Jaine Fenn

Alastair Reynolds (no less), in his introduction, talks of the joy of short fiction being the thrill of leaping into the unknown, I agree. The joy of short fiction is that it *allows* you to leap into the unknown without having to commit days of your life to the experiment. He goes on to talk of its fragility and how a successful short story will seem bigger on the inside. Again I agree, in these days of the blockbuster novel, where words are sold by the pound, the art of the short story is show more being lost. Jaine Fenn shows here that she knows exactly what not to say. She has written four stories based in her Khesh City where she sparingly tells us just enough background (for instance the city’s name is not mentioned in any of the stories). Like an impressionist painter, she paints just enough dots of detail that we think we know it all. Her characters are sparsely painted without descending into caricatures. On top of all that these stories are interesting!

To my mind the sign of a good short story is when you spend longer thinking of the implications of the story than you did to read it. These stories are masterpieces of thought provoking science fiction. show less

The title is a deliberate nod to the famous British 1960s movie, and the story even uses its own variant of Michael Caine’s famous line. But the plots don’t map precisely, nor the set pieces, and Fenn’s novella certainly ends in a completely different fashion. The famous car chase through the streets of Turin in Minis becomes a race through the tunnels of old Martian colonies in “tunnelbuggies”, and, yes, there’s a heist which kicks it all off… Lizzie Choi is a corporate show more administrator for one of the most powerful companies on Earth, the Moon and Mars, in a future doiminated by the Chinese. She has a criminal background, but walked away from it. Unfortunately, when her brother dies on Mars, she’s named as next of kin by her mother, currently in prison on the Moon, and so the company find out about her chequered past. Which results in her travelling to Mars to finish off the job her brother had begun: stealing the Eye of Heaven, the largest opal ever found and the property of her ex-employers. It’s all first person, and Choi is an engaging narrator and very much at the centre of the action. The Martian Job does a lot of things well, which mostly means deploys its tropes with assurance – not that any of the tropes are especially original. The references to The Italian Job are fun, but little more than easter eggs. The ending isn’t much if a surprise – it’s optimistic and well primed. This is solid feel-good sf, which might well be about a crime and feature criminals, but is not gratuitously brutal or right-wing. It’s a pleasure to read. show less

If you’re listening to this, I’m dead.’ That’s the dramatic message Lizzie Choi receives on a chip from her brother Shiv on Mars and the start to her exciting adventure.

Ms Choi works as an administrator for Mister Lau at Everlight, a large Chinese corporation, and she’s good at her job. Her personal life is a mess because she’s getting divorced and currently living in a tiny flat with almost no possessions. She likes meaningless sex with fit young men, picked at random for show more one-night stands, which probably explains the divorce.

After the message from her brother, who’s a dodgy dealer on Mars, her mother calls from Luna Authority Correctional Facility Six to talk to her about it. Then she is suspended from her job with no pay because Everlight doesn’t like criminal family connections.

Her brother’s death made Lizzie her mother’s next of kin and that relationship, not acknowledged previously, has put up a red flag on her record. With no job, no husband and no prospects, there’s not much else to do but go to Mars and find out what happened to her brother. She ends up taking on the job that got him killed, stealing the biggest jewel in the Solar System from Everlight.

One of the more common futures SF writers use and perhaps the one most likely to come true given our present condition is a world dominated by ruthless corporations. That’s the case here. Everlight is big on Earth but top dog on Mars, though not unchallenged. Some of the early settlers founded wealthy families and the Demos Collective is definitely a player.

Mars in this story is the one we know today, not the red world of planetary romances. Everlight’s biggest scheme is Project Rainfall, putting a water-rich proto-comet into orbit around Mars to give it much needed moisture for a hefty fee. Meanwhile, they’re celebrating the new year by putting the Eye of Heaven on public display. Lizzie’s job is to steal it.

All these traditional SF plot elements are stirred together into a good heist story which is perfectly enjoyable. For me, the novella was improved from good to excellent by the conclusion which, like all the best endings was logical but unexpected. Coincidentally, it touched on themes I was aware of this week due to re-reading ‘Science Fiction And A World In Crisis’, an interesting essay by Frank Herbert. It also ties in well with the current east versus west political situation where China is taking over from the USA as top nation.

I liked it as it went along and I loved it by the end. ‘The Martian Job’ could have appeared in ‘Astounding’ or ‘Galaxy’ or one of those other great Science Fiction magazines of the 1950s and it would have made the cover. It’s readable and entertaining with food for thought as well. Isn’t that what we want from Science Fiction? show less

Interestingly unusual but never quite works and I'm not sure if it would have been better as a shorter or longer story, but somehow this length doesn't seem quite right. There's a lot of build up setting the scene in the future post a rogue AI assault changed the world order. Our protagonist ms Choi works for one of the large trans-national companies, as a PA to a minor manager. She's managed to remain distant and estranged from her criminally minded family, but her past catches up with her show more - throwing her current job into jeopardy. However it does present a new opportunity to use her old skills as a secretive client requires her abilities to steal a fancy gem from her companies new highest tech headquarters on Mars. Incidentally this may lead her to further information about how her brother died, which is what got her into this mess to start with, so she accepts.

Which is probably enough for a novel on it's own, and hence very rushed and lacking in detail and hence characterization for a novella, but its also not really that interesting and could equally have been cut completely to make a gripping short story, as the subsequent heist is quite fun - if somewhat over reliant on having an opposition not know the difference between three buggies. The conclusion is clever, and ms Choi finally realizes very little is as it seems and not to trust anybody - something which she should have already known.

I've read other work by Jaine Fenn and this is of comparable standard - quite inventive, but somehow either too long winded whilst lacking in crucial details. show less