Loophole (SF) - Ian Stewart ****

The tendency is for science fiction written this century to work on the small, personal scale, focusing more on characters than plot, but there is a long tradition of older SF novelists from E. E. (Doc) Smith, through Isaac Asimov to Larry Niven who took their stories big and bold - and that is the direction taken by mathematician and author Ian Stewart in his chunky (560 page) novel Loophole.

A strange phenomenon is discovered where a moon appears and disappears - it turns out it is orbiting through a wormhole, spending part of each orbit in two different universes. The discovery of this weird phenomenon leads to three sets of main characters being able to interact - something they need to do, as a mysterious fourth force is rapidly destroying stars. The first set we meet are distinctly alien (even though they behave like parish councillors), a second are apparently normal humans who aren't quite what they seem, and the third are humans of our future - between them spanning at least two universes.

It's mind boggling stuff, containing a truly remarkable collection of ideas. Each group has its own, different high-tech abilities, which together it is hoped can save both universes from the superorganism-like mechanical 'horde' that are killing stars. Only it seems that this horde is unstoppable and ever living thing will be destroyed.

It’s those high concept, massive ideas that earn this novel four stars. Beyond that, I have to say that it has significant weaknesses. The book is way too long, in part because Stewart insists on spelling out what’s happening in far too much detail and giving too much time to long, rather dull, expositions. There's something of a tendency to throw in lots of meaningless terms and explain them many pages later, including unnecessary ‘alien’ units: when alien speech is translated, why not translate the units too? This is just obscurity for the sake of it. Then, about 40% through, we suddenly get a flashback and a third set of characters. This does work out effectively, but only after another information dump. And the final chunk of the book is another information dump - after the action has finished, we get page after page of explanations. There are some nice twists in there... but it isn't great fiction.

Stewart, then, isn’t an outstanding novelist. His writing skills are more oriented to the putting across the factual. But just as, for example, Fred Hoyle’s SF was better than his writing skills suggested because of the idea content, the same applies here. It’s a fascinating attempt at portraying both human and non-human future tech on a grand scale.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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