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Book Review: Eden by Tim Lebbon

Eden by Tim Lebbon

Titan Books. 2020

ISBN-13: 978-1789092936

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook.

 

Lebbon’s back to nature horror again, which is where he shines the brightest. His novels The Silence to The Nature of Balance, set the bar for subsequent titles as Scott Smith’s The Ruins and the movie A Quiet Place. Lebbon’s skill at turning the natural world on its ear and creating believable, unique adversaries from both animal and plant kingdoms is unsurpassed.

Eden will undoubtedly draws comparisons to Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, but Lebbon’s tale veers into thriller territory rather than the straight out weird  of Vandermeer’s  world (althoughthat’s a stellar read itself). The pacing of the story is akin to the best thrill rides, replete with rocket-fast action scenes, balanced with smooth exposition that avoids the trap of  miring the reader in information dumps.

In Lebbon’s near future, the world has become almost unlivable due to pollution and climate change. Sounds familiar, in our age of disgusting deregulation of environmental laws and reckless destruction of pristine lands. Lebbon never preaches but doesn’t have to– anyone living through today’s world and its frightening descent into chaos will likely be chilled by the “news” clips preceding each chapter that describe life in the “Virgin Zones.” These zones were set up in thirteen areas across the world to jumpstart nature and give environments human-free time to develop.

Of course, men are never smart enough to follow directions.

These clips often feature the “guards” of each zone, the Zeds, a force to prohibit intruders that bring to mind ICE and border patrols here in the states, and these set up the tone for each scene.

Thrill-seekers Dylan and his daughter Jenn, along with his team, enter Eden, the oldest, most pristine, and dangerous of the zones, to race through it. Jenn also has another motive– to find her mother, Kat, who abandoned the family years ago and entered the zone with her own team, which Dylan and Jenn quickly learned was ill-fated.

The search also expands as the characters seek a legendary Ghost Orchid, which is reported to have miraculous healing properties. When they find a corpse that is growing within a tree and through it, the dread and tension become as thick as the humidity of the jungle. Lebbon creates a world both claustrophobic and horrific, almost as if Clive Barker set out to rewrite the book of Genesis.

When follows is a discovery of creatures that grew unencumbered by human involvement, possibly to halt it from tainting this new world. These new organisms will do whatever possible to keep their home free from the infection of humans.

Dylan and Jenn’s journey is a thrilling one that incorporates the best elements of suspense, horror, and science fiction and surpasses the high expectations set by previous efforts.

Lebbon’s recent foray into thrillers and his Relics trilogy are on display here with stellar description and characterization that elevates it in a gorgeously painted world– with teeth. This could be our future. Highly recommended reading.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on April 7, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

Alfred A. Knopf, 2019

ISBN 978-1-101-94788-3

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

 

The answers to some of the most intriguing questions about human thought and behavior are so complex that they have remained central to storytelling for hundreds of years. Ted Chiang’s Exhalation is a fascinating collection of science fiction short stories that raises many ideas related to these questions through thought-plots, reporter-narrators, and both ancient and modern elements of storytelling.

 

Chiang’s ability to spark the imagination and engage the reader in deep thought leads to entertainment of the highest order. The opening story, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” is reminiscent of the Arabian Nights and tells overlapping tales of time travel that show the interconnectedness of people’s stories with a surprising twist on the definition of alchemy. The title story “Exhalation” and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny” focus on the human elements of robots and machines and what they share with their human creators. Readers are introduced to a robot society about to be extinguished as the narrator ponders the end of time and to the creator of a mechanical nanny who hopes to raise rational children by eliminating the emotional aspects of child rearing. “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” the longest story, engages the reader in the lives of digital entities and their owners, including discussions about setting emotional boundaries for these “digients,” parental strategies for the owners, and determining digients’ maturity and readiness for certain experiences.

 

Two other stories show characters reflecting on the serious developments in life that have come about through technological innovation. “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling” considers the negative effects of assistive technology on people who have access to videos of their entire life. In a parallel plot line in the same story, a character from Tivland is being taught to write for the first time and struggles with the contrast between the culture’s prized oral tradition and their doubts about the quality and truth of written stories. “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” takes a look at paraselves who can be contacted for a limited time through prisms and suggests the fallout that might occur if we see our lives lived out in other versions that might not conform to our picture of ourselves. The examination of truth in storytelling continues in “Omphalos” in which an archaeologist who examines the first creations of God, trees without rings and mummies without bellybuttons, defines science as a search for truth and purpose but develops doubts that lead to a crisis of faith. Finally, in “The Great Silence,” the narrator reflects on the divine as it manifests in sound or the loss of sound that is the extinction of a species. Interestingly, it is a parrot that points out the human process leading to greatness as a creative force originating in myths, imagination, and aspirations.

 

This collection of stories is so effective because it taps into what is familiar and applies it to what is unfamiliar, thus revealing the layers of thought which are at work in any human endeavor but particularly in those involving science and what Chiang calls the “technology of writing.” The stories are a goldmine of allusions to scientific, literary, and religious thought such that the more a reader can bring to them, the richer the experience of reading. By bringing the craftsmanship and truth that he writes about to his own storytelling, Ted Chiang creates a collection that deserves to be read more than once. Highly recommended

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Editor’s note:  Exhalation: Stories was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.

Posted on March 23, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Oware Mosaic by Nzondi

Oware Mosaic by Nzondi

Omnnium Gatherum, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1949054163

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

I am always excited to see Afrofuturist writing getting positive recognition, so I was really looking forward to reading Oware Mosaic.  The novel is set in Ghana in 2025, following worldwide natural disasters caused by climate change and a nuclear war leading to  a “Final Event” that created radioactive areas and caused mutations in the animals in Ghana.  Instead of cell phones and computers, people have neural implants that serve as communication, entertainment, and information searching devices. Seventeen-year-old Feeni is an “ennie”, an “enhanced human” who “gains sustenance from blood” but is not a vampire. Ennies are persecuted, killed, and trafficked by anti-ennie humans.  Feeni grew up in abusive foster homes, although she is now living with her own family, a close-knit group that can get crowded. Her escape is an immersive online game, House of Oware, where she plays the character of a forensic scientist. Real-life cases are sometimes assigned to her online character, and she finds herself investigating a hit-and-run she was responsible for and covered up.

Despite my really wanting to love this, there is a serious flaw in this book that made suspension of disbelief for this book impossible for me. The book is set in 2025 (it is not an alternate reality, as it references Obama’s election and the recent television show Uncle Grandpa,  among other things), and a majority of the characters have neural implants. There is absolutely no way so many people would have such a piece of technology surgically implanted in the next five years. Nzondi is inconsistent and sometimes unrealistic in the way he presents Feeni and the way she moves, dresses, and talks, and some of his cultural references are confusing. I enjoyed the interactions with family members and out in the community, which created a much-needed rounding out of the Ghanaian setting (and he did this really well), but it also slowed the story down, and it’s unclear where the plot is going. There is the germ of a good story in here but it needs much more work for that to emerge. Based on what I read, though, I don’t think I can recommend this as YA horror. Is this science fiction? Post-apocalyptic fiction? Crime fiction? A combination? If Nzondi decides to reshape the story, I will be interested to see how he does it.

 

Editor’s note:  Oware Mosaic was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.

 

Posted on March 19, 2020 by , Reply
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