Manhattan in Reverse [Paperback]

Best-known for his immense doorstoppers, Peter F. Hamilton is also an experienced writer of SF short stories. Manhattan in Reverse is his second collection of short fiction, collecting together seven stories published over the last eleven years. Unlike his first collection, A Second Chance at Eden, where the stories were all set in the same universe, this time around the fiction is not linked by any theme or setting.

First up is Watching Trees Grow, previously a stand-alone novella published by PS Publishing. The novella is a riff on one of Hamilton's favourite subgenres, the SF mystery thriller, this time set in an alternate history where the pace of technological development was much faster than in real life and there are electric cars on the streets of Oxford in the early 19th Century. A murder takes place and one man becomes obsessed with tracking down the killer...even if it takes centuries. An effective and clever story, riffing on traditional SF tropes about extended lifespans, alternate timelines and technological development.

Footvote is a political satire, in which a politician opens a wormhole to another planet, allowing people to escape from early 21st Century Britain to make a fresh start, but will only allow a narrow definition of people through, resulting in social unrest. One family is torn apart in the resulting chaos. It's an interesting story about escaping responsibility for your actions, but suffers from having some quite dated references already (Gordon Brown as British PM etc). There is a nice line in humour, though, with the constitution for the new planet (which bans traffic wardens from emigrating) apparently designed with Daily Mail readers in mind.

If at First can be seen as a bit of a dry run for a certain storyline in The Evolutionary Void. In this story a police detective finds himself pursuing a criminal and is inadvertently sent back in time to an earlier point in his own timeline. Given the chance to 'start again', he uses his immense knowledge of future events (and future hit pop songs) to build himself a fortune, only to forget his original purpose. It's a funny time travel story with a bleak, but not entirely undeserved, conclusion.

The Forever Kitten feels like Hamilton setting himself an impossible challenge: writing a story in just 1,000 words (or 1/450th the length of The Naked God) for a magazine article. He pulls it off, with a frankly disturbing finale that could bear revisiting in a longer story or novel.

The book is rounded off by three stories set in his Commonwealth setting: Blessed by an Angel is scene-setting stuff for the Void Trilogy, establishing the tensions between the Higher and Advancer cultures and also providing family backstory for a major character from that series. The Demon Trap is the best story in the collection, pitting Paula Myo against an opponent who goes to immense lengths to avoid capture, but who in the end cannot escape responsibility for his actions. Manhattan in Reverse again features Myo, this time investigating an anomalous series of events on a frontier planet flooded with refugees from the Starflyer War. It's effective and entertaining - Myo is rapidly becoming Hamilton's signature character and is one of the better-realised female protagonists of recent SF - but the ending is a little too neat.

Overall, this is an effective and varied collection, with Hamilton revisiting some established themes (longevity, the notion of political responsibility and time travel) and, intriguingly, exploring some ideas that would later come to fruition in the Commonwealth and Void novels. If the collection has a problem, it's that it's way too short: Hamilton has a significant number of pre-2000, non-Confederation short stories that did not appear in A Second Chance at Eden and I was hoping they'd be included here (including - fascinatingly - two collaborations with Graham Joyce and a Greg Mandel novella). Instead we only get seven stories, resulting in a hardcover that is only 260 pages long. Sure, the content is what matters and these seven stories are all at least interesting, but the missing of the opportunity to make the collection more extensive and exhaustive is somewhat frustrating.

But based on what does make it in, Manhattan in Reverse (****) is a solid enough collection of readable, clever and thought-provoking stories from an author who is as comfortable with the short form as he is the half-million-word mega-novel.

As a fan of the Commonwealth Series and the Void Trilogy, I was eager to grab an early edition of Manhattan in Reverse to quench my thirst for Hamilton's style of science fiction- wordy, descriptive and all-encompassing. Indeed, some of the stories in this 7-story collection uphold some the prior values, but the lack the sort of characterization which I fondly recall when the reading the five books mentioned in the opening sentence, a skill I thought which Hamilton was especially adept at. Unfortunately, Hamilton was unable to infiltrate characterization into these morsels of science fiction (it's a common symptom of short fiction, I know). Regardless, none of the stories fall flat on its face and all the conclusions leave the reader with something to ponder. It may not be varied at Banks' The State of the Art or as technologically wonderful as Reynolds' Zima Blue, but the collection comes across as a good addition to the Hamilton library lining my shelves.

