Pelland, Jennifer: Unwelcome Bodies
Unwelcome Bodies
Writer: Jennifer Pelland
Genre: Short Stories/Science Fiction/Horror
Pages: 247
I've had the privilege of reading two of Jennifer Pelland's short stories, "MarsSickGirl" and "Blood Baby". MarsSickGirl was my absolute favorite of the two, and when I heard Apex was releasing a collection of her short stories, I was more than happy to order a copy.
The reviews below will focus on each individual story, and in some cases, there will be spoilers. On the whole, I can say that Pelland has a clean, crisp style that makes for very smooth reading. All of these tales, which embrace the central theme of hating one's own skin (and you'll be surprised at the variety of tales you read here), and are first and foremost fascinating idea stories. Some stories have rather simple characters who have obvious motivations, but the ideas driving the story pretty much take the character and stuff the poor thing in a closet. Other stories work with a beautiful balance of character, idea, and setting, and those are my favorite.
And the ideas driving this story are about more than body-image, though that plays a part in each character in each tale. Pelland dives into various environmental and religious issues as well as terrorism, and in each story, a character has to come to terms with his or her place in the world, no matter how big or small it might be.
These stories are horror. They're SF. They're a damned good mix of both.
"For the Plague Thereof Was Exceeding Great"
A dystopian future in which the world is plagued by the HIV virus, and not just the one we know today, but several mutations that can be transmitted by any possible bodily fluid, as well as live in the air. It's a scary world these people live in. Parents don't send their kids to school anymore. Subways are closing down and the people who ride in them carry a can of mace in addition to all the goggles, masks, gloves, and other protective gear they must wear in order to keep from getting sick. The atmosphere of this story reminded me very much of The Children of Men, more the movie than the book, because for obvious reasons, the movie is so visual, and it was very different and more dystopic than the book.
But let's talk about this story: we get the point of view of two women. One, Kathleen, is healthy and lives in fear of getting sick, but yet she misses human contact, and she particularly misses her late husband, who died from the disease. She's one of the few workers left at Harvard, and this particular day is testing day, for which she's grateful. This society has created a clusterfuck of paranoid people, but given the circumstances, you can't blame them.
We also meet Tessa, a girl who is sick and part of an extremist religious group called The Seventh Angel. The members of this group believe they are the seventh and final plague of the Apocalypse, and by infecting (saving) everyone in the world with the disease, the gates of Paradise will finally open, and they will all bask in the glory of God and reunite with their dead loved ones. And this particular day, Tessa's first day of "saving" people, they're going to hit Harvard.
You can already see how this story's going to end up. Well, maybe not END, but you know these women cross paths.
Pelland takes the time to paint each character vividly. Each woman has her doubts and fears, and meeting one another brings these doubts and fears to light. Pelland doesn’t give any answers other than the obvious: that people need to be touched, need to be comforted, no matter what the state of their health is. There's also a sneaky punch about whether or not God exists and if he does, whether or not the plague is a reward to bring people into heaven or a curse for people being the way they are.
The author's note gives us the background of the story (Pelland's first sale) and discusses how she'd separated each story section with a news clipping. She'd had to take them out for publication and work the necessary info into the story itself, but as part of this collection, she provided those clippings, which was a nice touch, but I think the story works well without them.
"Big Sister/Little Sister"
Well that's a creepy story. Two sisters who were supposed to be twins, but one was born horribly deformed. The father shot himself, and the mother doted on the deformed one, "Little Sister," to the expense of not letting the healthy one, "Big Sister," have anything resembling a real life. To make matters worse, when Little Sister's body begins to decay, the mom arranges for a procedure to have Little Sister embedded into Big Sister's stomach.
Needless to say, Big Sister is not happy. When dear old mom dies, Big Sister takes delight in punishing Little Sister for all the wrongs their mother did to her. It sounds unfair, and in truth, it isn't and it's not supposed to be, and Big Sister constantly points out to Little Sister that Little Sister could've done something to help Big Sister out, to stop their mother from being such a whack-job.
