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Cave of Stars
When two cultures collide, which will survive?
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Cave of Stars
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By George Zebrowski
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HarperPrism
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$24.00/$35.00 Canada
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Hardcover, Sept. 1999
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ISBN 0-06-105299-X
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Review by Curt Wohleber
 hree centuries after the destruction of Earth, humankind has spread out
across the stars. The theocratic government on Tau Ceti IV is dedicated to
order and stability. The New Vatican restricts access to knowledge,
discourages technical innovation and deals harshly with heretics and
dissidents. Only through such discipline, the ruling clerics say, can they
avoid another cataclysm like the one that destroyed humanity's homeworld.
From the depths of space, however, come humans who embody an entirely
different way of life, which they call "macrolife." They explore the cosmos
in hundred-kilometer-long space habitats called mobiles. A cybernetic
network called "the Link" connects the millions of inhabitants of each
mobile, forming a kind of collective intelligence. Nanotechnology and
genetic engineering have endowed the macrolife residents with
immortality.
Voss Rhazes pities the Cetians, who endure brief lives of hardship.
Josephus Bely, known as Pope Peter III, is old and dying. He fears death
despite his professed faith in the afterlife. He begs the visitors to
restore his health, but the pope's illegitimate daughter and his chief
advisor argue that it would be best to let the pope die naturally, clearing
the way for a more progressive government. Voss agrees that this would be
best for the people of Tau Ceti.
Neither Voss nor the other macrolifers ever suspect that the aged pope
could be a threat. While the pope on Old Earth was said to hold the keys to
heaven, Pope Peter holds the keys to hell, and his last act devastates both
worlds.
Matters of macrolife and macrodeath
Cave of Stars, a companion volume to Zebrowski's acclaimed 1979
novel Macrolife, is an extremely thoughtful book, in the sense that
the characters spend a lot of time thinking. This is not a bad thing, for
Zebrowski's vivid characters personalize and enliven time-worn debates about
faith and reason, tradition and change, responsibility and individual
autonomy. Zebrowski comes down on the side of reason, but the macrolifers
pay a terrible price when they underestimate the desperation of those whose
faith is challenged.
The novel becomes less cerebral as the story evolves into a tense
struggle for survival. Cave of Stars sometimes reads like three
novels spliced into a single narrative. The opening chapters are
reminiscent of Ursula Le Guin's Hainish novels; an interlude on the macrolife
habitat recalls the techno-utopia of Iain Banks' Culture novels (though
Zebrowski's Macrolife preceded the Culture series by a decade); and the
story finally morphs into a suspenseful space adventure.
The later chapters seem rushed, especially when compared to the careful
deliberation at the beginning of the novel, and the macrolifers lack the
psychological complexity of the Cetians.
But these are minor defects in an otherwise magisterial work of speculative
fiction. In Zebrowski's capable hands, the shifts in the story line seem
natural, for it is history that Zebrowski is narrating, bloody and chaotic
up close, but when viewed from the distance of years it becomes a grand
procession toward a future of wonder and menace and infinite
possibilities.
Thought-provoking ideas. Stuff blowing up. What more could you ask?
-- Curt
Back to the top.
The Architects of Emortality
Brian Stableford's mysterious future continues...
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The Architects of Emortality
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By Brian Stableford
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Tor Books
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$24.95/$34.95 Canada
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Hardcover, Oct. 1999
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ISBN: 0-312-87207-0
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Review by Clinton Lawrence
 n this sequel to Brian Stableford's novel Inherit the Earth, wealthy
industrialist Gabriel King is discovered murdered in
his New York apartment. The crime is a particularly unusual one, and
the UN police are understandably anxious. The weapon used against King was a genetically
engineered flower that consumed his flesh. The police fear it could be
the beginning of another biotech war. The only clues are a mysterious young
woman who visited King shortly before his death, and another set
of flowers with a cryptic quote from Charles Baudelaire's poem "Au
Lecteur." There are few people alive with the technical expertise to
create such plants, and one of them, a genetic floral artist named after
19th-century writer Oscar Wilde, shows up at the crime scene.
The police immediately suspect Wilde, but he denies culpability,
claiming someone summoned him to King's apartment. Since he's there already,
the police invite him to provide his technical analysis while also
contacting Wilde's rival, Walter Czastka, for a second opinion. Wilde believes
there's only one other person with both the skill and artistry to
create such a plant, a mysterious recluse who uses the pseudonym
Rappaccini. Meanwhile, another guest joins the investigation, Michael
Lowenthal, who won't disclose the identity of his employers.
As the police try to track down Rappaccini's true identity and location,
Wilde discovers that the flesh-consuming plants are based on a formerly
extinct species that Wilde himself brought back into existence. He and
Regina Chai, the police forensic scientist, also discover that the plant
was engineered specifically to attack King's DNA. The mystery deepens when
Michi Urashima is discovered murdered by the same method in San Francisco.
The only apparent connection between the two is that both were students at
an Australian university nearly two centuries earlier. And while Wilde
suspects Rappaccini, Police Sgt. Charlotte Holmes still suspects Wilde, and
Lowenthal believes Czastka is behind the murders.
Science is an art
Although science is crucial to The Architects of Emortality,
the book is mostly a murder mystery, and quite a good one. And it's not
necessary to have read Inherit the Earth to enjoy this novel, although there are
references to events in the first book which will make the second one clearer. Both
volumes are the beginnings of an ongoing future history saga, and Stableford's choice
of creating that future through a series of mysteries is an
interesting and unusual approach.
In The Architects of Emortality, the
central mystery doesn't connect to the underlying social fabric and
controversies related to the technology and business of immortality as
strongly as it does in Inherit the Earth. In fact, the social
pressures of having mortal and possibly immortal generations living simultaneously
are hinted at, but not really explored. That seems to be something of a
problem, since presumably this is the central issue of Stableford's future
tableau.
What Stableford does well, though, he does very well. Among the more
interesting concepts in The Architects of Emortality is his
portrayal, through Wilde's and Rappaccini's characters, of science as a
fine art. The obvious inspiration and many references to 19th-century
literature and literary figures reinforce this idea. Wilde's
character, one of flamboyance, pretense, playful arrogance, and wild
speculation mixed with insightful deduction, is particularly effective.
The mystery itself is well-conceived, though in the end, fairly
straightforward. By the second half of the book, it's pretty clear who's
behind the murders, but the real motive and reasons for the choice of
victims remain elusive.
As a science fiction mystery, The Architects of Emortality is a
fine book that will entertain many. As a piece of a future history still
under construction, its effectiveness probably can't be fully assessed
until more of Stableford's future milieu is published.
As much as I enjoyed this book, and as much as I admire Stableford's
attempts to try a different approach to future history, I'm a bit
suspicious that his execution in the end might not match his ambition.
-- Clint
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