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A review by markyon
Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi
4.0
Hannu arrived to the science fiction genre with quite a bang in 2010. His novel, The Quantum Thief, was clever, bombastic and energetic, and was widely acclaimed as an inventive debut from an exciting new author.
Now, eight years and three other novels on, Hannu’s latest novel is a very different read.
My prejudices should be known from the start - I love stories set around World War Two, both in the interwar years leading up to it and the Cold War afterwards. Genre books are a rich source of interest to me, both as alternate history and as a historical style novel with an SF/Fantasy twist.
Hannu’s latest novel is a story, set in such a world, with the manner of the 1930’s but with a Lovecraftian twist. In this world of dark suits, greatcoats and Homburg hats, there is a world that overlaps involving ectoplasm, the occult and the afterlife.
From the publisher: In 1938, death is no longer feared but exploited.
Since the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, a metropolis for the recently deceased.
But Britain isn't the only contender for power in this life and the next. The Soviets have spies in Summerland, and the technology to build their own god.
When SIS agent Rachel White gets a lead on one of the Soviet moles, blowing the whistle puts her hard-earned career at risk. The spy has friends in high places, and she will have to go rogue to bring him in.
This alternate world has taken a left turn in time in the early Twentieth Century, with the discovery that the afterlife is real and embodied by a city known as Summerland. Created by ‘aethertechs’ and seen by its deceased inhabitants rather like a photo negative, it is where you can go to when you die - if you have a ticket - before moving on to join ‘the mysterious ‘Presence’. However, it is not a place for everyone. Some choose not to go, whilst those who are ticketless fade away to nothingness.
Understandably, this has had major effects on both worlds. Maintaining an intelligence network is made more complex by the fact that communication between the two worlds is not always easy. Whilst there are commuters between the two, communication can vary and fade in and out. To allow such interaction, ghosts can hire bodies in the physical world for rent, or use ‘ectophones’ to speak to the dead. Endearingly, there’s a lot of Bakelite and wires, Faraday cages and spirit crowns, partly developed by ‘ectotechnology’, with guns, aeroplanes and even soldiers made up of ectoplasm, which seem to have given England the decisive winning factor in The Great War.
Now in 1930’s peacetime, we have a subtler way of combat, a world of politics and espionage – a James Bond-ian environment of clandestine meetings, bureaucratic paperwork, cocktail parties, dinner jackets and polite chit-chat. In terms of governance, as well as the physical world governments there’s a Summer Court and a Winter Court, that work with humankind (or rather, their government representatives) to maintain some sort of fragile peace.
This is important as the physical world is on the cusp of war again. There is conflict in the Spanish Civil War, where Joseph Dzhugashvili (Stalin) is gaining followers, whilst Britain and the Soviets are trying to use the situation for mutual benefit – or, alternatively, for secrets and information, traded for individual advantage.
To this situation we have Rachel White, a Secret Intelligence Service agent who is demoted when an asset pick-up goes wrong. However her demotion is partly for another reason – to allow Rachel to work undercover, having being told that there is a Soviet mole in the British spy network.
As readers, we know early on who this mole is, for we are also told the story from his point of view. He is Peter Bloom, one of the dead living beyond death. As the story develops, we are told of who he is and how he got there, though this is not a story with clear delimitations of right and wrong. It becomes clear that Peter is being kept in his role supported by someone else, for reasons that become clear over the course of the novel.
There is also Rachel’s husband, Joe, a man still in shock after his role in the War and whose secretive nature has caused rifts between himself and Rachel as a result. This creates an emotional aspect to a story that could have seemed cold and unemotional otherwise.
So far all of this sounds like the background to a good spy novel, if a little implausible, but what works here is the way that Hannu adds this element of the fantastic to raise the novel beyond a mere crime thriller or alternative history. Whereas in a traditional spy story much of the dilemma is resolved by killing the opposition, here it is much more complicated, and much more interesting – if the spy is already dead, what is the solution?
The world of Summerland is both eerie and strange, yet here is given a logical explanation. It may sound a little far-fetched, but it feels like it works, as everything unusual is as a logical consequence of this unique set up, and this creates a sense of reality that is usually absent from such novels.
Towards the end, things turn rather Lovecraft-ian, as our characters examine ‘life’ beyond Summerland and discover that there’s lot more at stake than they first thought. Pleasingly, (and perhaps unusually!) there is resolution at the end. I felt that the tale was done, though the created environment is so good that I am sure that other stories could be told if the author wished.
Summerland is a triumph – a very different novel from those in the Quantum Thief series, but as complex and as engaging as its predecessors. For those who want an intellectual thought-experiment combined with a Cold War sensibility, an espionage story with a fantastic rationale merged into it, then you will love it. I did – I think this one will be in the award nominations next year.
