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OtherRealms Issue 21 Part 05
Electronic OtherRealms #21
Summer, 1988
Part 5
Adulthood Rites
Octavia Butler
Warner Books, 277pp, $16.95
0-446-51422-5
Reviewed by Neal Wilgus
Copyright 1988 by Neal Wilgus
Ideally, each book of a trilogy or series should stand on its own with
a minimal knowledge of the earlier titles necessary for understanding.
In today's hectic rush to publish as much science fiction and fantasy
as possible, this simple principle is pretty much ignored and it's not
unusual for later volumes in a series to pick up where the last one
left off with little or no explanation of what has gone before -- like
a magazine serial without the synopsis. Octavia Butler's Adulthood
Rites is a sequel to Dawn, the first in the Xenogenesis trilogy, and it
suffers a bit from having no synopsis to clue readers in on just what
the hell is going on.
Even a glossary would help, because if you don't know what a string of
alien terms mean you're in trouble. From the text it's not too difficult
to figure out that Oankali is the name of a race of aliens who have
come to dominate the future of the human race, that ooloi are a third
sex in the Oankali's complicated way of reproduction, that Chkahichdahk
is the sort of mother ship orbiting Earth to which the Oankali return
from time to time. But what the terms Akjai, Dinso and Toaht refer to
remain hazy, although they obviously have something to do with the
interbreeding of alien races which took place, no doubt, in Dawn.
those gripes aside, Adulthood Rites is often gripping reading, because
the them of interbreeding -- sex with the aliens -- is what the Xenogenesis
series is all about and Octavia butler has used her fertile imaginations
to take us around a bend that is largely unexpected. The protagonist of
the story is Akin, a construct born of a human mother and Oankali
father/ooloi -- a prototype of what's to come for the human race when
it has merged genetically with the Oankali for better or worse. Akin is
superficially human looking for most of the book, with only his gray,
tentatcle-like tongue betraying his otherness -- until, near the end,
his metamorphosis changes him into something completely different.
Meanwhile, the rest of the human race is in dire straights as a result
of what happened in Dawn. Apparently, the Oankali arrived just after a
world war which destroyed civilization and would have wiped out the
human race if the Oankali hadn't been in the nick of time -- collecting
survivors of the war and putting them in deep freeze until the
situation had stabilized. When the humans were awakened, they were
given the choice of cooperating with the Oankali and evolving a new
race of beings, or returning to a primitive Earth with a new found
longevity but without the ability to reproduce.
This is the world into which Akin is born and it's not long before he's
kidnapped by the Resisters, the sullen and hostile natives who are
frustrated with their pointless longevity and desperate for children to
give their lives meaning. Akin, outwardly human, but with that
alien-betraying gray tongue and startling intelligence for a mere baby,
lives for his formative years among these desperate characters and is
thus deprived of the opportunity to bond with his own human/Oankali
siblings who communicate on a genetic level and inch eagerly toward
metamorphosis. When he's finally returned to the Oankali community of
Lo, and then taken up to the living spaceship that is Chkahichdahk,
Akin has become the spokesman for the Resisters and makes a case for
returning fertility to the humans and establishing a new home for them
on the chilly surface of a terraformed Mars.
In the final section of the book Akin returns to find that his old
resister acquaintances have become even more bitter and violent, and
when he attempts to sell them the idea of moving to Mars as a way out
of their dilemma some of them turn upon him and his allies. At this
point Akin begins his long-awaited metamorphosis from almost-human to
nearly-Oankali and is totally dependent on his few human friends in the
interim. There is an attack against them, an escape and a last minute
cliff hanger that leaves the middle volume of this trilogy unsatisfying
if you're old fashioned enough to expect the book to stand alone on
it's won.
Adulthood Rites incorporates some bold and original ideas and is sure
to have a powerful influence on science fiction dealing with genetics
and bioengineering. Akin's unique experiences and his inevitable
movement towards his own metamorphosis gives the story a drive that
will keep you reading long after you might otherwise have put a book
aside. Starting in the middle of the trilogy, as I did, is not
recommended, but having completed Adulthood Rites I'm looking forward
to reading the Dawn that came before -- and the concluding volume that
is yet to come.
