Sputnik Caledonia [Unabridged] [Paperback]

When I was a kid I wanted to go into space, there was only one type of Lego I wanted (the mostly grey kind), and above all else I wanted an X-wing fighter from Star Wars. So I can totally relate to RobbieCoyle, a 12 year old boy growing up in 1970's Scotland, who has a similar yearning for the cosmos in Andrew Crumey's latest novel. The cupboard under the sink is his space capsule and the radiogram in his room is his

'mission control centre, its every city a planet, and simply by pressing one of the waveband buttons he could transport himself across the galaxy at the speed of light.'

This vivid imagination causes Robbie to go on wild flights of fancy whilst the real world carries on around him. It is a charming portrait of boyhood coupling his childish fantasies with the genuine learning from library books on relativity and the constant lessons from his didactic father. MrCoyle's instruction is steeped in his Socialism, even Aristotle gets it in the neck for believing everything in the world has its place, 'that's rubbish...We're all equal, Robbie; you and me, we're as good as anybody'. Needless to say he longs for the revolution.

And in a way he gets it. The second part of the book is set in an alternative British Democratic Republic. Allied with Russia after the war Britain developed its nuclear deterrent at The Installation, a military compound and community which has adystopian feel you might expect from J G Ballard. Here, Robbie Coyle has become Robert Coyle, a 19 year old soldier who has volunteered for a mission. Dr Kaupff, father of the Bomb, who has an unorthodox approach combining science with literature, is heading a mission to a ' frozen star' or black hole which is heading towards Earth. This middle section is filled with politics, paranoia, sex and power. Coyle is a guinea pig in a game he doesn't understand as he is told by Kaupff's sexualised assistant,

'You're dead already. As soon as you passed the perimeter fence, as soon as you entered the Installation, that's when your life ended. Because this place is hell, and you're never getting out of it.'

It is Kaupff who expresses the books central theme.

'Everything in the universe both determines and is determined by everything else. Everything is connected. To understand the part we must perceive the whole.'

For there is a third part to this novel. We are back in the more recognisable Kenzie of the first section but 25 years later. Mr Coyle's main obsession now is the price he has to pay for the parsley he makes into a drink each day (you'll have to read it for that to make any more sense). But he is also a man deeply affected by the death of his son Robbie aged 19. I won't go into any more detail but suffice to say that Crumey brilliantly links the three sections; character names are repeated, themes are continued and echoes of speech can be picked up through the static. If you're looking for resolution you may be disappointed and despite the heavy sounding themes of relativity, quantum gravity, multiple universes and psychic space travel this isn't quite the brain burning workout I expected. In fact the books strengths actually lie in the far more down to earth realms of childhood exuberance and the touching decline of a man who misses his son.

Spoiler warning: to do justice to this book, I have had to mention more detail below than I would really have liked. So stop here if you don't want to know what happens.

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Some books catch and hold your attention when you're reading them. I suppose those that don't aren't much use as books. This book does that, easily - and impressively, given that it is really three books, so it has to grab and hold you three times.

Some books also hold your attention after you've finished them, make you go back, perhaps re-read, and still keep you thinking. "Sputnik Caledonia" does that too.

In the first part, we meet Robbie Coyle, a young boy growing up in the Scottish town of Kenzie in the 1970s. He has a normal life - he is perhaps a little naïve, certainly imaginative, obsessed with spaceflight; he has two well meaning but slightly odd parents and a waspish older sister - and I found myself growing very fond of him. Had Andrew Crumey simply continued Robbie's story, that would have been quite enough for a decent and engaging book. In fact, Robbie has a very sad end - although we don't learn that for sure until part 3 - and instead of continuing the story, Crumey jettisons the careful portrait he has built up of 12 year old Robbie, and plunges into a 1984ish, Eastern-bloc style Scotland.

In Part 2 Kenzie has been replaced the The Installation, a closed area dedicated to scientific research and arms manufacture ("This is where we made the Bomb") which seems to have suffered a Chernobyl style disaster in the recent past. In this world, Robert Coyle, 19, a soldier, has "volunteered" for a hazardous duty, expected to be spaceflight. It is a nightmarish place, depicted absolutely convincingly.

