Monday Review: Afterlife - The Resurrection Chronicles by Merrie DeStefano

Afterlife is a bit of a schizophrenic book. The cover is all neo-Twilight urban fantasy, but the premise is definitely more psuedo-science than traditional fantasy. To explain: Afterlife is set in New Orleans some time in the future, where science has found a way to instantly transport your dead soul into a cloned body. Up to nine times, which seems somewhat arbitrary, and the whole resurrection process was never really explained to my satisfaction (probably should have left it in the realms of urban fantasy, I think). Cue a philosophical sci-fi thriller dealing with cloning, immortality and religious faith (yes, there are nominally Christian characters in there, puzzling these things over). From the blurb:

Chaz Dominguez is a professional Babysitter in New Orleans, helping to integrate the recently deceased into their new and improved lives. Though Fresh Start has always been the only game in town, resurrection isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nine lives are all a person can get—and a powerful group of desperate, high-level Nine-Timers will stop at nothing to possess the keys to true immortality. Now the only hope for Chaz and his family—and the human race—lies in the secrets locked away in the mind of Angelique, the beautiful, mysterious Newbie he must protect . . .

Afterlife presents (insufficient science notwithstanding) an interesting premise, an undoubtedly interesting world, and what should have been an interesting and action-filled plot, but then, at times I just didn't get it. The multiple POV characters I can cope with, for instance, unless you make one of them a dog. And I'm not sure where the 'Resurrection Chronicles' thing comes from, as it was all wrapped up mighty neatly at the end of this book!

So much for the quibbles though; is it any good? Well, it's actually not bad, unless you were expecting Twilight, in which case you'll likely be baffled by all the science-fictiony stuff that sneaks in. If you ignore the cover and take my word for it that this is actually a dystopian story in which the 'ideal' world, where near immortality is available to all, has gone horribly, terribly wrong, then you might get a kick out of it.

A Christian sci-fi/fantasy reader looking for something thought-provoking but non-threatening to recommend to a friend might find the subjects of immortality, faith and science gone bad as covered in this story will provide good copnversation starters. Afterlife is definitely something different; I'm still not quite sure what it is, but it's different, and that's got to be worth something.

Friday Review: The Enclave by Karen Hancock

Before I start my way through the slight backlog of reviews here, I will let you know that voting for the Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction is open for a couple more days. If you’ve read at least two of the nominations, hop over and use your vote...

I will, of course, be supporting those in the science fiction corner, starting with this, Karen Hancock's second sci-fi tale.

The story opens with Lacey McHenry, latest recruit at the Kendall-Jakes Longevity Institute, butting heads with the Institute's rising star, Cameron Reinhardt. After Lacey is attacked late one night, the two of them form an uneasy alliance, and go on to uncover the shady side of the Institute's work.

This story is interwoven with a second, entirely seperate story, set in New Eden, the Enclave of the title, where a few lucky survivors shelter underground from the poisoned world above. As the novel progresses, puzzling links between the two threads become apparent.

There is a lot to like about this novel. Reinhardt is a possibly odd combination of soldier and genetic scientist, but as a Christian character he is nicely flawed. Lacey too is a lapsed Christian, and both of them have a believable and not overdone faith experience during the course of their adventures.

And the theme of genetic manipulation allows the Christian characters to think about that most useful Biblical word (to spec-fic writers anyway): Nephilim. The mysterious nature of these creatures makes them an easy subject for Christian sci-fi, but here they are nicely understated.

So this is my pick for the Clive Staples; a well-told science fiction adventure with believably flawed Christians. What more can a person ask for?

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

This month the CSFF Blog Tour is featuring The Enclave by Karen Hancock, a techno-thriller about cloning and genetic engineering, which can only mean one thing: the Top Ten Genetically Modified Tunes! Tell me when this starts getting old, won't you?

10. Alice Cooper: Clones (We're All)
Not one of Ms Cooper’s better efforts, but it was either this or Same Genes by The View…
9. Blur: Gene by Gene
Blur taking a step away from their Britpop roots here, from 2003's Think Tank.
8. Phonophani: Genetic Engineering
All together now: because every tour needs at least 7 1/2 minutes quality electronica...
7. X-Ray Spex: Genetic Engineering
And, wherever possible, some proper English punk rock!
6. Catatonia: My Selfish Gene
Nice chilled tune from my favourite Welsh band.
5. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy: Socio-Genetic Experiment
You remember these guys from Television, the Drug of the Nation - no doubt more true now than back in '92...
4. Gene: Olympian
Britpop meets The Smiths, anybody?
3. A Flock of Seagulls: D.N.A.
This is a great piece of New Wave electro-pop. I'm gonna be listening to this stuff for a while now...
2. Ash: Clone
Seriously, turn this one all the way up to eleven!
1. Aardvark Spleen: Gonna Steal Your DNA
I'm not even going to attempt to describe this. No actually, folk-rock with humourour philosophical lyrics about covers it. Anyway, this track seemed appropriate, and beats Ash purely for the band's name.

So once you've finished your little wander through my eclectic offerings, don't forget the blog tour is actually about a book, and continues this way:
Brandon Barr Jennifer Bogart Keanan Brand Grace Bridges Canadianladybug Melissa Carswell Valerie Comer Amy Cruson CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Karina Fabian Beth Goddard Todd Michael Greene Heather R. Hunt Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Dawn King Mike Lynch Melissa Meeks Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika Eve Nielsen Nissa John W. Otte Steve Rice Crista Richey James Somers Speculative Faith Stephanie Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Fred Warren Elizabeth Williams

CSFF Blog Tour - The Enclave

This week the CSFF Blog Tour features The Enclave by Karen Hancock. The Enclave is Karen's sixth (count 'em) novel, following the sci-fi allegory Arena, and the Legends of the Guardian-King fantasy quadrilogy.

