I wish I wasn't so good at predicting the future

I've got a new book coming out very soon - I'm just waiting for the proofs to arrive so I can order some fresh copies to sell. It's a cli-fi novel about post-apocalyptic thieves. So I tried to make it accurately futuristic, but the stuff I projected into the next century is happening much closer to now. By the time I'd finished writing it, many of my ideas had already come to psss. Let me give you some examples. Stealing data via internet backbone cables. Dying krill leading to a mass extinction event in the ocean. Major cities becoming completely unliveable. Insects becoming an increasingly important source of protein. And sentient AI. Admittedly, the one in this news story isn't actually sentient, but I suspect they're going to pass the Turing Test soon enough. These are the terrible thoughts that have taken over my brain as I've written my new book. It's a cracker. And it's only weeks away from being published. I'll let you know when it's ready.

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Review - "The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi

I can see why so many people rate The Water Knife. It's a very smartly drawn vision of our catastrophic near future.

Global warming has lead to drought and dust storms in America's south-west, where cities have legal battles over river rights and the losers dry and die. Droves of Texan refugees are heading north, where the local border patrols are waiting to shoot them down.

The "water knife" of the title is Angel, a soldier/spy/assassin for the water company which represents the interests of Las Vegas. He physically cuts the pipelines to other cities, leaving them to chaos and ruin so his own might survive.

It's a brilliant concept.

And yet The Water Knife lost me.

About a third of the way through, I found myself putting the book aside for a week, wondering if I cared enough to keep reading. There was no character I could relate to and the story seemed to be muddling around and getting nowhere.

I flicked forward past halfway and found the action had accelerated, so I skimmed the pages in between - just enough to get a handle on the plot - and continued on from there. I found myself really enjoying the last third.

So this book has some sterling qualities. It is a piece of true science fiction, taking a logical line from the now into a very believable future. The world that Paolo Bacigalupi has created is vivid and frightening.

And when the story eventually comes together, it's gripping and action packed.

But you have to work past the lull in the middle to get there.

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The fuss over Ender's Game

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a terrific sci-fi book.

It's about ultra-intelligent children being trained to defend the earth in a space war against alien invaders. That could be the plot of a really empty action story, but there's a lot of meat in Ender's story.

The ethics of war, the treatment of children, the brutal realities of a highly competitive childhood, the importance of friendship and leadership.

I read it and loved it. I also enjoyed the sequel Speaker for the Dead, which is an utterly different book but equally clever.

Ender's Game was always destined to become a movie. Unfortunately, between the book coming out (1985) and the movie being made (2013), Orson Scott Card has made many anti-gay statements.

To be fair to Card, he's basically reflecting the views of his church. He's a Mormon, so we can understand where he got his ideas and who he shares them with.

To be fair to the rest of us, who cares? In a pluralistic world, if you can't justify something without reference to your god, then you can't justify it at all.

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