:: Orbiter, by Warren Ellis (also of DPH fame) and Colleen Doran (art), is a one-volume graphic novel in which, some years in the future, NASA has been shut down and manned space exploration has ended.
A shanty-town has evolved at the Kennedy Space Center, with the crumbling bulk of the Vehicle Assembly Building looming above it. Apparently, there was one space shuttle accident too many: the shuttle Venture disappeared with no explanation. But as the book begins, Venture returns, making its original landing as scheduled at Cape Canaveral. But that's not all: only one member of the shuttle's crew returns with it, and the ship itself is covered with something rather like skin. A scientific team is assembled to find out just what happened. (The book was written before, but released after, the destruction of Columbia. Ellis discusses that tragedy in the Foreword.)
That sounds like it might be the beginning of some kind of Alien-type of story, or maybe that movie Event Horizon from a few years back (which I never saw, but have on good authority was awful). It seems like a standard horror story: Here's a baffling mystery of the unknown, and here are the people who are going to try to solve it. As the story took shape, I waited for the malevolent forces of the Universe to start to strike down the members of the team, until just two survive at the end, fortunate to escape with their lives and secure with the message that the Universe just isn't a safe place and that we're all better off just staying on our little planet and not trying to delve too deeply into What Is Out There.
Well, I don't want to say too much, but that's not what happens. Ellis pretty much turns those expectations on their head, using the kind of "SF Horror story" set-up to explore the fact that we seem to have lost our sense of wonder. The effect is quite thrilling: the book gives us a group of characters confronted with the Cosmic Unknown, and their response is, "When do we leave!" It's kind of refreshing, really.
I also liked Colleen Doran's art a lot (she is best-known for her series A Distant Soil, which I have to get around to finishing one of these days), although I do think she tends once in a while to have the characters gesticulate and grin in over-dramatic fashion.
Check this one out. I read it in a single evening, and it was very enjoyable.
:: I sometimes get the idea that every fantasy and SF writer out there reads tons of history in their spare time, both for leisure reading and for research purposes, for obvious reasons: attentive reading of lots of history is of tremendous use in world-building. On that basis, I probably don't read enough history; but then, I think that a genre I'm surprised I don't see more writers of the fantastic celebrating is travel writing, which I do tend to read a lot. If I could pick a single author from the past whose life I would want to lead, it would be Richard Halliburton's. (Although I wouldn't want to die at the age of thirty when my leaky boat disappears in a storm!) Good travel writing always excites me because it usually involves the kind of culture-clash you also find in history, but usually on a much more personal level.
The Road to Somewhere: Travels with a Young Boy Through an Old World, by James Dodson (book website here) is such a book. Dodson writes about a journey through Europe with his young son, a kid who is on the cusp of adolescence. Their plan, at the outset, is to do a grand world tour: they hope to go on safari in Kenya, visit the Holy Land, see the Great Pyramid, and walk the Great Wall of China. Due to various world situations, though, they never get out of Europe. Kenya is ruled out because of civil strife; Israel is out because of the new intifada; China is out because of the whole downed-spy-plane affair. They took their trip during the summer of 2001, and thus this book recounts one of the last grand tours of the world – or part of it – of the time before 9-11-01.
Dodson writes with a good deal of charm, and most notable in the book are his ruminations on fatherhood on such a journey, when he is at once very protective of his kid (at least two times on the route, he very nearly punches some European in the nose for rudeness to his son), and hopeful that the kid (Jack, nicknamed "Nibsy") is picking up the right lessons from their travels. Humorous incidents abound, as do unexpected encounters with both the good side and bad side of people (based on Dodson's chapter about it, I must say I have little intention of ever visiting Amsterdam). And there are some terribly sad moments, such as when they are touring the ruins of Pompeii and come across another such family whose grandfather has literally just dropped dead in the middle of the street.
The Road to Somewhere is a lovely little book. Recommended.
:: And finally, dammit, Amazon needs to give a way to shut off that "Search every friggin' word in every book we sell" feature of theirs. Plugging in "The Road to Somewhere", this book is the seventh result of more than five hundred items, and it's outranked on the search by two items that don't even feature those words in their titles. When I'm looking for a specific title – and nine times out of ten, I am – this feature is more hindrance than help.
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