Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams, $24.95.When Aristide meets a traveling caravan in Midgarth, he becomes the power behind the scenes in organizing the caravan guards against a group of bandits. The bandits are followers of priests with alien powers only Aristide’s magic sword can defeat. There is a lot more to “Implied Spaces” than this sword and sorcery beginning as Walter Jon Williams’ story goes from battling trolls to confronting the nature of the universe.
Aristide is alone in Midgarth (except for his talking cat) because he is a student of “implied spaces.” These are the gaps in a planned design and the unexpected life thats fills them. One of those gaps is the mostly lifeless desert in the fantasy gaming world of Midgarth.
Aristide returns from Midgarth to a world of engineered habitats, pocket universes and planet-sized quantum computers. This is a post-singularity world where mind backups and regrown bodies are a guarantee against permanent death.
The alien priests were the first warning of a threat against all the worlds of the solar system. Aristide’s past work created much of the way humanity has evolved with pocket universes and the giant computers needed to create them.
The coming war takes place in many forms. Anything can happen, from zombie attacks to planet-destroying weapons. Finding out why they are under attack is as important as figuring out how to stop the attack.
Through it all, Aristide tries to rekindle a centuries-old romance. There is a lot of humor and well-written fight scenes throughout the novel. Williams combines a little bit of everything to create a tasty fusion of genre ideas.
The Houses of Time, by Jamil Nasir, $24.95. In his fifth novel, Jamil Nasir reconstructs reality with the ease and speed of the biggest virtual world, but there are no computers or singularities in sight. Knowing how to control your dreams is enough to create a Philip K. Dick world where reality is always up for grabs and about to change.
David Grant is taking distance lessons on lucid dreaming from The Trans-Humanist Institute. He has made so much progress that the Institute’s Dr. Thotmoses wants to see him in person. The Institute’s goal is to make irreversible changes in his brain that will make him trans- human.
Grant is a successful attorney although he is very shallow and manipulative with women. When he meets Kat in a department store, he abandons his current affair without a word. With Kat he meets his match as she teases him along in a game of reality breakdown.
As Grant learns to control reality with his mind, Thotmoses and Kat slowly disclose their real motives.
The task they present to him isn’t a very pleasant experience. Grant exacts his price with more manipulation of Kat. Grant has several breakdowns, which leave him institutionalized and abused and call everything that has happened into question.
Nasir smoothly manages to pull off the old “it’s all a dream” cliche in a way that stays fresh and surprising. David Grant has a lot of flaws and is a reminder that not only nice people will become trans-human.
The Hidden World, by Paul Park, $25.95. Paul Park concludes his tale of Miranda Popescu and an alternate Romania amid war in the physical world and treachery in the hidden world of sorcery.
Great Roumania is the decaying empire in the counterpart of the early 20th century. Corrupt leaders and rival powers are tearing it apart.
Miranda grew up in what she thought was New England where her best friends were Peter and Andromeda. This world proved to be a construct of her aunt Aegypta’s. In the real world of Roumania, Miranda is a princess and her friends are soldiers assigned to protect her.
The three have become separated. Peter is fighting in a nasty trench war. Andromeda is suffering the effects of an exotic weapon imported by Nicola Ceausescu and still attempting to be a dashing romantic. Miranda is being nursed back to health by her mother and some conspiratorial old women.
They all have important battles to fight. Miranda must do it in the hidden world where old foes may come back to life to steal the source of her magic. Other old enemies are still alive and obsessed with finding and persecuting her.
The back story is filled in nicely, but it pays to read all four books —starting with “A Princess of Roumania” — in this magnificent, sophisticated fantasy series.
Fred Cleaver is a freelancer who writes regularly about new science fiction.