Unfortunately (though understandably) the review copies were only available in the US, so I haven't read it yet. However, from what I have managed to glean from the posts on this tour so far and reviews elsewhere, and from the author's website, The Enclave sounds like a thriller novel with some science fiction elements thrown in.

For instance, rather than create a whole new world, the author created a world within a world like ours, having seen the Biosphere 2 project in the news. And where it could have gone really sf is with the theme of cloning, and it's effects on the human soul. There's plenty of real science happening in the field of genetics, waiting to be extrapolated and have spiritual discussion based on; not having read the book, I don't know whether this has been toned down a little so as not to scare off the CBA market, but I can't imagine it being a real hard-sf tome. Anyway, no-one wants to get bogged down in excessive info-dumps and 'As you know Bob' scenes, so I'm going to assume she got the balance right based on the fact that none of the non-sf readers on the tour (that I've read so far at least) have commented on it.

Well I think I've rambled on long enough without saying anything, all that remains is to point you in the direction of your fellow tourists this week:

Brandon Barr Jennifer Bogart Keanan Brand Grace Bridges Canadianladybug Melissa Carswell Valerie Comer Amy Cruson CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Karina Fabian Beth Goddard Todd Michael Greene Heather R. Hunt Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Dawn King Mike Lynch Melissa Meeks Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika Eve Nielsen Nissa John W. Otte Steve Rice Crista Richey James Somers Speculative Faith Stephanie Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Fred Warren Elizabeth Williams

Rubbish stories, saviour siblings and unlikely superheroes

I have spent my writing time over the last couple of days working on a short story which hasn't worked. The short story is still a genre which baffles me. I can do short-shorts, blast an idea out in 500 words, but most of the contests I’m considering ask for about three times that, which is way beyond what I can get to at the moment.

There again, I had the same problem when I started attempting novels – the first few chapters would be ok, an interesting story sprinkled with witty one-liners, but then I’d find I had used all my ideas, lose the plot, so to speak, and end up waffling until finally realising it was all crap and giving up.

A couple of those abandoned in a desk drawer somewhere and I finally managed to put something of novel length together that I thought was far enough from rubbish to release on the world.

Practice, as they say, makes slightly better.

It's kind of a shame I haven't got to grips with it yet, because there's plenty of real life material for sf stories at the moment: two UK universities have been given research licences to start work creating human-animal hybrid embryos; along similar lines, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill currently going though Parliament will also allow the creation of "saviour siblings", essentially genetically engineered kids created to provide healthy tissue for a sick sibling.

Both of these things have been opposed by some Christian groups, but I'm more interested in the fact that, well, if a saviour sibling isn't a cool short sf character, I don't know what is. If I was a better writer, maybe I could do a nice, thought-provoking piece about that. I may yet give it a try anyway.

I'm probably more likely to write about the hybrid embryo that accidentally developed into... HeiferMan! Part man, part cow, Britain's latest super hero has the amazing ability to stand in fields for a long time, know when it's going to rain, and be slightly inconvenient to ramblers.

Well, practice, as they say...

The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul

Eternal life. Immortality. The fountain of eternal youth.

Humanity's quest for these have been motifs of fiction for probably as long as there has been fiction; mythical adventurers seeking the elixir of life, that sort of thing.

Recently science fiction has offered a whole new way of living forever - in fact, several:

• Vampire legends have allowed a form of eternal life for many years; although this largely belongs in the fantasy/horror genres, there is no reason not to invent a science fiction twist to the original legend (which, in itself, can be seen as a subversion of the Christian communion, but that's another subject).
• In Red Dwarf, Lister extended his life by 3 million years by going into stasis, thus comfortably outliving the entire human race. Despite still being 'mortal', Lister's predicament nicely illustrates one of the less desirable potential side-effects of immortalilty.
• Advances in medical science can be extrapolated or invented to cure almost anything, slow down aging, and extend life for as long as is necessary for the story in hand.
• Probably the most spiritual form of eternal life in contemporary sf is 'ascension'; in Stargate: SG-1, Daniel Jackson ascends to become a being of pure energy, exisiting on a higher state of existence. However, in Jackson's case at least, the process transpired to be reversable.
• Eternal life in cyberspace. I guess this kind of idea was a part of the Cyberpunk genre: the uploading of one's memories and personality into a huge computer system where it can live on long after the expiration date of the physical form.
• Taking the concept a step further, in The Sixth Day, personality and memories can be uploaded into a clone of the physical form repeatedly, effectively extending life indefinitely.
• Douglas Adams, in typical Douglas Adams style, created an immortal character - Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged - who 'had had his imortality inadvertantly thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands.'

And since I can't possibly hope to top that sentence, I shall offer today's poser (borrowed from a cyberpunk story, I think Greg Egan's Permutation City):

If a simulation is perfect in every way, is it still a simulation, or is it the real thing?

For instance, is a clone of you, with your personality and memories, you? If both exist at once, which is the real you? And how do you know?

Perhaps more relavent to the Christian worldview, does the clone have a soul? Does the cyberspace copy of you?

Another interesting point from the Christian worldview is that if you could physically live forever, you wouldn't need Christ's salvation to gain eternal life. Or to put it another way, rather than 'dying to sin', you would have to physically die in order to receive it.