Unconquered Countries

by Geoff Ryman

From his stories in the Hugo Award winning Interzone, via Was, his examination of the reality and fantasy behind The Wizard of Oz, to his bestselling hypertext novel 253, Geoff Ryman has conducted a series of dazzling experiments with the very nature of storytelling. Through this restless innovation, he has constantly explored the gulf between appearance and truth, the way people enact mythologies to fulfil profound inner needs, then become trapped by their own creations.

In the previously unpublished "A Fall of Angels", humanity has reached the stars, created "angels" from former humans, and is engaged in a fantastical quest to refuel the dying stars and so defeat entropy. Rich in ideas and beautifully characterised, "A Fall of Angels" is a fusion of hard science fiction and sense-of-wonder poetry. "Fan" questions the reality behind the virtual images of pop music, taking the concept of silicon-enhanced celebrity to its logical conclusion. The challenging "O Happy Day!" considers what happens when ideology replaces reason: in a death camp for heterosexual men the solution is infinitely worse than the problem. The collection ends with the novella "The Unconquered Country", Ryman's allegorical, phantasmagorical response to the horrors of recent Cambodian history. It is a staggering, breathtaking achievement, which rightly won many awards on original publication. Once read, it will never be forgotten. Each story in this book is the product of Geoff Ryman's remarkable imagination, taken together they make a compelling account of one of the finest writers around. --Gary S. Dalkin

Contents:
A Fall of Angels, or On the Possibility of Life under Extreme Conditions (1994)
Fan (1994)
O Happy Day! (1985)
The Unconquered Country (1984)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, Collections, Novella

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Geoffrey Charles Ryman (born 1951) is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and slipstream fiction. He was born in Canada, and has lived most of his life in England.

His science fiction and fantasy works include The Warrior Who Carried Life (1985), the novella The Unconquered Country (1986) (winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the World Fantasy Award), and The Child Garden (1989) (winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Campbell Award). Subsequent fiction works include Was (1992), Lust (2001), and Air (2005) (winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, the British Science Fiction Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and on the short list for the Nebula Award).

Reviews

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this earlier in the summer, and I have to admit to having forgotten most about the stories here, but I remember being vaguely disappointed after finishing the collection. I like Ryman a lot–his The Child Garden is one of my favorite novels, and I thought that both Was and 253 were very good. Maybe I just like him at longer lengths?

• “A Fall of Angels” — Too much science, not enough story. That was my impression, wanting more of what was going on to be explained in a non-mathematical way. This story seemed to lack that sense of wonder–almost lifeless. It has some interesting concepts, but it is too busy to congeal into a pleasing tale.

• “Fan” — This was my favorite of the collection, a neat look at an obsessive fan of a new pop star, and what happens when you “meet” the object of your dreams. It really examines the relationship between the “star” and the “fan.” It is a rich vein of inquiry, and Ryman taps the jugular here. Both surprising and illuminating, it also holds your attention throughout, even though the protagonist is not very appealing.

• “O Happy Day!” — A “what if” story about a horrible set of circumstances existing between men and women, and a repeat of the horrors of the mid-20th century. The situation looks grim, but only if we forget to be human. A well done bit of cautionary tale. Enjoyable!

• “The Unconquered Country” — An award-winner, but it has never done that much for me. Overly subtle?

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

The four novellas in this collection range from hard sci-fi (“Fall of Angels”) to Gibsonesque new media obsessions (“Fan”), to futuristic holocaust spec fiction (“O Happy Day”), to a pretty clear allegorical fantasy of wartime Cambodia (“Unconquered Countries”.)

Ryman’s strength as a writer seems to be his ability to depict the full emotional/psychological landscape of his protagonists, complete with their short comings and personal failings, and he seems to do a particularly good job when his protagonists are female. The best instance of this talent in these novellas was “Fan,” which was in my opinion also the strongest of the collection, a story that did in thirty pages what William Gibson’s Idoru couldn’t do in over 200, namely realistically show the ways people can be moved by a particular band and the lengths they role such obsessions play in one’s life.

