Review of Moving Mars by Greg Bear

It is myth; it is legend; it is part of the fabric of the culture.  Every schoolboy and girl in the US knows the story of the Pilgrims, how they were oppressed in their native land and came to a new world to practice their beliefs in freedom. Ahh, America.  Among the first Europeans to settle in the West, this historical event is commonly viewed as a seminal moment in US history.  As a result, similar stories have come to be prized by the culture: good ol’ American fighting spirit and can-do will win the way when one desires to live a certain way or practice a particular political ideal.  Taking the myth/legend to the next planet outward in the solar system, in 1994 Greg Bear penned Moving Mars.  Nominated for every major American science fiction award (and winning once), it’s fair to say the cultural mindset continues to reinforce itself.

Moving Mars is the story of Casseia Majumdar, university student and daughter of one of Mars' oldest families.  Called Binding Multiples, blood relations are not necessarily the common denominator to the big communities.  The BMs’ mixing corporate and genealogical ideals into ‘bloodlines’, their clannish presence is as far as Mars’ governance has evolved since humanity first settled the planet.  Growing up ‘red rabbit’, Casseia lives in the tunnels of Mars along with five million others, getting a university education, and living as normal a life as Martian underground conditions allow for.  In comparison to Earth, this is rather limited.  Technology is available but always a few upgrades behind, and in limited supply.  And while people are free to mix as they please, Martian society remains more provincial in its customs and traditions.  Following on a love affair after university, Casseia is selected by her BM for an amazing honor: to accompany a relative to Earth for political negotiations.  What she sees and experiences there forever changing her worldview, little does she know it is her knowledge Mars will be drastically changed by in the future.

Review of "Tendeleo's Story" by Ian McDonald

The first two books in Ian McDonald’s Chaga series, the eponymous novel (called Evolution’s Shore in the US) and Kirinya, both feature white main characters dealing with a strange alien invasion in black Africa.  While local characters do appear as secondary, it’s fair to say much of the concerns of the continent are filtered through Western eyes.  Partially righting the imbalance is “Tendeleo’s Story” (2000), a novella set in the colorful, culturally tense milieu.  Like another short work in the setting, “Recording Angel,” it more concisely expresses aspects of the series, but gains a significant degree of perspective from someone locally dealing with the creeping crystalline invasion. 

Tendeleo, whose name means ‘early-evening-shortly-after-dinner’ in reference to her birth time, is the teenage daughter of the pastor at an Episcopalian church in rural Kenya.  Village life comfortable, things are turned upside down, however, when a chaga meteorite lands a few kilometers from her home.  Visiting the impact site with her little sister and given a tour by a few of the UNECTA scientists gathering data, Tendeleo has a part of her brain activated by the work, advanced technology, and mysteries she witnesses there. But she never has a chance to act on the interest.  The chaga taking over her village a short time later, life is spun out of control as she and her family are placed in a squalorous refugee camp on the outskirts of Nairobi.  Taking life in her own hands, the sacrifices Tendeleo subsequently makes break the heart, but prove worth it in the end.

Review of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The transition from child- to adulthood is perhaps one of the most trying times of life.  Questing for social acceptance, over confidence, lack of compassion, angst that needs outlet, and being rebellious for rebelliousness’ sake are all parts of growing up for most young people.  There are times, however, that the behavior goes to the extreme.  Anthony Burgess’ wife victim to an act of random violence by a group of young men, in 1962 he decided to write a novel from the perspective of one such delinquent, A Clockwork Orange the result.   A delicious yet appalling stew of wildly creative language and violent behavior, Burgess digs deeper into the head of a sociopathic young man than is perhaps good for a sane man, but if the ending can be trusted, comes to a measure of peace for what transpired with his wife.

A Clockwork Orange is the story of Alex, the teenage leader of a gang of hooligan delinquents.  Terrors of the streets, Alex and his droogs—Georgie, Pete, and Dim—spend their nights arbitrarily stealing, beating, raping—preying upon society.  Taking pleasure in the anguish, the flow of blood and screams of pain set lights in their eyes and smiles on their faces.  And Alex’s parents are helpless to intervene; he skips school, tricks girls to bed with drugs, and lives a life entirely void of empathy.  Biting off more than he can chew one night out, Alex’s life takes a flip-flop after a flight of bravado.  But will the situation he suddenly finds himself in make any difference?

Review of 'The Tombs of Atuan" by Ursula Le Guin

Having successfully penned a young man’s Jungian coming to terms with self in A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin set out to write another bildungsroman.  This time a young girl’s coming to terms with herself as a woman in society, The Tombs of Atuan was published three years later in 1971.  Certainly not as strong a feminist statement as later stories of the Earthsea Cycle, Tombs is nevertheless squarely focused on a young woman’s coming of age, filled out with all of the wisdom and insight into religion and culture we’ve come to expect from Le Guin.

The Tombs of Atuan opens with a child being taken from her parents to live at the temple tombs on the Kargish island of Atuan (the Kargish are a white-skinned, war-like culture appearing at the beginning of A Wizard of Earthsea).  Too young to know better, Arha, as she is called by the all-female priesthood, is led through the initiation ceremonies of their archaic religion and raised amongst the decay and ruin of its temples and tombs.  External influence at their remote desert institution non-existent, the dogma of Kargish religion molds and shapes Arha into High Priestess as years of tradition have done her predecessors.  Everything goes smoothly in Arha’s education until a mysterious man—a forbidden man—bearing wisdom acutely opposite to what she’s been taught comes to their temple.  That he also seeks the other half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe only deepens the intrigue.

Containing significantly less of the magic, spells, and wizards of A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan has its own identity as a fantasy novel in Earthsea.  The story of a young woman’s discovery of freedom, the narrative depends less on the supernatural and more on character interaction toward resolving the issues that arise.  A basic knowledge of ‘true names’, Earthsea cultures, and layout of the islands helps, but it’s not necessary to have read Wizard to appreciate Tombs.  

A great literary device as well as wonderfully described set piece, the pitch-black labyrinth which Arha explores beneath the temples is one of the most intriguing aspects of Tombs.  (Vital enough, Le Guin even includes a map of the maze-like tunnels.)  No stronger symbolism could be attached to the blinded manner in which the young ladies of the temples are led through knowledge regarding adolescence, sexuality, and men in general.  Without spoiling matters, Arha’s exploration of the labyrinth and her experiences walking the dark corridors make for great literature.  But how she unlocks the potential she finds there is the reason the book won the Newberry Honor Award. 

In the end, The Tombs of Atuan is Le Guin in full form, though she would later admit not having thought the entirety of Arha’s situation through.  (A certain channeling of masculinity stains what is otherwise a narrative of feminine discovery.)  Readers should expect a coming-of-age story, but one wholly different than Ged’s.  Elements of the supernatural do exist, but Le Guin uses them subtly, sending the characters out on stage for dialogue rather than magical pyrotechnics.  Like Wizard, Tombs is stuck somewhere between YA and adult, and can therefore be appreciated by both.  

(For those who have read the book and the Earthsea Cycle as a whole, you may be interested in reading a paper I wrote on its Daoist tenets and angles on contemporary theory called "Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle: Paralleling Contemporary Theory with an Eye to the Past".  Part I is here and Part II, here.)