Albatross: About Quantum Physics, Human Beings and other strange things

Albatross #1

by R.A. MacAvoy

Quantum field theory is the less known brother of Particle Physics. But Dr. Rob MacAulay has followed it instinctively all his life, as he has followed the flight of seabirds over the island on which he was born. As the EU fractures around him, this gentle, tall man, with his glasses and his laser pointer under his old tweed jacket, finds himself under the steamroller of politics, and on the run from the police. He alone has solved the Unity Theory, but how does that matter now, as the police are convinced he is a terrorist? He himself is becoming quite terrified.
Thomas Heddiman, technical consultant with the police, finds himself both running with the fox and hunting with the hounds as he pursues the man, wondering just how odd a bird Dr. MacAulay is.

Award winning author R. A. MacAvoy (Tea with the Black Dragon, The Grey Horse) joins with artist and storyteller Nancy Palmer to present a tale of the possible future, human anger, and human compassion -- and a man who turns out to be a very odd bird indeed.

Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopia, M M Romance, Fiction

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 26, 2017

About the author

Roberta Ann (R. A.) MacAvoy is a fantasy and science fiction author in the United States. Several of her books draw on Celtic or Taoist themes. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1984. R. A. MacAvoy was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Francis and Helen MacAvoy. She attended Case Western Reserve University and received a B.A. in 1971. She worked from 1975 to 1978 as an assistant to the financial aid officer of Columbia College of Columbia University and from 1978 to 1982 as a computer programmer at SRI International before turning to full-time writing in 1982. She married Ronald Allen Cain in 1978.

R.A.MacAvoy was diagnosed with dystonia following the publication of her Lens series. She now has this disorder manageable and has returned to writing. (see http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/non...)

Reviews

[Lis Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Rob MacAuley is a brilliant physicist from the Outer Hebrides. He's also on the run, convicted in absentia of terrorism and murder. It's an absurd charge against a gentle and largely apolitical man, but it's a symptom of a Britain grown ever more paranoid, that has split from the EU at a cost its leadership could have calculated but didn't, and where the Scottish Parliament was dissolved eighteen months ago.

Rob is, through no fault of his own, a figurehead, or perhaps mascot would be a better word, of the Scottish Separatist movement.

Oh, and he has this odd thing he does, when startled or alarmed, that he calls "flinching," and that someone else might call moving from one spot to another without crossing the intervening distance.

Thomas Heddiman, American, machine intelligence specialist, anti-human trafficking activist, and karate expert, has a whole different set of problems. He's currently volunteering his services to the Edinburgh police for reasons not apparent to those he's working with.

Their paths are about to cross in a most unexpected way, in a Britain growing increasingly dark.

Thomas is very close-mouthed about what his real purpose is. Rob is sending letters under false names to physicists all over the world, asking questions that he hopes will nudge them toward the same breakthrough he's made. He doesn't want to be the only one who has the ability to publish and share his Unity Theory, so that it at least can't become a weapon for just one power.

This is an engaging and challenging book, with diverse and fascinating characters. The time is just about a quarter century in the future, and it's a recognizable but different world.

Those who fondly remember Tea With the Black Dragon will find some themes in common, but they are very different books. If one insists on placing it in a genre category, it's fantasy.

I should probably admit, in a spirit of full disclosure, that I feel that R.A. MacAvoy hasn't written nearly enough. I'm not previously familiar with Nancy Palmer, but regardless of any other contribution she made, another MacAvoy novel is something to be grateful for.

Go read it; you won't regret it.

I received a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Vince Hancock · Rating 5 out of 5]

R.A. MacAvoy strikes again

She's been one of my favorite writers for years, and this novel, set in the near future, extrapolates from many of Britain's current political realities to envision a disturbing world. With an appealing love story to boot... MacAvoy writes with clear love for all her subjects, and as I am a student of history with a fondness for horses, her work always agrees with me. She has a fine and amusing hand for horse thinking! Her fantasy worlds ring true; I wouldn't mind stumbling into some of them. She seems to me to be that very thing that has become, in some corners of this increasingly odd world, an insult - a rational, caring humanist with a belief in both the divine and the value of all living creatures. Enjoy her work!

