| Appleseed | ||||||||
| John Clute | ||||||||
| Orbit Books, 337 pages | ||||||||
|
A review by Rich Horton
The setting and technology are also densely imagined, and here I am less sure of
the success of the book. Much of it was nigh incomprehensible to me. Still, the setting remains fascinating,
and perhaps because of the difficulty of comprehension it may be the more convincing as a true far-future
world. That remains as ever the tightrope an SF writer must negotiate: how to convince the reader that the
future portrayed is a true future and not a slightly-altered present, while at the same time allowing the
reader to "inhabit" the space of the book.
Finally, the characters and plot are perhaps disappointments,
or at any rate not what this book is worth reading for. The central character remained distant, not
fully believable, and not very distinctive, though some of the peripheral characters were quite
interesting. And the plot, stripped of the ornate cladding of setting and language, is quite a straightforward
chase. Though that is hardly a negative feature; it's just not particularly a plus either.
To restate the above a bit differently: anyone familiar with John Clute's critical work will know that his
prose is not simple, though it is precise and at its best exhilarating. They will also know that Clute is
passionate about SF, and that he has an abiding fondness for the sub-genre called Space Opera. (And if, as I
have, they have read his only previous novel, the non-SF The Disinheriting Party (1977), they will know
that he can write difficult fiction indeed!) In many ways, Appleseed is precisely the SF novel one
might have expected from John Clute.
The story starts with Nathaniel Freer, an instance of that hoary SF trope, the solitary interstellar jobbing
trader, coming to a system called Trencher to pick up his latest cargo, a shipment of nanoforges for the planet
Eolxhir. Freer might seem at first glance an ordinary human, but we soon learn that his milieu is not ordinary at all.
Earth is long dead, a victim of a galaxy-wide information disease called "plaque", which seems to corrupt
any computer based systems it infects, leading to complete disorder of information. The still-uninfected
parts of the Galaxy are inhabited by a mix of "meat" species and AI's (or "Made Minds", in Clute's felicitous
term). Among these for some reason humans have a special place, due apparently to their sexual habits. The AI's
are extremely powerful, at full power making use of the quantum foam of the universe, but they are risky too as
they can carry plaque. At Trencher, Freer picks up his cargo and, in addition, buys a couple of potentially useful
Made Minds: the war machines SammSabaoth and Vipasanna. These seem especially fortunate acquisitions as Trencher
suddenly comes under attack, apparently from both plaque and from an inimical alien entity called Opsophagos of the Harpe.
Freer, his ship the Tile Dance, which may be an artifact of the mysterious Predecessor species, his
personal Made Mind companion, KathKirtt, his two new Made Minds, and an alien passenger named (delightfully)
Mamselle Cunning Earth Link, who is the only person who knows where they are going, find themselves in a
desperate fight/chase. Soon they are holed up in a sort of repair station/planetoid called Klavier, where
they meet an odd character who calls himself Johnny Appleseed, and they learn a bit more of the real cargo Freer
has picked up, and the value of this cargo. Furthermore, Appleseed has a surprise for Freer, in the form of
his long lost lover (also delightfully named: Ferocity Monthly-Niece). The book continues to spiral further
into strangeness. Though in the end, the basic outlines of the situation and a general sense of what has happened
come fairly clear. There is plenty of quite fierce action, but as with many books featuring purposefully
incredibly advanced tech, it's hard for the reader to quite believe in the peril to the characters, as the
powers of the players seem all but arbitrary. The final resolution manages to be emotionally affecting
despite some of the distancing effects of much of the book. A sequel seems probable, but this book comes to
a reasonable close in itself.
Read this book for the often intoxicating pleasure of the prosody -- though to some people's taste it may be simply
too much of a good thing. Or read it for the heavily recomplicated and well-imagined, if hard to follow, details
of the setting and technology. Or for the sense of a truly different future (though Clute does cheat just the
slightest bit: by having his protagonist's primary historical period of interest be 20th Century Earth he allows
himself to make a number of contemporary allusions). Or for the occasional funny dialogue -- particularly that of
Mamselle Cunning Earth Link, the most intriguingly depicted character. (At times I thought I detected echoes of
Alfred Bester, in particular.) Be prepared for a bit of a tough go -- transparent prose this ain't! And as I said,
the plot and characterization are not as interesting as the prose and setting -- so there are certainly
longueurs. But on the whole Appleseed rewards the effort, and I suspect it might reward a second
reading even more.
Rich Horton is an eclectic reader in and out of the SF and fantasy genres. He's been reading SF since before the Golden Age (that is, since before he was 13). Born in Naperville, IL, he lives and works (as a Software Engineer for the proverbial Major Aerospace Company) in St. Louis area and is a regular contributor to Tangent. Stop by his website at http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton. |
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