Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction

Hannu Rajaniemi exploded on the international Science Fiction scene with the publication of THE QUANTUM THIEF and its predecessors involving the exploits of Jean Le Flambeur in a Post-Singularity future. But before this awesome event, Rajaniemi had steadily been publishing short stories of the quantum future in his native Finland and adopted Scotland. Here are the bulk of those stories, and they are quite something different indeed. This is not your father's Science Fiction, no, and to describe it as "Hard Science Fiction" is misleading. This is ultra hard and mesmerizingly adroit writing, that reminds one of the first time encounter with William Gibson or Bruce Sterling at the beginning of Cyberpunk. So different and intoxicating in structure and idea. In fact, the ideas fly so fast and furious, you find yourself turning back to earlier passages to solidify your connection to the writing. There are seventeen award-worthy stories here and then it gets even stranger, for Rajaniemi began writing Twitter stories( 140 characters or less!) and explains this and includes multiple examples. Some people will be put off by the dense writing and the scatter-shot barrage of concepts, but if you are looking for something intriguing and are willing to work a little- the future is yours

A wonderful, bizarre, cyberpunk-ish, post-human collection of short stories. Not all of the stories shine, and often I was left wanting more, but overall, a delightful, thought-provoking collection. This was my first introduction to Hannu Rajaniemi, and I will definitely be seeking out more.

Hannu Rajaniemi must be one of the most creative and ambitious science fiction writers in our era, and his imagination is fully displayed in the whimsical, imaginative, and often downright peculiar stories of the collection. In fact, to echo that motif, I'll start with the last two sections, in which his experimental streak is most prominent. The first, "Snow White is Dead," is intended to be an interactive neurofiction experience: machine learning algorithms used feedback from an electroencephalography headset to lead the reader on a subconscious choose-your-own-adventure story. The second section is a collection what Rajaniemi terms "microfiction:" each microstory must convey the bones of the plot and scene in under 140 characters. The microstory starring Imhotep Austin became a serial. One of my favourite episodes:

"Kidnappings, impossibly aged bodies, green chronal energy dome in Brooklyn. Routine case--for a half-mummy detective. But now it's personal."

In fact, given Rajaniemi's gift for fantastic first sentences, I suspect that many of the stories in this collection are microstories given flesh and substance. Almost all of them begin by concatenating two startling and apparently incompatible events that automatically pique the reader's curiosity. Every single such sentence is in fact a perfect summary of events while simultaneously expressing nothing about the story's essence. Take "Tyche and the Ants":

"The ants arrived on the Moon on the same day Tyche went through the Secret Door to give a ruby to the Magician."

Rajaniemi's stories are often bewildering, catapulting the reader in the middle of an intricate world whose rules can only partially be gleaned from the story. One of the most obvious examples of this was "His Master's Voice" ("Before the concert, we steal the master's head.") which is narrated by a dog. A hyperintelligent dog, I grant you, but a dog nonetheless. Rajaniemi does a wonderful job in capturing the essential dogginess of the perspective, creating a voice that muses on his master's "god-smell" and the great triumvirate: the bowl, the Ball, and the master. The first story in the collection, "Deus Ex Homine," opens with an energy and incredibly alien imagined future that is carried through the story:

"As gods go, I wasn't one of the holier-than-thou, dying-for-your-sins variety. I was a full-blown transhuman deity with a liquid metal body, an external brain, clouds of self-replicating utility fog to do my bidding and a recursively self-improving AI slaved to my volition."

The story is told by one of the casualties of the "godplague," a phenomenon in which humans, in becoming something more than human, wreaked havoc upon civilization. As one character notes,

"Recursively self-optimizing AIs don't kill people. Killer cyborgs kill people."

