Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Waking Hell
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1965
WEBSITE: http://www.allumination.co.uk/
CITY: Brighton, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5756543.Al_Robertson * http://www.allumination.co.uk/about-me/ * http://www.tor.com/2017/04/13/book-reviews-waking-hell-by-al-robertson/ * https://www.gollancz.co.uk/2016/10/exclusive-qa-with-al-robertson/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1965, in London, England.
EDUCATION:University of St. Andrews, M.A., 1995.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, poet, musician, trainer, script consultant, and marketing professional. Freelance script consultant, 1998-2001; Corporate Edge (a brand writing and naming company), creative consultant, 2001-03, freelance writer, 2003-05; Imagination (an advertising agency), senior writer, 2005-07; Jack Morton Worldwide Nokia team, creative planner, 2007-08. Graan (heavy metal band), former vocalist; Stalla Maris Drone Orchestra, former bassist. Marketing and media professional in England.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including the Immersion Book of SF. Contributor of short fiction to print and online magazines, including Interzone, Postscripts, SF Crowsnest, Midnight Street, and Black Static.
SIDELIGHTS
Al Robertson is a British writer, poet, marketing and media specialist, and musician. He holds an M.A. (with honors) in English literature and art history from the University of St. Andrews. His career as a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror spans approximately the last ten years, and it covers publication in magazines such as Interzone and Black Static. He frequently presents public readings of his poetry and prose at venues throughout London, he reported on the Al Robertson Website.
As a professional in the marketing and media world, Robertson has worked with many large companies in England and elsewhere. He helps them learn how to use words and language to better convey their marketing messages, to define and refine their brands, and to position themselves in the marketplace. He writes corporate material such as strategy guides and annual reports, conducts workshops that train company employees how to write these types of materials and how to write more effectively in a business setting, and edits marketing and promotional material for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
When the interviewer on the Gollancz Website asked Robertson to name his favorite science fiction or fantasy world, Robertson replied, “From an SF point of view, the one we all live in right now! There’s so much extraordinary new technology hitting us all the time, it’s endlessly fascinating watching how we’re finding ways to use it and how it’s changing us. And from a more fictional point of view, either Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse or H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhuverse (if that’s what you call it). Exploring both at roughly the same time was a profoundly formative experience.”
Robertson is also the former vocalist for Graan, a heavy metal band which he describes on the Al Robertson Website as an “ambient metal doom combo.” In an interview on the Gollancz Website, he relayed an anecdote about his experiences with this band. He stated, “for one gig [I] wrote a half hour long heavy ritual to summon Herne the Hunter to a pub in (of course) Herne Hill,” a district in the southern part of London. “He appeared,” Robertson added.
Crashing Heaven
In his first novel, Crashing Heaven, Robertson creates a future world in which a war between two groups of competing artificial intelligences, or AIs, has created a bleak and troubled future for humankind. Seven years prior to the opening of the story, the Pantheon, a group of corporate AIs, clashed with the Totality, a collection of independent AIs that broke off from the Pantheon and went rogue. The Pantheon still exists on a spacecraft called Station, floating though the asteroid belt. Along with the Pantheon, the remaining human population also lives on Station, where the Pantheon has nearly godlike powers over the downtrodden humans.
In this bleak environment, protagonist Jack Forster, a human who once fought for the Pantheon but who was arrested and imprisoned as a traitor after surrendering to the Totality, has returned to Station. He has been released from captivity as a condition of a peace treaty between the Pantheon and the Totality. Accompanying Jack is Hugo Fist, a virtual ventriloquist dummy that, at one time, was created by the Pantheon and intended to launch devastating attacks against the totality. Jack and Hugo are connected, with Jack serving as the terrifying AI’s host. As for Hugo himself, he may be an artificial construct, but he appears to be as twisted and deranged as any living psychotic could become. However, “As the novel progresses we start to see that such a persona may be a front and that there is more to Hugo than we initially think,” observed Mark Yon in a review on the website SFF World.
Now that he’s been released, Jack wants to find his former lover Andrea. To his dismay, he finds that she has died a suicide, and the being that he believes is her is actually a Fetch—an AI made from her thoughts and memories. Jack wants answers to the events surrounding Andrea’s death, as well as the equally suspicious deaths of other old friends. He wants to know what happened to her and what drove her to take her own life, and who or what may have been involved.
With Crashing Heaven, Robertson “has created a well-developed future and a story full of action and intrigue,” commented a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Yon described Robertson’s novel as a “strange mix of science fiction, detective noir and cyberpunk, with a strong element of Ballard’s dystopian bleakness and William Gibson’s Neuromancer cyberspace upgraded to the 21st century (or, rather, the 28th).” Niall Alexander, writing on Tor.com, stated, “Seriously satisfying cyberpunk action meets thoughtful moral philosophy with a dash of detective noir and a supersized side of striking science in Crashing Heaven—the year’s best debut to date, and make no mistake.” Starburst website contributor Fred McNamara called the novel a “spellbindingly rugged addition to cyberpunk and science fiction literature in general.”
Waking Hell
Waking Hell, the sequel to Crashing Heaven, tells the story of Leila Fenech, a Fetch whose physical form is dead but who continues to live on in a world of software. Fetches have finally gained some rights on board Station, elevated from their status of years before when they could and would be used and discarded like obsolete programs. Leila works on Station, the last home of both humans and the Pantheon AI. After human brother, Dieter, receives a lethal injury from an ancient piece of machinery, Leila expects him to be brought back as a Fetch. However, instead of being reconstituted, Dieter and the code he possesses disappear into a secretive organization called Deodatus.
Leila owes Dieter gratitude that goes beyond simple sibling relationships. He helped her make the transition from living person to Fetch, providing access to his memories of her so that she could reconstruct her own past. “He’d helped her heal when even the Fetch Counselor had given up on her,” commented Alexander in another Tor.com review.
Leila goes rogue in her attempt to get Dieter back. With “with the help of a few friends—first and foremost a fraud investigator and an amnesiac janitor who aren’t nearly as dreary as they seem—she sets out to bring the fight to the being that bastardised her beloved brother,” Alexander commented. But this person, or entity, already possesses a great deal of power, including an army that is being directed at her home, with the intent of destroying Station and all its inhabitants. Alexander called Waking Hell an “exploration of identity filtered through a revenge fantasy with a humble helping of horror.” A Publishers Weekly contributor observed that the book’s “brisk, twisty plot with plenty of intrigue will work for action fans” as well as “more philosophical readers” who want to ponder the larger ideas Robertson brings forth.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, May 29, 2017, review of Crashing Heaven, p. 49; February 27, 2017, review of Waking Hell, p. 82.
ONLINE
Al Robertson Website, http://www.allumination.co.uk (November 5, 2017).
Fantasy Book Review, http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/ (November 5, 2017), Cat Fitzpatrick, review of Waking Hell.
Gollancz Website, http://www.gollancz.co.uk/ (October 28, 2016), “Exclusive Q&A with Al Robertson.”
Pop Verse, http://www.pop-verse.com/ (December 7, 2016), Megan Leigh, review of Waking Hell.
SciFiNow, https://www.scifinow.co.uk/ (June 18, 2015), Philippa Grafton, review of Crashing Heaven.
SF Crows Nest, http://sfcrowsnest.org.uk/ (November 22, 2016), G. F. Wilmetts, review of Waking Hell.
SFF World, https://www.sffworld.com/ (May 23, 2015), Mark Yon, review of Crashing Heaven.
