Subject: Postview: "In Harms Way" by Colin Greenland

From: [email-masked] (Paul-Michael Agapow)
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 15:59:45 +0000

"In Harm's Way" by Colin Greenland
	A Postview, copyright 1999, P-M Agapow

It is a Victorian world, but one where aliens stride the streets of
London.  Missionaries struggle in the harsh canyons of Mars, gangly wooden
docks hang in low orbit to service the yachts and lumbering freighters
that catch the stellar winds to other planets.  Sophie Farthing is one of
the wretched poor, eking out an existence on the flying island of High
Haven.  Until one night she encounters an enigmatic figure who knows of
her long dead and mysterious mother ...

Colin Greenland will be best known for the fabulous "Take Back Plenty", a
delightful space opera romp that collected the Philip K.  Dick Prize a few
years back.  Although the sequel "Seasons of Plenty" - to my mind -
stumbled badly, the first book left such a glowing memory that I've kept
an eye out for more of Greenland's work.  So when "Harm's Way" showed up
on a reduction table for 3 pounds, I swooped.  And excellent value it was
too.

Just as the boisterous "Take Back Plenty" was a work of careful style, so
is "Harm's Way".  In this case the style is that of a Dickensian morality
tale of the good but low person eventually triumphing.  Style is hard,
facing the twin dangers of being a parody of a style (e.g.  "Shakespeare
in Love") or being relentlessly and drearily authentic (e.g. "Jude the
Obscure").  But Greenland proves again to be a dab hand, and "Harm's Way"
keeps in perfect tone without ever being oppressive:

   "The Aeyrie is a very private institution, and not easy of access.  
   These portals of gleaming local mahogany are removed from all but 
   the men best qualified to reach them: those who come from the sky; 
   by means of the abstruse conductivity of space itself."

Steampunk settings tend to rely on novelty and the jarring contrast
between Victoriana and technology as a way to capture the reader, a sort
of descriptive shaggy dog story.  See "The Difference Engine."  There's
only so many times this trick can be pulled, but the world of "Harm's Way"
is still charming.  Most memorable are the spaceships, actual ships with
sails blown along by stellar winds, their hulls blackened by soot and
planetary detritus, the skins of the crew pitted by radiation burns.  A
minor quibble: perhaps there are too many different aliens and strange
objects in parts of the story, threatening to drown out the Victorian
element.  It becomes a little difficult to accept all these things
co-existing in the same world.  However this is only a problem in parts of
the story.

You know that the good will triumph (although not without suffering), the
evil will perish (after much gloating), hearts will flutter and battles be
fought.  It's the genre.  But within this framework Greenland still
manages to tell a decent and entertaining story.  It's not rollicking -
that would be unseemly, sir - but we are amused.  [***] and Good Stuff on
the Sid and Nancy scale.

%A Colin Greenland
%T Harm's Way
%I HarperCollins
%C London
%D 1993
%P 364pp
%G ISBN 0 00 224069 6
%O trade paperback, UKP 8.99

--
Paul-Michael Agapow ([email-masked]), Biology, Imperial College
"We were too young, we lived too fast and had too much technology ..."