LRSF #25, Saving Tiamat, Gwyneth Jones

Opening: I had reached the station in the depth of Left Speranza's night; I had not slept. Fogged in the confabulation of the transit, I groped through crushing eons to my favorite breakfast kiosk: unsure if the soaring concourse outside Parliament was ceramic and carbon or a metaphor; a cloudy internal warning --

Capsule: I read this story and the next one in reverse order, and a curious thing happened. They both take place in what, for lack of a better term (is there an already established one?), I'm going to call Jones' Diaspora Universe. I thing I enjoyed this more for having red "The Tomb Wife" before it.

There is a lot of sense-of-wunda stuff packed into the Diaspora universe, and here there is enough narrative space for these elements to breathe, to become differentiated, to stick in the mind. At the same time, having a sense of how things work in the Diaspora universe meant that I was more acutely aware of character development. Instead of having to process the assimilation of the world and the "peoples" inhabiting it at the same time, I had a little more energy to invest in the "psychological topography" (a phrase that inhabits the text of "The Tomb Wife"). As it turns out, I think this works to the story's advantage, since lighter character touches become infused with greater depth by this shift in reading attention, and on the whole the characters, though interesting, sometimes have a tough time competing with the background inventions and meditations (which cover the philosophical, linguistic, scientific, historical, political and sexual with surprising agility).

The resolution to the main ethical/cultural dilemma is well-handled, and the intrigue throughout is suspenseful without feeling manipulative. There is almost a sense of science-fictional narrative bravura that emerges from Jones' writing, I think in part because of her multi-hued thematic palette and her muscular prose (grammatically separate clauses joined by commas, use of hyphens to end scenes with abruptness, etc.)

I have a feeling that I'll enjoy each new story set in the Diaspora universe more than the ones before, and that a future collection of these someday might be a treat. Any glimpses into the Aleutian culture (the race responsible for developing mind/matter travel, and only keepers of its secrets) would be fascinating.

A review of this story and other pieces found in the anthology The New Space Opera is
available at: http://www.bestsf.net/reviews/thenewspaceopera.html

Also, the long and insightful piece on The New Space Opera by Dave Truesdale, "Off On A Tangent: F&SF Style," offers a juicy paragraph on this story and is well worth the read: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2007/dt0710.htm