Like other Rajaniemi stories, I was initially overwhelmed by the strangeness and complexity of the world, but was inexorably sucked into the story nevertheless. I was glad that Rajaniemi returned to the world of the godplague in another story in the collection, "Elegy for a Young Elk," which also highlights his fondness for flashbacks. It gives the perspective of another type of casualty, a poet who refuses to become transhuman but loses his family to the godplague and its aftermath.
Not all the stories take place in a far future. Many weave together elements of contemporary life and Finnish mythology. "Fisher of Men" tells the story of an ambitious entrepreneur's run-in with Vellamo and Iku-Turso. "The Viper Blanket", which involves the myths of Tuoni, is a perfect blend of creepiness and mundanity. It starts with an old man checking his brother out of the nursing home as they discuss ritual sacrifice and then just keeps getting weirder from there. "The Oldest Game" weaves together one man's broken life and a contest with Pekko.
Several stories explore the way technology may shape humanity in the not-too-distant future. In "Topsight" ("The night before Kuovi was supposed to fly home, the four of them went to bring back Bibi's soul"), Kuovi finds her dead friend's "halo," a contraption of sensors with a brain-computing interface, and begins to wonder if it will let her see through Bibi's eyes. "The Jugaad Cathedral" ("On the day they finally got the Cathedral's mermaid bone factory working, Kev told Raija he was not going to come back.") explores not the threat of technology but of its regulation. It takes place in a future world where human interaction revolves around social networks, where every action and inaction is reflected in the numeric scores that describe each person's place in the world. Cloud computing is everywhere, but after the Lockdown, everything is monitored and regulated and limited and subject to DRM. "Shibuya no Love" ("They were eating takoyaki by the statue of Hachiko the dog when Norie told her to buy a quantum lovegety.") whimsically portrays a future in which artificial intelligence and advanced algorithms can predict far more than romantic compatibility.

Rajaniemi combines incredible technological expertise with such a vast imagination that many of his stories leave me overwhelmed by the worlds he creates. This collection demonstrates his breadth as well, involving everything from his invention of neurofiction to his stories of algorithmic romance to his tales that invoke ancient Finnish gods. Whatever the genre or subject, Rajaniemi's stories are guaranteed to be interesting, unique, and utterly captivating. If a science fiction author's job is to "think of impossible things," then I can't imagine anyone who does it better.

Disclaimer: I received an advance reader's copy (ARC - Uncorrected Manuscript Proof) of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own, and no monetary compensation was received for this review.
(The book is due to be published on May 12, 2015; review written 10/04/2015)

Contents (in bold typeface):

Deus Ex Homine

The Server and the Dragon: “These days, the nerd rapture is like the flu: you can catch it. The godplague is a volition-bonding, recursively self-improving and self-replicating program.” Narrative taking place in the span of millennia and feeling like a dream-quest. My favourite story.

Tyche and the Ants

The Haunting of Apollo A7LB: “The moon suit came back to Hazel the same night Pete was buried at sea.”

His Master's Voice: “Before the concert, we steal the master’s head.”

Elegy for a Young Elk: “No point in being a poet: they had already written all the poems in the world, up there, in the sky. They probably had poetry gardens. Or places where you could become words. But that was not the point. [ ] Bright words from dark matter, that’s what poetry was about. When it worked.”

The Jugaad Cathedral: “They did something right when they made her, up there. [ ] She lives in many worlds at once, thinks in qubits. And this is the world where she wants to be. With me.”

Fisher of Men: “The summerhouse was his, his alone. He hadn’t built it, of course, but the vision was his. He had built a 3D version of it out in Second Life.”

Invisible Planets: “In the lives of darkships, as in the journeys of any ambassador, there always comes a time that is filled with doubt. As the dark matter neutralinos annihilate each other in its hungry Chown drive heart and push it ever closer to the speed of light, the darkship wonders if it truly carries a cargo worthy of the Network and the Controller.” À la Italo Calvino, Rajaniemi follows the concept of a dialogue between two entities, but in his story the characters are spaceship with embedded AI. Their dialogue is centered around inhabitants of various planets, leading to a reflection on society. This is another fine example of providing backstory without infodumping (there’s a passing mention of a much known and central theorem in the field of Quantum Physics, though it isn’t called by its own name in the story; can you name it? Hint: it has to do with Teleportation…).

Topsight: “The night before Kuovi was supposed to fly home, the four of them went to bring back Bibi’s soul.”

Ghost Dogs

The Viper Blanket

The Oldest Game

Shibuya no Love: “They were eating takaoyaki by the statue of Hachiko the dog when Norie told her to buy a quantum lovegety. [ ] A what? , she managed to ask. [ ] You don’t have them in Finland? How do you meet boys there? Oh, I forgot, you have the sauna!”

Paris, in Love

Satan's Typist: “Tap tap tap tap tap, said the typewriter.”

Skywalker of Earth: “Twelve hours before the rain of ships. I am four years old and wearing my best dress. The last man on the moon is on TV. He moves in slow, deliberate bounds and leaps next to a long-legged spidery craft wrapped in tin foil.”

