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| The cat was open source. |
I made the mistake* in trying to recall, with any clarity, the plot of this book (which has worried at me – less so than its predecessor, If Then, which was truly haunting and disconcerting – since I finished reading it around the time of my youngest’s birth), of looking for some polished reviews online, and found one of the relevant year’s Arthur C. Clarke Shadow Jury members doing my work for me, but also giving it a gentle savaging.
In her review, Nina Allan pays all due respect to De Abaitua’s abilities:
That De Abaitua navigates the often abstruse territory of his particular science fiction without once sacrificing the predominantly literary values of formal coherence or linguistic suppleness is yet more testament to his skill, not just as a writer but as a thinker.
That certainly chimes with my own feelings: I sometimes think what it might be to have the cognitive ability to sit and write and make sense of something as complex as the human drive for self-destruction, and marvel at the apparent ease with which writers like this one, Jeff VanderMeer and China Miéville, seem to deliver artistry of such quality**.
I also wonder what life might be like without 6 kids in the house.
She is, however, lukewarm about De Abaitua giving in to such a prosaic and pedestrian force as narrative drive, noting that in the latter sections it loses some of its complexity with the appearance of ‘classic’ sci-fi tropes – tough-as-nails, skin-tight space-suit wearing female ubermensch***, a giant space squid, and so on.
Still, she does admit it comes down to personal preference, and the book made it onto the shortlist after all.
In a second review from the same website, posted by Megan AM, someone who blogs about sci-fi and bemoans the paucity of quality deriving from the tension in publishing between originality and authenticity and the pressures of mainstream publishing, the critic lays into the lack of positive female characters, noting how the original emergence and kick-starter of the digitally apocalyptic Seizure, Totally Damaged Mom, is brought into being by a mother misguidedly protecting her damaged daughter from the bullying of another damaged young girl. I wondered about that – given the protagonist, or at least the character on whom the narrative focusses for the most part, is an emotional wreck, stunted and stymied from his previous addiction to weirdcore and totally disengaged from the world in which he finds himself and his constant companion, the emergence AI Dr Easy (who you may remember from the previous two novels) – but honestly, I’m not the best judge of what a stereotypical female sci-fi character might or might not be in the eyes of its female readership.
So****, long-windedly, to my own feelings, and I find myself disquieted and conflicted. I properly enjoyed all three novels of the Seizure trilogy, in different ways (mostly in an awestruck way) and want strongly to defend them from attack. Conceptually, literally, narratively, I find The Destructives a quality, challenging and articulate read and I felt no lessening of impact by the passage into space of Theodore Drown, of the appearance of the Ballardian mega-mall, of the afore-mentioned space-cephalopod, or Patricia the Executive Space Sexpot (the name Patricia conjures some unfortunate personal demons but I’m willing to forgive the unknowing transgression – how gracious of me). De Abaitua made me re-read Olaf Stapledon after all.
However, it seems I naturally overlook what to others may seem to be obvious flaws or lacunae, and that makes me nervous. People much better qualified (or at least with more experience) are tutting and sighing, and I don’t like to be on the wrong side of history.
But I ask myself, what in the “inventive, affectless shenanigans of an extrovert, full-frontal ‘sci-fi’ novel”, full of poignant and timely questions about AI, the numb acceptance of Western consumer and capitalist societal mores, and questions about what constitutes natural/artificial is there not to like? And if I’m honest with myself, I can’t come up with much.
*In retrospect, not so much a mistake as gifting agency to externals to influence how I enjoy the act of reading and being confused
**Not ignoring the sheer
hard work that must also go in under the surface
***The word is gender-neutral, look it up
****With apologies, as ever, to my longsuffering life partner with whom I have long conversations about the unqualified ‘so’ becoming ubiquitous and, therefore, most irritating.
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