Skip to main content

Trafalgar (SF) - Angélica Gorodischer ***

Penguin has decided to bring back some 'science fiction classics', in a handsome new series (if rather oddly formatted - they're unusually small books, perhaps to make them fatter, as we're less used to the sensible length books of the past). 

 In Trafalgar, we get a series of linked short stories featuring the interstellar trader Trafalgar Medrano. Although taking place in a range of settings, the stories are in the tradition of bar tales: short stories, where the main character bends the ear of friends (or just anyone in earshot) with their exploits. P. G. Wodehouse, for example, wrote a number of these, and they reached their science fiction zenith with Arthur C. Clarke's Tales from the White Hart. In Angélica Gorodischer's book, Trafalgar tells his stories to the female narrator and whoever else is around.

 I'm not sure why, but these stories rather reminded me of Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo tales, though they were significantly less nimble than Guareschi's, feeling rather stodgy sometimes as Trafalgar relates each far-fetched story of encounters on alien worlds where the aliens are all human and speak his language, though they are culturally very varied. Most of the interest in the stories comes from the differences in culture, though one, perhaps the best, Of Navigators, finds Trafalgar on a planet that is nearly identical to Earth where he arrives in 1492 at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella and ends up making things a lot easier for Columbus by giving him a lift to the New World. One recurring aspect of the stories that feels a little grating 40+ years on (as is often the case with classic SF) is that they are unashamedly sexist, with Trafalgar seducing his way across the universe.

 This new series is a great move by Penguin, but I am a little concerned that some of their choices don't match up to the 'classic' label - Trafalgar included. To be an SF classic, a book has to be of some age - I'd suggest in science fiction dating back at least to the 70s, it has to from a widely recognised author, a good measure of which would be for the author to appear in Clute and Nicholls' definitive Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction, and (somewhat obviously, surely) to be science fiction. Trafalgar scores two out of three. It dates back to 1979, Gorodischer is in the encyclopaedia... but this is definitely not science fiction.

 The stories could be interpreted two ways. Either it's pure fantasy - because a 1970s character spends his life running an interstellar trading ship to planets where the intelligent lifeforms are human and speak the same language - or it's straightforward fiction in which the main character is a fantasist who makes up impossible stories. I incline to the latter - and just because those stories happen to use science fiction tropes does not make this a science fiction book. 

 Even if there weren't the problem of this not being SF, the whole concept, which was initially entertaining, became very samey after a few stories, making the book decreasingly appealing as I read. It was, frankly, a bit of a let down.
Paperback:    
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who Invented the Computer? – Ian Watson

Ian Watson is the author of  The Universal Machine  and featured in a recent  Four Way Interview . Saturday June 23 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the troubled genius who invented the modern computer. Why though do so few people recognize his name and his great achievements? In 1936 English mathematician Alan Turing, published a paper,  On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem . This became the foundation of computing. In it Turing presented a theoretical machine that could solve any problem that could be described by instructions encoded on a paper tape. A Turing Machine could calculate square roots, whilst another might solve Sudoku puzzles. Turing demonstrated you could construct a single  Universal Machine  that could simulate any Turing Machine. One machine solving any problem for which a program could be written – sound familiar? He’d invented the computer. Then,  computers  were peop...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Star Book – Peter Grego ****

This attractive landscape format book combines an excellent introduction to the stars and basic astronomy with a set of star maps, plus in depth looks at some of the stars featured, with a  bonus section on the solar system. Amazon says it’s a hardback, but in fact it’s a paperback with a rather ingenious cover – you can’t tell from the photo, but the words ‘The Star Book’ are punched through as a series of holes that show the white paper of the next page beneath. Like many astronomy/space books, the cover lacks shelf appeal because it is mostly black, but at least there is some original thought here. Unlike many books in this format which tend to concentrate on the pictures, there is a good deal of excellent text by Peter Grego, so there was no feeling that you were only getting the star maps and star ‘biographies’, something these days much more suited to an iPad or smartphone app. Instead, the opening 30 or so pages give a very good introduction that would be valuable to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ignorance: How it drives science – Stuart Firestein *****

This is a delightful little book that really gets you thinking. I stress the ‘little’ part not as a negative, but as a good thing. There is nothing worse than fat, bloated popular science books where the author feels they have to get 120,000 words to be taken seriously. This is the sort of book that can be read in a couple of hours – but you will get so much more out of it than one of those tedious doorstops. The premise underlying the book is in once sense extremely simple, yet is fundamental to an understanding of what science is and what scientists do. And it is an understanding that is totally at odds with the typical way science is portrayed both in university lectures and popular science books. As Stuart Firestein points out, what is important is not the facts, but rather the area of ignorance. The interesting part and the fundamental heart of science is not about what we know, but about what we don’t know and where we want to look next. Take this lovely quote: ‘Working ...
Post a Comment
Read more