Now, eight years and three other novels on, Hannu’s latest novel is a very different read.
My prejudices should be known from the start - I love stories set around World War Two, both in the interwar years leading up to it and the Cold War afterwards. Genre books are a rich source of interest to me, both as alternate history and as a historical style novel with an SF/Fantasy twist.
Hannu’s latest novel is a story, set in such a world, with the manner of the 1930’s but with a Lovecraftian twist. In this world of dark suits, greatcoats and Homburg hats, there is a world that overlaps involving ectoplasm, the occult and the afterlife.
From the publisher: In 1938, death is no longer feared but exploited.
Since the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, a metropolis for the recently deceased.
But Britain isn't the only contender for power in this life and the next. The Soviets have spies in Summerland, and the technology to build their own god.
When SIS agent Rachel White gets a lead on one of the Soviet moles, blowing the whistle puts her hard-earned career at risk. The spy has friends in high places, and she will have to go rogue to bring him in.
This alternate world has taken a left turn in time in the early Twentieth Century, with the discovery that the afterlife is real and embodied by a city known as Summerland. Created by ‘aethertechs’ and seen by its deceased inhabitants rather like a photo negative, it is where you can go to when you die - if you have a ticket - before moving on to join ‘the mysterious ‘Presence’. However, it is not a place for everyone. Some choose not to go, whilst those who are ticketless fade away to nothingness.
Understandably, this has had major effects on both worlds. Maintaining an intelligence network is made more complex by the fact that communication between the two worlds is not always easy. Whilst there are commuters between the two, communication can vary and fade in and out. To allow such interaction, ghosts can hire bodies in the physical world for rent, or use ‘ectophones’ to speak to the dead. Endearingly, there’s a lot of Bakelite and wires, Faraday cages and spirit crowns, partly developed by ‘ectotechnology’, with guns, aeroplanes and even soldiers made up of ectoplasm, which seem to have given England the decisive winning factor in The Great War.
Now in 1930’s peacetime, we have a subtler way of combat, a world of politics and espionage – a James Bond-ian environment of clandestine meetings, bureaucratic paperwork, cocktail parties, dinner jackets and polite chit-chat. In terms of governance, as well as the physical world governments there’s a Summer Court and a Winter Court, that work with humankind (or rather, their government representatives) to maintain some sort of fragile peace.
This is important as the physical world is on the cusp of war again. There is conflict in the Spanish Civil War, where Joseph Dzhugashvili (Stalin) is gaining followers, whilst Britain and the Soviets are trying to use the situation for mutual benefit – or, alternatively, for secrets and information, traded for individual advantage.
To this situation we have Rachel White, a Secret Intelligence Service agent who is demoted when an asset pick-up goes wrong. However her demotion is partly for another reason – to allow Rachel to work undercover, having being told that there is a Soviet mole in the British spy network.
As readers, we know early on who this mole is, for we are also told the story from his point of view. He is Peter Bloom, one of the dead living beyond death. As the story develops, we are told of who he is and how he got there, though this is not a story with clear delimitations of right and wrong. It becomes clear that Peter is being kept in his role supported by someone else, for reasons that become clear over the course of the novel.
There is also Rachel’s husband, Joe, a man still in shock after his role in the War and whose secretive nature has caused rifts between himself and Rachel as a result. This creates an emotional aspect to a story that could have seemed cold and unemotional otherwise.
So far all of this sounds like the background to a good spy novel, if a little implausible, but what works here is the way that Hannu adds this element of the fantastic to raise the novel beyond a mere crime thriller or alternative history. Whereas in a traditional spy story much of the dilemma is resolved by killing the opposition, here it is much more complicated, and much more interesting – if the spy is already dead, what is the solution?
The world of Summerland is both eerie and strange, yet here is given a logical explanation. It may sound a little far-fetched, but it feels like it works, as everything unusual is as a logical consequence of this unique set up, and this creates a sense of reality that is usually absent from such novels.
Towards the end, things turn rather Lovecraft-ian, as our characters examine ‘life’ beyond Summerland and discover that there’s lot more at stake than they first thought. Pleasingly, (and perhaps unusually!) there is resolution at the end. I felt that the tale was done, though the created environment is so good that I am sure that other stories could be told if the author wished.
Summerland is a triumph – a very different novel from those in the Quantum Thief series, but as complex and as engaging as its predecessors. For those who want an intellectual thought-experiment combined with a Cold War sensibility, an espionage story with a fantastic rationale merged into it, then you will love it. I did – I think this one will be in the award nominations next year.