[CraftyCat · Rating 2 out of 5]

What was this book even. Full disclosure, I’m give up on it at about 60% of the way through. I picked this title up as part of the Adventure Storybundle that I’ve been reading through, and I’ll admit that most of my issues with it probably stem from the fact that it is not at all an adventure book, nor is it anything else that it happens to be advertised as. It follows a professor of Math and Quantum Mechanics, one Robert MacAuley, who happens to be accused of terrorism, the story behind which is included nowhere in this book. It opens as a simple “man on the lam” type story, but I kept wondering whether or not I had accidentally picked up a sequel, because I kept expecting that whatever he had been accused of would be explained at some point. In fact, it’s not even relevant to the rest of the story in any way, which frustrated me incredibly. Why include it then? Because it’s the only way to get him from point A to point B, I suppose.

Point B is the other character, Thomas Heddiman, an American working for the police who is supposedly some kind of super spy. He’s allegedly brilliant, and internally talks non-stop about some vague “plan” that doesn’t seem to ever materialize. I found this interesting at first, but when it dragged on and on, I lost interest and found it annoying. At any rate, close to halfway through the novel, a United Kingdom that seems to be in a huge amount of political turmoil re-institutes slavery. I put it that way bluntly because that’s pretty much the way it’s presented in the book--an interesting idea, that would normally be found in a dystopian novel meant to explore themes of freedom and justice, yadda yadda, there is none of that here. It’s remarked upon a few times, and Heddiman makes a few comments about how he doesn’t like it, but soon changes his mind after taking MacAuley on as a slave in order to “save his life,” or some such. MacAuley for his part doesn’t seem to mind it at all and takes everything in stride without question, which is probably the thing I hate most about this book.

All of the political stuff seems to die out and lose its importance in the second half of the book, because it’s at this point that it becomes more obvious what the whole thing is actually about: this is actually a romance novel. And not only that, but a romance novel that uses the flimsiest and most deplorable of excuses to throw its characters together and get them to know each other: one is the master and one is a slave. This kind of grasping at plot straws is how we ended up with Fifty Shades of Grey, but at least that book had the sense to keep the master-slave relationship in the bedroom (mostly).

So yeah, I don’t mind reading romance, but there has to be something else going on at the same time, and also preferably no slavery, please. Although the prose in this thing is decent and it’s clear the author can write well, the plot development is on par with high school fanfiction. I’ll pass on the rest.

[Charl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was part of a "Science Fiction Adventure Bundle". And didn't fulfill either qualification.

The "adventure" was a calm, slow cruise through a couple of days of the "hero"'s life, trying to evade capture for a crime I'm not sure whether he actually committed or not, in the midst of governmental histrionics that put him in an unprecedented legal situation that's resolved almost immediately. I never felt any real concern for the character or any significant risk to anyone for more than a couple of pages.

The Science Fiction was pretty much non-existent. The character has a special ability due to his unique understanding of quantum fields, but it only comes into play four times (that I remember) in the entire story, and frankly just didn't make much difference. It could easily have been written out completely without affecting the main plot. And a story you can completely remove the science element from is crap Sci Fi.

The only reason I finished it was because I kept waiting for the big reveal of his power. And when it did happen, no one cared. Even the person most aware of it didn't have any real reaction to it.

I really wish I'd given up when I was tempted to after the first several chapters. This wasn't worth finishing.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of a series but cozy and soooo clever. The authors take the premise of an SF dystopian satire (UK reinstitutes slavery for certain high crimes), cast not one but two standard thriller types as protagonists (first, a brilliant scientist who seems to be on the spectrum, has made an earth shattering discovery, and is now on the lam from both the gov and parties that seem to want to shoot him—and second, young Steven Seagal as a hacker fighting human trafficking) ... and make it all into a tender love story. Looking forward to the sequel.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a lot of things--the surveillance state, the slippery slope between bad governance and slavery, quantum physics, karate, and superpowers. It's such a shame it doesn't seem to come together very well. I like most of MacAvoy's work, and The Book of Kells is one of my favorite books of all time, so I was really looking forward to this. I wonder if the collaboration was the issue? It's entertaining and enjoyable to read but it seemed like it had some unfulfilled potential.

