Typhon's Children
I read Toni Anzetti's Typhon's Children a few weeks ago (and thanks mckitterick for recommending it); I wrote this review then and don't know why I didn't post it here.
In Typhon's Children, human settlers on Typhon find themselves on the brink of extinction as the second generation of settlers is born with deformities and disabilities. In the midst of the debate about how best to deal with this problem, a storm sweeps up on their home, on a small atoll in the middle of an ocean that covers most of the planet, destroying what they have built and carrying away three settlers on a small boat: Per, a first-generation (oldgen) settler with a traumatic and mysterious past; Dilani, a deaf girl of the second generation (newgen); and Bey, a newgen boy with only withered legs. Soon after the storm subsides, the three castaways encounter a friendly cephalopod (a dodecapod, to be precise) and begin to learn to communicate with it. The dodecapod, named Subtle (although the humans call him Twelve), leads them on an adventure to the depths of the ocean where all four encounter what Subtle/Twelve calls a god and they begin to change forms to better match the requirements of Typhon.
The novel is consistently interesting, building a believable world (complete with conflicts within the social structure, settlers' prejudices about disability and difference, and a lifestyle both built from and built in resistance to the place in which they live), racing forward with one plot development after another, and providing characters worth following. The real achievement of the book, however, is the shifting perspective between human and cephalopod consciousness. The first major portion of the book is primarily limited to the humans' perceptions of the world and developments within their society, but as the story progresses, Subtle/Twelve's consciousness becomes more important and is accessed more frequently. And, with the exception of one scene in which the cephalopod's relationship feels all too human in its expression and concerns, Anzetti's attempts to put the reader inside the mind of something completely nonhuman are convincing, especially when focused on descriptions of the humans and the surrounding environment. The language convinces in its concrete detail and in its frequently fumbling attempts to articulate something thoroughly foreign, though often familiar to the reader.
In Typhon's Children, human settlers on Typhon find themselves on the brink of extinction as the second generation of settlers is born with deformities and disabilities. In the midst of the debate about how best to deal with this problem, a storm sweeps up on their home, on a small atoll in the middle of an ocean that covers most of the planet, destroying what they have built and carrying away three settlers on a small boat: Per, a first-generation (oldgen) settler with a traumatic and mysterious past; Dilani, a deaf girl of the second generation (newgen); and Bey, a newgen boy with only withered legs. Soon after the storm subsides, the three castaways encounter a friendly cephalopod (a dodecapod, to be precise) and begin to learn to communicate with it. The dodecapod, named Subtle (although the humans call him Twelve), leads them on an adventure to the depths of the ocean where all four encounter what Subtle/Twelve calls a god and they begin to change forms to better match the requirements of Typhon.
The novel is consistently interesting, building a believable world (complete with conflicts within the social structure, settlers' prejudices about disability and difference, and a lifestyle both built from and built in resistance to the place in which they live), racing forward with one plot development after another, and providing characters worth following. The real achievement of the book, however, is the shifting perspective between human and cephalopod consciousness. The first major portion of the book is primarily limited to the humans' perceptions of the world and developments within their society, but as the story progresses, Subtle/Twelve's consciousness becomes more important and is accessed more frequently. And, with the exception of one scene in which the cephalopod's relationship feels all too human in its expression and concerns, Anzetti's attempts to put the reader inside the mind of something completely nonhuman are convincing, especially when focused on descriptions of the humans and the surrounding environment. The language convinces in its concrete detail and in its frequently fumbling attempts to articulate something thoroughly foreign, though often familiar to the reader.