First Published: 1980
File size/Pages: 645KB / 218pp
Ebook Publisher: Gateway
Ebook Date: Sept 2011
The first book of Sci-Fi Month is Christopher Evan's novel published originally by Faber and Faber in the UK back in 1980. It is available for a very reasonable £1.99 on Amazon UK.
Evans is a new author to me, I'd not heard of him, or read any of his other works before starting this. Internet searching reveals that there is very little known about him. He has a sparse Wikipedia entry that tells me he was born in 1950, a native of the south-eastern Welsh town called Tredegar. He was educated at Cardiff University from 1969 to 1972, and then Swansea University until 1974.
It's possible that he crossed paths with noted fantasy and science fiction writer Robert Holdstock whilst at university (Holdstock attended another Welsh institution, Bangor University in the late sixties and early seventies). Regardless of whether that is true, they combined to edit the Science Fiction Writers Magazine, Focus from 1979 to 1981. The magazine contained many essays on writing SF by noted persons, such as Ken Bulmer, Christopher Priest, Richard Cowper, David Wingrove (Note to self: I really must review one of his Chung Kuo books), and Holdstock/Evans. There were also stories, but it mainly served as the British Science Fiction Association's (BSFA) book for potential or established SF writers.
Evans again worked with Holdstock when they edited the anthologies Other Edens I, II and III, all published in a three-year run during the late eighties. He won the BSFA Award for Best Novel of 1993 with Aztec Century, a novel about an alternate history where the Aztec Empire conquers Britain. He has also written under the pen names of Christopher Carpenter, John Lyon, Nathan Elliott and Robert Knight. He later became a Chemistry teacher in London.
Capella's Golden Eyes was Evans first novel. The title is a reference to the twin suns of the planet Gaia, part of the Capella star system. Generations ago, man travelled to Gaia in a space vessel designed to support its occupants upon landfall. The human colonists struggled to survive, using what resources they could utilise from the land as well as the craft. Just as long-term survival was beginning to look unlikely, a mysterious alien race arrived on a nearby island to the main settlement. The aliens, called M'threnni, allowed the 'Gaians' to prosper by providing resources and guidance. They co-existed together for a short time, but then the M'threnni retreated into their helical structure and rarely ventured outside. All they asked of the settlers was that a few chosen humans would freely volunteer to live with the aliens, becoming in effect their Voices to allow communication to continue with as little interaction with the growing population as possible.