Adam Roberts' fascinating novel Polystom appears at first to be a high-tech re-telling of True History by Lucian of Samosata, only in this case instead of a waterspoutsucking up the narrator, he simply climbs into his propellor-driven aircraft and flies to the moon, an illusion reinforced by Roberts' use of classical Greek names for his characters.
Robert's novel is prefaced by quotes from Edgar Allen Poe which posits the inevitability of there being breathable air all the way from Earth to Venus, and the origins of this intriguing piece of retro-fitted world-building. Less obvious is the relevance of the quote from Sigmund Freud, but that becomes clear in the end.
The planetary system in which Polystom is set comprises six worlds and three moons, all within a few thousands of miles of one another, orbiting a sun that rather than drawing it's heat from fusion acts as a vast furnace, although the eponymous Polystom's uncle Cleonicles, the inventor of the legendary computational device at the heart of this novel claims our sun to be less efficient.
Polystom the novel -- rather than the protagonist -- is structured rather like Gene Wolfe's magnificent The Fifth Head of Cerberus, divided into three novellas, which apparantly have little or no connection. Unlike Wolfe's novel, the connection does become clear, although it does require a somewhat disconcerting change of narrative perspective midway through the second phase to achieve it.
The first section, Polystom, is sub-titled 'A love story,' although this may be ironic -- the section seems to be less about love than about propriety and property, that is the wife as property. Polystom the character is less than sympathetic, first bullying then holding his recalcitrant wife prisoner until she dies of a brain aneuryrism while fleeing from him.
The second part, Cleonicles, is sub-tited a murder story and reinforces that this world is technologically analogous to our own nineteenth century for the most part, with odd parts of early twentieth-century devices such as the airships and propoellor driven aircraft in the mix. The murder at the heart of the story is one of several loose ends that preclude complete satisfaction, but acts as the catalyst for the events of the last section.
The third part -- Mudworld -- is sub-titled a ghost story, and it is the ghosts who provide the truth about the worlds of Polystom in a fascinating, almost hallucinatory ending that examines the favourite SF trope of 'What is reality?'
Polystom takes time to get going, but is definitely worth persevering with.