Snow White Is Dead, where Rajaniemi explores the concept of Neurofiction in fiction in general and in SF in particular: “[ ] we just wanted to look at what happens in a reader’s brain when they read SF. For example, it turns out that the experience of insight has a very distinct brain wave signal, and I was curious to see if we could deliberately evoke it in a reader.” (Appropriate Scala source code in here for us to play with).

Another wonderful excerpt from the “Snow White is Dead”: “I am everything you could ever want. I am everything that you can’t buy, you who sit there in your white coat, with your slicked-back hair and Biarritz tan and expensive watch and a faint smell of pine in your aftershave. I am life. I am innocence. I am fragile. I am sweet. I am the thing you made, from chemicals and electric dreams.”

Unused Tomorrows and Other Stories, where Rajaniemi explores the concept and praxis of Microfiction: “Writing microfiction is the ultimate challenge to a writer’s craft. It requires cutting away everything unnecessary, leaving only a sharp, singular image that the reader can grow into a story on their own.” A wonderful example of this so-called microfiction extracted from this segment: “Parallel world: It’s a Wonderful. Life never gets made. Christmas becomes the suicide season. It rains wingless angels.”For me this epitomizes what Rajaniemi’s fiction is all about. He aims at pruning his writing of everything superfluous, giving the reader (almost) total freedom to make up his or her own story.

I've read some of Rajaniemi's short fiction (he's popped up in Gardner Dozois' yearly collection on a couple of occasions in the past few years), but reading him in one go is something entirely different.

Rajaniemi’s fiction supports my firm belief that SF is at its best when it uncompromisingly tosses the reader into unfamiliar vocabulary and settings, then slowly giving out clues to understand it. At times, the barrage of intense vocabulary begins to sound like Celan’s poetry (vide several of examples above).

When reading Rajaniemi we’re in another “country”. His fictiopn is everything but traditional, e.g., genre-clichéd. What we’ve got here are complexly stories where even minor details are significant (in a Rajaniemi story one can expect lots of details). Don’t expect infodumps à lá Neal Stephenson, i.e., Rajaniemi rarely breaks stride to explain his science or world (or words come to that). That is actually one of his great strengths. Rajaniemi might introduce a concept such as “quantum lovegety” (a quantum Tinder App with much more explicit undertones) but allow the rationale to disentangle through the actions and dialogue of the characters. Rajaniemi may use a term like “quantum lovegety” over and over again but not explain it clearly until much later in the story (and sometimes never).

It is a pretty good way to build a story that adds another strata of mystery to something already mysterious, and thus preventing infodumping so common to SF. Some people will hate as a matter of course. Why? Probably because they get confused (as I am sometimes). SF and Rajaniemi’s fiction in particular impart a sense of glamour, otherness, and estrangement. Don’t expect a Rajaniemi story to include a glossary of terms.

Technically I’m always on the look-out for writers able to (ably) write in a language other than their own. Rajaniemi is one of those writers. His English is literate, and insightful. Drawing a parallel with myself, I’m bilingual, but I’m unable to write fiction (and Reviews, for that matter) in Portuguese. I consider myself to be an outgoing guy English-language-wise. Portuguese-wise I’m more introverted…

Due to the fact that it’s a potpourri collection of fiction, some unevenness in the quality of some of the stories is to be expected. Nevertheless the best stories are up there with the best. This collection did not push all of my buttons, but rather pushed all the right ones.

When reading Rajaniemi you’re on your own. Have a nice voyage.

NB: My own attempt at writing microfiction (go easy on me…):

Jagged pieces of light stream throughout the computer store front window, creeping under the doorways. They had to dodge the impact. Of light that sparks up when there’s too much avoidance. It caroms off the shelves, past the sidewalk, and landing right on a purple tiled floor. It disappears at last. Darkly with a mind that is now made up. It oozes into the color like the purple of poppy ripping. Congruous. Pieced together until it fits perfectly.

(Based on the ideas and prose by Hannu Rajaniemi. I'm sure he'd agree that it makes you think about what comes next in the story).

SF = Speculative Fiction

An amazing collection of science fiction stories with a strong technological background – stories of worlds created by servers, and men that live as avatars in virtual realities. With peculiar storylines these stories deliver a mix of strange and common depictions of fantastic future worlds with men being only men, but also something else.

