Some 400 years after the ‘Blast’ mankind is back to pre-industrial existence, but with a twist. Births are always boy-girl twins where one—the Alpha—is perfect, but the other—the Omega—is deformed in some way. The deformation is usually visible and the Omega twin sent away. But sometimes the deformation is not obvious and the twins are brought up together until the Omega becomes apparent. Cass—short for Cassandra, unnecessarily—the Omega twin to Zach hides her ‘deformation’ for years until as teenagers she finally has to reveal that she is a seer, sensing events to come. She dreams of the Blast too:
“There were no written tales…what was the point…when it was etched on every surface? It was still visible in every tumbled cliff, scorched plain and every ash-clogged river. Every face. It had become the only story the earth could tell, so who else would record it?”
Yes, the first thought that sprang to my mind is John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. Set in a similar post-nuclear apocalypse where the deformed infants are similarly scorned, and the protagonist whose ‘deformity’ is similarly of the mind, in this case David being a telepath. But Francesca Haig sets us old-timers’ minds at rest when she cheekily names her main town where Cass is incarcerated as Wyndham. Thereafter I relaxed into the tale to see where we are taken.
The Fire Sermon relies on the new cast-iron law of nature of linked twins (when one dies, so does the other) and the story rattles along as we understand Cass was imprisoned by her twin who by now is a High Heid Yin on the Council, who is protecting his sister in the cell and thereby protecting himself.
Soon Cass is on the run with her new friend Kip as they try to find their way to a safe colony for Omegas and the story becomes a strong chase around this neatly described future of mankind knocked back to an agricultural lifestyle. We sympathise with Cass as she struggles internally to understand her world, how to restore her relationship with her brother and also right the wrongs of the persecution of the Omegas. Although a contrivance, the linking of severe pain and deaths of twins sets up an agonising balance, asking us to consider that when we harm others we also risk injuring ourselves.
I rattled through the book, eager to turn the page. It’s a mix of adventure and plot turns, with ample space to explore themes of oppression and reconciliation.
Wyndham fans may well each raise an eyebrow, but they can lower them again: The Fire Sermon is a thoroughly good read. It is craftfully written and reaches a satisfying conclusion, but with enough loose ends to guarantee the story continues. I look forward to the sequel to be published in the New Year.
The Good, The Bad and The Smug
Tom Holt
Orbit
£8.99, paperback, 368pp
published 30th July 2015
Review: Jacob Edwards
What’s in a name?
Book covers of old would sometimes describe Tom Holt’s writing as seriously funny, and because the funny aspect was predominant there was a tendency to assume seriously was being used in the informal sense; to wit, substantially. But it would also be true (if somewhat more demanding on the rolling tongue) to call Holt funnily serious, and over the last umpteen years the tone of his books has been darkening slowly towards this inversion. The words black comedy have come by way of misappropriation elsewhere to indicate a non-comedic work, particularly a flop, trying to shift genres and pass itself off with imperial majesty, but in Holt’s case the term might genuinely be applied. Earlier this year, he came out as the author behind award-winning pseudonymous fantasy writer K. J. Parker — not altogether surprising; the acknowledgments page at the back of Parker’s novel Sharps, where she describes herself as overweight and middle-aged, was clearly a prelude to confession — and if his/her bodies of work are examined in parallel, a certain amount of cross-pollination is indeed discernible.
Tom Holt is both serious and funny, and it is this blend, this melding of authorial attributes, that gives his books their mouth-watering allure.
The Good, the Bad and the Smug is the fourth and most recent of Holt’s forays into YouSpace (an operating system that affords its users access to the multiverse, using portals invoked by looking through the eye of a doughnut). Its tagline is a novel beyond good and evil, and though the paronomastic title renders unto this a certain levity, Holt’s exploration takes us outside the box and in fact allows for some atypical, rather sobering perspectives on this not-quite-so-unambiguous tenet of human existence.