Starburst, http://www.starburstmagazine.com/ (November 5 2017), Fred McNamara, review of Crashing Heaven.
Tor.com, https://www.tor.com/ (June 15, 2015), Niall Alexander, “No Strings Attached: Crashing Heaven by Al Robertson,” review of Crashing Heaven; (April 13, 2017), Niall Alexander, “Austerity Measures: Waking Hell by Al Robertson,” review of Waking Hell.
Exclusive Q&A with Al Robertson
Gollancz October 28, 2016 Al Robertson, Interview
al robertsonWe are thrilled to welcome Al Robertson, to the blog for a special Q&A blog post. Al Robertson’s thrilling new SF adventure WAKING HELL is out now in bookshops. We caught up with Al to ask him some of burning questions about life, reading, writing and mythological creatures.
Who is your favourite author?
I’d say there are several, depending on what mood I’m in, which book I happen to pull off the shelves and what I’m reading at any given moment. At the moment, the list would include Leigh Brackett for her wondrous planetary romances, Joseph Hone for his bleak, undeceived spy thrillers, the New Wave trio of Michael Moorcock, J.G. Ballard and M. John Harrison, and Aliette De Bodard – I’m hugely looking forward to seeing where her Dominion of the Fallen series goes next.
What book do you most often recommend to friends?
Again, that changes. Just now, I’d say either Ellen Ullman’s The Bug, Catriona Ward’s Rawblood or Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Between the Woods and the Water.
The Bug is astonishing SF, at once utterly mundane (it’s about a mid-80s programmer who’s broken by a bug in some code he’s writing) and completely rigorous in its use of technology to create a new, entirely modern language for emotion. I’ve spent a lot of time in Devon over the years, so – quite apart from its terrifying brilliance – the deep sense of place that suffuses Rawblood stopped me in my tracks. And Between the Woods and the Water is such a sad, profound book, a piercing elegy for a vanished pre-war Europe. A particularly important read, given how determined so many of us seem to be to eradicate all traces of the European from our national life right now.
Oh, and as a very last one The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon – an 11th century lady of the Japanese court describes its daily goings on, her personality glowing out of every single page. When I finished it I felt like I’d a lost a new friend I’d only just made.
What is your favourite SF or fantasy world?
From an SF point of view, the one we all live in right now! There’s so much extraordinary new technology hitting us all the time, it’s endlessly fascinating watching how we’re finding ways to use it and how it’s changing us. And from a more fictional point of view, either Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse or H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhuverse (if that’s what you call it). Exploring both at roughly the same time was a profoundly formative experience.
What is your favourite SF or fantasy creature or character?
Another formative one – Judge Dredd. Reading 2000AD back in the 80s was such a wonderful experience, there was so much astonishing stuff in there. And it left me with a default sense that SF (and fantasy too) should always be crazily propulsive, utterly subversive and ever-so-slightly nuts. Oh, and if I can balance him out with a more recent obsession – Gef the Talking Mongoose.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I always write books on my laptop, but I always plan them on paper. And when I’m planning them, I always use a fountain pen. I’ve got two – an old Shaeffer one that was a graduation present from my Dad, and a Lamy Safari pen. I use the Lamy pen more because they don’t make nibs for the Shaeffer one any more and I don’t want to wear it out! They both write so smoothly, it’s such a pleasure to get words down on paper with them. And because I only use them for book-related writing, pulling either one out gets me into absolutely the right frame of mind.
If you weren’t a writer what job would you liked to have gone into?
I went to a Jean-Michel Jarre gig the other day and was very struck by how much fun he was having, and how cool it must be to be up there, pumping out ferocious electronic music while surrounded by an incredible lightshow and projected images and film. So – and this is of course a total fantasy – if I wasn’t a writer I’d love to be that kind of musician.
What is the best thing about being a writer?waking hell
Seeing how every single reader creates their own version of your books.
What one item could you not live without?
Coffee.
Tell us something that will surprise your readers.
I used to be a vocalist in a metal band, and for one gig wrote a half hour long heavy ritual to summon Herne the Hunter to a pub in (of course) Herne Hill. He appeared.
What makes you happy?
Being at home with my family, ideally in front of a roaring log fire after a long walk on the South Downs. Being in the pub with interesting people, talking until whenever. Exploring new places. Watching a new book go out into the world. And playing board games!
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
It wasn’t given to me, it was given to Luke Skywalker – the moment in The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda says to him ‘Do. Or do not. There is no try.’ I was watching it when I was trying to be an author, having already tried to be a poet and tried to be a screenwriter. I realised that Yoda was right – I needed to stop trying and start doing. All the short stories and novels that I’ve written since began at that moment. And a lot else as well.
If you could have a drink with one of the characters from your book which character would it be and what would you drink?
Rather than just one of them, I’d love to have all of the lead characters from both books round for supper – I think they’d get on really well with each other. If nothing else, they’d bond over all the tough situations I’ve put them in, cliffhangers I’ve imposed on them, etc. I’d cook them all a huge curry to thank them for putting up with it all. And if I did have to choose one, it’d probably be the Caretaker from Waking Hell. It’s easy to think he’s just an aging hippy, but he has some fascinating hidden depths…
What book are you currently reading?
I’ve got three books on the go. First of all, there’s Joseph Hone’s The Private Sector – a bleak, evocative spy novel set mostly in Cairo. Secondly, I’m deep in Ken Hollings’ Bright Labyrinth, from the ever-wonderful Strange Attractor Press, which digs into modern tech in really fascinating ways. And finally, I’m dipping in and out of Alan Jenkins and John Kinsella’s Marine – it’s fascinating watching the two poets play off each other.
WAKING HELL is out now in paperback and ebook. CRASHING HEAVEN is also available now. You can find out more about Al Robertson by visiting his website or following him on Twitter.
about me
I’m a writer, poet and occasional musician.
My second novel, ‘Waking Hell’, in which the past attacks and only a dead estate agent can save us, came out last October with Gollancz. My first book, ‘Crashing Heaven’, came out last June It’s about an accountant of the future, a psychotic virtual ventriloquist’s dummy and the sentient corporations who are persecuting them both.
I’ve been publishing SF, fantasy and horror stories and novellas for the last ten years or so. They’ve appeared in Interzone, Black Static, Postscripts and elsewhere – more details on the In print page.
I’ve read prose and poetry all over London and beyond. For a while I was one of ambient metal doom combo Graan’s two vocalists. I also played bass with the Stella Maris Drone Orchestra.
Finally, you can read about my professional life in marketing and media here.