(a more complete review at both Goodreads and blog)

I'd previously read Rajaniemi's three Jean le Flambeur novels, but I was aware that he'd also written short stories so - now that Flambeur is completed - it was good to see these collected and have an opportunity to explore what else this writer has done.

They are impressively wide ranging. While some cover similar territory to the novels - far future advanced tech transcending any division between "real" and "artificial" intelligence, others explore horror, the supernatural and even fairytales. There are also a couple of experiments in writing, including a story in blocks that can be read in different orders (these were originally selected for the reader via a brain activity monitor) and a collection of Twitter sized "microstories".

Far from being mere expositions of technological futures or other tropes, the writing, as a whole, display a real facility for developing and conveying characters. For example, "Deus ex Homine" is set in a near future where an AI plague can give people godlike powers and the urge to express these capriciously. While a war rages against the "godplague", love and desire still flourish among both changed and unchanged humans. "Elegy for a Young Elk" shares this background, I think, developing the theme of humanity and human-ness continuing in an apparently alien setting. "The Server and the Dragon" is another beautiful, if sad, story that explores what happens when a self-aware but lonely relay beacon makes a fried.

Other stories have something of a fairytale atmosphere, for example "Tyche and the Ants" which focuses on a young girl growing up on a moonbase surrounded by a crowd of imaginary (?) friends. The titular "ants" - metallic, robot intruders - disturb this life, forcing her to grow up very quickly. And "His Master's Voice" follows an intelligent self-aware pair of animals - a dog and cat - whose master has been imprisoned. Apart from the pun in the title - the dog has a singing career and name which echo the famous HMV logo - the story is played straight, and Rajaniemi manages to make both animals authentically animal but also more, reflecting the enhancements and changes that have been applied to them. "The Jugand Cathedral" is another markedly SF story, but like the others in this volume, it has real heart, exploring how restrictions on the use of technology to help a woman with disabilities might be creatively flouted.

"The Haunting of Apollo A7LB" is either a ghost story, or science fiction, or probably both. Apollo A7LB is a space suit displayed in a museum, and it seems that it's not as empty as you'd think.
"Ghost Dogs" is, as the title suggests, very much another ghost story but it's left teasingly unclear who the ghosts are and what has produced them

"Fisher of Men" is a haunting yet satisfying story drawing on Finnish myth (as do a number of the others in the collection - an interesting contrast to the stark futurism of the three novels). "The Viper Blanket" is another in the same vein, as is "The Oldest Game" which describes what happens when a young man, running from trouble, seeks death.

"Invisible" Planets, inspired by Italo Calvino, is composed of tales, fragments of descriptions of varied worlds collected by a "darkship" on its travels. Why, and what they amount to, only becomes clear when the ship itself interrogates its memories and allows them to transform it.

"Paris, In Love" is simply a delightful love story - in which the City of Love herself falls for a young man. Not an admirer you would want to spurn, or provoke to jealousy. Rajaniemi handles this idea brilliantly, making what happens both weirdly improbably and deeply believable at the same time.

Those are just some of the highlights of this volume. Impressive in both its range and sympathy, it's also - where required - devastatingly hard in its SF. The stories stand up in themselves and are extremely readable, yet it also serves as a dazzling introduction to the author's range and capabilities.

I got exactly what I wanted from this book, that same sensation of being awash in mind-bending high tech fantasies.

One of Clarke's famous laws is that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Rajaniemi has a special talent in exploring those levels of sufficiently advanced technology, while still explaining it in such a way that it completely feels, to me, thoroughly like technology, not magic. He excels at providing the visceral sensation, even if it may be partly illusion, that these really are the types of things we might be dealing with in the far future or after an explosion of intelligence either augmented by or comprised of AI. That particular theme is also explored in several stories, and it's one of my favorites, and one of the reasons I love Rajaniemi's works is because he sells it, makes it feel real, even when the story's not about that, but rather about more human concerns.

The book is not exclusively hard science fiction, though, as much as I might personally prefer that. There's also a good deal of fantasy, even one I might consider a fable. But even here, I was more interested in it than I might otherwise be, largely because it draws heavily on the mythology of Finland, of which I've not been overexposed to (except, perhaps, now, through this book).

I'm actually struggling to find anything negative to say about it. About the only thing I can say is, aside from a few stories not really doing much for me, that there were times I wished the story was longer, that more was done with a concept. But as flaws go, "left me wanting more" is a good one to have.