It's not a realistic tale, nor is it supposed to be. Horror with a slight SF setting, the story reminded me of a dark fairy tale, where the characters are symbolic of something more rather than people of their own. That's not a bad thing for this story, because it exaggerates the way some parents will dote on one sibling more than the other and all the resentment that comes along with it. You're not supposed to believe that people would really be THIS extreme (there's not a sympathetic character in the whole thing; even the nicer ones suffer for having turned a blind eye to a bad situation), but if people were this extreme, I'd sure as hell stay away from them. The ending is cruel, killer, and just perfect for this story and will leave you thinking about it long after you're done.
"Immortal Sin"
One on hand, the absolute pure obsession that drove Alex is rather admirable from a certain point of view. To write a character with that kind of narrow-minded focus, that kind of insane mentality, has got to be hard to pull off with a straight face, no matter how much a person finds they relate to the guy. On the other hand, it was so hard for me to take this guy seriously. To believe he lived so long obsessing over the rules of the Catholic Church without someone smacking him upside the head is a little hard to swallow. Granted, I've never been Catholic, and my only exposure to the religion has been through people who really don't take it very seriously. So despite Alex's heinous actions, he's almost a parody of what little I know of the faith. Not that that's a BAD thing, but again, hard to take seriously enough to turn the pages.
I did like how he kept trying to stick it to God. Believing he'd never be absolved of his sin for killing Cassie, he embarked on a quest for immortality, finding every scientific advance that would help him along the way. Quite amusing, especially in regards to his new rule system, which embraces so much paranoia in terms of personal health it's not even funny (I mean that figuratively, not literally, as I did say it was amusing).
The end is cute, though my literal brain kept asking if dude had died and all of this was his afterlife and he just wasn't aware, or if God had found a way to torment him regardless. I kept expecting him to die from the most mundane thing he couldn't have predicted, like maybe he went ahead with cryogenic sleep and in the process, the power was cut off. So the story didn't quite meet my expectations, but it was cute regardless.
"Flood"
For the life of me, I couldn't imagine just what kind of music Cassie was making. With her voice, not with everything else. It's funny, because the whole notion of water suddenly missing off the planet reminded me of the story by Clare Winger Harris, "The Fate of Poseidonia." Yes, the only common element is the disappearance of water, and in Harris's story, the oceans don't dry up and disappear. But I still thought of it, especially with the throw-away line about there being plenty of water on the Moon and Mars if only humankind could create a rocket to go and get it. Not saying there's not the possibility of water on Mars, but the idea of there being enough to save Earth jarred my rather literal mind.
Not that this story is meant to be seen as a warning to the future about the stake of Earth's water. We never know why the oceans dry up, and the only theory we get is the more supernatural Angry Earth theory, which pretty much states that Earth is pissed off at how humanity treats it and is therefore trying to destroy humanity by sucking up its own water. Cute.
The most compelling character in the whole story was Cassie's brother, Owen. It was pretty clear he was hiding a family from her, and of everyone in the story, he was the most conflicted. I didn't like Cassie at all, and I had to laugh when Owen found her recovering from her attempted suicide and tried to save the water instead of checking on her.
I could appreciate the ending in that it was time for Cassie (and everyone else like her) to get over the past and start focusing on living in the here and now, but I'm still rather meh about the whole selfish-rock-star concept. Like I said, the brother was more compelling.
"The Call"
Flash-fiction. Horror. The narrative structure threw me at first, because I expected it was merely an opening for a story that would settle into first person. It wasn't, and once I realized that, it was fine. The story's written in second-person and composed entirely of questions, and the plot basically focuses on one person who chose to be humanity's represented to a group of aliens, and once on the ship, is essentially transformed into a being like them. The pain is so horrible-the aliens didn't know it'd hurt-that our narrator kills them, tries to reconnect with humanity only to realize she/he can't, and answers the string of questions at the end. Would you do this, if you knew what would happen? Well of course not. I think the ending would've been more surprising and more compelling if the narrator had said, "Actually, yes I would."
But that's me.
"Captive Girl"
Ooooh, now this story sparkled. What is it with Pelland stories I love that have the word "Girl" in the title somewhere? Seriously, I have no idea.
