isa Friemann, a forensics scientist for the British police during the year 2041, is awakened rudely one night by masked intruders. They are no regular burglars, however. They quiz her about her professional associates, notably Professor Morgan Miller, and her early research from four decades ago. They steal only computer disks, all the while making absurd accusations involving nebulous conspiracies of global significance. When Lisa attempts to trigger a rescue call, she is shot at and wounded before the intruders escape. Thus begins a wild roller coaster of intrigue that will occupy her next day and a half, overturning many of her most cherished assumptions about her friends--and even about how the world works.
Accompanied by Mike Grundy, a fellow cop, Lisa immediately hastens to the nearby university where Miller is employed. She learns that Miller's long-running experiment, Mouseworld, has been torched, and that the professor himself has been abducted. Quickly, the Ministry of Defense becomes involved, for the world is currently suffering from waves of "hyperflu," a possibly engineered disease that appears to be the first attack in an undeclared war, and Miller's work seems to have some bearing on
all this. Lisa, co-opted by an official named Peter Grimmett Smith, accompanies the government investigator to the Ahasuerus Foundation the next morning. There they learn unexpected information that skews their views: Miller previously offered the Foundation some potentially vital findings on
life extension or "emortality," work he has kept secret from Lisa, despite her status as his ex-lover and confidante.
Outside the Foundation, Lisa is again attacked, then rescued by a third party figure, Leland, who briefly holds her incommunicado. She begins to grasp further dimensions of this puzzling affair when the role of some radical feminists, the Real Women, is revealed. Reunited with Smith, Lisa pays a visit to the Institute of Algeny. More talk of emortality solidifies some of Lisa's hunches. Finally, a meeting with one of Miller's colleagues, Chan Kwai Keung, provides further puzzle pieces. Lisa is convinced that none of the goals of any of the factions tally with hers, and that she must act on her own.
One step forward, two steps back
Brian Stableford's new novel serves as a prequel to his previous three: Inherit the Earth (1998), Architects of Emortality (1999) and The Fountains of Youth (2000). Immediately, a problem arises--a problem the roots of which ironically lie in the fact that the original trilogy was so ambitious and well done.
In the first three books, Stableford donned--partially at least--the mantle of Olaf Stapledon, SF's grand master of the big think and the long view. The first novel opened in the 22nd century, while the last concluded in the 31st. Spanning nearly a thousand years, and concerned with a
deathless humanity's ultimate role in the universe, these books expertly wove a series of brilliant scientific/cultural/societal threads into an imposing futuristic tapestry.
Then comes this book, which jumps backward to a much more "primitive" milieu, features a much more restricted cast of characters, narrows the scope of its concerns and rehashes events we've already come to view as "history." Had this book appeared first in the sequence, it would have stood as a fine beginning. Lisa Friemann is wonderfully rendered, a nicely sympathetic character. The enigmatic events surrounding her flow swiftly and suspensefully, while the central mystery is neatly orchestrated and meaningful (at least in the smaller sphere of relevance herein). But for anyone who has followed the huge narrative arc so far, this book reads like a retreat.
Curiously, Stableford joins a select group of far-seeing futurists who have chosen this ill-advised angle of attack, which is almost invariably doomed to disappoint. Vernor Vinge, Linda Nagata, Ken MacLeod and Kathleen Ann Goonan have all started series which forge boldly ahead into radically altered futures--and which then retrogress to earlier eras. It's as if some Asimovian barrier lay across their imaginary timelines, beyond which they could not push their speculations. Read this competent yet misplaced book first if by chance you haven't read the earlier ones, then move on in the most dramatically satisfying fashion.
