Review of Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett

Chris Beckett’s 2012 Dark Eden was a novel whose setting glowed like a Christmas tree and whose thematic import likewise glowed for its simple but profound examination of the beliefs, practices, and rote underpinning Western social, religious, and cultural order.  Eschewing the opportunity to tell the hero’s tale (though there was every opportunity to do so), Beckett set his ambitions higher, widening the lens of his story to encompass society and how it evolves, or fails to, in the face of existential reality.  The story ending on a momentous discovery for the stranded colonists, the effect of the knowledge (that they would not be rescued) was left to the reader’s imagination.  That is until 2015’s Mother of Eden (2015, Crown Publishing).  Expanding the map considerably, producing a new cast of faces, and shifting the focus to politics and gender, the novel is a fresh follow up that fully satisfies the hunger for more of the exotic planet but which may sacrifice part of its thematic strength to over-simplification.

Set several generations after John Jeff, and Tina led the expedition away from New Home to start their own community, the population of Eden has considerably expanded itself in the time since.  Society in essence set free with the knowledge rescue will not be forthcoming, a diaspora has occurred, people moving out to explore new islands and continents.  But disagreement remains.  Calling themselves, Davidsfolk, Johnsfolk, Jeffsfolk, even Tinafolk, differences and discrimination still eat at the heart of the colonists.  Enmity among the groups seeming to continually simmer just beneath the surface, things start to boil when the descendants of John Redlantern discover metal on a continent across the Big Dark.  Believing themselves to be on the path to returning society to a state of civilization, they organize their rudimentary community along feudal lines in order to best extract the valuable material from Eden’s hothouse soil in the hopes of someday re-creating the technology which produced starships and space travel.  Trouble is, without access to real human history, they’re bound to make the same mistakes as they grow.

Review of "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were two writers who initially established themselves not only in the world of realist fiction, but also in the hearts and minds of readers as effective observers on society.  As a result, their later novels Nineteen Eighty-four and Brave New World are heralded as two of the greatest science fiction novels ever written, literary purists even willing to make allowances despite the sci-fi leanings.  Depending on perspective, it is John Brunner’s misfortune that his career was established in the world of science fiction.  When in 1968 Stand on Zanzibar was published, only those within the genre took notice of its qualities.  Poignant literature that transcends genre, it too comments with profound relevance on the human condition.