Behind Closed Doors at
Resurrection, Inc.
Kevin J. Anderson
Copyright 1988 by Kevin J. Anderson
It was my second sale, a 10,000-word novelette called "Deja Vu,"
accepted by a very- limited-circulation mimeographed magazine called
Amazing Adventures. I received $3.00 and two copies of the magazine
(retail value 75"). The acceptance letter read "Great story. We'd like
to use it as the feature story for issue #4. Honestly, it's one of the
best stories we've had to date."
"Deja Vu" was a murder mystery set in a future world where the dead are
brought back to serve the living. I didn't have much of the background
thought out, but I charged ahead with the story anyway, hoping that
enough thrills and plot twists would keep the unsuspecting reader from
figuring out that I didn't know what I was talking about. When the
story was published I used my $3 payment to buy some extra copies for
my friends and bought out a large portion of his limited print run) --
but that was also the start of many years of friendship with the
editor, John Postovit, to whom my novel Resurrection, Inc. is dedicated
in part.
Even after the story was published in Amazing Adventures, I liked it a
lot, and did not want it relegated to fanzine limbo. The story and
characters of "Deja Vu" had not been exorcised from my imagination, as
usually happens when completing a piece. The idea kept coming back to
me. Over the years I kept thinking up rationales for the things I had
made up, twists and details that made the background more and more
complex, so that when I decided to do an overhaul of the novelette in
1985 it came out to be an entirely different story.
"Flashback," seemed to explode as I pounded on the keyboard trying to
keep up with the ideas. The plot diverged in a thousand different
directions, getting longer and longer -- but knowing the perils of
trying to market a novella I whipped the plot threads into shape and
amputated many of them, demanding that they wait for a later version.
However, I made careful notes of all the extra story ideas and I kept
copies of the scenes I cut out.
When I finished the fantasy novel I was working on at the time -- the
first book in a trilogy -- and sent it off to my agent, I asked him
what I should do next, the second book in the trilogy or something
different. I was strongly advised to do the latter.
What could be more different than a cross between hard SF, Gothic
horror, and murder mystery? The only other fiction I am aware of that
has the same flavor is George R.R. Martin's "Nightflyers" and
"Sandkings," and Lucius Shepard's first novel, Green Eyes.
As I started going over the plot threads for Flashback (which the
publisher retitled as Resurrection, Inc.), I began to work at a pace
that would have made people think I was writing under deadline for a
pulp magazine -- and I was loving it. On with the fantasy novel, I
slogged along, writing a few chapters then taking a break to write a
short story, I could not be lured away from Resurrection, Inc.
I had the same background and concept as before, only this time I took
great pains to make sure that it made sense. Why would anybody want to
reanimate dead bodies just to do grunt work? Why not just build
machines instead? When you think about it, the human body is a very
sophisticated machine, more complicated than anything we're ever likely
to build. It's always struck me as unlikely that some demented
electronics scientist would take the trouble to rebuild from scratch
every organ, every nerve, every muscle fiber in the human body, just to
make an android. That's a waste of time. After all, when a car dies,
you fix or replace the engine instead of scrapping the entire machine.
So I proposed a future where people took suitable dead bodies, popped a
microprocessor in the brain to act as a new controller, and
jump-started the human machine.
How do you go about reanimating a dead body? I definitely wanted this
book to be science fiction -- with a flavor of horror, yes, but curses
and spells and magic would have to sit at the back of the bus. Finding
information on the subject is rather difficult -- the library seemed
devoid of books describing what exactly happens to a body at death,
physically and chemically. I pored through dozens of books about
near-death experiences, how to cope with death, how not to commit
social gaffes when at a cocktail party with terminally ill patients. In
the end the Livermore Public Library turned out to be a bust. So I
turned elsewhere.
I work full-time as a technical editor and writer at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory; with about 10,000 employees, "the Lab"
is one of the largest research establishments in the country. Research
topics cover the full spectrum -- from physics to chemistry,
engineering, computer development, cancer and genetics research,
lasers, fusion power, nuclear weapons design, and geology. My penchant
for writing "sci fi" stories is known (and tolerated) at the Lab, and I
have potential access to experts that cover the gamut of science.