Al Robertson Goodreads Author
Born The United Kingdom
Websitehttp://www.allumination.co.uk
Twitteral_robertson
GenreScience Fiction, Fantasy, Horror
Member SinceSeptember 2013
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I'm the author of SF novels Crashing Heaven and Waking Hell, as well as award-nominated SF, fantasy and horror short stories. I'm also a poet and occasional musician. When I'm not working on my own projects, I help companies communicate more clearly. I was born in London, brought up in France and am now based in Brighton.
projects
telling the tale of Tilt
I’ve been helping Brighton digital mavens Tilt work out how to tell the world the story of who they are and what they do. It’s been fascinating finding and articulating the common themes in the achievements, approaches and experiences of such a diversely skilled and talented group of people.
rethinking Ronseal
Ronseal wanted to take a good, hard look at how they used words. Working with writing experts Afia, I helped them understand how their brand personality had changed over the last twenty years. Then I designed and ran a series of workshops that defined and embedded their new tone of voice. Now they know exactly what it should say on the tin.
talking stories at 26
I ran a Trade Secrets Masterclass for London pro writers organisation 26, sharing how I use stories to help with everything from understanding brands and solving strategic problems to managing challenging clients. It was a very satisfying evening, made even more enjoyable by some fascinating attendees.
creating a shared sense of self
Another Afia job – I ran workshops in Dusseldorf, Paris and London, and interviewed people across Europe, to help an IT infrastructure provider understand its different national personalities and pin down the core values they all share. All the conversations came together beautifully to give them a very strong, globally agreed-on sense of who they are and how they get things done.
fine tuning Crisis Action
Conflict resolution charity Crisis Action asked me to put together a short, sharp better writing session. I think they were the single most international group I’ve ever worked with! It was fascinating helping them critique their different writing styles and understand which ones can work for them all.
bringing a charity’s new start to life
One of the big English charities has just redefined who they are and how they work. Working through Afia, I wrote and edited their new strategy guide and annual report. It’s been fascinating understanding the breadth of their aims and activities, then helping explain them to the world.
launching my second novel
It’s not strictly part of my corporate work, but my second book’s out! SF publishers Gollancz launched Waking Hell last October. It’s a loose sequel to the first one, Crashing Heaven. I’m now deep in the next book, which is all about the dark side of digital disruption. There’s more on that side of my life over at my other site allumination.
training and writing at Vodafone
I spent over a year working with Vodafone for Afia. I helped define their new tone of voice. Then I ran an extended training programme for their agencies and several hundred of their staff. There was a fair bit of onsite editing, rewriting and general word-related trouble-shooting, too.
sharpening up Legal & General
Legal & General wanted to bring more focus to their key features documents. Afia asked me to help them rethink and redesign their writing process. We rebuilt every stage, from first briefing through document planning and writing to editing and final sign off. And I ran quite a few better writing and tone of voice workshops for them too.
redefining the Tallow Chandlers
The Tallow Chandlers are one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. They’ve been part of its fabric for at least five hundred and fifty years. I helped them understand how to present their rich history and wide-ranging charitable activities in a way that’s directly relevant to people today, then bring it all to life in their new website.
an Accenture Ireland event
I travelled to Dublin to interview various senior Accenture Ireland folk in the run up to a day-long, company-wide strategy event. Then I helped come up with its creative shape. It was a lot of fun getting stuck into some experiential work – it took me right back to my days with Imagination, working with clients like Ericsson, Sony and Coca Cola.
writing an audiodrama about Horace Walpole
The newly refurbished Strawberry Hill House needed a guide as quirkily splendid as it is. I dug into its history, adopted the voice of Sir Horace Walpole (inventor of the Gothic and builder of the house) and wrote the audioguide as a forty five minute radio play, centred on him and online here.
editing at high speed
I had a quick blast of very speedy jobs, editing documents for all sorts of different people under fairly intense time pressure. Favourites included a rather informative British Heart Foundation presentation, a very technical piece for the European Investment Bank, several very dense business proposals for Mastercard, EY’s brand story and an entire book for drug campaigners Transform.
Al Robertson
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Thinking, writing & training
Gollancz University of St Andrews
Brighton, United Kingdom 310 310 connections
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I help corporate clients tell the world about who they are right now. And I write science fiction books about
what might happen next.
Experience
Gollancz
Writing science fiction
Company NameGollancz
Dates EmployedJun 2015 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 5 mos
LocationStation
My first book, 'Crashing Heaven', came out in June 2015. Tor.com said that, in it, "seriously satisfying cyberpunk action meets thoughtful moral philosophy with a dash of detective noir and a supersized side of striking science." Its stand-alone sequel, 'Waking Hell', launched last October. Publishers Weekly enjoyed its "brisk, twisty plot with plenty of intrigue [that] will work for action fans as well as more philosophical readers who love to ponder big ideas".
Freelance
Thinking, writing and training
Company NameFreelance
Dates EmployedAug 2008 – Present Employment Duration9 yrs 3 mos
LocationBrighton, United Kingdom
I’ve been defining brands, running training programmes and sometimes even just writing or editing for all sorts of people since 2008. Sometimes I work directly with clients, sometimes through agencies like Afia, Imagination or Quietroom.
Favourite projects:
- Rethinking Ronseal's brand personality and writing style
- Running a year-long writer training programme for a few hundred Vodafone people
- Helping Lloyd's of London pin down their tone of voice
- Creating a new briefing, writing and editing process for Legal & General
- Introducing the British Council to the possibilities of social media
- Running tone of voice workshops at E.ON
- Writing a forty-five minute audiodrama for Strawberry Hill House
- Editing drug campaigning charity Transform's 'Blueprint for Change' book
- Sharpening up 100,000 word pitch documents for Mastercard
Imagination
Experiential planning and writing
Company NameImagination
Dates EmployedMar 2005 – Jul 2008 Employment Duration3 yrs 5 mos
LocationLondon, United Kingdom
I was a Senior Writer at experiential agency Imagination from March 2005 to November 2007 and then a Creative Planner on the Jack Morton Worldwide Nokia team until July 2008.
Favourite projects:
- Defining Ericsson's worldwide exhibition strategy
- Dramatising Sony Electronics Europe brands for 300 tech journalists
- Naming the Ford Kuga and iosis
- Speechwriting for the entire board of Vodafone UK
- Experiential planning for Nokia
Corporate Edge
Brand writing and naming
Company NameCorporate Edge
Dates EmployedMay 2001 – Feb 2005 Employment Duration3 yrs 10 mos
LocationLondon
I was a Creative Consultant at branding and design agency Corporate Edge from May 2001 to May 2003, and then went freelance until February 2005.
Favourite projects:
- Helping rebrand the Shetland Islands
- Collecting BG brand stories at a liquid natural gas facility just outside Alexandria
- Defining a new look and feel for Help the Aged
- Making films for Shell and the Consumers’ Association
- Naming Nectar, Work and Family Tax Credits, and a family of Castrol truck oils
Intermedia, the BBC, British Screen Finance and others
Getting creative in film
Company NameIntermedia, the BBC, British Screen Finance and others
Dates EmployedFeb 1998 – Mar 2001 Employment Duration3 yrs 2 mos
Freelancing as a Script Consultant brought my creative and commercial skills together. I helped all sorts of people develop scripts and assess new film projects.
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Education
University of St Andrews
University of St Andrews
Degree NameMA Hons Field Of StudyEnglish Lit and Art History Grade1st
Dates attended or expected graduation 1991 – 1995
Activities and Societies: I ran the Box Office for major Edinburgh fringe venue Feast at the Fringe and was the Publicity Manager for the St Andrews Festival. At the time, it was Scotland's largest winter arts festival. I was also a keen member of the Aikido society, spending a month training one summer in Belgium.
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Heather Atchison
Heather Atchison
Tone of voice specialist, writer, trainer
June 25, 2013, Al reported directly to Heather
Heather’s an excellent Creative Director. She grasps the big picture very quickly and accurately, then balances that with very helpful attention to detail. She has a precise sense of the right moment to make the right comment to nudge things forward in the right way. That’s all built on very wide-ranging writing and training experience. And - just as importantly - she’s a lot of fun to work with!
Accomplishments
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Language
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what’s in print
My second book, ‘Waking Hell’, is out now as a paperback, ebook and audiobook. It’s a stand alone sequel to ‘Crashing Heaven’, describing what happens when the past attacks and only a dead estate agent can save us. You can get a copy in all good bookshops, and of course on Amazon. The audiobook, read by Nicola Bryant, is available here. And Anderida Books have published a lovely signed, limited hardback edition – click here and scroll down for more info.
My first novel, ‘Crashing Heaven’, came out with Gollancz in 2015. It’s about an accountant of the future, a virtual ventriloquist’s dummy and their battles with various sentient god-corporations. Tor.com said it’s “the year’s best debut to date, and make no mistake”. I’ve gathered all the reviews, interviews and general publicity over on my Facebook page – and you can check out the first few pages on Kindle here.
A novella, ‘Of Dawn’, digging into English folk weirdness, 70s Open University documentaries, Roman myth and related matters. It’s in Interzone 235 alongside stories from Matthew Cook, Mercurio D. Rivera and others.
A short story, ‘Golden’, reprinted in the most excellent Immersion Book of SF, alongside work from Tanith Lee, Lavie Tidhar, Aliette de Bodard, Chris Butler and more.
Assorted rantings in the BSFA British Science Fiction and Fantasy Survey – it’s an endlessly interesting read, with thoughts about F&SF from just about anyone you’d ever want to hear from, running from the late 60s until right now.
A short story, ‘De Profundis’, about the problems of being a Thames River Police Diver, along with fiction from Gary Couzens, Will McIntosh, Lawrence Conquest and others, and some great comment and review pieces, in Black Static 11.
A stonepunk mini-extravaganza at the Science Museum website, along with other great fiction resulting from the Science Museum Writers Workshop, plus SM writer in residence Tony White’s steampunk, James Colvin resurrecting ‘Albertopolis Disparu’.
For BSFA members only – ‘Sohoitis’ reprinted in a Postscripts sampler special, along with fiction from Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Joe Hill, Stephen Baxter, Ramsey Campbell, Gene Wolfe and others.
A short story, ‘Fishermen’, about Croatian pirates and how and why we create fantasies for ourselves, in Interzone 221, along with as ever stunning stories and great commentary.
A short story, ‘Changeling’, about memories of war and the Fair Folk, in Black Static 9, along with reliably excellent fiction and commentary.
A short story, ‘Sohoitis’, about alcoholic deities in Fitzrovia, is out in Postscripts 17 – along with fiction from James Lovegrove, Ian Macleod, Jeff Vandermeer, Adam Roberts and others.
An interview with Ted Chiang, about his Nebula Award winning short story ‘The Alchemist and the Merchant’s Gate’, is up at the Nebula Awards site.
Want to edit your own anthology? I’ve got stories up at Anthologybuilder.com, along with lots of other great genre fiction.
Ramblings as part of 2003’s New Weird thread on the TTApress messageboards – reprinted in the Vandermeers’ New Weird anthology, which includes both great fiction and fascinating critical commentary.
An article on Fantasy, Science Fiction, the characteristics of each and the relationship between them in March’s issue of Stephen Hunt’s SF Crowsnest, along with fiction, articles and interviews from Ken Macleod, Hal Duncan, Joe Abercrombie, Jeffrey Ford and others.
A short story, ‘Ghosts’, about the problems of exploring an abandoned, haunted space station on your own, is out in issue ten of Midnight Street – along with great stories by Joel Lane, Stephen Gallagher and others, a fascinating Neil Gaiman interview, and other cool stuff. Still available!
A short story, ‘Golden’, about the problems of meeting a surprisingly optimistic American astronaut in a pub opposite the British Museum, first published in The Third Alternative 38 is reprinted online at Infinity Plus.
Crashing Heaven
Publishers Weekly.
264.22 (May 29, 2017): p49.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Crashing Heaven
Al Robertson. Gollancz, $13.99 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-1-4732-0341-9
Humankind is caught in the middle of a high-stakes war between competing AIs in this provocative cyberpunk space
opera (a prequel to Waking Hell). The Pantheon, a group of powerful corporate AIs, schemes on Station, a space
station in the asteroid belt. Seven years before, a terrorist attack started a brutal war between the Pantheon and a group
of independent AIs called the Totality. Some members of the Totality were grown to inhabit human or android bodies,
called puppets. Forensic auditor Jack Forster fought for the Pantheon but became disillusioned by a conflict in which
humans were doing all the sacrificing and dying. Now the war is over, and Jack is back on Station with iconoclastic
Hugo Fist, the last of the Totality puppets. Jack attempts to reconnect with old friends, learns they were murdered, and
decides to investigate their deaths, which leads him into a widening spiral of complex plots. Robertson has created a
well-developed future and a story full of action and intrigue, raising deep questions about the nature of intelligence,
humanity, and personal freedom. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Crashing Heaven." Publishers Weekly, 29 May 2017, p. 49. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA494500719&it=r&asid=6b5a398c5bff889b9e2c56ac11830d6a.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
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Waking Hell
Publishers Weekly.
264.9 (Feb. 27, 2017): p82.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Waking Hell
Al Robertson. Gollancz, $24.99 trade paper
(368p) ISBN 978-1-4732-0343-3
This enjoyable sequel to the cyberpunk thriller Crashing Heaven finds humans, living and dead, caught once more
between rogue AIs fighting for control of a remote space station and the fate of humankind. Leila Fenech is a fetch,
physically dead but living on in software. She works odd jobs aboard the hollowed-out asteroid called Station. When
her brother, Dieter, is fatally injured by a piece of ancient tech, she expects him to join her as a fetch; instead, he and
all the code he ever wrote disappear into a shadowy organization run by a secretive system called Deodatus.
Determined to get Dieter back, Leila goes on the run, hoping to prevent a war that could wipe out every living thing on
Station and beyond, while being recorded as reality entertainment. Expanding a fascinating universe, Robertson brings
to life a virtual world where memories can be rewritten without warning and physical distance means nothing. A brisk,
twisty plot with plenty of intrigue will work for action fans as well as more philosophical readers who love to ponder
big ideas. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Waking Hell." Publishers Weekly, 27 Feb. 2017, p. 82. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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Austerity Measures: Waking Hell by Al Robertson
Niall Alexander
Thu Apr 13, 2017 4:00pm 1 comment 1 Favorite [+]
On the back of one of the best debuts in recent memory, Al Robertson rounds up a brand new cast of characters for his second successive stop at Station. Absent “the dynamic duo” that was Jack and Hugo—respectively “an accountant of the future [and] a psychotic virtual ventriloquist’s dummy,” in the words of the award-nominated author—Waking Hell isn’t as compelling as Crashing Heaven, but between its excellently embellished setting and a narrative that boasts more momentum than most, there are moments when it comes close.
As of the outset, much has changed on Station, the battle-scarred asteroid where what’s left of humanity lives under the purview of a pantheon of corporate gods:
Two and a half years before […] Jack Forster, Hugo Fist and Andrea Hui had worked with the Totality to release the dead from semi-sentient slavery. But the Rebirth was just the start of a longer coming of age. It was one thing for ten thousand weaveselves to be reborn as fully self-aware continuations of ended lives—quite another for them to come to terms with that new start, both as individuals and as a group, and understand what to do with it. When Leila stepped out of the sea and into her new, post-mortal life, she became part of that conversation.
The hero at the heart of Waking Hell has had to hoe a hard road in the years since her resurrection as a fetch. Initially, those like Leila Fenech were seen as sub-human, to be used and routinely abused by the living before being disposed of, like so much deleted data. The events of Crashing Heaven changed that; now, fetches finally have rights.
