Arkwright by Allen Steele

Published by Tor Books on March 1, 2016

I’ve never read a science fiction novel quite like Arkwright. It is a generational saga, but unlike most generational sagas, which follow a family from a century or two in the past to the present, this one follows a family from the past to the future.

Dying quietly in his own bed, Nathan Arkwright’s last words as his heart fails are “Forward the Legion.” Arkwright, creator of the Galaxy Patrol, was one of the most famous sf authors of the twentieth century. His granddaughter, Kate, barely knew him, but decides to attend his funeral, mostly to cheese off her mother. There she meets the other members of the Legion of Tomorrow.

From talking to the Legion members, Kate learns about her family history. The first part of Arkwright, in fact, reads more like a family drama/soap opera than a science fiction story. But part of that history belongs to Nathan Arkwright. In his prime, he was one of a select group of sf writers who imagined a future of space exploration and first contact. In the 1990s, he realized that fans wanted to read about cyberspace rather than outer space. His Galaxy Patrol books still sold (largely due to the success of Star Wars movies) but he no longer felt relevant. As a visionary who put his beliefs ahead of his personal wealth, Arkwright decided to use his Galaxy Patrol royalties to cement his relevance to the future of humanity.

The first part of Arkwright is great fun for science fiction fans. Fred Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and other notable sf writers of that era make cameo appearances. Snippets of science fiction history inspire part of the plot. Fans of the genre who are familiar with the giants of the past will get a kick out of seeing the legends as characters in Allen Steele’s novel.

The next several sections follow new generations of the Arkwright family as they give effect to Nathan’s vision: to seed another planet with human life. Readers who think that science fiction should follow the stereotypes of science fiction (and those who refuse to read anything other than science fiction) will probably be turned off by Steele’s reliance on family drama to carry the novel’s middle sections. I wouldn’t say the succession of family dramas in the middle chapters are entirely successful -- they are certainly less compelling than the beginning -- but I found the characters to be reasonably interesting, if a bit shallow.

The last section takes place several generations in the future when, as has often been true in history, a group of humans have allowed religious dogma to supplant science and reason. I won’t talk about what happens, but I will say that the novel’s conclusion circles back as a tribute to the science fiction visionaries of the past. That makes Arkwright a satisfying read, at least for readers (like me) who grew up reading optimistic novels of the future, novels that viewed humans as capable of overcoming their narrow prejudices and shortsightedness, novels that viewed science and exploration as the path to a better tomorrow.

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Time Loves a Hero by Allen Steele

First published as Chronospace in 2001; published digitally by Open Road Media on May 19, 2015

Time Loves a Hero was originally published as Chronospace. In the introduction to this edition, Allen Steele explains that Time Loves a Hero was his original title, and that the title change was made by an editor who thought it would attract fans of Oceanspace, his previous novel. Frankly, I think Chronospace is a better title but Steele doesn’t, so there you have it.

One of the pleasures of Time Loves a Hero is that a central character is a lifelong science fiction fan, which gives him a chance to mention stories and authors and magazines that will evoke a sense of nostalgia in readers who are lifelong science fiction fans. Gregory Benford is even a character in the novel, although in a unique way (about which, I will say no more).

The central character, at least in the chapters that take place in 1998, is Zach Murphy, sometimes known as David Murphy. In the chapters that take place 300+ years later, the central characters are time travelers (chrononauts) who are studying the Hindenburg disaster by taking the places of two passengers who died in the explosion. As all devoted sf readers know, the risk of time travel is that history will be changed by seemingly inconsequential actions. The potential creation of a time paradox and the ensuing creation of new or alternative timelines becomes the novel’s focus.

Since Murphy begins the novel as a NASA astrophysicist and is suddenly working as a paranormal researcher, apparently without noticing the transition, it is clear to the reader that something has happened to Murphy's time stream. We learn what happened, at least in broad terms, in the novel’s second half.

The story is engaging and fun, although it takes a left turn at some point in a way that makes the resolution a bit too easy. Actually, things are left unresolved to a large extent, which is the novel’s only real disappointment. Time travel novels are always a little disappointing (unless Connie Willis writes them) because the paradox is difficult to address in a convincingly, but Steele handles it well enough to make Time Loves a Hero one of the better efforts in the time travel branch of science fiction.

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