It happened that I had recently bailed out a team from our medical
department by putting together a rush presentation for them. I called
up Kathleen Noonan, a Registered Nurse who has since become my
"official fiction writer's medical expert," and laid on the table all
the brownie points I had earned. Together, we worked out some of the
details on what would be necessary to make a corpse -- quick-frozen
sufficiently close to the moment of death -- suitable for reanimation.
As a given, we had to expect technology superior to what we have now,
and we had to accept the existence of a microprocessor to do the things
that the brain does, or at least to access the muscle controls in the
brain. I was surprised to learn that a reanimated body -- a jump-started
corpse -- would not decay so long as the blood, or a blood substitute,
circulated and the cells could access nutrients. Kathleen gave me some
sources of information on synthetic blood -- I even watched an amazing
film clip of an experimental substance called Fluorinert, which is a
synthetic blood oxygenator; in the clip, a hapless laboratory mouse was
submerged in a tank of Fluorinert and happily spent hours walking
around and doing the usual mouse-things, all the while breathing the
Fluorinert. Ironically, I learned later that Fluorinert is also the
coolant fluid that circulates through the Lab's CRAY-2 supercomputers.
Fluorinert only re-oxygenates the blood, however, and does not do
everything necessary for true synthetic blood.
In the meantime, the Resurrection, Inc. storyline had acquired another
dimension as I followed through the social consequences of bringing
back the dead as part of the work force. If labor unions today despise
non-Union workers, what would they think about non- living workers?
I had envisioned armies of Servants marching through the doors of
Resurrection, Inc., hundreds each day -- but I determined that was
unrealistic with another bit of research. For every resurrected
Servant, there must first be a dead body. And just how many people die
each day in a large metropolitan area, such as the San Francisco Bay
Area? I hadn't the slightest idea -- so I obtained copies of all the
various Bay Area newspapers and started counting obituaries. Of the
hundred or so deaths each day, I decided that 2/3 of them would not be
suitable for resurrection -- either decay had begun to set in by the
time they were quick-frozen (decay sets in within a few minutes,
according to my official fiction writer's medical expert), or their
deaths had been too "messy" and the body was heavily damaged, either in
an accident or deteriorated from old age or from a debilitating
disease. Others would disappear from different reasons, most notably
stolen by the Cremators, a subversive group that takes advantage of the
peoples' fear of coming back as a Servant; for a price the Cremators
will do everything in their power to destroy a client's body before it
can fall into the hands of Resurrection, Inc. The conservative end
result was that maybe about 25 Servants would be processed each day.
This rationale was all very rough, but it was, I think, valid
reasoning, and better than no reason at all.
Still, over time, these hard-working and uncomplaining Servants would
make their mark in the workplace. Hey, let's add some social unrest,
riots in the streets, and then a stormtrooper style of policemen -- the
Enforcers Guild -- to beat it down.
And religion! -- I love dealing with the machinations of a too-powerful
religious organization. In keeping with my Gothic horror/SF tone, I
developed the cult of neo- Satanism, primitive Satanism adapted to the
needs of the modern day.
I studied comparative religions, read plenty of things about witches
and witch hunts. I found, to my surprise that books about spells, black
magic, Satanism, and witchcraft have no place on public library shelves --
either they are not there at all, or are promptly stolen by well-meaning
but idiotic Christian Fundamentalist fanatics. So I bought resource
materials instead, and tracked down and talked to a practicing Satanist
who claims to have been a member of the same coven with Richard Ramirez
(the LA "Night Stalker" killer), and I also spoke with another practicing
Satanist who gave me a logical reason for why Satanists seem to feel
it's necessary to worship the Bad Guy instead of the Good Guy. I added
a dose of L. Ron Hubbard legends ("I'd like to start a religion --
that's where the real money is.") and came up with a character who ran
computer models to design a new, commercially successful religion.