The book is still gently uproarious (fair dinkum droll, as we say in Australia), but whether due to subject matter or delivery, it’s also just a tad less accessible than usual. One contributing factor must be that, with the exception of the South Cudworth and District Particle Physics Club (unforgettably hapless in trying to bake a doughnut), the protagonists are all non-human: there’s Mordak, the nominally bad yet progressively enlightened king of the goblins; Efluviel, an elf driven by self-interest but made to detour along the road of doing the right thing; Archie, a goblin enduring human form; a rogue commodities broker (technically human, but...); and the Dark Lord himself, whose millennia of incorporeal floating have given rise finally to a new body with in-built, not-so-dark motivations.
To a fault these characters either exhibit or experience human foibles, their alien mind-sets giving homo sapien the chance to stand outside looking in; and perhaps at heart this is what makes the book ever so slightly uncomfortable a read: humanity is bad enough when it’s happening to you; to step back and find it’s just happening, and that you’re an inseparable part of it, well, that’s enough to make a person dash for the nearest bakery...
In a multiverse all things are possible, so anything we can imagine, no matter how absurd, must take place; and while the bad news is that it mostly seems to be taking place in our particular universe, the good news is that we have Tom Holt (quoz-finder by royal appointment, somewhere at least) to point it out to us: the film industry; gala awards nights; journalism and bureaucracy; prophesy; quest fantasy; interactive operating systems; grand scale economic policy; good and evil; the whole shebang. If it’s going on and really, by any measure of common sense, shouldn’t be, expect to read about it in a Tom Holt novel. (Or in more sombre tones, distilled down to the essence of human nature, something by K. J. Parker; and if you’ve read one but not the other, you have a lot to catch up on.)
The Good, the Bad and the Smug is Holt’s first book since owning up to the Parker pen name — rarely has a pun waited so long to germinate — and to anybody who might fret as to his ongoing efficacy as a humourist, it should serve to assuage all worry.
Tom Holt remains his usual, vivid, parlously witty self. All told, in fact, he’s now twice as accomplished as you probably thought.
Meet the Artists
Dave Alexander (The Brat and the Burly Qs, Website banner) was born and dragged up in Glasgow in the mid 20th century—in a time of steam trains, tramcars and black and white tv.
He was bitten by the science fiction bug (eyed monster?) at an early age, through the combined onslaught of comics, picture cards, SF films and television. He trained as a technical illustrator, inspired by the cutaway illustrations he had seen in Eagle comic. he painted covers for D.C. Thomson's Starblazer comics.
He turned to drawing and publishing his own comics—the adult humour titles 'Electric Soup' in 1989, and Northern Lightz in 1999.
Monica Burns(Space) a new graduate from the University of St Andrews and just starting out as a freelance illustrator. She enjoys reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy books—they never fail to inspire her art. She loves to tell stories and depict interesting scenarios through her drawings. tinyurl.com/shorelinemonica
Becca McCall, (Three Stages of Atsushi, Cleanup on Deck Seven) Born in Glasgow 1987, studied computer animation with digital art and the University of the West of Scotland, she's been painting and drawing as a hobby since she could hold a pencil. She loves to work with all sorts of mediums such as watercolours and inks, and to experiment different styles. She currently does various graphics for the Britannia Panopticon. www.flickr.com/photos/beccamccall
P. Emerson Williams(Broken Glass) is an artist, musician, actor and writer who works in a creative continuum that draws upon an interest in the arcane and esoteric. His passion is for embodying the mythic in visual media and melding visual art with narrative form. pemersonwilliams.wordpress.com
Bill Wright’s work (Front Cover) is bold and provocative in it's portrayal of science fiction hardware and astronomical art. Starting out using traditional media he was well represented on the Science Fiction convention scene for many years. Illustrations appear in STEM and Perihelian magazine on line and in print. He is also published by The Planetary Society and The National Space Society. www.flickr.com/photos/billwrigt1/
Alex Storer (TimeMachineStory) is an artist/illustrator and musician based in Sheffield, UK. A lifelong interest in science fiction came full circle in 2010 when Alex began producing his own artwork, taking influence from classic SF and the space art greats of the 1970s and 80s. In 2012, Alex was invited to be first honorary musician/artist for the Initiative for Interstellar Studies. www.thelightdream.net