The plot of this is hard to describe, even though it's relatively simple.Three orphan girls are essentially molded into machines that allow them to project themselves into outer space and keep a look out for any suspicious activity near the colony. If anything is sighted, they contact their superiors and the superiors take care of the intrusion. Why? Because there was a mysterious bombardment that killed lots of people on a colony, of course, particularly the protagonist's parents.
Alice's life outside the stars is hell. She's stuck in a walker, she wears a heavy metal mask over her face, and she communicates via a typing tool she uses with her tongue. The only shining light to her existence is her caretaker Marika with whom she's fallen in love with. Marika seems to love her too, but her constant references of Alice as "my beautiful captive girl" are disturbing, even though Alice swoons.
When one of the other girls goes insane, and the other unvolunteers herself, the project closes down. The girls are sent to have all the machinery removed from their bodies while computers take over the task they were previously doing. Alice thinks this will be the next great step for her and Marika, but Marika can't stand the sight of her without the mask, without being completely dependent on her walker and more important, on her.
It's a love story, and a very creepy one at that. Alice's decision at the end is disturbing in so many ways, and raises many questions. Can love conquer all? Should it? Should one person sacrifice almost everything to make the other happy? I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but even thinking about the end completely creeps me out.
And I see it's also a Nebula nominee, to which I say FANTASTIC. This story damned well better win, especially over one of the nominated stories I will NOT name but could NOT stand.
"Last Bus"
Short and sweet. It took a moment to get my bearings in this tale, but once I did, I found it short and sweet. What else is there to say? At first I thought our nameless protagonist was climbing a stairway to heaven, so to speak, seeking a better place, but the end suggests rebirth, a chance at a second life. And while the eggs at the end kind of came out of nowhere, it made sense that she suddenly knew what to do when the bus arrived, because this magical sense of suddenly knowing and having what you needed had already been established. Nice piece.
"The Last Stand of the Elephant Man"
What a fantastic story. It started out a little rough, because I must be one of the few who don't recognize the name "Joseph Merrick," nor did I connect the character to the "Elephant Man" in the title. I think I was halfway through when it clicked that this was a real person who had real, serious deformities, and that this science fictional tale was giving him a different kind of life.
Pelland creates a future where the world's population has been reduced to living into protective bio-domes, and that population is exceedingly bored. They entertain themselves with body modification, and modifications come and go like fashion does these days. One particular, wealthy man is obsessed with the body of Joseph Merrick, aka the Elephant Man, and brings him forward from the past in order to switch bodies with him.
Merrick is thrilled at the cure of a new, functioning, perfect body, but he's soon mortified by the future around him. It's so different from everything he's ever known, and not just peoples' appearances, but their dress, language, and the casualness of sex. Even worse, Jean-Pierre, the man who stole Merrick's body to begin with, is now a celebrity, and everyone wants to fuck this deformity of a body, and Merrick is haunted.
It's a fantastic story that reminded me in some ways of Huxley's A Brave New World. But this story ultimately has hope. Merrick has gone from being freak in normal times to being normal in freakish times, and he must come to terms with his new body, the new culture, as well as the popularity of the old one. The ending of this tale is beyond touching. Pelland as truly crafted a memorable character in Joseph Merrick, and while I didn't remember who he was before this story, I sure as hell won't forget now.
"Songs of Lament"
This is almost too short, but it's a fascinating tale, even though it took me a little while to work out the kinks of the plot. Pelland introduces the reader to a man and his wife. Suze, the wife, was once a huge Save-the-Whales advocate, and because she was, her husband Stephen is as well. Somehow, and I don't think it was ever explained, Suze gets the ability to translate the language of the whales, and instead of the peaceful, loving, gentle giants we've imagined them to be, they're furious and are mounting an attack against humanity for destroying the oceans and their species. What's worse is that Suze can hear them ALL the time, I think through water--and since the human body is primarily made up of water, that's why she can hear them all the time, and I daresay they can hear her. Suze is reduced to a crippled state of humanity and a vote is being called to decide what to do with the whales. The outcome may surprise you. I know it did me, because my expectations kept pushing me in one direction, even though the story was going in the other. Creepy story, and good.
