2011 books

[peteryoung]

34) Colin Harvey, Winter Song, 2009
A spaceman involved in an interstellar war of post-human factions crash-lands on a colony planet that has fallen off the map. Somehow he has to get back home, but must overcome the dark-age tribal customs of the planet's Icelandic descendants. I confess I started Winter Song while Colin was still very much alive and finished it a few weeks after his death some months later. Such is the level of distraction I've encountered in 2011: I picked up this book when I was more focussed on short fiction, hence it was the wrong time to pick up a novel whose variety of plot is one I'm generally very familiar with. With this kind of story, which you kind-of know will get resolved in a particular way, it's the 'how it's done' that keeps the reader engaged, so in my year of distraction I'm aware there are aspects to this book I should have paid more attention to: his frequent use of second-person narration to put across the point of view of an AI is tight and fluid, plus the world-building which permeates the entire story is properly non-intrusive and, in retrospect, very capable indeed. On the other hand, I'd like to have seen more editorial input in places: I can't help but think 20th Century Britishisms like 'pissed off', 'tup', 'bloody hell', 'frigging' and 'shagging' are out of place when spoken among Icelandic colonists on a light years-distant planet sometime in the deep future (as with, even, more commonplace and international Americanisms like 'okay'). I also admit that I'd like to have experienced a few more more twists and turns in a 400-page novel, but otherwise this is a solid SF adventure that's not a bad read at all.