Fiction Reviews
Anti-State
(2026) Allen Stroud, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95,
hrdbk, 393pp, ISBN 978-1-805-52029-0
Allen Stroud is big in the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) – he’s the former Chair – and so I was curious to see what his own fiction is like. Actually, I could have pretty much guessed from the hardback cover: a guy in a spacesuit standing on a (presumably crashed) spaceship.
Yes, this is old-fashioned 'sci-fi' in the grand tradition of the masters. Amazing Stories described his work of having a ‘Clarkian feel’ and that pretty much describes it, so if you’re currently reading Alastair Reynolds or Gareth Powell you’ll probably like Anti-State.
It’s set on Mars a century from now where there’s been some sort of previous-novel conflict and the remaining colonists are struggling. It’s all mining and authoritarian control in this Martian future and, like Ian Macdonald’s excellent Luna novels, corporations rule. So revolution is afoot. There’s a mercenary – Magnus Scirocco – who hates authority and whose instincts are to protect and defend the innocent and downtrodden. There’s a religious leader who loves authority (i.e. God) – Peter Iskander – who steals an orbital battleship. And there are a couple of space-opera style military characters – Commodore Shann and Fleet Liaison Avril Johnstone – who work for Earth Fleet and are trying to impose traditional authority on a rapidly developing situation.
There are parallel narratives and they only dovetail late into the novel. Scirocco makes contact with the revolutionary leaders on Mars and learns of an alliance with an AI called ‘the Machine’ that is covertly influencing Mars’s media in favour of the revolutionaries. He also learns that the corporation that’s employing him is, in fact, supporting the revolution. So it’s churn not change, and how Scirocco reacts to this corporate manipulation is a key driver to his story.
Then there’s Iskander and his battleship theft, pursued by Shann as they head towards a mysterious destination, with an unquestioning resolve grounded in religious certainty. It may be just me but I didn’t warm massively to this plotline, maybe because it’s centred on religion (an instant recoil for me) and possibly because Shann and the Earth Fleet are very much in the Elizabeth Moon light military SF tradition, which hasn’t really worked for me since Star Trek. Of its type, though, it works and there’s a strong and compelling plot thread.
Scirocco, though, I liked, and not just because he’s got a cool name. He’s difficult to pin down and even though he quickly realises he’s working for the bad guys, he continues to because he thinks he’s working for the right reasons. But he’s often buried in the wider narrative – more Scirocco, I say, less religious stuff.
I found Anti-State hard to get into, but that’s because all the characters and most of the backstory seem to have been developed in previous novels. My bad for dipping into a series half way through, I guess, but this story is billed as being a standalone ‘in the fractal universe’ and I don’t recall such confusion, say, in randomly reading any of Iain M. Banks’ 'Culture' novels. The writing itself, though, is crisp and clear and the plot engaging. A satisfying read for fans of old-style SF.
Mark Bilsborough
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