Barrington J. Bayley (1937–2008)

4/5

A very welcome and unexpected surprise. A cross between the weirdness of PKD and the space opera of Alastair Reynolds, The Fall of Chronopolis is time travel story focused on the end of the Chronotic Empire while it struggles for control of time-stable nodes with an adversarial group called the Hegemony, who use a weapon that is capable of deleting entire cities from time itself. A few primary characters are followed, including a former commander of time fleet, members of the ruling show more self-incestuous aristocracy, and a woman hunted for sacrifice by a heretical religious group. The world as we know it exists "like the skin that forms on the surface of a liquid" surrounded by a sea of potential time, colloquially known as the 'strat', where anything is possible and sanity goes to die.

This is an imaginative world, full of vivid imagery that makes it come alive on the page. Bayley strikes an unrelenting pace that doesn't stop for a moment to smell the roses, a skill that Reynolds could take a lesson in. A sweet little gobstopper of a book, ripe for a fun afternoon of reading as you revel in his creativity. The images that Bayley draws, especially scenes that involve or take place in the 'strat', are memorable, hard, and dark.

Surprisingly Bayley also takes some time to ruminate on the human soul and its passage through time. It's really interesting that he weaves Christianity into a world where resurrection is a fact, and the adversary exists as a demon of deep potential time. Make no mistake, its roots are firmly planted in pulp science fiction, but that doesn't prevent it from delving into the metaphysical.

The Fall of Chronopolis is an idealized version of what I hope all these slim SF books from the 60's and 70's contain. In reality, too many of them are a disappointment, where imaginative ideas fall to the wayside in favor of office drama and bourbon sipping. I'm not saying this is a perfect book by any stretch of the imagination. It's convoluted and sometimes nonsensical, relying far to much on plot conveniences, but in terms of pure entertainment it was a joy. It quenched a very specific and deep-seeded thirst that's hard to sate. show less

This is one of those odd little gems that has stood out in my memory as a really sublime sf novel. On the outset, it's a book about a psychic suit that bonds with, controls, and manipulates its wearer for amazing reasons which gradually unfold through the novel.


But the book is so much more than that: It freewheels through a variety of spacefaring human cultures who have evolved and adapted to their respective environments, and dissects with remarkable precision not only the role of fashion show more in human society, but also our concepts of body image and our sense of self, and how these these things impact our understanding of what it means to be human. (The best sort of scifi, in other words.)

Underlying all those great themes is the plot itself, which builds on those foundations to introduce its trickiest question: what we consider to be intelligence, and how our human centric perception shapes interaction with other lifeforms.

It really is a stellar read, an inspired and very original novel, combining two things i like (scifi and fashion) and putting it under a literary microscope in the context of cultural examination. Plus, I'm willing to bet you've never read the word "sartorial" so many times in a scifi novel before!

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The story of Jasperodus, an advanced robot struggling to determine whether or not he is "conscious" serves as a springboard for philosophical conjecture, political theory, psychological observation, and social experiment. But as his journey comes full circle the ultimate solution to the central question---can a machine be aware?---is a bit of a stretch. Good storytelling however, especially in this age of ChatGPT, and a fine companion piece to Asimov's Robot series. I look forward to reading show more the sequel. show less

What an absolutely delightful, SF flavored fantasy.
It's a Vance styled "sailing ships in space" picaresque, with Alchemy as the "science" that propels the story. A wonderfully plotted little novel, it unfolds and expands nicely, is loaded with interesting and inventive details in it's less than 200 page length, and comes to a cosmic yet emotionally satisfying ending.

One of Bayley's best.
****1/2