Book Review – Dust

Author: Elizabeth Bear
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Publishing Date: January 2008
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Cover Artist: Paul Youll

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Arthur C. Clarke)

This well-known, and perhaps even iconic, statement of Clarke’s is, in many respects, particularly pertinent to Elizabeth Bear’s new novel Dust, the first canto in a tri-partite space opera titled “Jacob’s Ladder” (the sequels Chill and Grail are slated for publication in 2009 and 2010 respectively). In Dust, Bear plays with the conventions of both sci-fi and fantasy by cleverly twisting a sci-fi world into conventional fantasy tropes, turning them inside-out and eventually transcending them – and she manages to do this in a both interesting and stylish manner.

The story takes place in a broken-down generational space ship that has lost (and largely forgotten) its purpose centuries ago. It has been orbiting a constellation of twin suns for 500 years and has slowly degenerated into a balkanized and feudal-like society, rife with a violent and centuries old conflict between the Houses of Rule and Engine, the almost unrecognizable descendants of the space ship’s Command and Engine sections. Thus the story opens with the latest chapter in a war whose causes are obscure and largely forgotten in a vicious circle of never-ending violence.

On a broken ship orbiting a doomed sun, dwellers have grown complacent with their ageing metal world. But when a serving girl frees a captive noblewoman, the old order is about to change…

Ariane, Princess of the House of Rule, was known to be fiercely cold-blooded. But severing an angel’s wings on the battlefield – even after she had surrendered- proved her to be completely without honor. Captive, the angel Perceval waits for Ariane not only to finish her off – but to devour her very memories and mind. Surely her gruesome death will cause war between the houses – exactly as Ariane desires. But Ariane’s plan may yet be opposed, for Perceval at once recognizes the young servant charged with her care.

Rien is the lost child: her sister. Soon they will escape, hoping to stop the impending war and save both their houses. But it is a perilous journey through the crumbling hulk of a dying ship, and they do not pass unnoticed.

Dust is essentially a quest narrative, detailing Rien and Perceval’s journey through their strange world, searching for a safe home. But as they proceed towards a safe haven in Engine, the scope of their quest broadens when it becomes clear that these young women might be crucial to their world’s future safety. The twin suns that the generation ship is orbiting are about to go nova and the only way to save the ship is the re-integrate its splintered AI and set a new course. Despite its slender size (a mere 342 pages), Elizabeth Bear has managed to write a novel of astounding complexity, playing around with a multitude of ideas and images. It helps that the novel is very tightly plotted with a story that constantly twists and turns as more and more information about the ship and its inhabitants is revealed – and Bear doesn’t miss a beat as she gradually unfolds layer upon layer of intrigue, betrayal and political alliance. At the same time, and with great economy, she portrays a weird and wonderful world of altered humanity, artificial intelligences and embodied technologies; all it conveyed in a very distinctive style that dresses up a sci-fi world and narrative in a colourful array of Biblical language, organic metaphors and well-known fantasy tropes.

Elizabeth Bear’s space opera is in many respects concept-driven rather than character-driven. Though Rien and Perceval remain the central characters, Bear often shifts POV in a sometimes jarring manner. Of the two heroines, Rien is by far the most well-developed character – still, I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly engaged by the any of characters. What I did find extremely compelling was the novel’s underlying ideas and concepts – of humanity, identity and evolution – and the very stylish manner in which Bear explores these ideas.

The whole story builds upon a premise of how the interface between humanity and technology might evolve in a closed environment over centuries, a premise that very slowly becomes apparent as the narrative progresses. Thus it is slowly revealed that the generation ship, called Jacob’s Ladder, was launched by a religious cult as an experiment in forced evolution by way of genetic engineering and artificial intelligences. The name of the generation ship is highly significant in this context as Bear not only uses it as a symbol for genetic evolution but also incorporates its various cultural connotations into the narrative’s content and form whereby science and theology is twisted into a new and unique form:

Take the name of the world […] Jacob’s Ladder. One thing that was many things, and a name most carefully chosen. Because Jacob’s ladder was the ladder angels ascended to reach Heaven; and it was also the breaking of sun rays through cloud, planetside […]; and it was a rope ladder, such as used to ascend into the rigging of a sailing ship; it was a fumbling primitive body modification that humans had performed upon themselves – and that was significant, because humans were the only animals to mutilate themselves on purpose, or to direct their own evolution, although in those days the Exalt had been but a dream; it was a toy, an amusement; an in the name of the world, it was a promise and a benediction and an allegory.

Because the Jacob’s ladder in the name of the world was all of these things, and none. The ladder these angels must climb was the double helix. And then they would be God. They, who were splinters of God. 

God, who was dead. And what should be done about it, none of his splinters could agree.

 

 

The Biblical metaphor of the Jacob’s ladder is but one of the images that Bear employs to explore differing notions of human evolution – an image that evokes a spiritual dimension to the idea of biological evolution. Elsewhere, Bear frequently employs a range of organic metaphors in the description of a world where even the smallest life forms have been genetically and technologically altered – thus conjuring an image of the generation ship as a hothouse of altered life forms.

Bear juxtaposes this notion of human evolution (on the level of biology) with a social structure that has regressed back into a feudal society, albeit one where social class is premised on a technologically enhanced biology. Thus the nobility, i.e. the Exalt, is comprised of humans enhanced by some kind of nano-technology that extends their lives and the healing abilities of their bodies – their social status supported by their altered biology, a relationship that Bear conveys very nicely in a little detail that is both descriptive and symbolic: the fact that the Exalt literally have blue blood in their veins, courtesy of the nano-technology that alters and augments their bodies (and minds). 

Death is rarely final when it comes to the Exalt. The technology that augments their biology also infiltrates their minds and enhances their cognitive functions. Thus it is not unusual for one Exalt to consume another’s nanotech colony, taking their memories and knowledge into themselves, sometimes leaving a mindless zombie behind. This highlights another very interesting aspect about Bear’s sci-fi world: that is, the manner in which identities blend – often in the form of a continual slippage between Self and Other, which lends an aspect of monstrosity to some of the characters. This slippage between Self and Other is primarily explored through the character of Rien, who undergoes many different transformations throughout the story. She starts out as a Mean, i.e. an unenhanced servant in Rule, is then Exalted and later on she consumes the memories and knowledge of an old engineer hero thereby embodying two selves or consciousnesses within one person’s skin. Dust is a narrative of evolution, both in terms of body and mind, and with this novel Bear speculates on what consequences bio-technological augmentation might possible have on the evolution of the human mind.

Dust is a both a very demanding and a very satisfying reading experience – if one takes the time and effort to read it slowly and carefully. It is a novel that, despite is slender size, is incredibly complex – it is literally dense with meaning, something that is reflected in the Bear’s sparse and modernist prose. She very skilfully employs a wide range of images, metaphors and symbols that are very rich in cultural connotations. The prose, themes and ideas of the novel simply resonates on so many different levels that it most certainly deserves to be read and re-read in order to tease out the many layers of meaning. As a piece of speculative fiction, Dust is particularly suited to a patient and discerning reader. 

Trine D. Paulsen

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