Automated Souls
Jan. 28th, 2012 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselJul 2011
The Holy Machine - Chris Beckett - Corvus, 2011
* * * * *
You are unlikely to have come across Chris Beckett unless you read the science fiction magazine Interzone, to which he has been a regular contibutor for many years. His stories always stood out for me because of their strong rootedness in urban Britain, a setting informed by his day job as a social worker. He is most certainly not an SF writer who could be accused of having no interest in people, and all his stories make observations about the nature of being human through the use of fantastical motifs. They are, in other words, proper science fiction, doing what science fiction ought to do.
It is often difficult for short story writers to find a publisher for their longer works and this one is no exception. It was originally released in the USA by a small independent press in 2004 and has only recently received a mass-market paperback edition in the UK. This is exceptionally pleasing, for it is a significant SF novel with things to say about the bang-up-to-date question of the co-existence of science and religion. It is also an affecting story about robots and humans and the potentially hazy border between the two. It thoroughly deserves to be more widely read.
The story is set in Illyria, an island run by scientists and engineers in a world turned to hell by religious extremism. George Simling is an everyman translator who lives with his mother Ruth. Both have obsessions, Ruth with a whole-body virtual world called SenSpace and George with a syntec (android) sex worker called Lucy. When syntecs start developing behaviours that go beyond their programming and the state threatens to erase their minds, George must decide between his calm and ordered existence in Illyria and a life on the run with the android he loves, even if that means fleeing to the harsh outlands where syntecs are seen as demons to be burnt or crucified.
The story is developed in a series of dramatic vignettes which effortlessly hold the attention. Beckett’s short story skills are put to very good use, with a beautiful Orwell-like economy of characterisation and description. One particularly outstanding chapter describes the first stirrings of sentience and I cannot think of an example where it has been done better. Nor is the overall shape of the novel lacking - the dramatic tension is maintained throughout and there is a transcendent ending in the best SF tradition. And the setting, with syntecs seen in Illyria as an alternative to immigrants as a way of getting menial jobs done, is profoundly topical even eight years after it was written.
A few small flaws do obtrude. One annoying stylistic quirk that is probably a hangover from the short stories is the excessive use of ellipsis (It is the sign of a lazy failure to develop the thoughts that you are trying to express properly, and should only be employed, in my opinion, with humorous intent (I generally use it as a slightly less crass alternative to a smiley face emoticon in emails). I would have liked at least some historical context for the Reaction, the series of events that led to the domination of the world by religious groups. Plotwise, there are some implausible coincidences, particularly towards the end of the novel. And occasionally the mask slips and characters express opinions that you feel are the author’s rather than their own (Uncle Tomo is a particularly egregious example). But these are minor. This is a first-rate SF novel and is strongly recommended.
The Holy Machine - Chris Beckett - Corvus, 2011
* * * * *
You are unlikely to have come across Chris Beckett unless you read the science fiction magazine Interzone, to which he has been a regular contibutor for many years. His stories always stood out for me because of their strong rootedness in urban Britain, a setting informed by his day job as a social worker. He is most certainly not an SF writer who could be accused of having no interest in people, and all his stories make observations about the nature of being human through the use of fantastical motifs. They are, in other words, proper science fiction, doing what science fiction ought to do.
It is often difficult for short story writers to find a publisher for their longer works and this one is no exception. It was originally released in the USA by a small independent press in 2004 and has only recently received a mass-market paperback edition in the UK. This is exceptionally pleasing, for it is a significant SF novel with things to say about the bang-up-to-date question of the co-existence of science and religion. It is also an affecting story about robots and humans and the potentially hazy border between the two. It thoroughly deserves to be more widely read.
The story is set in Illyria, an island run by scientists and engineers in a world turned to hell by religious extremism. George Simling is an everyman translator who lives with his mother Ruth. Both have obsessions, Ruth with a whole-body virtual world called SenSpace and George with a syntec (android) sex worker called Lucy. When syntecs start developing behaviours that go beyond their programming and the state threatens to erase their minds, George must decide between his calm and ordered existence in Illyria and a life on the run with the android he loves, even if that means fleeing to the harsh outlands where syntecs are seen as demons to be burnt or crucified.
The story is developed in a series of dramatic vignettes which effortlessly hold the attention. Beckett’s short story skills are put to very good use, with a beautiful Orwell-like economy of characterisation and description. One particularly outstanding chapter describes the first stirrings of sentience and I cannot think of an example where it has been done better. Nor is the overall shape of the novel lacking - the dramatic tension is maintained throughout and there is a transcendent ending in the best SF tradition. And the setting, with syntecs seen in Illyria as an alternative to immigrants as a way of getting menial jobs done, is profoundly topical even eight years after it was written.
A few small flaws do obtrude. One annoying stylistic quirk that is probably a hangover from the short stories is the excessive use of ellipsis (It is the sign of a lazy failure to develop the thoughts that you are trying to express properly, and should only be employed, in my opinion, with humorous intent (I generally use it as a slightly less crass alternative to a smiley face emoticon in emails). I would have liked at least some historical context for the Reaction, the series of events that led to the domination of the world by religious groups. Plotwise, there are some implausible coincidences, particularly towards the end of the novel. And occasionally the mask slips and characters express opinions that you feel are the author’s rather than their own (Uncle Tomo is a particularly egregious example). But these are minor. This is a first-rate SF novel and is strongly recommended.