My favorite stories, I think, were: "The Jugaad Cathedral," "Deus Ex Homine," and "Invisible Planets." There's also an incredible experiment with "Snow White is Dead," but that is difficult to completely appreciate in book form... it literally needs to be read while hooked up to a machine that monitors your brain.

I have to say two things... that this may be one of my favorite single-author collections I've ever read, and that, despite receiving it for free with NetGalley, I actually would buy this collection with my own money... at least if it gets released in paperback. The original print run is a hardcover and apparently limited only to 2000 copies... and, aside from preferring the paperback format in general, I'd rather somebody else get to enjoy the stories than get a separate copy for my own later rereading.

(excerpted from my Goodreads review)

Although I received a copy of Hannu Rajaniemi’s Collected Fiction through NetGalley, I have now ordered it. This is such an exceptional collection of stories that a reader will find something new every time they delve into them and a writer will want to dissect the diverse narratives to try and grasp Rajanieimi’s technical breadth. The range of the collection is quite extraordinary; from high-tech science fiction where you will need to consult a physics encyclopaedia to keep up, to magical fantasy/folktales with a strong Finnish flavour. Rajaniemi’s remarkable writing is evident with his novels, but this far ranging collection, hopefully, hints at some very interesting things to come.

I received a free copy of this via NetGalley and was not compensated in any way for this review. Thanks for letting me read!

I say that I like sci-fi but I hardly read any of the "harder" variety, and by "hard" I mean that weird stuff happens and you can hardly fathom it. Like a human being having a symbiote stuck to their head that helps them read people's emotions, and automated combat armor that assists the pilot with an onboard AI (well...I just remembered Tony Stark has that, so it's not like I've never encountered it before...but still. That's pretty cool.)

There are some pretty varied stories in here. One of them reminded me of Finnish folktales, another was like Homeward Bound with hyperintelligent armored animals avenging their master. All of these tales were enjoyable and very unique.

The most interesting story in this book is a story that was written based on the reader's perception as they read it, with data collected via some sort of bioscanners. I don't presume to know much about it, but apparently Hannu Rajaniemi and others have attempted to record the biometrics of the brain while a story is being read and write it according to their reactions. The story itself was pretty heavily layered with meanings and commentary on geek culture, to which I related a lot.

Brought to your by OBS Reviewer Scott

Having read the continuing saga of Jean le Flambeur in The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Police and The Causal Agent, I was quite curious about Hannu Rajaniemi’s shorter fiction. In collective works there are stories that resonate with you and those that don’t; I oft wondered how it was possible, for the Dicksian, psychedelic science fiction of Rajaniemi’s novel format, to fit into the short fiction format. I have to admit I was delightfully surprised with Collected Fiction.

From the opening salvoes of “Dues Ex Homine,” through the sensually virtual war “The Server and the Dragon,” through a quantum ride through the painful “Ghost Dogs,’ to the innovative neuro-fiction of “Snow White is Dead” and the snippets and sundries in “Unused Tomorrows and Other Adventures” the writing in Collected Fiction is stellar – an easy slide through the expanding vistas of Hannu’s unique brand of science fiction.

It’s very visceral worlds that Rajaniemi constructs, carefully and deftly; weaving in and out of the psychedelic atmosphere of a Phillip K. Dick piece. His style is the mark of true professionalism, both to the word and what it conveys. Word economy appears to be loose until the end of a story when you realize everything had its place in the end. This is a rare treat in the many authors I’ve had the pleasure (and occasional displease) of reading. The hard science fiction element and the science fantasy is smoothed over and dictated to the reader such an elegant fashion that even non-science fiction fans can pick up and read easily.

Rajaniemi’s command of the English language is commendable and the words flow like gossamer fabric across the page. The reader enters a trance like state causing suspension of disbelief and immersion into a whole new way of experiencing science fiction. In fact, the hard science is often conveyed so subtly that it almost whizzes past you. Stories with both grace and elegance adorn these pages, and the pounding pulse of the prose keeps the reader turning the pages.

When it comes to selecting a favorite out of the lot, I’ll have to admit that I didn’t have one. Each story resonated with me on some level that transcended the parts. The whole, read over, concentrating on particular stories, seemed to be empty without the sums of its parts. The anthology was pieced together in a perfect mix, in a beautiful flow, that ebbs and flows from one story to the next. I couldn’t have selected a better order, nor a better mix of stories than what appeared here.