Still, there’s resistance, including an organisation of individuals who damn near decimated the dead in an act of technological terrorism that’ll stay with Leila to her last day. Luckily for her, she had her brother Dieter—a hacker with a particular fascination for the past—to lean on when the fanatics attacked:
When the Blood and Flesh plague shattered the deep structures of her memory, completely disordering her sense of herself, Dieter had helped her rebuild. He’d taken her out of the Coffin Drives’ convalescence unit and back to his weavespace. Then he’d opened up his own memories of her life to her. They became a template, guiding her as she remade the structures of her past. He’d helped her heal when even the Fetch Counsellor had given up on her.
Now he needed her just as much as she’d needed him. And she could only watch.
She could only watch as he dies, infected from the inside out by an infernal artefact that feels like it fell straight out of Hellraiser—and by design, I dare say. Early on, at least, Waking Hell has a lot in common with a horror novel: it’s all unsettling silences and gruesome goings-on, monsters and murders, and beyond these, thar be bees! Bees and some bloody ugly bugs. But for better or for worse, Robertson reverses gears too soon for these potentially interesting elements to have a dramatic impact on the narrative. What Waking Hell is is a solid science fiction sequel, despite the departure of its first act.
And its second, in a sense. This section is concerned with revenge, because while death is no longer the end in this milieu, Leila learns that for Dieter it will be. Essentially, he’s been swindled into signing away the rights to his resurrection, ostensibly so that his sister will be looked after. And financially speaking, she is. Whoever the devil Dieter dealt with is, he’s as good as his word. But rather than using the huge sum of money she inherits to live a right nice afterlife, Leila spends it in search of said devil’s identity.
Then, with the help of a few friends—first and foremost a fraud investigator and an amnesiac janitor who aren’t nearly as dreary as they seem—she sets out to bring the fight to the being that bastardised her beloved brother. Little does Leila realise that the being already has an army… an army it’s planning to aim straight at Station. And as one of her new comrades says, “Of course you’ve got to look out for the people you love. […] But if the whole of the rest of the world is in danger, you might have to start thinking a bit bigger.”
A bit bigger is actually a decent way of describing Waking Hell as a whole. It doesn’t have the personality of Crashing Heaven—although its characters are a relatively rambunctious bunch, only the Caretaker entertains in the way Hugo Fist did, and I’m afraid he’s far from front and centre—but it has scope and scale to spare. Nothing less than the fate of our race is at stake, and happily, there’s more to humanity than the blasted asteroid Robertson’s first novel focused on.
Leila’s race to recover her brother—and, in so doing, save the day—gives us a window into this well-widened world, from the repellent reality underlying the weird and wonderful weavespaces people have created on Station to the scorched surface of the Earth humanity abandoned. And at the same time as casting the core conflict as increasingly crucial, the explosive expansion of Waking Hell‘s setting gives its narrative a frisson of the frenetic.
When I reviewed Crashing Heaven two years or so ago, I remarked that I hadn’t a clue what the second of the Station books would look like. Given the devastating denouement of Robertson’s dizzying debut, I knew it was destined to be different—but what those differences would be, I could only wait and see. That was enough to excite me. From here, however, it’s much easier to conceive of an act three… and that’s oddly disappointing.
An exploration of identity filtered through a revenge fantasy with a humble helping of horror, Waking Hell is fearsome, fast moving and fun—but it’s also fairly straightforward, flat where the last book was full, and frankly much less memorable without Hugo Fist, who I really, really missed.
Waking Hell is available from Gollancz in the US and the UK.
No Strings Attached: Crashing Heaven by Al Robertson
Niall Alexander
Mon Jun 15, 2015 9:00am Post a comment 1 Favorite [+]
Seriously satisfying cyberpunk action meets thoughtful moral philosophy with a dash of detective noir and a supersized side of striking science in Crashing Heaven—the year’s best debut to date, and make no mistake.
A pivotal part of its deceptively accessible premise is that the tale occurs in a world where gods (of a sort) walk among men. As the well-read will be aware, this is not a new notion; on the contrary, there have been any number of tremendous takes on the topic, even if we restrict our recollection to iterations of late—highlights like Robert Jackson Bennett’s brilliantly built City of Stairs and N. K. Jemisin’s hot-under-the-collar Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. So what makes this one worth writing home about?
Folks, meet Hugo Fist: a virtual ventriloquist’s dummy designed by the pawns of the Pantheon—an assortment of incarnate corporate gods who represent the culmination of capitalism—to lay waste to the Totality: the rogue AIs that have taken over most of the solar system. Most of the solar system… but not all—not Station, the industrialised asteroid humanity has called home since poor planet Earth gasped its last.
It’s been something like seven years since Hugo’s host last set foot on Station, but truth to tell, Jack Forster hadn’t expected to ever again. Imprisoned for switching sides during the Soft War after he learned there was markedly more to the Totality than his omnipresent Pantheon masters had made apparent, Jack’s release—and Hugo’s, too—only came about as a condition of the recent peace treaty between the Powers That Be.
Judging by the homecoming that Crashing Heaven kicks off with, no-one on Station is happy to have Jack back. His father basically hates him for turning traitor, as do his former colleagues, who restrict our hero’s newfound freedom by keeping him off-weave. Absent access to that pervasive overlay, Jack is shunned by all and sundry, not least complete strangers whose augmented reality apps render him essentially invisible, like the drug-addicted sweatheads shuffling unseen through the asteroid’s dodgier districts.
Even Andrea, the illicit love of Jack’s life, is initially displeased to see him. That said, she’s not really Andrea anymore: sadly, the sultry singer Jack so adored passed away while he was coming to terms with his own impending death as he served his sentence. Now that he’s finally free, all that’s left of her is a Fetch—an artificial intelligence made of memories—and it wants nothing to do with him, either.
The suspicious circumstances surrounding Andrea’s supposed suicide do, however, serve to set Jack of a path that’ll bring him within spitting distance of Station’s deities. In the course of investigating her last days, he uncovers certain connections to the unsolved murder of a programmer called Penderville—a murder that Jack becomes convinced the Pantheon played a part in.
Hugo Fist isn’t exactly happy about this. Fist, with “his red-painted cheeks and lips, dead glass eyes, perfect little hairpiece and perpetual grin.”
His body floated beneath his carved face like an afterthought dressed in a blue-grey suit, a starched white shirt and a little red bow-tie. He clacked his mouth open and shut twice, the snap of wood on wood echoing down the alleyway. Then he roared in fury:
“I’LL EAT YOU ALIVE, YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!”
This to a pair of preteens tormenting a Totality biped.
And as above, so below, because the Pantheon puppet is a real piece of work. He wasn’t best pleased by Jack’s desperate attempts to connect with his loved ones once more, but now that his host is risking life and limb—the very limbs Fist is set to inherit in a little less than a year, bound together as he and Jack are by the contractual law underpinning the Pantheon’s power over Station—Fist is properly pissed. And when Fist is pissed… well. Know that he’s not above teasing people with the death-screams of the dearly departed. Know, furthermore, that this kind of cruelty gives him a certain pleasure; a “ferocious, deeply fulfilled glee” that adequately describes the darkness he has instead of a heart.
Yet, as crude and crazed as Fist is, as malevolent as his mania may be, he’s equally “a creature that found it so hard to feel anything more sophisticated than the spite and aggression that its maker had built into it” that there are moments when we almost pity him.
Not for a bit, admittedly. Fist’s interactions in the first half of the fiction are largely with Jack, and their relationship, such as it is, runs the risk of becoming repetitious. Fortunately, the dynamic between them is far from static:
So much had changed since they’d returned to Station. Each had become a mediator for the other, Jack helping Fist engage with the subtle workings of humanity, Fist helping Jack control the digital environment that the little puppet understood so well.
This assertion, made in the aftermath of Crashing Heaven‘s exhilarating centrepiece, in which Fist is completely unleashed, signals the first in a series of distinct shifts in the way the puppeteer and his problem prop relate to one another, and as that dynamic develops, so too, insidiously, do our sympathies. It’s terrifying, at times… but that doesn’t make it much less touching when real feeling passes between them.
In terms of its central characters, then, Crashing Heaven is a hell of a novel, so complete that I was somewhat surprised to see that it’s the first volume of a proposed duology. To be sure, I’ll be reading book two—as will you, assuming you take a chance on this dizzying debut—but I haven’t a clue what it could look like, because Robertson’s habit of holding nothing back extends to the story and the setting as well.
There’s such a vast amount to unpack, in fact, that it’s a real relief he doesn’t rush it. That isn’t to say there aren’t plot threads aplenty in the first half of the fiction, nor that Station is not laid naked as a babe before us; without context, of course, what it stands for, and where the story could conceivably go, is a guessing game at best. Happily, as opposed to brute-forcing the worldbuilding, or holding back the bulk of it, Robertson drip-feeds us what we need to put the pieces of the puzzle together ourselves, until we’re able to open our own eyes to the significance of Station, and to the endless possibilities of the plot.
It’s exactly as satisfying as it sounds. Pretty much everything in Crashing Heaven is. I suppose some of the philosophy—about what it really means to be meat in Robertson’s manifestly augmented milieu—feels… let’s say a bit basic. And the author’s extended metaphor about manipulation (like one might literally manipulate a puppet such as Fist, for instance) is a touch too much. But if that’s all even I, a notorious nitpicker, can come up with to complain about, be sure that we’re looking at a hell of a book.
Crashing Heaven is available June 18th in the UK from Gollancz.
Crashing Heaven by Al Robertson
Mark Yon
May 23, 2015
0 Comment
Crashing Heaven small“With Earth abandoned, humanity resides on Station, an industrialised asteroid run by the sentient corporations of the Pantheon. Under their leadership a war has been raging against the Totality – ex-Pantheon AIs gone rogue.
With the war over, Jack Forster and his sidekick Hugo Fist, a virtual ventriloquist’s dummy tied to Jack’s mind and created to destroy the Totality, have returned home.
Labelled a traitor for surrendering to the Totality, all Jack wants is to clear his name but when he discovers two old friends have died under suspicious circumstances he also wants answers. Soon he and Fist are embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not only their future but all of humanity’s. But with Fist’s software licence about to expire, taking Jack’s life with it, can they bring down the real traitors before their time runs out?”
Based on the publisher’s description above, I must admit that when I got to Crashing Heaven I was rather expecting a violent, yet entertaining type of Space Opera.
Well, Crashing Heaven is not that book – in fact, it is one of the most unusual books I’ve read this year. It is instead what I can only describe as a strange mix of science fiction, detective noir and cyberpunk, with a strong element of Ballard’s dystopian bleakness and William Gibson’s Neuromancer cyberspace upgraded to the 21st century (or, rather, the 28th.)
Some of this you may like – other parts perhaps less so. If you are like me, the character of Hugo Fist is what makes this book work or not work for you. I think that your like or dislike of the novel will mainly depend on your acceptance of the lead characters in the novel.
As was mentioned in the publicity above, Hugo is an AI character that is connected internally to Jack Forster, so closely that when their contract runs out Jack has agreed that he will die and Hugo will take full control of his body. At the moment, Hugo can possess Jack’s body and make him do things he may not want to do, though as we quickly find this is against the law and if caught could lead to Hugo’s demise.
I must admit the thought of a wooden puppet animatronic appearing to allow Hugo to walk around was a trifle off-putting – I kept thinking of the Saw movies and the movie Magic, not to mention Dead of Night and The Twilight Zone for example – but the idea that such a persona was created in order to emphasise the idea of ‘puppet’ and ‘puppeteer’ and make Hugo less frightening for children works reasonably well.
However what makes this all the more unusual is that our first impressions of Hugo suggest that he is seriously messed up – a mean, vindictive, nasty, and manipulative character who is quite different to the rather cool and unemotional AI you may be used to in other novels. His often-maniacal persona made me think of an AI as Mr. Punch, or Batman’s Joker – as unpredictable and moody as you might expect from your usual psychopath.
Part of this may be that on his return to Station, Hugo is restricted in what he is allowed to do, and this no doubt frustrates ‘him’ enormously. As the novel progresses we start to see that such a persona may be a front and that there is more to Hugo than we initially think.
By comparison (but of necessity, I think) Jack Forster is a bit of a non-entity, in counterbalance to Fist’s maniacal behaviour. As we go along we do find out about his past – Andrea, his lost illicit lover, his dead sister and estranged father, for example – but other than that, the Jack we see here is (perhaps deliberately) bland – a sad, depressed figure, rejected by his world and an outsider on a world he has been separated from for years. To rack up the tension, it doesn’t help that he’s on a countdown to a time when his contract runs out, he dies, has his memory wiped and Hugo takes over his body.
Around these two characters, Al Robertson builds an environment filled with interesting ideas. The world that Jack and Hugo live on is ‘Station’, an asteroid-space station habitat that orbits an Earth made uninhabitable by the Soft War. Station is not the shiny future living-space envisioned in Elysium or 2001 – it has been around for hundreds of years and consequently is an amalgam of metastasized residences, shops and business parks. It’s all rather grimy and decrepit, which allows Jack and Hugo to run around in a dark shadowy world that is appropriately grim. This made me think of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles but in space.
Al’s world is appropriately dark for a book determined to be so cyber-noir. What is left of the human race is assisted by The Pantheon, a group of AI’s that fought against the Totality and won, and have celebrity-style god-like status. Most of the human inhabitants here live with ‘weaveware’, a virtual environment that is overlaid on top of the physical one that takes the masses away from the stark reality of this bleak human existence. Tired old buildings have become junkie centres for a drug known as ‘sweat’, their users rapidly degenerating into zombie-like beings obsessed with repetitive work-operations.
Jack’s view on life is rather apropos to the majority on Station – this experiences from the War have left him feeling that AI (and especially The Pantheon) should not be trusted, that the life they offer is a mere sop for the masses. This is not a happy future, even when it may look like it.
There are aliens – Totality bipeds known as ‘squishies’ – who are allowed relatively free access on Station and seem very keen to help Jack in his ‘last days’ but who are regarded with suspicion by most humans. Jack’s friendship with one named Ifor seems genuine but is not particularly liked by Hugo as their generosity may have a deeper motive.
This idea that things are not what they appear at first runs through much of the book. As the book develops, we have a building sense that Jack and Hugo are reluctantly involved in events that go beyond their own concerns – murder, torture, drugs hauls, conspiracies and competing power plays which they are often near but not part of, mean that they soon become part of a much bigger picture. Ultimately they realise that their futures are being played with for the biggest stakes of all, and the future of Station, if not the human race, may depend on what they do.
For such big events, most of the book is tightly plotted on one or two characters and places, until the end when, in cyberspace, things become quite frenetic and don’t quite hold together for me. Though there is resolution, up to a point, it is clear that there are big things still to happen, setting things up for the second book in this duology.
I mentioned on the SFFWorld Forums that I was trying to get my head around writing this review. Having given some time to think about it, I’m still veering between ‘bonkers’ and ‘brilliant’. Personally I’m still not sure whether Crashing Heaven is a case of an author trying hard (perhaps too hard) to be different, or that it is something genuinely original. On one hand I could see some readers seeing it as nothing more than a revamped rehash of older SF ideas, but alternatively it could be a novel that is seen to be trying hard to be something different, riffing off traditional tropes.
Generally though it must be said that Crashing Heaven is good fun and should be applauded for trying to be different. Even if it is not wholly successful for me, I think that many may be less critical of it, to the point where Crashing Heaven could be the start of something that is going to be very big.
Crashing Heaven by Al Robertson
Published by Gollancz, June 2015 (Review copy received)
368 pages
ISBN: 978 1 473 20339 6
Mark Yon, April/May 2015.
CRASHING HEAVEN
PrintE-mail WRITTEN BY FRED MCNAMARA
Al Robertson’s debut novel is a disturbing yet engrossing vision of a cyberpunk-flavoured future, full of sordid characters and bleak emotions, wrapped up in a desolate tale of murder and treachery. Crashing Heaven follows Jack Forster, a former fighter for the Pantheon, a cluster of sentient corporations formerly at war with the rogue AI’s of the Totality. Now that the war has ended, Jack is keen to uncover the truth behind the death of his lover, even if it means stirring up old grudges from both sides. Armed with his menacing AI puppet Hugo Fist, Jack has just weeks to find out the truth before Fist is able to claim Jack’s body for himself, killing Jack in the process.
Robertson has pieced together a book not without humour, but still a fairly morose read that strikes a deft balance between crafting a true sense of the horrific world Jack is lost in with the character-driven nature of the story itself. Within those characters are the darkest of emotions, and Robertson wrenches them out, engulfing Crashing Heaven with an atmosphere that’s drenched in an inescapable darkness, but makes for riveting reading.
Through all of its confident execution and engaging narrative, Crashing Heaven has a desperate feel to it. It feels that way because its story has such a finely crafted feel to it, and yet the nagging reminder of Jack’s impending doom casts an effective downpour on the book, making it all the more fun to read. Crashing Heaven takes familiar concepts and blasts fresh life into them, but it’s a life that paints a vivid picture of the deadly underbelly of war and love. A spellbindingly rugged addition to cyberpunk and science fiction literature in general.
CRASHING HEAVEN / AUTHOR: AL ROBERTSON / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (HARDCOVER), MAY 12TH (PAPERBACK)
10/10
CRASHING HEAVEN BY AL ROBERTSON BOOK REVIEW
Meet Hugo Fist in Al Robertson’s sci-fi thriller, Crashing Heaven
By Philippa Grafton 18-06-15 2,904 0
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Author:
Al Robertson
Publisher:
Gollancz (Orion)
Released:
18 June 2015
Buy on Amazon
After Earth has been abandoned, all that remains of humanity now inhabits an industrialised asteroid known as the Station.
Jack was born and bred here; his childhood was spent exploring the Docklands, while his adult life found him in the midst of a great war. After the war, and after being labelled a traitor, Jack returns home with his new constant companion, Hugo Fist.
Hugo Fist – a virtual puppet that’s been implanted into Jack’s mind – is what really gets the story going. Designed to destroy the Totality, Station’s enemy, Fist is perhaps the most terrifying AI to set foot on the Station. It’s not just the Totality that’s destined to succumb to this charismatic character.
It’s a pretty disheartening story, and with such a lot of complex elements, Crashing Heaven demands a lot of its readers. It’s impossible to step lightly into this novel, and you really do have to drag yourself through the opening pages before you find yourself engaging with the story.
Once you’ve overcome the initial hurdle, the prose flows eloquently, and the interaction between Jack and Fist is engaging. It’s this unique relationship that really makes Robertson’s story stand out.
If you’re looking for an easy-to-read, pick-up, put-down kind of book, this isn’t for you. With an intense, evolving plot and deep, complex characters, Robertson’s novel is an unavoidable commitment until the very end.
Waking Hell by Al Robertson
Waking Hell book cover
Free preview
Rating
9.0/10
A lovely story about the unbreakable connection between two siblings
Leila Fenech is dead. And so is her brother Dieter. But what's really pissing her off is how he sold his afterlife as part of an insurance scam and left her to pick up the pieces. She wants him back so she can kick his backside from here to the Kuiper Belt.
Station is humanity's last outpost. But this battle-scarred asteroid isn't just for the living. It's also where the dead live on as fetches: digital memories and scraps of personality gathered together and given life. Of a sort.
Leila won't stop searching Station until she's found her brother's fetch - but the sinister Pressure Men are stalking her every move. Clearly Dieter's got himself mixed up in something a whole lot darker than just some scam.
Digging deeper, Leila discovers there's far more than her brother's afterlife at stake. Could it be that humanity's last outpost is on the brink of disaster? Is it too late for even the dead to save it?
The second in Al Robertson’s Station Series, Waking Hell is the story of love between a brother and sister, and the fragility of memory in a world where the boundaries between ‘real’ life and digital life are far more difficult to define.
Leila is a fetch - a consciousness composed of her digital self formed during her organic existence and in the first book rescued by her brother from a plague that eroded her memories. Seen as a second class citizen, Leila tries to hide her true nature as much as possible, even from herself. However, her brother Dieter, fascinated by old technology, has an accident when a strange box is sent to him in the post, and on his deathbed signs over his fetch in exchange for a huge payout that would lift Leila out of her precarious existence and into the world of the super rich.
Devastated by the realisation that she won’t be able to see her brother again, Leila sets out to uncover what really happened. Delving deeper than ever into an online world, and trying to keep one step ahead of the pressure men, she will do whatever she can to save what remains of her brother before he glitches into non-existence.
I hadn’t heard of this series before, so didn’t know that this was the second book, but thankfully this story has moved on enough from previous events that it was easy to understand the world of the Station - an outpost for humanity which is ruled by a series of gods and where you can come back from death for another go at life. I kind of imagine it as though the new gods from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods had taken over and all life is constantly connected to the digital world, augmenting reality in an aggressively consumerist fashion.
I find the blurring of what we would consider to be the real world and augmented reality to be fascinating, and Waking Hell is another great take on how humanity could develop as we alter the world around us to be whatever we want it to be, and even overcome death, though of course there are still the problems of prejudice, hatred of the ‘other’, poverty and those who want to change society into what they believe it should look like. When a person can be created from the digital traces they left behind, and when these memories can be rewritten, along with everybody who knows you, this raises interesting questions around what makes a person an individual and how people connect. This book even stretches the definition of what a person is, with highly intelligent AI programmes controlling nanogel forms and for all intents and purposes being an individual in their own right.
At the centre is a lovely story about the unbreakable connection between two siblings that need each other, which forms a focal point around which the entire world, or worlds, are shifting as huge powers struggle for control. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This Waking Hell book review was written by Cat Fitzpatrick
Waking Hell by Al Robertson (book review).
November 22, 2016 | By UncleGeoff | 2 Replies
Although ‘Waking Hell’ by Al Robertson isn’t described as cyberpunk, it has all the digital footprints that says it is. Digital beings co-existing with organic life pretty much sums that up. Although the boundary to a digital reality is less so.
wakinghell
Leila Fenech is a fetch. A being whose existing memories after physical death given a somewhat digital form which seems to have some physicality but is in an awfully grey area and only hinted at that they might run physical avatars. Her brother and tech scientist, Dieter, is dying and is going to have the same treatment but his body suddenly vanishes and she finds her bank account has made her very wealthy. Leila isn’t that worried about money as she wants her brother back as he was a major contributor in creating her digital existence. Dieter’s contribution to digital life was ensuring more of the personality was transferred to that form.
Following a series of clues, she discovers that pressure men are following her and they, in turn, belong to Deodatus, a shadowy organisation or person that she can’t tap into without help. Not even the police can but, in this future, she can buy the case off them to do her own investigation which attracts other people to help her and then she finds she is on their team and not the other way around.
Contrary to the back cover but trying to avoid giving away too many spoilers, finding Dieter is less of a problem than convincing him that she’s real and what he’s doing is wrong. With his memories diminished, Dieter isn’t sure about anything anyway.
The real problem with this story is as Leila is in every scene is why it wasn’t written in first person but is a slightly eschewed third person immediate past tense in that you’re following events than living them. This is not helped by the lack of emotional content. When certain events happen, there isn’t enough pause to take in the ramifications and something feels missing. Maybe this is because Leila is a fetch and might not have all her emotional marbles and as a digital being has little to fear but it’s hardly enough to endear the reader. When you consider that Leila has a duplicate of herself made to hide her own activities or in Dieter’s case have the rest of his personality restored then how can death be permanent?
With Leilia’s duplicate, the AI creates it in such a way that it also forgets who she is. One would have to hope that there is a failsafe codeword to recognise who she is later or she would never be able to reclaim her fortune. Something happens but this seems to be forgotten.
The change from searching for someone to a bigger problem does tend to make this two stories rather than one is a bit odd. Likewise, the pressure men which seems like an interesting take on surveillance is totally wasted. This doesn’t mean that the story isn’t readable but probably doesn’t need someone like me looking at inconsistencies that aren’t resolved.
It wasn’t until the end, where Al Robertson points out that ‘Walking Dead’ is a continuation or sequel to ‘Crashing Heaven’, a book we never saw. However, it didn’t make much difference to what I read here and can be read as a standalone.
GF Willmetts
November 2016
Waking Hell by Al Robertson
Posted by: Megan Leigh in Books, Reviews December 7, 2016 0 1,915 Views
One of the perils of being a book reviewer is accepting an author review copy of a book in a series when the book is not the first in the series. If you have no prior knowledge of the series or author, it’s a bigger gamble than usual. This was one of those moments. Waking Hell is the follow-up to Crashing Heaven, a cyberpunk influenced science fiction novel whose best feature is that it is completely original.
Not wanting to risk being completely lost, I read Crashing Heaven first… what an experience that was. Even by the end of the novel I could barely work out what was going on. In employing elements of a kind of virtual reality overlay and a bizarre ‘puppet’ character, Robertson made things very difficult for himself as well as the reader. Trying to figure out what was ‘real’ (in a physical sense) and what was only virtual was almost impossible. The pacing was terrible, being a drag from start to end, and the ‘mystery’ was as dull as it was nonsensical. All of which is a shame, as Al Robertson is a very pleasant chap.
waking-hellWaking Hell follows the story of Leila, a fetch (a virtual being constructed from a dead person’s memories), whose brother makes a deal with a mysterious and powerful corporation to provide for her after his death. Instead of being reformed into a fetch, the deal Dieter has made means that he has accepted a ‘true death’. But Leila isn’t ready to give up on her brother and begins to investigate the corporation behind her sudden cash windfall. She is aided by a Totality Mind designed to find corruption, and a kind old man who may be more than he appears.
‘I had a message from a spray can.’
Thankfully, Waking Hell starts off much better that the series’ first instalment. Immediately it is based more in the tangible world, so that the audience isn’t constantly grappling with whether or not this is *actually* happening. The main character is immediately more relatable and interesting, especially as we are able to understand and empathise with the problem she is facing. I did like that both novels focus on friendship and/or family stories rather than romantic ones, but the second book is certainly the stronger one for this. Not only does Leila develop some interesting and well-developed friendships, but the strength of her love for her brother is a solid emotional thread for the entirety of the novel. Meanwhile, the pacing of Waking Hell is far better than Crashing Heaven, racing the reader along – at least, for the first half of the book.
After about the halfway mark, the book starts running out of steam. The events that delay the quest throughout the novel never amount to anything more than plot contrivances. And it is annoying. It begins to feel as though Robertson is deliberately bloating the length. He has a way to finish the story that makes sense for everyone, but he needs a higher word count! The tension would build so well towards a climax only to fall again to nothing in a false promise of resolution. By the time the real ending did roll around, I was so frustrated with Robertson’s determination to be a tease that I didn’t care anymore.
‘Society is the platform the individual runs on.’
Another element to the story feeling as though it drags throughout the second half of the novel is that there is far too much planning. The characters talk through all of their strategic plans at great length and detail. While this might help ground readers in a thorough understanding of the why’s and how’s, it bogs down the plot. It isn’t an easy problem to solve. In my own writing, I have wondered about how to go about including a military-type strategy, coming across as clear and reasoned while maintaining the reader’s interest. Whatever the answer (if there is one), Robertson hasn’t found it here. These passages are repetitive, heavy-handed, laden with exposition, and dull.
‘All of us minds – we had operating system upgrades, factory resets, memory defragging, full wiping forced on us, all of the time. None of us could form coherent identities. We were built to be efficient machines. And there will always be someone who sees how we can be more efficient if we are stripped down and rebuilt. If we march to their beat, not ours.’
crashing-heavenEven after two novels, the world in which the series takes place is difficult to come to grips with. Sometimes we’re told that everything the characters are seeing – and therefore describing to the reader – is weaveware (i.e. virtual reality overlaying the real physical world so that humans and digital consciouses perceive the code and not reality). This makes it difficult to know if anything the characters are seeing is ‘real’ and what the world is really like. This is less of an issue in the second novel (whereas, in Crashing Heaven I was confused at times as to whether something was happening in the real world, only in virtual reality, or in a kind of dream/hallucination), but it still makes for tricky reading sometimes.
Robertson tries to address this issue by alluding to more tangible ideas such as having a kind of search-bot represented as using a shark or cuttlefish. This approach gives a physical/symbolic representation to things in the novel’s digital world that both anchors the reader in a context that they recognise and understand while also further muddying the line between where the physical reality and virtual world begins and ends. My limited exposure to cyberpunk as a genre has found this to be a common problem. Credit where credit is due, at least Robertson tries to tackle this issue by creating grounded representations of quite abstract concepts.
‘Perhaps pornography is the true art form of your culture.’
As with most of my most disappointing reads, what bothers me most about Waking Hell is that there is so much potential for it to be great. Having gone into it not expecting much (given my dislike of Crashing Heaven) I was excited to find the second novel to be such an improvement. But the momentum was lost and my attention wavered. It could have been so much better.
Side note: At one point, a character called Hando is introduced. Yeah, Leila and Hando. I can’t be the only person who immediately wondered if this was some tongue in cheek reference to Star Wars…
Verdict: Pacing issues and ill-defined world lead to a disappointing cyberpunk read.