This world is explicitly a warped echo of that in part 1, Wizard of Oz style ("we're not in Kenzie any more") with the same, or similar, characters reappearing in different roles. David Luss, the trendy lefty teacher, becomes Commissioner Davis, the Party enforcer (he keeps his smelly pipe). Mr Tulloch, Robbie's gentle, art inspired science teacher becomes Kaupff, head of the project Robert is part of (he keeps his interest in German romantic literature and philosophy as an organic part of science). Roaslind, the girl Robbie fancies from the TV programme "Top of the Form" becomes Kaupff's ruthless (and heartless) assistant. Robbie's mum and dad carry over, I think, to the couple he lodges with, mourning their lost son, and their daughter Miriam appears late in Part 3 (back in Kenzie) as (now MSP) Luss's partner. If she was in part 1 I missed her. This being (sort of) "The Wizard of Oz" there is of course a Dorothy who Robbie meet in Part 1, and a Dora who plays an important role in Part 2.

In spite of the book's title, the plan in Part 2 is to use Coyle as a human detector for "scalar waves" emitted by a black hole making a flypast through our solar system (the scientist who predicts these is called Hawkin, so they are Hawkin radiation...) To do this, he has to be isolated from both electromagnetic waves (ie placed inside a metal shell) and from gravity (in free fall - ie dropped from a bomber at high altitude). There are other unpleasant conditions I won't mention here. Being sensitive to these scalar waves, Robert seems, however, to have some spooky link to Robbie of Part 1, as he falls ill. In some way, Robbie and Robert are the same person, but in different worlds (split by an event in the 1800s), and they're in touch.

The end of Part 2 sees Robert plunging to his death (I think) as a dutiful servant of the Party. In Part 3, Robbie's parents, in present day Kenzie, fail to come to terms with the loss of their son and with the 21st century.

A mysterious stranger, who calls himself Robert Coyle, and says he is a "spaceman" is on a "Mission" to save the world, which has become split. To do this, he needs the help of "the kid", a streetwise 12 year old who chooses, in the end, to drop out of the plan, resulting in its failure.

Is this Robert the Robert from Part 2? Does "saving" the world mean replacing our world with the Part 2 alternate history? Where did the green glass marbles that Robbie picked up come from (were they made in The Installation, as Rosalind suggests, and somehow echoed in our world? Who are the "rebels" in the Installation? These are only a few of the more obvious questions left dangling.

Overall this is a baffling, engaging book, juggling literature, quantum mechanics and philosophy effortlessly. There are some hilarious vignettes, and a great deal of good observation - the ghastly installation is as well realised as Robbie's little world. (The unforced contrast between naive 1970s Robbie and the tough 2000s "kid" is especially good).

For me, the only bit that didn't entirely convince was Part 2 Robert. What is he really thinking - who does he really sympathise with? Is he really a loyal Party man or not? At times the character feels rather flat. On the other hand, it's clear that his mind has been seriously messed around, like Robbie he has been made ill and perhaps in the same way. So maybe the air of purposelessness to him is intended and natural.

This would, though, in any case be only the slightest of reservations. This book is excellent, the best I've read in a long while.

After a shaky opening few pages a bit too reminiscent of Robert Anton Wilson, this book settles into a brilliant style. It is split into three distinct sections, all so differently written and with an amazing variation of writing tone but all cleverly interlinked and all very gripping. One of the most original sci-fi plots I've read in a long time, and I read a fair amount of sci-fi.

Don't be put off by any suggestion that this book is laden down with quantum mechanics, it's not- you don't need to even be interested in the physics to feel attached to the characters.

I won't try and out-detail William Rycroft's excellent review. I think the weakest section of the book is the final third, and the ending possibly a little flat, but apart from that minor criticism, it's excellent. It's the first Andrew Crumey book I've read and I have gone straight out to get another.