Roberts, Adam: Gradisil
Gradisil
Writer: Adam Roberts
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 547
Disclaimer: free from Pyr Books
Between the Pyr catalogue and the critics, this book nabbed my attention and curiosity pretty fast. So much so that once I got my hands on it, rather than letting it sit on my bookshelf, I moved it to the priority pile and read it as soon as possible.
Some critics have called this book “space opera.” If this is space opera, then I’m a Wookie. And maybe I should clarify my definition here and explain why I don’t think Gradisil fits under that particular sub-genre.
I’ve always defined space opera as adventures in space. How adventurous doesn’t matter, but what does matter is that there’s a lot of stuff happening that technically isn’t possible or plausible, depending on your view of science. FTL drives, aliens, etc. Space operas are often epic in nature, with characters you can’t help but love, and are more focused on the story/characters/moral than the science. In fact, the science is usually a backdrop for the tale to take place.
That’s *my* definition, which I admit is quite limited and may be faulty. And I’ll give Gradisil this: it is epic in that the tale spans three generations of one family. It’s got complex characters that aren’t easy to love, but certainly easy to empathize with. And, there is a moral to be taken away from this tale, though it’d be interesting to see how different readers would interpret said moral.
So maybe I’m a Wookie after all. But I’ve never read space opera that has such a focus on the science that makes the tale possible, and said science reads quite plausible, though in my ignorance I’d believe anything if it’s wrapped up in the proper packaging. But between the focus on science and the fact that this tale takes place in the near-future and very, very close to Earth (you can’t get much closer, since it takes place in the planet’s atmosphere), I have difficulty categorizing it as space opera. Maybe hard SF, or to use a newer term that’s been making rounds around the internet these days, “mundane SF.”
Whatever the sub-genre, I enjoyed this book immensely. But it’s taken me a few days to organize my thoughts, because Roberts gives his readers plenty to stew over, plenty to consider. And while I’ll stress again that I really enjoyed this book, there’s a lot I want to pick at as well.
I apologize, but this is very, very long. And it's not even for grad school, so I don't know what's wrong with me. :)
Gradisil is divided into three very uneven chunks. Part One details the birth of the Uplands, describes its citizens and culture, and shows the birth of the title character, Gradisil. Part Two details Gradisil’s charismatic force as the unofficial President of the Uplands, who unites the citizens, and brings them into a war with the US that they can’t possibly win. Part Three deals with Gradisil’s children, and what the war has done to them, and how they aim to carry on their mother’s legacy.
Part One is by far the most complete and compelling section in the whole book. Granted, I’ll admit my bias since it’s written in the first person, but I found myself sucked into the point of view of Klara, who starts out as an innocent but practical girl driven to revenge and madness by her father’s murder. This woman is amazingly complex, and her goals are simple: she wants to avenge her father’s murder, and she wants a home of her own in the Uplands. Said goals land her into a heap of trouble, and the end of this part packs quite the sucker punch when the reader realizes just how misguided her vengeance might have been. Part One ends on just the right note, setting the reader up for what appears to be a documentary of the Uplands, with each character detailing his or her role. Part One is so good that I recommend other readers to take a BREAK before moving on to Part Two. A couple hours, maybe overnight. Just enough time to digest the awesomeness of Part One, because it really, really packs the punch.
I took said break. And once I started Part Two, I was VERY glad I did. Part Two doesn’t follow the narrative rules set up in Part One at all. The label of “Gradisil” made me think that Gradisil would be narrating her own story as Klara did in the previous section, but that is far from the case. The first chapter is told loosely from the third person perspective of Slater, though the narrative voice seems to imply a first person guiding us through, but it’s not so distracting the reader can’t settle down with Slater and figure out what his story is. In a word, war. Slater is part of the US force occupying the Uplands and is jonesing for a war, because apparently, soldiers without war get antsy, and will do anything necessary to get war underway. Through Slater, we learn that Gradisil is the unofficial President of the Uplands, and therefore, a very important person, someone the US fears a great deal. Slater’s third person POV is very clipped, practical, and a little difficult to get a handle on, the latter I’ll explain in a minute.
The second chapter gives us an entirely new POV, from Gradisil’s husband Paul. Paul’s POV is very much first person, very much present tense, and very poetic, such as it is. Paul is an introspective soul, an emotional soul, and his tale details Gradi’s rise to power, and why he betrayed her to the Americans.
