Book 50: Ghost Fleet

Ghost Fleet

P. W. Singer and August Cole

At its core, science fiction explores the (possible) effects of technological developments, no matter how minute or majestic, how realistic or ridiculous. Co-authors P. W. Singer and August Cole play at the genre's edges in Ghost Fleet, spinning a story of World War III using only plausible current technology (as the book's numerous endnotes attest). Moreover, the authors exploit current political tensions by choosing the United States, China, and Russia as the three primary combatants, a scenario that seems increasingly plausible by the day. This adherence to reality provides the book's core energy, even as the authors track a handful of influential individuals on all sides of the fighting. These personal stories are as convincing as they need to be in this context, offering readers additional emotional footholds alongside the ones provided by the very real, and effectively exploited, fear that the novel's events could easily take place in the near future.

Though the authors are, unsurprisingly, most sympathetic to the United States's point of view, they adopt an all-encompassing geopolitical outlook that significantly heightens narrative tension throughout the book. Expected sympathies aside, Singer and Cole carefully portray the conflict as a relatively even affair, in part by following sympathetic viewpoint characters on all sides. If the authors do have a blind spot, it is the everyday experiences of lower-ranking combatants and civilians; their story focuses, for better and worse, on the generals and other elite forces. The resulting story occasionally slides into hero worship, but enough scientific intrigue remains to make the experience worthwhile. The authors' tendency to focus almost exclusively on the big picture, even during the scenes that (almost) pass for emotional vignettes, does lower the emotional stakes somewhat, but the sheer probability of the events at hand make up most of the potentially lost ground.

Ultimately, the occasional nods to characterization do enough to keep readers emotionally invested in the viewpoint characters, even if the narrative is driven more by the impact of various technologies than any other factor(s). The novel offers little in the way of nuanced psychological drama or particularly beautiful prose, but its science is so solid that these omissions hardly matter. Somehow, the authors manage to focus on the science without losing too much of the fiction; they actively engage with, but do not become overly enamored by, the technology and avoid the kind of overwrought prose that exists merely to grasp at some "literary" cachet that books like this rarely even need. Moreover, the novel is accessible to everyone, despite the thorough research behind it, and the authors manage to portray the impact of technology without requiring their audience to sit through lengthy lectures. In the end, it all just works, and each of the books elements effectively accomplishes precisely what it needs to. Ghost Fleet is an excellent example of widely accessible hard science fiction that neither compromises its intellectual integrity nor grasps at unnecessary straws for so-called literary merit; steeped in uncompromising realism, it is a thrilling vision of a future that may be frighteningly close at hand.

Grade: A

Book 63: Nightwatch

Nightwatch
Sergei Lukyanenko

This book is so much more than another riff on the epic, eternal struggle between Good and Evil. Sure, the most fundamental of conflicts affects each and every heart-pounding syllable of this book, but Lukyanenko probes them, and the very nature of morality, time and again throughout his three-act play. He has started from an enticing alternate reality where a special race of enlightened humans are capable of, among other things, using magic and descending into a parallel plane of reality called the Twilight. Neither of these is superfluous and all is explained in stride, allowing readers to quickly adapt to the basic framework of a world with Others while following the plot. Gradual revelations about the rules the Others adhere to occur naturally and advance the plot while adding to the incredible richness with which Lukyanenko has painted his moral landscape. Most importantly, Others must upon their initiation choose either the path of Light or Darkness, a fascinating one-shot that sets up much (but crucially not all) of the moral playing field of the novel. The two polarized camps continue to clash though their main bones of current contention are violations caught by the dedicated watches of either side, a fascinating compromise that sets the ideological backdrop for Nightwatch as well as propelling its plot realistically through several sticky points. This complex reality forms the backbone of the novel and, though its plot sometimes wavers and its characters become very fond of explaining to readers exactly what is going on metaphorically, Nightwatch successfully builds and probes an alternate reality while asking important questions and providing a high-octane plot that entertains throughout.

Composed of three loosely-related plotlines revolving around the lot of Nightwatch agent Anton Gorodetsky, who helps patrol the agents of Darkness for illegal, unlicensed acts of Evil, Nightwatch contains three self-sufficient stories that together add up to a balanced and complete whole. The first is by far the most dynamic and would stand brilliantly on its own as an otherworldly exploration of this alternate reality; though it provides a nice set-up for the next two stories (and presumably the other three books in the series), this first segment is complete and accomplishes much of the work of the novel in a microcosm. This is not to malign, however, the book's bombastic second act, which takes the moral stakes of the first and deploys some occasionally overwrought irony to build on the plot laid out before and throw the moral scales completely off balance. They remain askew through the third act, which begins with a few conversations clarifying What We Have Learned and stumbles to an excellent and wonderfully ambiguous climax. Peppered throughout with song lyrics and the colorful language of incredibly able narrator Anton, the book is filled to the brim with intriguing passages and memorable scenes.

Sergei Lukyanenko is a master of moral ambiguity, and even though he rarely lets it squirm by unnoticed, Nightwatch oozes with questions and, happily, fails to provide any satisfactory answers. Some may read its ambiguous ending as an invitation to read the rest of his books, but it is much more gracious and, I believe, true to the story's intentions to embrace its unwritten ending as a graciously disguised call to action. The book's final act, though the weakest of the three, clarifies and reinforces themes invoked and explored throughout the whole novel. And besides, Nightwatch is a thrilling read, bursting at the seams with exciting plot developments and a wonderful lead character in Anton with a full and rich supporting cast. Nightwatch is a thoroughly engrossing and refreshingly thought-provoking sci-fi/fantasy hybrid that will please genre fans and deep thinkers alike, but above all it is a great ride.

Grade: A