're one of them: congratulations! If there's one thing that eBooks are great for, it is enabling the discovery of new and wonderful books, books you never would've stumbled upon otherwise.

To help get you started, here are ten great books that we've found recently - and never would have, if it weren't for our digital toys.

Review Round-up: Walls and Watchmen

Stanley Weyman's In Kings' Byways (1902) is a collection of short historical romances from Europe of the 16th through 18th centuries. They all follow the classical definition of romance - that is, 'adventure fiction' rather than 'snogging', although to be fair, Mr. Weyman does include his fair share of the latter.

Like his contemporary, my beloved Robert Chambers, it is fairly evident that Mr. Weyman has never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. Rather, he sees history as the inspiration for a rollicking tale. Like Chambers, Mr. Weyman also keeps his stories driven by characters, rather than action - preferring to invent personalities than recreate battles.

Most of the stories in In Kings' Byways are focused around (imaginary) bit players in sweeping events: scribes caught up in plots against the crown, pages that accidentally eavesdrop on battle plans, students that encounter Kings in disguise. Mr. Weyman's protagonists are all enjoyable, but also a bit repetitive: young men and old men.

The young men are chivalric, dim and filled with good intentions. Their stories are generally driven by the combination of gambling debts and an overdeveloped sense of honor - straight out of Dumas. The older men are clever, proud and a touch nostalgic. Their stories generally involve discovering dangerous plots against the throne, disguising themselves (alongside their King) and facing said danger in person - essentially retellings of Harun al-Rashid tales from the Arabian Nights.