For those into hard science fiction with a generous knod to star trek, “Fall of Angels” can be quite a fun read. I loved it, but one would need to be inured somewhat to the quirks of the genre. I really didn’t care for “O Happy Day” or “Unconquered Countries,” both of which seemed to by trying way too hard to make their point.

[Logophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of four novellas: "A Fall of Angels, or On the Possibility of Life Under Extreme Conditions," "Fan," "O Happy Day!" and "The Unconquered Country." The last was published under its own cover, and I read it before, but the rest were new to me. "The Possibility of Life Under Extreme Conditions" could summarize most of these novellas, and indeed much of Ryman's work. There is a blurb from a review by science fiction writer Eileen Gunn on the back cover, and I'm going to let Ms. Gunn's words speak for me:

[Ryman's books] acknowledge the horrifying pain that humans inflict on one another in large and small scale all over the world, and yet they encourage the reader to think that, even in a concentration camp, in a ward for the chronically insane, in Pol Pot's Cambodia, life is worth living; that death is untimely; and that the act of dying is the individual's transcendence of life, rather than life's desertion of the individual.... His books ... make peace with a universe that seems senseless.

[Mawgojzeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found all the novellas in this collection very satisfying. "A Fall of Angels" was my favorite. It broke my heart. Love it when a book does that. "Fan" was a very satisfying tale of fixation. "O Happy Day" was brutal. "The Unconquered Country" had these great walking houses! I would put the last tale as my second favorite. All of these stories brought forth emotional response from me. It is so rare that I read a collection, even one this small (in number of stories) and close the book stating it was a win across the board. Finishing this book would be one of those times.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of SF short stories. Best in my opinion is The Fan, which appears to be about Daniel O'Donnell (touch of Wizard of Oz in there too). Ryman writes very well indeed. He has an incredible imagination plus the logic required to make his worlds seem possible.

[D-day · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unconquered Countries is a collection of four stories. The collection is named after the most famous: The Unconquered Country which won the World Fantasy Award, and has been published as a separate stand alone novel. The other three stories are straight up Sci-Fi. What all four stories have in common is that they are very depressing ;).
The Unconquered Country is really more Science Fantasy than pure Fantasy. It is more of an alternative world SE Asia where machines are organic and can be grown, and some larger things like houses can be alive with a dim consciousness, similar to cattle; where poor women can make a living giving birth to machine parts. The story is good in it's way and full of imagination, but meh.
The first story in the collection is A Fall of Angels- it was ok. The next was The Fan. This was the poorest story of the four, not good at all. The third story, O Happy Day was to my mind, the best in the collection. It concerns a dystopian future society where woman have taken over the world and are sending men to extermination camps. Gay males are allowed to live within the camp and escape extermination, in return for burying the corpses and running the camp. Ryman explores the psychological stresses these men live with as collaborators in a new holocaust.
So one good, two so-so and one poor story.

[martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

My previous experience with Geoff Ryman can be boiled down to: great concepts, when I understand what the hell is going on, so I worried this book of novellas might be the same. Happily, the stories were all way more comprehensible than I'd worried, and the concepts were just as original.

My favorite story was probably the last one, "Unconquered Country", about war in a futuristic Cambodia; the worldbuilding -- personal story layered over cultural context layered over the scifi elements -- reminded me of Maureen McHugh. I also really liked "Fan", about artificial intelligence and fannish obsession, and the chilling "O Happy Day" -- "futuristic holocaust spec fiction," to quote another reviewer.

The first story, "Fall of Angels", is probably the most difficult to get into, because it's the most hard science-y, but it mitigates that with gay space angels and stream of consciousness solar aliens and sociopolitical history.

All in all this made me much more eager to read more Ryman.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of sci-fi shorts. It's been awhile but the story that sticks in my mind from this collection is "A Fall of Angels". Ryman is a writer with a unique voice and vision and is always worth reading, even if it is just to dip in and experience some of his ideas.