I read several books by Bear in the 1980s and 90s, but the
only ones I kept on my shelf were the Songs of Earth and Power duology: The
Infinity Concerto and The Serpent
Mage. This is rather curious as these are fantasies, rather than the SF
which I normally read and which Bear normally writes, but I do have a soft spot
for original contemporary fantasies like these and really must read them again
before long.
Hull
Zero Three, an SF book published in 2010, was chosen as a read of the month
by the Classic Science Fiction discussion
group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClassicScienceFiction/ ), so I decided to give it a try. The time is the distant future, the setting
a huge sub-light speed colony ship on its way to find a new home for humanity;
a journey of many centuries. This is not a conventional story, however.
The protagonist, simply known as Teacher, wakes from a
pleasant dream of colonising a new planet into a nightmare. He is in an almost
empty, freezing cold ship, populated mainly by strange and often deadly
creatures, with his only ally a young girl who constantly urges him on to some
unknown destination. This is a dark, downbeat and gloomy start, the bewildered and
helpless Teacher having lost much of his memory and only recalling snatches of
information from time to time. The air of confusion was exacerbated in my mind
by the fact that Bear's descriptions of the places his characters pass through
are frequently too unclear to form a mental picture of them. Teacher meets up with other companions of the
girl, strange humanoids with whom it is difficult to communicate, but they are
all constantly trying to keep warm, to find food and drink, and to avoid danger.
I found this a tough part of the story to get through and it goes on for almost
half the book. I can't say any more about the plot without posting spoilers, so
if you don't want to know what happens next, read no further - but I can
reassure you that in the second half of the book both the pace and the interest
pick up, and there is an intriguing conclusion.
WARNING - some spoilers follow
The first glimmers of optimism come just before the half-way
point of the story, when Teacher meets up with an even more disparate group of
beings who are in a more secure position and who between them (and with the aid
of Teacher's returning memories) manage to piece together a picture of their
circumstances. The vessel actually consists of three separate, kilometres-long
ships linked to a vast central snowball which provides their reaction mass;
Teacher's group are in Hull Zero One. It is clear that something has gone badly
wrong with the journey and that the ship is seriously damaged.
They realise that the colonists and other creatures are not
carried in corporeal form but as genetic potential, able to be artificially
conceived and grown in various different physical forms to suit whatever
environment is provided by the planet they arrive at, and given artificial
memories. For some reason, the ship has started producing a wide range of
different humans and animals even though they have not arrived at a planet.
Teacher's group realise that there has been a major and still on-going conflict
between Ship Control and the mysterious Destination Guidance which is based on
the snowball. They travel to Hull Zero Three, the only one still in good
condition, to try to discover more about what is happening and why. What they
find there divides loyalties and leads to a final showdown between Ship Control
and Destination Guidance, with all being revealed and resolved only at the very
end of the story.
The key question: was it worth reading? That's a tough one
to answer; it certainly isn't an easy read and I nearly gave up at one point,
but I was just sufficiently intrigued to keep going and enjoyed the final part
of the story which I read in one sitting. This is not a novel which will have
universal appeal, but if you don't mind being kept in the dark for much of the
story and have the patience to stick with it, you may find it worthwhile.
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