harles "Chigger" Dingillian's parents always fight. Since their divorce, he sees his father twice a year, and the visits are usually marked by forced cheerfulness and broken promises. Living in a tubetown slum with his geeky older brother, his bratty younger brother and his manipulative, shrill mother isn't much better. His schoolmates despise him for being part of a tax-supported "flow-through" family, his teachers have marked him as antisocial and in need of therapy, and people in general just won't leave him alone. So Chigger spends as much time as possible wrapped up in a pair of headphones, using music to shut himself off from the other 17 billion crowded, sullen people who are straining Earth's resources to their limit.
When Chigger's father suggests a trip to the moon during one of his visits, Chigger reacts like any brooding adolescent: with suspicion, sarcasm and resentment. But he can't help but be interested. The Line, the orbital elevator that would take them into space, is a road off-planet generally reserved for the very rich, or for those willing to become indentured servants on uncompromisingly harsh colony worlds. Chigger can't stop fighting with his father and his brothers (referred to only as "Weird" and "Stinky" for much of the book) long enough to really enjoy their cross-country trip to the Line and up to the geostationary platform. But along the way he learns a lot of things about his family that he was previously too wrapped up in himself to notice. He also learns a great deal about why the Line is necessary to Earth's economy and why his overpopulated world is quickly falling apart.
He also learns some things that force him to redefine himself and come out of his shell. His father has a number of ulterior motives for the trip, and he's concealing both his intentions and his questionable methods from his sons. The family's inherent inability to communicate is hiding a number of unpleasant secrets that emerge only under the pressure of the trip. But the Dingillians' dark secrets and bitter discord are playing out against a backdrop of conflicts on a much larger scale--conflicts that may decide the future of the planet they're trying to escape.
Dense science, airy fiction
Jumping Off the Planet's blend of geopolitical extrapolation and scientific speculation with an instantly believable, utterly human teen protagonist may seem immediately familiar to science fiction fans. So will the tough, capable, eminently practical characters, who flout conventional social mores but cling steadfastly to the morals they define for themselves. From the start, Planet's tone, cast of characters, and overall execution strongly suggest Robert Heinlein's classic juvenile novels. By the end, when Chigger and company are exploring logical and emotional conundrums through lengthy, circuitous debate, the parallels between Gerrold and Heinlein become pretty much inescapable.
The crisp, breezy writing makes Planet a quick read, but Gerrold packs a great deal of information into a small space. In part, he manages this feat by casually skimming across the exotic details of his future world, where cranial microchip implants and sexual reprogramming are so mundane that the characters barely notice them. This approach makes for several sudden, intriguing surprises. Unfortunately, he also resorts to dropping in hefty, sometimes unwieldy chunks of exposition that explain the science of the Line, how the new world economy works, and the nature of the sociopolitical factors threatening both. While this background information is solidly conceived and convincingly realistic, much of it is not immediately relevant. As a result, Planet often feels overburdened, as if it's shouldering all the expository burdens of the sequels to come.
But where Gerrold sticks with his characters, he displays an enviable insight into human motivations. Chigger is an awkward, angry boy whose reactions are often irrational and illogical, but Gerrold makes him comprehensible, even sympathetic, nonetheless. The teenager's distrustful, guilty, stormy point of view is arrestingly intimate, even wryly funny. This is science fiction in the classic sense--a book about how new technology changes an entire world on both the macro and micro scales--but Chigger gives it a fresh, contemporary feel.
Planet itself doesn't ultimately get anywhere--the book's end resolves an immediate crisis but leaves the fate of the Earth and the Line wide open. Clearly this is the first leg of a longer trip to come--but the journey promises to be a worthwhile one.
While Gerrold doesn't make a central point of his protagonists' ethnicity, they're clearly meant to be black--but they're portrayed on the dust jacket as lily-white Gap models. Did the artist not read the novel, or was this a conscious marketing decision? Either way, shame on whoever's responsible.
