I’m sure whatever Hall does next will be worth looking out for, but what it will be about, and how it will be told, is anyone’s guess. In the meantime Speak is very much recommended.
If Then
Matthew de Abaitua
Angry Robot, 416 pages
Review: Elsa Bouet
When I picked up If Then by Matthew de Abaitua, I found the summary interesting but was prepared for disappointment, predicting it would end up being a boring combination of things that have been done before. If Then however is a clever, well-accomplished blend of dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction, post-humanism, cyberpunk, a non-corny realistic love story, and even uses realist description of war. De Abaitua writes with skill and originality.
The novel is set after the events of the Seizure, in the small English town of Lewes; survivors seem to have recovered from a financial apocalypse, rather than a nuclear or environmental disaster. Inhabitants have handed control of their lives over to the Process, an algorithm which calculates the utopian optimum for the population to thrive. It allocates people their jobs, monitors and controls production, but also determines who can stay in Lewes or who has to be evicted. The Process monitors people’s thoughts and feelings through an implant. James, the bailiff of the town, is the only one to have a two-way implant. During the evictions, the Process merges with him and dictates his actions. James, after the evictions, is left to ponder the ethics of his actions, not all of which he can account for.
James also patrols the outskirts of the town, and one day discovers Hector, an artificial man created by the Process, a reproduction of a First World War stretcher bearer. For some reason, the Process is recreating the war on the outskirts of Lewes. James takes him back to the town, but as they have no indication that this was what the Process wanted, the townsfolk question whether this was the right thing to do. James and the Lewesians have little control over their lives and feel powerless to make decisions for themselves.
As the story progresses, the war creeps ever closer to Lewes. James decides to join the war effort with Hector. Their journey to war is an attempt to save the town but also a journey to solve the mystery of why the Process is recreating the battle of the Dardanelles on their doorstep.
The story’s multiple plot lines are compelling, as the reader wants answers to the questions facing the protagonists. The novel skilfully moves from one episode to the next using a variety of writing styles. It creates an interesting paradox by describing a seemingly idyllic community while offering hints of dystopian control. The characters are relatable and fascinating, and we get a good level of introspection so that we have a clear picture of how they feel, think and understand their lives under the Process. As they reflect more and more about the Process’s actions, their views and personalities change, which also drives the story forward. The novel convincingly shifts to realism. The horrors of war are tense and grim, the high level of suspense is gripping.
But the real achievement of the novel lies in its ability to connect the various episodes together to deliver a stark criticism of the system in which we live. Under the Process, ‘No one knows what makes a difference to eviction’, whether it is one’s behaviour, feelings and thoughts, one’s non-optimal functioning, or one’s actions. People understand that under the Process ‘no one is indispensable. No one is necessary’. This statement that the inhabitants of Lewes have internalised applies to their present reality, but is also relevant to the soldiers who die in the re-enacted war and to life before the Process. As James realises he is ‘not nostalgic for the lost age of job’ because ‘it was an arbitrary sorting mechanism for his class’. Just as evictions under the Process appear arbitrary, the job one had before the Seizure, and one’s eviction from the job, seemed arbitrary. As jobs before the Process were increasingly performed by machines and algorithms – notably in the financial sector – ‘people ceased to be a vital component of the economic system’ and were therefore redundant. The novel articulates the ways in which many of us are made to feel in the aftermath of the financial crisis under different types of processes which consider human lives as part of algorithmic calculations.
I really enjoyed this novel for its cynical reflection of our own world and I cannot praise it highly enough: eloquent, intelligent, brilliant.
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www.shorelineofinfinity.com/reviews
MultiVerse
Russell Jones
MultiVerse–Shoreline of Infinity’s regular sci-fi poetry section–is now open for public submissions.
Send us your time travelling tanka, scientific sonnet, robotic rondel, high-tech haiku, alien acrostics and futuristic free verse.
Poets featured so far in MultiVerse include Iain M Banks, Ken MacLeod, Marge Simon and Jane Yolen.
We publish two poets per issue. We’re looking for poems that whiz and bang with unique voices and ideas, and quality writing is paramount to us.
Send us your poems via our website at: www.shorelineofinfinity.com/submissions/poetry
Jane Yolen and Marge Simon: The Grandmaster Special
Welcome back to MultiVerse, a space for you to explore sci-fi poetry by contemporary poets from across the globe (and potentially beyond!)
This issue we’re excited to introduce poetry by Jane Yolen and Marge Simon, two Grandmasters of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
Jane Yolen is a frighteningly versatile and prolific writer; in her poems “Back in Time” and “Second Coming” we get a sense of her prismatic interests in form and storytelling. She is a Grandmaster of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, which is a good place to start if you wish to expand your repertoire on SF poetry.
“Back in Time” takes a familiar time-travel scenario, which suits the quick-tale nature of poetry perfectly, zip-lining between a Now, a far Past and a potential Future in just three stanzas. The poem sets a scenario which leaves a seed in the head: what is the warning, and were the time travellers right to take heed of it?
Yolen’s “Second Coming” (first published in Where Rockets Burn Through, Penned in the Margins) proposes that God is a not-to-be-messed-with female alien, and yet her contradictions and nuances show her to be much more complex than the simple binaries we often attach to a god. The poem implies that a female god could be more human (in compassion and ferocity) than we might expect. Structurally, Yolen’s use of repetition mimics that of a sermon and we, the readers, become complicit in its recital.
Marge Simon is also a Grandmaster of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, so this issue of Shoreline of Infinity is something of a Grandmaster Special. As well as sci-fi, she’s a writer and editor of horror, so isn’t to be tangled with (for fear of your impending horrific science fictional demise).
Simon’s first poem, “The Human Guest” follows a female being (we might assume an alien on another planet), who is raped by a human. Think he’ll get away with it? See for yourself! Simon tackles a very real and traumatic issue with great compassion, but sci-fi and horror join forces here to deliver some sense of justice. Simon’s stanzas lengthen as the story gains depth and momentum, cutting short in the last stanza to reflect the conclusive ending.
Our final poem, again from Marge Simon, takes on a distinctly romantic feel which contrasts sharply with “The Human Guest”. In “South”, two lover attempt to survive a long winter with “synthetic skins” and “cryo foods”, but things take a more lonesome turn when the stars call and one of them disappears into the frosty night. Again, Simon uses sci-fi scenarios to discuss very relevant human problems which many of us face and must weather.
Back in Time
“. . . back to a time when only the stones howled.”
- Louise Erdrich (The Master Butcher’s Singing Club)
So we got out of our time machine,
set for the beginning of the world.
The whirr of the fans and dials finally ceasing,
we opened the locks and stepped out
expecting a brand new quiet Earth,
the only sound to be ferns uncurling,
the kind of green voice that whispers,
not like the noise of humans, who are never still.
I placed my foot on the nearest stone,
like any explorer ready to claim the land.
The stone began to howl, as if it knew
the future, could predict pillage, spillage,
the spoils of war; could foresee stones broken,
fracked, fractured, fallen. It gave voice to the silence,
made loud protest to the universe.
