It's time to take a break from manga for the time being, and move on to books that have more words than pictures.
This time, our trip down memory lane will take us into the future, with The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer. Colfer's probably most known for the Artemis Fowl series, though he did write several stand-alone novels (and adult novels now!) I never got into the Artemis Fowl books, but have enjoyed Colfer's other works. I first read The Supernaturalist when I was fifteen, and remember enjoying it a lot. It's not typical of what you would normally think of Colfer's books, in that it's science-fiction. No faeries, no demons and angels, but a lot of cool technology. That's not to say that it's without its otherworldly creatures--this is Eoin Colfer we're talking about, after all.
And before I go any further, I want to point out that "Eoin" is pronounced "Owen". This is because Gaelic makes no sense.
The introduction to the book, the main character, and the world itself are very direct. It starts with a baby, abandoned in Satellite City, where the book takes place. The baby (named Cosmo Hill, as he was found on Cosmonaut Hill) is sent to Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys, the kind of orphanage that Miss Hannigan would be proud to run. Clarissa Frayne makes all its money through product testing. That is, the boys they take in become test subjects for various companies. Just in the introduction, we're told that Cosmo's "teeth were white than white, and his hair was lustrous and flake-free; but his insides felt like they were being scored with a radioactive wire brush." It's quickly established that the life expectancy for an orphan at Clarissa Frayne is fifteen years old. Fourteen-year-old Cosmo knows that he's running out of time, and is determined to escape.
This is all told to use within the first seven paragraphs of the book.
Normally, I wouldn't like an introduction like this. There's no dialogue, no action, just facts about the world and the main character. However, I have been reading Neuromancer by William Gibson lately, and Gibson doesn't explain anything. It's fine to leave your characters in the dark, and it's fine to withhold information from the audience. However, you shouldn't withhold so much information that the reader doesn't have a clue what's going on. Like whether your characters are on a space station or on Earth. Really, Gibson, it's not that hard. Just say they're on a fucking space station already, so I don't have to keep guessing.
But I digress.
After the introduction to the main character and the setting, we finally get to see what Cosmo's life is like at the orphanage. Even though The Supernaturalist doesn't sport the matrix, hackers, or AI, I would still say that it's a cyberpunk novel. It has many staples of the genre: high-tech, low life; the heroes are criminals and outcasts; powerful corporations; Earth a decade or so into the future, and that future is terrible. This book was my introduction to cyberpunk, which I enjoy a lot.
Cosmo's day-in, day-out routine isn't easy, especially since he's a human guinea pig. The orphans are rounded up, put through whatever product testing needs to be done for the day, then get sent back to their "dorm" to rest for the night. I bring up the dorm specifically because it was something that really confused me when I first read this book.
This setup was something I found nearly impossible to picture as a teenager. I think it was "pipes" that threw me off. I can visualize it better now, but don't really see how something - pipes and wires holding who knows how many kids - could be stable. Even though it's made clear from the start that Clarissa Frayne doesn't really care about the well-being of its "no-sponsors", I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want the whole thing to collapse.
I also want to know what they do with babies that come into the Institute. I imagine there's some kind of nursery, but when do they decide that the kids are old enough to be product testers? Or are they given experimental formula right from the get-go? Considering the way these kids are treated, I'm guessing it's the latter.
We actually don't see too much of Clarissa Frayne in this first chapter, because most of the real action starts when the orphans are being transported back to the institute. I also like how Colfer fits in little details about the world without being too overt about it. For example, when Cosmo takes a survey, it's a "sixty-kilobyte questionnaire" and he ticks off answers with a "digi-pen". It's a small detail, but it tells you that this setting is influenced heavily by electronics. This only gets reinforced when we learn about the Satellite. The Satellite runs almost everything in the city (Appropriately, called Satellite City, nicknamed "The Big Pig"), including the vehicles. When the bus Cosmo's in loses its link to the Satellite, the driver doesn't even know how to control it manually using the steering wheel. While it begs the question, "why have a driver in the first place?" this event kicks off Cosmo's escape.
The bus gets slammed onto its side by other vehicles that are still linked to the Satellite, making them essentially on autopilot. After a collision leaves on its side, most of the adults - the marshals - are badly injured and out for the count. Mostly. There are only two marshals that are given names and Redwood is one of them. Not only is he wholly unpleasant, he's sadistic and has no problem choking one of his charges, who happens to be cuffed to Cosmo. Redwood actually lets Cosmo and Ziplock get off the bus and make a break for the city. Unbeknownst to them, they're still being tracked, and all Redwood has to do is follow their tracker patterns to get to the kids, which gives us this exchange:
It goes on for a couple more paragraphs, with Redwood having to explain step-by-step how to email those tracker patterns. This could have been done to explain to the reader how it works, or as a way to give Cosmo and his cuffed partner more time. It didn't really seem important to me when I first read the book, but now I love it.