-- Tasha
t 17 years of age, Lit Moylan is on the verge of leaving home for college. The child of successful television actors, she lives in a tiny hamlet in upstate New York. Her hometown, Kamensic, is a haven for second-tier actors and other show-business folk, and Lit has never been comfortable there. She is a misfit amid the drama-focused population of the town, uninterested in acting and with little talent for it. She even pretends that she wants to be a playwright, just to gain local acceptance--and to get herself out of auditioning for plays.
Her outcast status is not the only reason Lit is chafing to leave Kamensic. There is clearly something otherworldly and dark about the village. Newcomers to town claim that Kamensic roads are always changing, as if the terrain of the land is itself variable. Historical paintings of Muscanth Mountain, a local landmark, show a peak of wildly different landscapes and heights. More disturbingly, young people in Kamensic die tragically and often.
Before she can go, however, Lit finds herself invited to a party at a mansion called the Bolerium. The mansion's owner, Axel Kern, is a notorious film director and great friend of her parents. He is also Lit's godfather. Before the party even begins, she has visions, seeing mysterious hunting parties in the woods behind the Bolerium pursuing long-extinct deer. Despite growing misgivings, she is obliged to attend the party, and there she finds she is the focus of much unwanted adult attention--from Axel, from a strange and hostile set designer, from an ancient priest. Soon it becomes clear that Axel has handpicked Lit for a role in an ancient pagan ritual. But what does he want her to do? And, if she cooperates, what will it cost?
Dreamlike and subtle
Elizabeth Hand's Black Light seems to draw on the well-established tradition of horror novels by writers such as Stephen King, where a small northeastern U.S. town is engulfed by dark powers, and only the innocence of a teenage hero can restore order and goodness. However, Black Light tells a very different story from novels like King's It or Peter Straub's Floating Dragon. With a narrower scope and lower body count, it focuses on a brief stretch of time and the actions of a scant handful of people. Readers who like plenty of carnage may, as a result, find Black Light's lighter touch unsatisfying.
Hand imbues Kamensic with a rich mythical broth, sprinkling pagan imagery into a coming-of-age story in complex and intensely personal ways. As Lit struggles to understand who she is and what's going on, she travels through some of humanity's oldest stories. Places and monsters like the Labyrinth and Minotaur make cameo appearances, and Lit's journey through the Bolerium party is full of surprises and enchanting interludes. Hand refrains from reducing Black Light's story to a simple good-vs.-evil formula. Lit does not play white knight to some black-hearted villain; the powers awakening in Kamensic are ravenous, dangerous and frightening, but not simplistically bad.
Black Light is full of vivid people, but it is Lit's story all the way. As a result, other characters--her friends, parents, even the enigmatic Axel Kern--are left somewhat in the shadows. This gives the book a muted feeling that often diminishes the power of its narrative. Nevertheless, Hand deftly combines gorgeous prose, Lit's compelling voice, and an ending that is truly atypical of the books Black Light superficially seems to represent. In doing so, she sidesteps the usual horror cliches and creates a genre that is uniquely her own.
I was never scared by this, and I missed the gossipy touches usually found in haunted-town stories. But Black Light has a deliciously spooky tone.
-- A.M.
harles "Chigger" Dingillian's parents always fight. Since their divorce, he sees his father twice a year, and the visits are usually marked by forced cheerfulness and broken promises. Living in a tubetown slum with his geeky older brother, his bratty younger brother and his manipulative, shrill mother isn't much better. His schoolmates despise him for being part of a tax-supported "flow-through" family, his teachers have marked him as antisocial and in need of therapy, and people in general just won't leave him alone. So Chigger spends as much time as possible wrapped up in a pair of headphones, using music to shut himself off from the other 17 billion crowded, sullen people who are straining Earth's resources to their limit.
t 17 years of age, Lit Moylan is on the verge of leaving home for college. The child of successful television actors, she lives in a tiny hamlet in upstate New York. Her hometown, Kamensic, is a haven for second-tier actors and other show-business folk, and Lit has never been comfortable there. She is a misfit amid the drama-focused population of the town, uninterested in acting and with little talent for it. She even pretends that she wants to be a playwright, just to gain local acceptance--and to get herself out of auditioning for plays.