[K.V. Johansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. So refreshing, after a few things I've read recently (and not bothered to put on my GR shelves because they were so drearily badly written) to plunge into a book of good prose again. An interesting near-future, post-Brexit world and a story at the intersection of physics and magic. There were threads left hanging, but I expect they'll be picked up in Shimmer.

[Ian Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely to read and filled with the great characters and settings that I adore about Ms MacAvoy's books but the story felt uneven and unsure about what it was trying to do.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting characters, interesting story. I like the gentleness in the pages, despite some tension.

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ignore the clunky title. It's a novel.
This is a great book. And a surprising one. Highly recommended.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Two neurodivergent men, one a brilliant physicist, the other a computer whiz, navigate a Britain whose law enforcement approach has gone well past reasonable.

Review
My experience with R.A. MacAvoy has been decidedly mixed. She’s clearly a master of prose, and I think her Belly of the Wolf trilogy is fantastic, but I’ve found many of her stories to be distant and, frankly, on the dull side. Unfortunately Albatross is very much in that latter vein. I know nothing about Nancy Palmer, so can’t judge her contribution, but it doesn’t seem to have helped.

Albatross starts well, promising a look at physics through interesting characters, with a side of politics. Unfortunately, the physics largely goes out the window, the characters never develop, and the politics becomes an annoying not-quite-motif. Most of the novel, in fact, could be described as never quite developing. [spoilers follow]

The characters are the most frustrating bit. Physicist Rob MacAulay has, we eventually infer, Asperger’s. But we don’t get this information until the midpoint of the book, leaving us to make assumptions about his strange affect and apparent inability to make choices. People everywhere love him, but we never see why. We’re told he’s a political symbol, but why and how?

Rob soon meets up with Thomas Heddiman, who it seems is also in some, unspecified, way, neurodivergent, but with the opposite effect – highly capable, very decisive. And then, for really no reason that we can see, they fall in love. We have to presume that Thomas, who’s gay, is attracted to Rob’s intelligence and vulnerability, and that Rob, who is maybe(?) pansexual (we know his wife died), is attracted to Thomas’ ability and decisiveness.

The whole situation is complicated by the fact that, due to circumstances, Thomas literally owns Rob, in every conceivable way. And Rob seems to like it. There’s potential for a lot of examination, analysis, and satire in this situation. It’s made clear that Thomas hates slavery, and has done this to save Rob from death (which all seems to work really easily, because of [handwave] Thomas’ competence). But beyond that, the book does almost nothing to address its largest issues, beyond satirizing British politics (and global).


I picked this up not too many months ago, and was excited to read it following a re-read of the Belly of the Wolf books. Now, I rather wish I hadn’t, since it reminds me forcefully that, while MacAvoy is a fine stylist, I don’t actually like that many of her books. Following this one, I don’t plan to investigate more – specifically not the sequel to this book. Despite MacAvoy’s proven skill, I can’t recommend this.

[Kaye Lynne Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Albatross takes us to a future world where the government is confused, or corrupt, or maybe just crazy, and Dr. Rob MacAuley is on the run for crimes he did not commit. He's on the run until the government elects to legalize slavery for conficted criminals. Then, Thomas Hiediman, an independently wealthy American, uses the new law against those who made it, when he convinces McAuley to turn himself in and become his slave. To say more here would require a spoiler alert. As I said, a very different type of story, where it's hard to tell who to trust, for characters as well as readers.

Even with the mild head hopping, (my pet peeve), which occurred, I found myself compelled to learn what happens next. I found myself thinking about the story when I wasn't reading it, which are all the hallmarks of a truly good tale.

See my full review on my blog: https://wp.me/pVw40-3wW

[Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curious book mixing science fiction, dystopian British politics, quantum mechanics, and interpersonal relations between two men, one gay and one straight. The relationship is forged by the shape of British politics in a curious and interesting way.
The story reads well through most of the book but perhaps dwells in too much detail about how the relationship develops. The story leaves some mysteries, especially about the theories and perhaps practices of one of the men who is a physicist, leading to the uncomfortable feeling this is meant to be continued in subsequent book(s).
Overall, while interesting, I found myself in the middle of the story wishing I were getting closer to the conclusion of the story, and hence the three stars.

[Lorac625 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing stranger than humans!

I will definitely recommend this book. I think I'll give a couple of copies to my nephews. Can't wait for more. I love the main character; he's so realistically weird.