Never once do we get Gradisil’s POV. And, now that I’ve read the book, I understand why. Gradisil, as a character, is meant to be judged by her actions. We’re not meant to understand her from the inside out, but rather, we’re meant to understand her as her family, friends, colleagues, and enemies understand her: as an enigma. Someone with an amazing amount of charisma. A woman who’ll do whatever it takes to unite the Uplands into their own nation. And through Paul’s POV, we’re meant to question if her sacrifices are truly worthy.
I had a few problems with Part Two. The first one, which was more of a stumble, really, was the slight evolution of the English language. Roberts takes care to show that the English language, particularly the spelling, evolves over time just like technology. Only, it appears to evolved for the worse, using spellings that cut out unpronounced consonants and vowels, such as “wat” for “what” and “bak” for “back,” and so on and so forth. This made the inner-grammar-monster crazy until I recognized the pattern and understood it was intentional. Still, it slowed my reading down quite a bit, and I could never really wrap my head around this future way of speaking, despite the fact I think it was a clever device. Language is something often overlooked when it comes to SF, with people speaking as they do in current times (hey, I’m guilty), so I was pleased with Roberts’ experiment, even though it drove said inner-grammar-monster crazy. And it makes sense that English becomes simpler. Anyone who’s ever followed a message board, forum, and chat online knows how we’re bastardizing the language.
Other problems: war. This isn’t a complaint, but I kept having trouble with Roberts’ characterization of soldiers, and how nations, particularly the US, are always chomping at the bit for another war. No doubt, this book is a product of the times, and from that perspective, I don’t blame Roberts at all. Yet, I wonder if Roberts is exaggerating America’s current stance in the war on terror (clearly, there’s a Cheney parallel, as well as a Bush), or if his perspective is more from how the US looks to the rest of the nations. Meaning: his future war-mongering US seems to be a clear reflection of his own views of current events, but is he exaggerating those views for the sake of his book, or does he (really, the rest of the world) think that’s how the US and its soldiers truly are?
That’s what bugged me: I didn’t mind the explanation of war as a legal game (whether this what war has evolved into, which I think is the case, or what it is now, I don’t know. My political education is seriously lacking), but I did mind the implication that ALL SOLDIERS ARE WAR HAPPY. That’s the core of my beef. While I’m no supporter of current events, I'm not a pacifist either. Soldiers are human too, and they have lives that extend beyond the military. I know soldiers who don’t live for war.
BUT!!! I’m not trying to put words or opinions in Roberts’ mouth. All I can do is take what I’ve got, which is the text, and say that based on the text, the US is war-hungry, particularly its soldiers, but because war is more of a legal game, it’s not anything like the bloodshed we see today (which, for the record, is what makes the Upland’s strike so vivid and close to home, which is as awesome as it is disturbing, so kudos). My questions and ramblings aim more to what has influenced Roberts to extrapolate such a society, and is definitely curiosity, not accusation.
Now that dug myself into *that* hole, Slater’s POV was a curious one: granted, it gave us an inside perspective on the US and how war was being organized. Roberts also humanizes Slater by showing him with his family, though there’s something to be said about that too, later. And I think Slater certainly undergoes a transformation, though I think the impetus of that change took WAY too long to happen. You’ll know it when you hit that chapter, which I found to be a bit unbelievable and unnecessary until I saw where Roberts was going with it (nice symbolism with Lucifer there, and excellent resolution to his marital problems), but even then, I still had a hard time suspending disbelief. It’s in that chapter and the aftermath thereof that made me wonder how scientifically plausible the action really was, because sadly, I really *don’t* know, and I have a hard time believing such a thing could really happen in real life.
There’s not much to say about Paul’s chapters. No doubt, it’s in those chapters I find the interesting details, such as rape-deterrent devices and the exploration of pharmakos and all the uses thereof, which include changing a person’s sexual preferences. Good stuff. Paul, as a character, I found a bit whiny and difficult to deal with, but he provided the closest view of Gradisil and her politics that we got, and therefore, was quite important as a character.
Part Two is the bulk of the book, which left Part Three a bit on the short side. Part Three focuses on Hope, Gradi’s oldest son, and the funny thing is, it’s told from a first person omniscient narrator (and it seems when the first chapter of Part Three opens, the narrator is someone in on the action, but no, that’s not the case, so that was quite confusing), but in all actually, is third person limited to Hope. As I’ve already mentioned, the POV is very confusing. And then there’s the continued devolution of the English language, which apparently imitates the American Southern accent. At least, that’s how I read it, with all the comin’s and goin’s, etc. Pretty much anything that ends in an “ing” is shortened, which follows Roberts’ rule of dropping the unnecessary vowels and consonants from the language. Again, a clever device, but I kept reading the prose as Southern, and I’m not sure that was Roberts’ intent. Plus, it aggravated the inner-grammar-monster. ;)
Moving on, Hope’s stuck between a rock and a hard place: on one hand, he’s meeting an investor for a project he’s been throwing his inheritance into for 15 years, and the project is the biggest thing since the creation of the Uplands themselves. On the other hand, his brother is thirsty for vengeance for the betrayal of their mother, who was shot while attempting to escape sometime after their dad turned her in to the Americans.
