Tangled Web UK Review April 1998
Traces by
Stephen Baxter
pbk out August 00
For many readers, all science fiction is hard. By that I mean
that there are those who simply cannot relate to the sometimes
hermetic and deliberately exclusionary tropes and forms of the genre,
with its emphasis on ideas, visions and technologies at the expense
of character, emotion and dialogue. But within science fiction,
there is a substantial sub-genre known as hard-sf, consisting of
stories and novels which foreground science to such a degree that the
works sometimes show little regard for the requirements of fiction at
all. Hard-sf is often written by scientists, or those with a serious
scientific grounding, and can thus possess all the appeal of a
physics textbook. Thus, it might be construed as a backhanded
compliment to call Stephen Baxter the leading practitioner of hard-sf
working today, because he is more than that: he is, quite simply, a
very good writer. Reading a Baxter novel (try THE TIME SHIPS), one
gets one's fill of hard science -- and I admit that in a novel such
as RING I don't always know what he's on about -- but the technical
background is rarely at the expense of character or dramatic
structure. Baxter has a gift, too rare in hard-sf, for creating
rounded, credible characters who speak believable and engaging
dialogue.
TRACES is a collection of Baxter's short fiction (excluding
his "Xeelee" tales, which are collected in a separate volume, VACUUM
DIAGRAMS), most of which previously appeared in INTERZONE magazine.
It is an enjoyable and worthwhile collection, but one which does not
necessarily show Baxter at his absolute best. Baxter is a good
short story writer, but he is an even better novelist. The dominant
mode of the work in TRACES is alternate history, particularly
alternate histories of the space program (a theme which also
dominates the novels). The best of these stories is "Moon Six," a
work which cleverly brings together several of the narrative strands
which run through various other stories in the volume. There are a
series of "scientific romance" type tales -- entertaining,
self-aware, tongue-in- cheek variations on Boy's Own adventures,
exemplified by "A Journey to the King Planet," and a group of far
future tales, relating days in the life of a deeply degenerated
humankind. The collection ends on a touching high note with "In the
MSOB," a story of heroes forgotten and the past remembered.
The problem with TRACES is that there is a certain sameness to
the tales reprinted. While this provides an interesting index of the
author's thematic and intellectual preoccupations, it also makes the
collection one which is better dipped into than read cover to cover.
The stories are all solid, but just as there are no stinkers in the
lot, there are no really exceptional works either. One occasionally
feels one is reading exercises in which the author is trying to work
out a specific problem or challenge. There is nothing wrong with
that per se -- and it bears repeating that this is a book worth
buying and reading -- but the result is that some of the selections
feel like dry runs for novels to be. Baxter is at least fortunate
that, by and large, his dry runs are more interesting than many
writers' final efforts.
(
Jay Russell
- one of the greatest talents the horror industry has produced for some time… (Black Tears))