"Firebird"
I couldn't help but smile when I saw the setting of this tale was a futuristic Wellesley College. I never went there, but I did go another women's-only campus, Hollins University. So I was amused to be able to bring my own experience to the table.
This tale focuses on Njeri, a college freshman who is THRILLED to be rooming with her ALL TIME IDOL Kay Myerson. What's so cool about Kay? A former member of a teenage girl band, Kay is notorious for "setting herself on fire to protest continued inaction on the issue of global climate change" (183). Kay's protest sparked a number of copycats, and while Njeri isn't one of them, she's completely beside herself to be a part of such a figurehead's life.
Only Kay is quiet, reclusive, and doesn't want to talk about IT. She doesn't even want to study anything that remotely relates to improving the global climate. Njeri is disappointed, and such disappointment escalates as she and Kay aren't the friends she'd hoped they'd become and Kay's continued apathy about getting back on the pedestal and pushing for environmental change. So Njeri takes action, and let's just say, talk about coming full circle with the ending.
It's a powerful tale, even though it's related via journal form and in the obvious voice of a gushing teenage fan girl, which Pelland handles beautifully. And I also found the ending to be satisfactorily ambiguous, but maybe that's my own cynical leaking through. I see Kay acting out of desperation, taking back her role in order to prevent anything like what Njeri done from every happening again, and Njeri's reaction to all of this is spot on. Yet I kept asking myself what the larger message was, especially in terms of doing the right thing for the environment and what extreme protests really mean.
Good tale.
"Brushstrokes"
Ah, last but not least. This is a beautiful story that warms my dystopian-loving heart. In fact, the only complaints I had about it were not knowing exactly when Earth planted these people on this sister planet, not knowing WHY these people were planted there, and where the City came from. There's a lot of fantastic world-building, and subtle world-building as well. I get the impression the answers are all there if I just slow down and take my time with the piece, but we all know I don't slow down much while reading. That's okay, it means I'll pick up more the second time.
The people in this world are obsessed with Earth. Obsessed as in fangirl/fanboy obsessed. They use broadcasts from Earth to create all means of entertainment, fashion, and household items, and while these details tripped me up at first, I was amazed at the simple ways they were weaved into the story.
The tale focuses on Seph who hates the Caste system and everything about the tyranny of his existence. He's Paintclad, and in love with a member of the higher class, an Adorned, named Rolland. There's a lot of rules involved with how members of different Castes can even meet to have sex with one another, and while it's a little confusing, the main point is that these two aren't supposed to be together, even though they both want something more from the other.
How does this fit into the larger tale? What is the larger tale? Lately there's been no new broadcasts from Earth for Seph and his co-workers to work on, and the stuff they are working on is old stuff, and ALL of it's bad news, tragic movies, etc. It didn't take me long to figure out that something had happened to Earth, and what pushes this tale along, aside from Seph's growing unhappiness and need to keep Rolland in his life no matter what the cost, is the sudden knowledge that the higher castes intend to keep this knowledge a secret from the people. Seph believes if they knew the truth, there would finally be a revolt against the Caste system, and that's all I'll say about that.
This book reminds me of many a dystopic novel: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We. The world-building, deliberation of prose, and the patience of it all also reminds me of Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky. All of these are great, thought-provoking/beautiful novels, and Pelland's tale is certainly that. This story is complex with a sympathetic character in a heart-tugging situation, and while the ending happens a wee bit too fast, it ends on just the right note.
Overall, I was pretty happy with this collection. I really liked 6/11 of the pieces (and when I say that, I mean 6/11 really engaged me), particularly "Captive Girl," "The Last Stand of the Elephant Man," and "Brushstrokes." I'm really, really looking forward to the day when Pelland releases a novel debut, because if these tales and the ideas fueling them are any indication, that novel's going to be a helluva ride.
This is an easy collection to recommend to anyone who enjoys thought-provoking SF, and for people who liked to be creeped out by their horror. As I already mentioned, Pelland mixes both genres excellently in most of the stories. Just be careful where you read this book: my fiance happened to glance at the cover and thought I was reading porn.
*smacks forehead*
Silly boy.
Next up: Spin State by Chris Moriarty