Something Coming Through (SF) - Paul McAuley *****

I have rarely been disappointed by a Paul McAuley book, so thought I would trawl his back catalogue and reaped major rewards with Something Coming Through from 2015 - this is science fiction at its best.

Set in a relatively near future after first contact with aliens, it has one of the most effective portrayal of aliens I've ever seen. Many SF aliens (think, for instance, of the majority in Star Trek) are essentially humans with some characteristic emphasised. The two alien races portrayed here both have motivations that catch you out by not working in a truly human fashion.

One set of aliens has provided 15 wormholes to distant planets where previous civilisations have existed but are now gone, along with a shuttle travelling back and forth to each destination. The relics from the other civilisations are prized, but can have strange effects on humans, something that is central to the plot. The storyline is divided into two with alternating chapters - one initially based in London featuring a young female scout for alien material, the other on one of the 15 remote planets, where the central character is an middle aged, jaded murder detective.

McAuley really throws in the kitchen sink here (in a good way) - not only do we get the interaction with aliens stuff (one aspect, surely inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind), there is a murder investigation, organised crime and more. It all works very effectively - and there's some very clever writing linked to the dates on the alternating viewpoints. Something I particularly enjoyed was that this a novel very much in the British tradition - it felt like the kind of thing John Wyndham would have written if he had still been around.

As it's January, it's not much to say this is the best SF book I've read this year, but I'd also says it's the best in quite a while. There was a sequel too... can't wait. (And very happy to see another, one, if you've some spare time, Paul.)

Paperback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin Five Way Interview

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (born in 1999) is a distinguished composer, concert pianist, music theorist and researcher. Three of his piano CDs have been released in Germany. He started his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 in Kazakhstan, and having completed three musical doctorates in prominent Italian music institutions at the age of 20, he has mastered advanced composition techniques. In 2024 he completed a PhD in music at the University of St Andrews / Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (researching timbre-texture co-ordinate in avant- garde music), and was awarded The Silver Medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, London. He has held visiting affiliations at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL, and has been lecturing and giving talks internationally since the age of 13. His latest book is Quantum Mechanics and Avant Garde Music . What links quantum physics and avant-garde music? The entire book is devoted to this question. To put it briefly, there are many different link...

Should we question science?

I was surprised recently by something Simon Singh put on X about Sabine Hossenfelder. I have huge admiration for Simon, but I also have a lot of respect for Sabine. She has written two excellent books and has been helpful to me with a number of physics queries - she also had a really interesting blog, and has now become particularly successful with her science videos. This is where I'm afraid she lost me as audience, as I find video a very unsatisfactory medium to take in information - but I know it has mass appeal. This meant I was concerned by Simon's tweet (or whatever we are supposed to call posts on X) saying 'The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder: if you are a fan of SH... then this is worth watching.' He was referencing a video from 'Professor Dave Explains' - I'm not familiar with Professor Dave (aka Dave Farina, who apparently isn't a professor, which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for someone calling out fakes), but his videos are popular and he...

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on...

Search This Blog