Watching Trees Grow - 3/5 - Justin Ascham Raleigh is murdered in his own room but police and Raleigh family representative Edward Buchanan Raleigh are at a loss to explain the motive. The 18th Century long-life Roman descendants of this parallel Earth operate battery-powered cars, have telephone and electrical usage, and are on the verge of creating nuclear fission. As Edward ages past his first centennial era, he makes very little progress on the case of his family member's death , but humanity, meanwhile, has at least colonized the solar system. After his second centennial era, more doors to the case become shut and the science of the time pushes the investigation deeper still. Humanity now colonizes the stars in the early 21st century. --- There's a heavy focus on the history of this alternative universe, which siphons page space away from some much needed characterization. While all together interesting along the lines of Stross' Accelerando, the cast are merely cardboard cutouts with names. 85 pages

Footvote - 4/5 - A single wormhole to a new world is opened by a single man who is the only person alive knowing how it operates and who is the same man who has written the new stringent laws for entry onto the planet. Colin is the ex-husband of Jannette and has decided to find a better life on New Suffolk rather than eke out an existence in England during the current depression gripping the kingdom brought on by the exodus to the new planet. Collin packs for the trip to the wormhole with his kids while Jannette prepares for a wormhole protests. --- Using a bit of current news in his SF story, Hamilton throws in the ongoing economic hardship with the twist of a new wormhole. The cast may be limited but there's a good sympathetic quality to Colin and Jannette. 25 pages

If at First... - 5/5 - Chief detective Lanson investigates a seemingly persistent stalker of a very wealthy, very industrious technology entrepreneur. Jenson, the perpetrator, spins a story of how the tycoon has built a time machine to inhabit the mind of his childhood self in order to make huge money. The detective is oddly intrigued by the story of logic and coincidences, and so decides to go after the truth. --- Short and sweet with a great ending. Great possibilities with the story, makes you think and smile. 11 pages

The Forever Kitten - 4/5 - Creator of pre-pubescent rejuvenation is bailed out of jail by a wealthy family man. An original kitten from the experimental rejuvenation is in the man's possession and wishes for the procedure to be repeated before the deadline looms. --- A predictable but cute story engineered by Hamilton with traces of pre-Commonwealth commonalities. 4 pages

Blessed by an Angel - 3/5 - A Higher "angel" covertly descends upon the anti-Higher planet of Anagaska (of the Void Trilogy), where it seeks to proselytize its Higher morals among the Advancer citizens. Police Chief Paul tracks down the Higher in order to stop its blatant infection of the population, where three youth are both the players and the pawns. --- Again, somewhat predictable by nature, the story unfolds in a linear fashion while ironing out the pleats of rising questions. A nice addition to the Void history. 18 pages

The Demon Trap - 3/5 - The death of three Dynasty members aboard a shot down plane on the nearly barren planet of Nova Zealand is cause enough to assign the newly rejuvenated Paula Myo to the case. The investigation is done is a perfectly tidy manner put the ultimate motivation for the assassination will call upon Paula's own ties to her history on the infamous planet of Huxley's Haven (of the Commonwealth series). --- Paula shines in this story as her investigative skills are pressed full on. The sequence of events is a joy to watch but the after-the-fact sequences of working out the ultimate motivation is a bit hairy. Not so sure about the ending. 73 pages

Manhattan in Reverse - 3/5 - The colony planet of Menard is having trouble with its indigenous species, which are classifies as non-sentient yet are now exhibiting some primal proto-sentient behavior. Who better in the Commonwealth than Paula Myo to wedge into an investigation like his! --- Paula is a very odd inclusion to the story which doesn't involve the Directorate whatsoever. Snip a few plot strings and the story could be bereft of the Commonwealth altogether, which would have improved the story's independence when compared to the rest of the collection. 44 pages

I bought this book to keep me company during some lengthy air travel and was not at all disappointed in the quality of the stories. Three of them are from the Commonwealth universe, and two of these are Paula Myo police mysteries. The others are all stand-alone, the best of which I believe to be Watching Trees Grow. This story takes us into a very interesting universe, one I hope the author will expand on with future stories. I highly recommend both this collection and A Second Chance at Eden, an earlier collection from the same author.