For fans of science fiction or science fantasy, or even readers looking for a well written excursion from their usual reading material, I’d highly recommend Hannu Rajaniemi’s Collected Fiction – it’s a fantastic experience.

I am so thrilled to be finally reading this book that I have to put in a disclaimer that I'm a huge fan of Mr. Rajaniemi. My expectations are set very high, and as a result, I'm worried that the readings will fall far below it.

We'll see. I'll review stories as they affect me, and skip the ones that don't.

Deus ex Homine

It's just a freaking short story, and yet I got enough info running through my head to make one hell of a great novel, including a blow-you-out-of-the-water feel-good ending. If this is a sample of things to come, I'm probably going to burst into tears of joy. Me, biased? Perhaps. But one thing I appreciate the most out of his works is the way he can make my imagination sing with all of the spoken and unspoken possibilities. It just lights my mind up. The babies of god.
Hell, this story is drowning me. It's got my mind fixated on mid-air battles between nano angels and baby gods. My heart is racing for mommy's furlough and daddy's heartbreak. And in the meantime, the gods ravage the Earth. Fantastic.

The Server and the Dragon

From start to finish it felt like a children's tale, and by hell, I know I'll be reading it to my daughter when she gets a little older. It's a fairy tale, plain and simple, about creation and destruction, advancement and freedom, solitude and travel, with the birth of a universe, a holographic dragon, and a transformed solar system housing a singular AI. If you don't believe my word when I say it's a classic, thought-provoking tale, then read it for yourself and wonder where the hell you're sitting and how far away you just traveled from your cozy little life. It sparkled with so much quick imagination that I was lost for a time.

Tyche and the Ants

I didn't get into this one as quickly as the first two stories, but by the end I was fine. It just didn't grab me. Perhaps throwing an emotional imperative at the beginning would have made me enjoy the galavanting across the moon's surface a bit more. Still, once I knew the secret, that this tale was more psychological than anything else, then I could really begin to appreciate it. And I do. After the fact. I found myself wishing for more starfish and dragons during the reading, though.

The Haunting of Apollo A7LB

Short and sweet haunting of an astronaut's spacesuit and how his old flame got to get into space. Pretty mainstream if magical.

His Master's Voice

Fucking brilliant. Obviously set in the same universe as QT/FP/CA, these are some of the most unique characters I've ever come across. Meet dog and cat. Loyal to their master. Fierce musician/gladiators.
Not enough? Try entering the microcosm of fast and slow time, raiding the Necropolis, blowing up dance floors while millions of fans' avatars get hacked, and the simple kindness of a cat finding a dog's lost ball. Like I said, Fucking Brilliant.

Elegy for a Young Elk

I can see how this fits into the histories of the Earth after the singularity. It brings in the god-plague and squarely places a drunk poet living with a drunk bear into the position of being the husband and father of gods. If that isn't elegant, then I don't know what is. And as always, the descriptions and logic gates in the antlers of the elk gave us, finally, not death, but freedom for both gods and god-plagues to find their destinies in the snow. Does this sound like fantasy? Oh no. It's hard sci-fi at its most delicious. This is why I write. This is why I imagine. Great stuff.

The Jugaad Cathedral

This one hits closer to home, combining close approximates of twitter/fashionworld/rpg with minecraft and phantom limb hackers into an indictement on corporate copyright.

Fisher of Men

Thank goodness this wasn't a Christ parable. It was a much more traditional fisherman story about the daughter of the sea and her many husbands, updated slightly to our modern age, but still timeless. I loved the last line and how it twisted the whole meaning of the original tale. The story was all about Finnish mythology and it was well crafted and dark.

Invisible Planets

Tie-in to The Server and the Dragon, from the point of view of a darkship and its sub-mind, almost beginning like an echo of Scheherazade, but quickly forming into an oh-so-rich backdrop of many worldbuildings rife with flaws and glories, cumulating in a sun-drenched embrace of the one thing that makes the filling of a universe eventually worthwhile. This story is truly crammed with great worldbuilding, each one worth a novel's exploration, but crammed into a tiny story instead.

Ghost Dogs

Being a dog lover, this one hit me pretty good, but the story is only a light fantasy. I was getting into the rules right as the story ended, leaving me feel dreamy and sad.

The Viper Blanket - The underworld is calling to its own in this mostly sedate and strange view of an extended family of the dead.

Paris, in Love - Humorous and magical personification of Paris traveling to meet her love in Norway.

Topsight - A sad and realisticish tale of death among friends and how a little overview and oversight connectivity might not, in the end, be right for anyone, especially if the dead girl can continue to change the world. The little connections with others hint at being the very best that life can offer.

The Oldest Game - Gods still roam the Earth, but this time it has a modern fantasy feel revolving around the god of grain, and by extrapolation, alcohol. It's very dark, and everyone in the tale accepts the darkness with open arms. Are Finnish people as pessimistic as the Russians? Good story though. Very fine read.

Shibuya no Love - Japanese teenage subculture meets zoku tech. Talk about romance in a bottle! It was funny and I had no problems laughing at the main character, even if I kinda felt like I oughtn't have.

Satan's Typist - Short and sweet and more of a short short for other writers. What a cool and dark implication it had.

Skywalker of Earth

OMG this was so cool. Think thirties rip-roaring space adventures or buck-rogers with Rajaniemi's screaming modern science toolbox and you'll get true galaxy screaming monsters out of old-time heroes and thoughtful master-villains who retired peacefully on pensions. I cannot, and I repeat, I cannot imagine a world where this short novella wouldn't make a FANTASTIC movie. The pacing is perfect, it's lead-in's are hokey, just like the old stories they emulate, and when the science gets full-blown wacky with q-dots and gravitational lenses taking out the sun, it's based on real theory. It's awesome, squared.

Snow White is Dead

I respect the story for the concept behind it: a choose your own adventure written through reactions in brainwaves, and respect it more that it still felt coherent and dual-layered as well, but it was only a so/so story. I respect the process, but not so much the final product.

Unused Tomorrows and Other Stories - Another one that I can appreciate because it's TwitterFiction. Not exactly my cupa, but I can approve of it. A few of the single pieces, I thought, were better than the longer, continuation of the 140 character stories. I kinda wish this collection hadn't ended on this note.

All said, this is one of my absolute favorite short story collections, and by far and away I was catching a lot of flies. I heartily recommend for every die-hard sci-fi fan and/or modernized fairy-tale consumer. The fanboy has spoken.

I hardly even know where to begin with this one. Unlike the last Tachyon collection that I read, I had no previous experience with any of Hannu Rajaniemi’s work, and it really was the perfect primer for anyone interested (and now I really want to read the Jean le Flambeur series).

One issue I often have with short stories is that they feel incomplete. They’re often a snapshot from an implied larger story, and leave me frustrated that I don’t know more about what’s going on. Hannu does the same thing; he has these great big, wonderful worlds that we only get to see a portion of, but he also manages to make each story self-contained. I still wanted to know more about that world, but I had the satisfaction of reaching an end, and that was just fantastic.

I also loved the fact that each story was different from the others in its own way, but there was a common thread exploring how technology has and could shape humanity throughout the collection that really pulled the whole thing together. Given the focus on technology and other SF topics, I did expect to get a little lost in some of the descriptions, but Hannu is a genius at communicating technical information in a way that’s accessible without feeling dumbed down.

I enjoyed every story to one degree or another, excluding the microfiction right at the end - they were just a bit too short for my liking. Standouts were The Jugaad Cathedral, with it’s immersive and invasive reliance on social media for every aspect of life and Invisible Planets, where we’re treated to glimpses of a large range of worlds - there are several that I’d love to explore more.

The crowning glory (and my absolute favourite) though, was section about neurofiction, a process where the story is created based on your own neurological responses. The story included is Snow White is Dead, a Choose Your Own Adventure-style retelling of the fairy tale made up of the most common paths created by the test readers. As a story, it’s a fantastic modern adaptation, and I loved it. From a technology point of view, my mind is completely blown. Being able to create individualised, interactive stories? Fascinating stuff. You can read more about the process here and here.

Even if you’re not that much of a sci-fi fan, I strongly recommend this collection. Sit back, strap yourself in, and enjoy some first-class storytelling.

I will be buying myself a print copy of this book. That should tell you something. I loved the writing, but also the scope and the worlds, characters, and situations. Space, technology, folklore, and current affairs. I don't think I will be able to do this book justice in review. It was my favorite scifi collection read in a long time. [PS: perfect for one handed reading while taking care of a newborn.]