Wherever you work, you will always have the one idiot coworker who doesn't know what they're doing. If you're lucky, they'll also make your job difficult due to their incompetence. And if you're really lucky, like me, you will be the one person in the entire office that everyone comes to when they have IT problems. Then they act like you're a wizard when you fix it, but all you've done is Google the solution.
Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, I appreciate that even in the future, there will still be idiots who don't know how to do their jobs.
Redwood catches up to the boys on a rooftop, and he grabs Ziplock's jumpsuit at the edge of the roof to try to take him back. The jumpsuit rips, however, sending Ziplock and Cosmo over the edge, and landing on a generator. Both receive a huge electrical shock and get blown off the roof. Ziplock dies, Cosmo is badly hurt. He sees strange blue creatures land on him, and they seem to be sucking away his life force. He is rescued by three strangers who are reluctant to take Cosmo with them, until he starts talking about the blue creatures.
The story itself has a few good twists that really keep the plot moving, and there's a lot of foreshadowing when Cosmo meets the group. On one hand, it makes me feel smart that I can recognize the plot points before they become plot points, but on the other, it makes me cringe a little bit. Not because it's too clunky or poorly written, but because a lot of trouble could have been avoided by one character speaking up sooner.
Reading this now, the exposition does bother me a little bit. In a sci-fi or fantasy setting, I much prefer information being gradually revealed, usually through characters telling the new guy what's going on. It's needed in this chapter, though, with Cosmo and Ziplock already being familiar with the "rules" of the universe they live in. I much prefer it to having no information, at any rate. There were also a couple things I noticed that I didn't when I first read this book. The first chapter seems much darker to me, for a start. A kid gets killed, Redwood only gives them the chance to escape so he has an excuse to punish them; Ziplock, specifically, because he's the one who's always mouthing off at Redwood. It's kind of disturbing how the adults are so casual about using the kids as test subjects.
There's also Ziplock's death. Reading this as an adult and well past the age of the protagonists, it seems much sadder to me that he died so young. When you're fifteen, anything over eighteen years old seems old. Turning twenty seems like it's a million years away. So, fourteen years seems like a decent amount of time. As an adult and twentysomething, I can see that it is much to short of a time to live.
This time, our trip down memory lane will take us into the future, with The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer. Colfer's probably most known for the Artemis Fowl series, though he did write several stand-alone novels (and adult novels now!) I never got into the Artemis Fowl books, but have enjoyed Colfer's other works. I first read The Supernaturalist when I was fifteen, and remember enjoying it a lot. It's not typical of what you would normally think of Colfer's books, in that it's science-fiction. No faeries, no demons and angels, but a lot of cool technology. That's not to say that it's without its otherworldly creatures--this is Eoin Colfer we're talking about, after all.
And before I go any further, I want to point out that "Eoin" is pronounced "Owen". This is because Gaelic makes no sense.
The introduction to the book, the main character, and the world itself are very direct. It starts with a baby, abandoned in Satellite City, where the book takes place. The baby (named Cosmo Hill, as he was found on Cosmonaut Hill) is sent to Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys, the kind of orphanage that Miss Hannigan would be proud to run. Clarissa Frayne makes all its money through product testing. That is, the boys they take in become test subjects for various companies. Just in the introduction, we're told that Cosmo's "teeth were white than white, and his hair was lustrous and flake-free; but his insides felt like they were being scored with a radioactive wire brush." It's quickly established that the life expectancy for an orphan at Clarissa Frayne is fifteen years old. Fourteen-year-old Cosmo knows that he's running out of time, and is determined to escape.
This is all told to use within the first seven paragraphs of the book.
Normally, I wouldn't like an introduction like this. There's no dialogue, no action, just facts about the world and the main character. However, I have been reading Neuromancer by William Gibson lately, and Gibson doesn't explain anything. It's fine to leave your characters in the dark, and it's fine to withhold information from the audience. However, you shouldn't withhold so much information that the reader doesn't have a clue what's going on. Like whether your characters are on a space station or on Earth. Really, Gibson, it's not that hard. Just say they're on a fucking space station already, so I don't have to keep guessing.
But I digress.
After the introduction to the main character and the setting, we finally get to see what Cosmo's life is like at the orphanage. Even though The Supernaturalist doesn't sport the matrix, hackers, or AI, I would still say that it's a cyberpunk novel. It has many staples of the genre: high-tech, low life; the heroes are criminals and outcasts; powerful corporations; Earth a decade or so into the future, and that future is terrible. This book was my introduction to cyberpunk, which I enjoy a lot.
Cosmo's day-in, day-out routine isn't easy, especially since he's a human guinea pig. The orphans are rounded up, put through whatever product testing needs to be done for the day, then get sent back to their "dorm" to rest for the night. I bring up the dorm specifically because it was something that really confused me when I first read this book.
