Air (novel)

Last updated
Air: Or, Have Not Have
GeoffRyman Air.jpg
First edition cover
Author Geoff Ryman
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Science fiction novel
Publisher St. Martin's Griffin
Publication date
October 2004
Media typePrint (Paperback & Hardback)
Pages400 pp (first edition, paperback)
ISBN 0-312-26121-7 (first edition, paperback)
OCLC 49352058

Air, also known as Air: Or, Have Not Have, is a 2005 novel by Geoff Ryman. It won the British Science Fiction Association Award, [1] the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, [2] and was on the short list for the Philip K. Dick Award in 2004, [3] the Nebula Award in 2005, [1] and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2006. [2]

Contents

Ryman initially wrote a short story for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction entitled "Have Not Have", which was included in the April 2001 edition [4] (later reprinted in the June 2014 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine [5] ). This was expanded into a novel initially titled Air: Or, Have Not Have, and renamed to just Air in all editions since the first.

Plot introduction

Air is the story of a town's fashion expert Chung Mae, a smart but illiterate peasant woman in a small village in the fictional country of Karzistan (loosely based on the country of Kazakhstan), and her suddenly leading role in reaction to dramatic, worldwide experiments with a new information technology called Air. Air is information exchange, not unlike the Internet, that occurs in everyone's brain and is intended to connect the world. After a test of Air is imposed on Mae's unprepared mountain town, everyone and everything changes, especially Mae who was deeper into Air than any other person. Afterwards, Mae struggles to prepare her people for what is to come while learning all about the world outside her home.

Reception

F&SF reviewer Robert. K. J. Killheffer praised Ryman's "humane insight and sympathy" and "incisive meditations on the process of social and cultural change," concluding that the novel is "not merely powerful, thought-provoking, and profoundly moving, but indispensable." [6]

Trivia

Release details

Notes

  1. 1 2 "2005 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Archived from the original on 6 October 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  2. 1 2 "2006 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Archived from the original on 6 October 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  3. ↑ "2004 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Archived from the original on 6 October 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  4. ↑ "book review at scifi.com". Archived from the original on 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2006-10-16.
  5. ↑ "Have Not Have". Clarkesworld Magazine #93, June 2014.
  6. ↑ "Books", F&SF , April 2005, pp.38-40

Related Research Articles

Geoff Ryman Canadian writer of science fiction, fantasy, slipstream and historical fiction

Geoffrey Charles Ryman is a Canadian writer of science fiction, fantasy, slipstream and historical fiction.

Ken MacLeod Scottish science fiction writer

Kenneth Macrae MacLeod is a Scottish science fiction writer. His novels The Sky Road and The Night Sessions won the BSFA Award. MacLeod's novels have been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Campbell Memorial awards for best novel on multiple occasions. A techno-utopianist, MacLeod's work makes frequent use of libertarian socialist themes; he is a three-time winner of the libertarian Prometheus Award. Prior to becoming a novelist, MacLeod studied biology and worked as a computer programmer. He sits on the advisory board of the Edinburgh Science Festival.

Paul J. McAuley British botanist and science fiction author (born 1955)

Paul J. McAuley is a British botanist and science fiction author. A biologist by training, McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction. His novels dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternative history/alternative reality, and space travel.

Greg Bear American writer and illustrator

Gregory Dale Bear is an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict, artificial universes, consciousness and cultural practices, and accelerated evolution. His most recent work is the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear has written over 50 books in total. Greg Bear was also one of the five co-founders of the San Diego Comic-Con.

Joe Haldeman American science fiction writer

Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author. He is best known for his novel The Forever War (1974). That novel and other works, including The Hemingway Hoax (1991) and Forever Peace (1997), have won science fiction awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. He was awarded the SFWA Grand Master for career achievements. In 2012 he was inducted as a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Many of Haldeman's works, including his debut novel War Year and his second novel The Forever War, were inspired by his experiences in the Vietnam War. Wounded in combat, he struggled to adjust to civilian life after returning home. From 1983 to 2014, he was a professor teaching writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Richard K. Morgan British science fiction and fantasy author

Richard Kingsley Morgan, is a British science fiction and fantasy author of books, short stories, and graphic novels. He is the winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for his 2003 book Altered Carbon, which was adapted into a Netflix series released in 2018. His third book, Market Forces, won the John W. Campbell Award in 2005, while his 2008 work Thirteen garnered him the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

<i>Little, Big</i> 1981 fantasy novel by John Crowley

Little, Big: or, The Fairies' Parliament is a contemporary fantasy novel by John Crowley, published in 1981. It won the World Fantasy Award in 1982.

Christopher Priest (novelist) British author

Christopher Priest is a British novelist and science fiction writer. His works include Fugue for a Darkening Island, The Inverted World, The Affirmation, The Glamour, The Prestige, and The Separation.

Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group.

Jonathan Carroll American fiction writer

Jonathan Samuel Carroll is an American fiction writer primarily known for novels that may be labelled magic realism, slipstream or contemporary fantasy. He has lived in Austria since 1974.

Steph Swainston British writer

Steph Swainston is a British literary fantasy/science fiction author, known for the Castle series. Her debut novel, The Year of Our War (2004), won the 2005 Crawford Award and a nomination for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Catherynne M. Valente is an American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic. For her speculative fiction novels she has won the annual James Tiptree, Andre Norton, and Mythopoeic Fantasy awards. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the World Fantasy Award–winning anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, along with numerous "Year's Best" volumes. Her critical work has appeared in the International Journal of the Humanities as well as in numerous essay collections.

Lavie Tidhar Israeli writer

Lavie Tidhar is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Tidhar lives in London. His novel Osama won the 2012 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, beating Stephen King's 11/22/63 and George R. R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons. His novel A Man Lies Dreaming won the £5000 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, for Best British Fiction, in 2015. He won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2017, for Central Station.

<i>The Separation</i> (Priest novel) 2002 Christopher Priest novel

The Separation is a novel by British writer Christopher Priest, published in 2002. It is an alternate history revolving around the experiences of identical twin brothers during the Second World War, during which one becomes a pilot for the RAF, and the other, a conscientious objector, becomes an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. The author introduces a deliberate confusion by giving these brothers identical initials – J.L. Sawyer – one known as Jack and the other as Joe.

Margo Lanagan Australian writer

Margo Lanagan is an Australian writer of short stories and young adult fiction.

Sean Wallace American publisher

Sean Wallace is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologist, editor, and publisher best known for founding the publishing house Prime Books and for co-editing three magazines, Clarkesworld Magazine, The Dark Magazine, and Fantasy Magazine. He has been nominated a number of times by both the Hugo Awards and the World Fantasy Awards, won three Hugo Awards and two World Fantasy Awards, and has served as a World Fantasy Award judge.

<i>The Dragon Waiting</i>

The Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History is a 1983 fantasy novel by John M. Ford. It won the 1984 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

Geoff Ryman is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and "slipstream" fiction. Ryman has written and published seven novels, including an early example of a hypertext novel, 253, or Tube Theatre. He has won multiple awards, including the World Fantasy Award.

Ken Liu Chinese-American writer

Ken Liu is a multiple Hugo Award-winning American author of science fiction and fantasy. His epic fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty, the first work in the "silkpunk" genre, is published by Simon & Schuster. His short stories have appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and multiple "Year's Best" anthologies.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.