Now I needed only to turn characters loose in the setting. My main
story, retained all the way from the "Deja Vu" novelette in 1981,
concerned a murdered man, Danal, resurrected as a Servant who begins to
get flashbacks of his first life and his death. I added Francois
Nathans, the corporate head of Resurrection, Inc., who has also developed
the cult of neo-Satanism, and has decided that with the introduction of
Servants into the labor force he can reshape society. "Servants for
Mankind -- freeing us from tedium to pursue our true destiny."
Then add one of the armor-clad Enforcers -- Jones -- who patrols the
streets after curfew and finds Danal's body shortly after it has been
sacrificed in a neo-Satanist ritual - - Jones gets himself into trouble
by being too compassionate toward Servants. And a downtrodden
technician in the lower levels of Resurrection, Inc. -- Rodney Quick --
who is being persecuted by his Supervisor in a deadly game; Rodney
decides to search for the mysterious Cremators as his only hope. Then
it starts to get complicated.
I listen to a lot of music as I work. Sometimes I go for dramatic
classical stuff like Beethoven or Prokofiev if I'm trying to get a
specific mood; but rock groups like Pink Floyd, Kansas, Styx, The Alan
Parsons Project, and Rush have been influencing my writing for years. A
large portion of Resurrection, Inc. was directly inspired by the Rush
album "Grace Under Pressure" -- which is also acknowledged in the
dedication. Almost every song on that album is responsible for a scene
or a character in the book. I played it so many times during the course
of writing the novel that I probably need to buy a new copy -- but it
worked extraordinarily well to help plug my mind back into the story.
Sit down, play the appropriate track and it was like reloading the
entire novel into my personal RAM. In an interesting twist, creativity
comes full circle: several Rush albums are dedicated to science fiction
novels, which they found inspirational for their music.
For the big climax of Resurrection, Inc. I wanted to have my villain
attempt to poison the neo-Satanists in a Guyana-style massacre. Cyanide
is the obvious choice, of course, but it's been so overused in fiction.
It was time to call my official fiction writer's medical advisor again.
"What is it this time, Kevin?" Kathleen said, "I need a poison that
will kill off a lot of people, really fast." "How fast, in a day or
so?" "No, it has to act in a few minutes." "Water soluble?" "Yes.
Cyanide is boring -- I want something else."
Kathleen sent me some books on toxicology and said she was tracking
down a lead about biological poisons produced by some shellfish, which
are apparently among the most toxic poisons known. A different health
physicist shrugged and offered another suggestion, "Why not just use
Hydrofluoric acid?" (It is the closest thing we've got to the monster
blood you saw eat through a few of the Nostromo's decks in the film
Alien.) "A good gulp of that and most of your body would dissolve."
Effective, to be sure, but we don't want to get gross!
Then serendipity struck. The next technical paper on my stack to edit
dealt with the hazards and toxicity of certain types of dyes used in
lasers. One of them, Rhodamine 6-G, turns out to be a cellular poison
second only to cyanide in its deadliness. It is a bright fluorescent
red and even fit in with the science fictional background of the book.
Bingo!
Resurrection, Inc. took me nine months to complete, send around for
review and comment, and do a final polish. I remember fidgeting and
wishing I would get word that my agent had been able to sell my first
fantasy novel in the meantime. I'd been publishing short stories
regularly for years, but still the next step up is selling a book. I
knew when I'd get a novel published, though -- all I had to do was
finish Resurrection, Inc. I had every confidence in it, because it was
by far the best thing I had ever done. And it was different from any
other book I'd read.
Resurrection, Inc. sold to the first editor who saw it: John Silbersack
at New American Library. He said it was one of the best first novels
he'd ever seen. "I couldn't put it down -- and I knew I was going to
buy it right from the start." NAL put the book through production and
is releasing it within a year, instead of the 18P24 months novels
usually take.
You can find it in your local bookstore, under the "Hard SF/Gothic
Horror/Murder Mystery" section. Right next to...right next to...hmmm.
OtherRealms #21
Summer, 1988
Copyright 1988
by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights
are hereby assigned to the contributors.
OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be
distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights,
author and publication information remain intact.
No article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way
without the express permission of the author.