A few months ago, I read Hannu Rajaniemi's first two installments of "The Quantum Thief": not so easy to follow novels, but unique in their own right, because of their fascinating blend of science and, dare I say, poetry.

These short stories are a little easier to follow, while retaining this quality, as well as first sentences that almost always manage to pique my interest, combining as they do totally different elements. Typical example: "Before the concert, we steal the master’s head." We often hear or read that first sentences and first pages are important to grab a reader's attention, and I think this author manages to do that very well here.

Most of those stories kept me enthralled, although not always for the same reasons. Some of them were clearly set in a distant enough future that men had become digital gods, or launched starships meant to drop servers into spaces just like one would plant seends, aiming to create a network spanning entire galaxies. Other stories felt closer to contemporary times, while toying with Finnish myths and legends (Tuoni...). Not to mention the inclusion of Edinburgh: I very often derive pleasure just from reading about a city I know well and/or live in.

Generally speaking, I would divide these stories into three (somewhat loose) categories:

- The exploring of technology, pushed back to its limits and beyond, and what it means to be a sentient being in such a world. I use the words "beings" here on purpose, since not all protagonists are human: "His Master's Voice" features two extremely enhanced and intelligent pets, and is narrated by the dog itself. Brilliant.

The same applies to "The Server and the Dragon" (a lone server growing in space, questioning its own purpose), "Deux Ex Homine" (the story of one who briefly embraced a plague turning people into digital deities), "Elegy for a Young Elk", or "Invisible Planets" (where the protagonist is, in fact, a ship).

"Skywalker of Earth" has its own charm, in between a contemporary alien invasion adventure and a pulp serial—considering the people who initiated the conflict in it, and when they did it (1930s pseudo-science). I also really liked the idea of going open source in order to pool all resources available and fight back.

Certainly closer to our own time period, "Topsight" deals with what's left of people in the digital world after their death, while "The Jugaad Cathedral" explores the meaning of living in a digital world, most specifically a MMORPG, vs. embracing the "real" world, and blurs boundaries between both.

The one I didnt like so much was "Shibuya no Love", because its portrayal of Japan and its inhabitants felt too close to caricature. It was probably on purpose, but it didn't work for me.

- The mythical-tinged stories: "Fisher of Men" (includes Iku-Turso), "The Viper Blanket" (with its bizarre family following ancient rites), "The Oldest Game"...

- The others: "Paris, In Love", "Ghost Dogs", or "Satan's Typist". The first one was close to urban fantasy, in that the City in it really took on a life of its own. The other two are more the horror-infused type—the ghost dogs especially echoed Gaiman's wolves in the wall for me.

Definitely a unique collection, one that I will recommend without fear of the science thrown in: maybe the concepts will be lost on some (I won't pretend I understood absolutely everything either), but it doesn't really matter. Context, feelings and ideas largely make up for it, allowing to mentally draw a bigger picture in every case.

Great introduction to Hannu Rajaniemi's work. Some of the stories can be found in other collections (Engineering Infinity etc.).

From Donald Barthelme's Post-Modern to Rajaniemi's Post-Human

In 1967 Donald Barthelme, known widely for his brilliant post-modern short stories, published "Snow White", a fractured, non-linear, inventive and satiric retelling of the fairy tale that offered a commentary on "the absurdities and complexities of modern life." As an impressionable young reader I was very much taken by this post-modern, post-postmodern school, and it is a passion that has continued to this day.

Well, imagine my delight when I got to Rajaniemi's inventive and stylish retelling of "Snow White" at the end of this collection. It puts in sharp relief the new wave of post-human, quantum, nano-fiction that is the latest iteration of "modern" fiction. And it's all good.

Rajaniemi is best known, of course, for "The Quantum Thief", which set a new standard for sci-fi and modern speculative fiction. But that's a novel - well-plotted, complex, and as character driven as possible in this new world of quantum reality. This collection of short works allows Rajaniemi to shine in a different way. Here, the emphasis is much more on the great idea or premise teased out at satisfying, but still brief, length. Some pieces work better than others. Some are easy to follow and some are more demanding, and border on fragmented and incomprehensible. (This is also exactly what the reaction was to Barthelme in the 60's.) The stories run the gamut, from amusing to melancholy to sad to disturbing. Again, it's all good.

So, if you're wondering what's new, and curious about where we go from here, this is an excellent, entertaining and deeply satisfying place to start.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)