"The rooms were actually sections of cardboard utility pipe that had been sawed into six-foot lengths. The pipes were suspended from a network of wires almost fifty feet off the ground. Once the pipes were occupied by orphans, the entire contraption swayed like an ocean liner."
This setup was something I found nearly impossible to picture as a teenager. I think it was "pipes" that threw me off. I can visualize it better now, but don't really see how something - pipes and wires holding who knows how many kids - could be stable. Even though it's made clear from the start that Clarissa Frayne doesn't really care about the well-being of its "no-sponsors", I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want the whole thing to collapse.
I also want to know what they do with babies that come into the Institute. I imagine there's some kind of nursery, but when do they decide that the kids are old enough to be product testers? Or are they given experimental formula right from the get-go? Considering the way these kids are treated, I'm guessing it's the latter.
We actually don't see too much of Clarissa Frayne in this first chapter, because most of the real action starts when the orphans are being transported back to the institute. I also like how Colfer fits in little details about the world without being too overt about it. For example, when Cosmo takes a survey, it's a "sixty-kilobyte questionnaire" and he ticks off answers with a "digi-pen". It's a small detail, but it tells you that this setting is influenced heavily by electronics. This only gets reinforced when we learn about the Satellite. The Satellite runs almost everything in the city (Appropriately, called Satellite City, nicknamed "The Big Pig"), including the vehicles. When the bus Cosmo's in loses its link to the Satellite, the driver doesn't even know how to control it manually using the steering wheel. While it begs the question, "why have a driver in the first place?" this event kicks off Cosmo's escape.
The bus gets slammed onto its side by other vehicles that are still linked to the Satellite, making them essentially on autopilot. After a collision leaves on its side, most of the adults - the marshals - are badly injured and out for the count. Mostly. There are only two marshals that are given names and Redwood is one of them. Not only is he wholly unpleasant, he's sadistic and has no problem choking one of his charges, who happens to be cuffed to Cosmo. Redwood actually lets Cosmo and Ziplock get off the bus and make a break for the city. Unbeknownst to them, they're still being tracked, and all Redwood has to do is follow their tracker patterns to get to the kids, which gives us this exchange:
"Redwood keyed the talk button on his communicator. 'Fred. Send the Hill C and Murphy F tracker patterns to my handset.'
Fred cleared his throat into the mike. 'Uh...the tracker patterns?'
Redwood ground his teeth. 'Dammit, Fred, is Bruce there? Put Bruce on.'"
It goes on for a couple more paragraphs, with Redwood having to explain step-by-step how to email those tracker patterns. This could have been done to explain to the reader how it works, or as a way to give Cosmo and his cuffed partner more time. It didn't really seem important to me when I first read the book, but now I love it.
Wherever you work, you will always have the one idiot coworker who doesn't know what they're doing. If you're lucky, they'll also make your job difficult due to their incompetence. And if you're really lucky, like me, you will be the one person in the entire office that everyone comes to when they have IT problems. Then they act like you're a wizard when you fix it, but all you've done is Google the solution.
Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, I appreciate that even in the future, there will still be idiots who don't know how to do their jobs.
Redwood catches up to the boys on a rooftop, and he grabs Ziplock's jumpsuit at the edge of the roof to try to take him back. The jumpsuit rips, however, sending Ziplock and Cosmo over the edge, and landing on a generator. Both receive a huge electrical shock and get blown off the roof. Ziplock dies, Cosmo is badly hurt. He sees strange blue creatures land on him, and they seem to be sucking away his life force. He is rescued by three strangers who are reluctant to take Cosmo with them, until he starts talking about the blue creatures.
The story itself has a few good twists that really keep the plot moving, and there's a lot of foreshadowing when Cosmo meets the group. On one hand, it makes me feel smart that I can recognize the plot points before they become plot points, but on the other, it makes me cringe a little bit. Not because it's too clunky or poorly written, but because a lot of trouble could have been avoided by one character speaking up sooner.
Reading this now, the exposition does bother me a little bit. In a sci-fi or fantasy setting, I much prefer information being gradually revealed, usually through characters telling the new guy what's going on. It's needed in this chapter, though, with Cosmo and Ziplock already being familiar with the "rules" of the universe they live in. I much prefer it to having no information, at any rate. There were also a couple things I noticed that I didn't when I first read this book. The first chapter seems much darker to me, for a start. A kid gets killed, Redwood only gives them the chance to escape so he has an excuse to punish them; Ziplock, specifically, because he's the one who's always mouthing off at Redwood. It's kind of disturbing how the adults are so casual about using the kids as test subjects.
There's also Ziplock's death. Reading this as an adult and well past the age of the protagonists, it seems much sadder to me that he died so young. When you're fifteen, anything over eighteen years old seems old. Turning twenty seems like it's a million years away. So, fourteen years seems like a decent amount of time. As an adult and twentysomething, I can see that it is much to short of a time to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment