Review of Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land is one of genre’s more divisive offerings.  Loved or hated, it tells of an alien arriving with a message of universal love and the religious, political, and social reaction as a commune of belief is created around it.  Heinlein painting the scene in black and white, his ideas are presented via contemptuous satire, rendering the novel largely a soapbox—the reason behind said reader discord.

Enter Nnedi Okorafor’s 2014 Lagoon.  About aliens who arrive in Nigeria bearing a message of love, likewise all manner of chaos is unleashed as they spread knowledge of their mission.  Lagoon is significantly different from Heinlein in tone and attitude, however.  Rather than bludgeoning the reader with jaded cynicism, Okorafor presents the social and political issues Nigeria is dealing with in candid fashion while integrating the alien viewpoint, arriving at something greener, something more holistic than just the disparaging dichotomy of Heinlein.  Her commentary may sometimes be (indirectly) cutting, but Lagoon remains a warm, parental novel—the strong hand of love—that is more constructive than destructive.  Not just Heinlein’s stick, Okorafor also offers the carrot. 

Review of Chaga (UK) / Evolution's Shore (US) by Ian McDonald

Ian McDonald’s 1992 Hearts, Hands and Voices (titled The Broken Land by US publishers), in and amongst its gush of ideas and frothing of language, seems to have far-future Africa as its setting, but never openly declares itself as such.  Making no bones about it, in 1995 McDonald started a series of novels explicitly set in the dark continent.  The first novel Chaga (Evolution’s Shore in the US) brought into the fold easier recognized tropes of science fiction, resulting in a more tangible, accessible revisioning of Africa’s future.

Gaby McAslan, a television reporter fresh out of university in Ireland, has her sights set on working in Kenya where a strange object from space has struck Kilimanjaro and is slowly spreading a bizarre crystalline substance at the rate of a few feet per day across the countryside.  Called chaga by the locals, it digests anything that is not alive, leaving in its wake indescribable masses—canyon walls, rippled blankets, and strange shapes sitting surreally in the open.  Gaby’s bright shock of red hair unable to equal her zeal for work, everyone—men, the UN, Kenyan government, local mafia, even her own news director—have trouble keeping the reins on her as surreal stories of chaga survivors begin emerging from the affected regions.  With reports of telepathy, healings, spiritual commune, and new, never before seen technology appearing, Gaby’s instinct for front line stories is well tuned.  But an even more bizarre object appears at the edge of the solar system.  NASA and other space agencies track the massive, undulating BDO as it dumbly makes its way toward Earth—a relationship seeming to exist with the chaga, but no scientist able to pinpoint what exactly it is.

Review of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Of the many common threads binding works of epic fantasy/sword and sorcery together, the strongest may be the portrayal of the masculine hero.  Everybody knows him. Indefatigable in a fight and chivalrous to women; civilized at the king’s banquet table, but dominant warrior in a battle; unsurpassed swordsman, yet equally skilled with his wits and tongue.  Conan, Aragorn, Kellhus, Druss, Elric, Logan Ninefingers—all are some of the most recognized fantasy heroes today.  And they are truly fantasy.  Archetypes rather than living, breathing humans, they exist beyond the limits of our reality.  But none, however, qualify as the male fantasy archetype as well as Edgar Rice Burrough’s original: Tarzan.  It is his 1912 Tarzan of the Apes that introduces the ultimate in civilized male contrivances—sorry, anthropoids to the world.

Born in the jungles of Africa after his parents were marooned on a sea voyage, John Clayton is adopted by a tribe of apes after when they are suddenly killed.  Raised among the tribe by Kayla, a large female ape, he comes to be called Tarzan, or ‘white skin’.  Developing slowly and not without trouble in the group of primates, Tarzan eventually becomes part and parcel of the jungle.  He learns to kill meat for food, eating it raw.  He traverses the towering flora as an ape does, through the branches.  After discovering the cabin his father and mother had built, he learns to read and write English, though not speak or understand it.  And, perhaps most importantly, Tarzan comes to realize that if he is to stay alive in this savage world, he must fight for place.  With cunning and strength, he works his way to the top of the food chain and becomes king of the jungle.  But it is the chance arrival of a group stranded on a nearby shore that changes Tarzan’s fortunes.  An American professor, his lovely daughter, mutineers, and a French militia among those without a ride home, the jungle man’s life takes a turn.  Buried treasure, mutiny, war, and love also in the offing, the changes to Tarzan’s social life are just the beginning, his collision with the outside world, awaiting.

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 "The Crystal World" by J.G. Ballard

After finishing the J.G. Ballard’s 1966 The Crystal World, I went online in search of not only what other people thought of the story, but also to see if I’d missed any of the hidden meanings or symbolism that seemed to always be lurking just below the surface.  I found articles about its parallels to hallucinogenic drugs, reviews pointing out its apocalyptic overtones, essays on its psychological allegories to the sub-conscious, comparisons to Heart of Darkness—and all mentioned a dystopian thread running through the story.  I relate this because, while these elements do play on the surface playing with the mind, the undercurrent of the novel seemed something more bittersweet than just another Brave New World or a Gibson novel.  Wanting a better view, I re-read the book (at 176 pages, it’s quite easy), and much to my satisfaction, discovered something deeper.

The Crystal World is the story of the doctor Edward Sanders and a trip he takes to visit an ex-lover in the jungles of Matarre, Africa.  The novel opens with Sanders on a ferry, arriving at the port which leads upriver to the jungle town.  Almost immediately he notices things are not as they should be.  The streets are deserted, what few people who appear keep to themselves, and strange, crystallized flowers are for sale in the dark recesses and behind closed doors of shops and kiosks.  When a dead body turns up in the river having an arm likewise crystallized in jewels, Sanders heads straight to Matarre to discover the implications behind it all.  The port just a hint, what he discovers in the jungle town may be more than he’s prepared for.

The scenery of The Crystal World is at times breathtaking.  Ballard’s prose agile and descriptive, images from the story hang in the reader’s mind long after.  The alligators, lepers, homes, palaces, and chapels hidden in the jungle are all described in rich, sensual detail.  Moreover, the descriptions are amazingly never repeated, only echoed, despite that the motif remains relatively the same throughout.  As such, Ballard is able to create the most strangely beautiful of pictures in the mind’s eye; at once dazzling for the surreal feeling it sends tingling up the spine, at others haunting for the dark visage seeming to underlie it all.  

Near the outset of the book, Ballard makes mention of the Isle of the Dead.  Anyone who has seen the Bocklin paintings (or listened to Rachmaninov’s composition based on the painting, for that matter), knows that despite the overt nature of the title, a sense of life quietly permeates the dulled image.  The Crystal World, both in form and substance, is the same.  At quick glance, a brooding mood superimposes the scenes, but upon closer inspection, a positive energy subtly infuses the story that transcends the apocalyptic in favor of something more personal.  While it’s difficult to write further without giving away major plot points, suffice to say the decisions Sanders makes during his time in Matarre, while surreal in appearance, have real meaning for his spiritual and psychological health.  (If this is the first review of The Crystal World you have read, I highly recommend that if you are intrigued thus far, don’t read any other reviews.  Most spoil major points, some the whole plot, save the final moments.)

Along with the vividly realized setting, Ballard’s other method of expounding theme is symbolism embedded in character.  Some may disagree, however, Sanders is the only fully fleshed character in the novel.  The others who appear, the journalist Louise, the priest Balthus, the madman Ventres, and others, merely act as foils for Sanders’ actions and behavior.  Presenting choices, they come and go on emblematic rather than empathetic terms, hinting at Ballard’s intents in the process.  Characters are thus representative rather than emotive, distance rather than understanding needed while reading.

In the end, The Crystal World is a beautifully strange enigma that requires a bit of puzzling out.  With so many factors in play (time, space, life, death, and so on) the true nature of the story is open to a wide variety of interpretations.  Though the novel’s prose is precisely in line with Graham Greene’s, Ballard moves deeper into fantasy for its substance, a metaphysical tale of surreal proportions the result.  More literary than entertaining, the book comes recommended for those who appreciate vibrantly described settings, psychological puzzles, and storylines that reach at more than just telling a good yarn.  Like the Isle of the Dead, it has the power to both haunt and invoke a sense of wonder.