Geoff Ryman

This is one of those books that I put off reading because I knew it was going to be so good. I’m a depressive, and sometimes exposing yourself to a truly great writer and a truly great book makes it difficult to keep the shields up and stop yourself responding to the emotions generated by reading it. It’s tough enough to keep an even keel as it is. I paid the price for this, along with one or two others, but it was worth it in the end. Certainly the best science fiction novel of the new show more century, if not one of the all-time greats. A beautiful, heartbreaking, hopeful joy of a book. I have this fantasy that maybe The bloody Tubridy Show on Radio One will adopt it for their book club and it’ll sell loads and the world will genuinely become a better place as a result. If the plain people of Ireland could handle Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, they could sure as hell handle this, is what I think. show less

I must admit I became enamoured of Geoff Ryman’s work after reading The King’s Last Song, a superb tale which relates the story of an archaeologist working on the stupendous site of Angkor Wat where he finds a book of golden leaves which is a memoir written by Jayavarman Seven, one of the first Buddhist kings in Cambodia. The second story reveals the contents of the memoir as its being written. The third story revolves around a former Khmer Rouge policeman. The intersection of these show more stories haunts me still, years after having read it.

Since then, I’ve read just about everything Ryman has written, and have always been deeply affected.

Ryman’s latest novel, Him, surpasses anything he has written thus far. In my opinion, the skill and scope of the novel firmly places him in the same league as Rushdie and Atwood. And like those luminaries’ works, Him is destined to not only become a classic in literature which transcends genre, but join that cannon of books which are banned and burned.

Him is a reimagining of the mythology of Jesus, and what Ryman creates is believable, sensitive, devastating. As always, his writing is precise, his characters clearly defined, his pacing and plot fraught with tension.

Ryman’s exploration reveals a pregnant woman married off to a man who is essentially the village idiot. She cannot account for her pregnancy, thus the virgin birth. He has been exiled for preaching questionable views of the Torah. The marriage is difficult in that neither wishes any sexual congress, and yet they do somehow manage children. The eldest child, born female and named Avigayil, becomes a transgender individual, and after serving an apprenticeship as a stonemason, goes on walk-about preaching a new interpretation of the Hebrew texts. As expected, their following grows. The essential points of the Jesus story are followed.

But what Ryman does with the characters and events is startling, provoking, and utterly memorable. Maryam’s shock, fear, and disgust of her daughter’s actions is made abundantly clear, to the point she refers to her daughter, now identifying as male and Yeshu, as It, or the Cub.

Yosef barLevi, the hapless husband and father, stumbles his way through existence, incapable of providing for his family, of demonstrating any act of connection.

And Avigayil-become-Yeshu, rockets through phases of recklessness, demand, and grief, until embracing their course of action as a teacher, a prophet, and in the end a god.

Ryman examines profound discovery and self-realization, ripping away any sentimentality and doctrine, and in the end exposes the core of what it means to be human, and to love.

I will not reveal the last passage of Him. Suffice it to say I read it at 3:00 a.m., weeping because of the beauty of what Ryman had written, and the emotional impact of what he had to say.

If Him doesn’t make the shortlist for the Booker, the Giller, and the GG, there is something truly wrong with our understanding of stunning literature. And you should go out right now, obtain a copy, read it, weep, and then give Him a permanent place in your library. show less

Geoff Ryman's Was is a phantasia on L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. It interweaves the stories of Dorothy Gael, a young orphan sent to live with her Aunt Emma in Kansas; Jonathan, the star of horror films, stricken with AIDS, Frances "Baby" Gumm who grew up to be Judy Garland; and Bill Davison, a high-school football star, whose life is forever changed by his encounter with Dynamite Dotty, an inmate in the insane asylum where he works as he waits for his induction into the army. I found it show more an incredibly sad, but oddly addictive book. It is at once a savage indictment of adults' misunderstanding and mistreatment of children and a Romantic celebration of childhood imagination, "trailing clouds of glory" -- spiced with the history of pioneers and "bloody Kansas."

The author perhaps tries to do too much in the novel, but it is certainly haunting for any reader who grew up infected with The Wizard of Oz. show less

Pocas veces crítica y público coinciden, y ’Aire’ es uno de esos casos. En el año 2006 se hizo con algunos de los premios más importantes del género: Arthur C. Clarke, British SF, James Tiptree Jr. y Sunburst, además de ser finalista al Nebula, Philip K. Dick y John W. Campbell. Esto de los premios es relativo, pero en este caso realmente la obra se los merece. Geoff Ryman realiza una profunda reflexión sobre las consecuencias derivadas de la implantación de una nueva tecnología show more en una comunidad con escasos medios.

La obra transcurre en un futuro cercano en la ficticia región de Karzistán, en una pequeña aldea situada entre montañas, cercana al Tíbet. La protagonista es Mae, un personaje memorable, que aconseja sobre moda a sus vecinas, y que pese a ser analfabeta, comprende la necesidad de lo moderno. Y más cuando una nueva tecnología llamada Aire, capaz de conectar directamente la mente a la Red sin necesidad de hardware, está a punto de cambiar el mundo para siempre. Una tecnología que además viene impuesta, te guste o no, estés preparado o no, llegando a hacerte pensar si en lugar de dotarte de mayor libertad, lo que está haciendo es esclavizarte aún más.

La novela es una reflexión que enfrenta lo nuevo con lo tradicional, y aboga en si es posible renunciar a la propia identidad a costa de desaparecer. En la historia también se reflexiona sobre la fortuna (o no) de haber nacido en un mundo en el que la tecnología te acompaña desde que naces, convirtiendo a los países más desfavorecidos en verdaderos parias tecnológicos. La gente de la aldea protagonista siente curiosidad por el mundo moderno que hay ahí afuera, pero de igual manera, temor por los cambios que esto pueda acarrear. Por ejemplo, el primer televisor con Internet que llega a la aldea, unos lo ven como la posibilidad de ver películas de kun-fu y deportes, y otros, como Mae, como una manera de acceder a canales de moda.

Pero sobre todo, ’Aire’ es un novela humana, donde observamos las relaciones de los personajes, sus luchas, celos y enfrentamientos, así como su amistad y amor. No obstante, la historia no sirve solo para reflexionar, también resulta una lectura entretenida, y en ningún momento se hace pesada. Quizá lo que menos me haya gustado sea lo del embarazo, que veo realmente innecesario.

’Aire’ no solo puede ser apreciado por el lector aficionado a la ciencia ficción, sino por un lector que aprecie la buena literatura. show less