Good conflict here, and good characterization, though I felt the resolution and ending was very abrupt, which is another reason it’s taken me a while to gather my thoughts. And really, there’s not much to discuss. I would’ve liked to see the aftermath of Paul’s execution and how said media frenzy affected Hope’s business dealings. Hope obviously believes he’s lost, but I was curious if that was really the case. I suspect so, but I would’ve liked to see that sub-plot tied up a wee bit more. I suspect that the brother’s actions have likely pushed the Uplands into another war with the Americans, though we never learn for certain. I was also curious about Slater’s role in this section. He’s a celebrity, and his appearance allows the brothers to take their revenge on their dad, but it’s almost coincidence, that Hope just happened to be on the station the day his father flew up for Slater’s celebrity appearance. And Hope’s character felt a little inconsistent, because after he called his brother to report his dad (and he KNEW what his brother would do), he whined and moaned about worried about the coming murder, and how it shouldn’t be done. My response to this overly emotional and whiny (though complex, I gotta give him that) character is that he didn’t have to call his brother to begin with.
And during the course of the book, I kept trying to connect the dots plot-wise. No doubt, Gradisil is the thread-line, as she’s named for the magnetic tree that runs through the Earth that allows spaceflight, which was actually Klara’s father’s nickname for it, based on mythology. The symbolism and the name and how it was used through-out the book was delightful. So that connection, I like. But I kept wondering about the plot itself: the assassination of Klara’s father by an American spy wasn’t what provoked the war between the Uplands and the US, though I suspect that was the inciting incident that focused Gradi’s perspective on the US. And I can see how the American spy was really just a scout to the Uplands for the eventual American occupation. So I get that. I still wonder why Klara’s father had to be murdered, and I only wonder that because we never get a real explanation for it, other than the spy (I can’t remember her name and I don’t have the book on me) needed the house and the ship. So I guess the dad was a victim of circumstance. And since it provided a compelling drama for Part One, I’ll forgive it. ;)
But I would like to make one observation: while all the characters, male and female, are complex and far from perfect characters anyone would want to emulate, it stuck in my mind the treatment of the women. Klara and Gradisil are emotionally distant and cold, women who’ll do anything and give up anything to get what they want, and this includes turning their backs on their own children. The American Spy, also a woman, is very similar, and while she was a delight to read, and I didn’t expect any sort of deep emotion out of her, she too was completely emotionally detached from everything around her, again doing whatever necessary to get what she wanted. Marina, Slater’s wife, turns out to be schizophrenic, and believes her hallucinations are visions and messages from God. Fabulous characterization there, if not for the fact that Slater so clearly resents this and derides her faith no matter what form it takes, even when she simply goes to church while keeping her hallucinations medicated.
Conclusion: all of the women in Gradisil are either emotionally cold (though if these women were men, no one would bat an eyelash, so I’m most likely reading too much into it) or crazy (male or female, this would get some looks).
Again, no accusations here, just an observation. I’m looking forward to seeing if this is common in Roberts’ other books.
For all my ramblings, nit-picks, complaints, and curiosities, I really did enjoy this book. It’s not often you get something entertaining that makes you think as well. And I’m looking forward to reading more of Roberts’ work. And I mentioned the “moral” earlier, and for me, I took this away from the book: no matter how optimistic or grand the technology, humans will always find a way to fuck things up.
That may be pessimistic of me, and I may very well be projecting, but as a reader, I distrust fictional societies where society itself, human nature itself, is ignored in favor of glorifying technology. There is no such glorification here, at least, not by the end. The science of this book was easy enough to follow, even humorous in some places (Part One, how much do I love thee? Let me count the ways…), and Roberts writes with a wonderfully literary style, which I found refreshing, and quite appropriate for the subject matter. It’s a complex, compelling tale of human nature, politics, and what it might mean when we start to colonize the stars. And as Roberts reveals, getting out of Earth’s shadow may not be as easy as we’d like to think.
I bought this for a friend of mine, by the way, if that tells you anything about my enjoyment of this book. If you’re a fan of SF, and you prefer complex, realistic thought experiments with well-developed characters, you’ve got to give this book a shot.
Next up: Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction: May 2007