It is the year 2454, and the Seven-Ten lists are about to be published. Produced by the most significant newspaper of each hive, these lists rank the ten most important people in the world. But the list of the Black Sakura has been stolen and taken to the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’house, apparently with the help of the so-called Canner device, which conceals a traveller's identity. Whoever did this seems to have several purposes in mind, and knows exactly what secrets they want brought into the light.
A series of innovations have set this world apart from ours, each of them fully explored and integral to the plot. The earliest seems to have been the institution of the Bash' – extended family groupings of friends and like-minded individuals to encourage intellectual development. One result of this was the development of high speed mass transit at the Saneer-Weeksbooth Bash'. One might wake up in one country, go to work in another, and attend a party in a third, all of it loosening the bonds of nationalism. Lifespans have been extended, and ageing prevented.
Then came the Church Wars, which in causing disaster led to the foundation of the hives. European citizens had long been able to claim floating citizenship, and at the point of crisis it was offered to everyone in the world, and other transnational groups followed suit. Young people can choose which hive to join: Masons, Humanists, Mitsubishi (incorporating Greenpeace), Europe, Cousins, Gordians or the Utopians, the forward-thinking geniuses undertaking the colonisation of Mars. But people can still switch, hence the importance of the Seven-Ten list.
Our narrator Mycroft Canner is hiveless. He is a servicer, one of those at the bottom of the social order, former criminals who now work for food. He was caught back in 2440, and has since become a reliable, hard-working and useful member of society. He owns just five possessions: a tablet, a photograph of his birth-bash’, a copy of the Iliad, and a bookmark. As events proceed, the book reveals, with the skill of a magician, ever more of our protagonist (though Canner argues that another should bear that title) and his extensive connections in the world.
Another major character is Carlyle Foster, a sensayer. Organised religion has been forbidden since the Church Wars, and so those who need to discuss spiritual matters are assigned a sensayer, expert in all religions and beliefs. The sensayer of the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash'house having died, Carlyle is sent to replace them, and upon their arrival is immediately embroiled in everything that is going on, in particular a boy, Bridger, who can bring toys and drawings to life, as evidenced by the tiny soldier Carlyle sees dying on the kitchen table, reverting to green plastic once his blood runs out.
Like religion, gender is a hot button issue in this world. They is used for everyone rather than he or she, and clothing is carefully neutral, and thus hints of gender become as powerfully erotic as Victorian ankles. Mycroft genders and misgenders people according to stereotypes; the reader may assume they don't know the gender of anyone he describes. One wonders how translators of this book into highly gendered languages such as French will approach it: perhaps Mycroft will gender his nouns, while others will not.
Though it is very good, this isn't a book that would be particularly satisfying to read on its own – it is absolutely the first half of a long novel that has arbitrarily been split in two. It does build up to a significant revelation, but no storylines resolve. However, the second volume Seven Surrenders was published in the UK on the same day as this one, and a preview is included – two chapters in the print edition (which, incidentally, has notably small text), and three in the ebook – so there's no delay for readers keen to begin the second half.
Taken as the first half of a novel, this is fascinating and perfectly paced: Mycroft parcels out secrets and opens his world to us in a way that makes the relative lack of action unimportant. It's mainly reaction, revelation, set-up and mystery, but readers won't mind that in such a well-built world full of rich and vibrant characters, like the heroic toy soldier Major, or the alarmingly perceptive J.E.D.D. Mason. Eventually there is a big shift in the book, and some readers may find it harder to read from that point. While I wouldn't blame anyone for stopping, I think it rewards those who persist. Stephen Theaker ***
No comments:
Post a Comment