ohn Barnes' new novel is the fourth in the loosely linked future history beginning with Orbital Resonance (1991). That book introduced us to the world of 2025, when Earth, riven by ecological disasters and various wars, relied on its space colonies for sophisticated aid. Our protagonist here was a teenage girl named Melpomene Murray, resident of as asteroid colony named the Flying Dutchman. The next book in the sequence, Kaleidoscope Century (1995), jumped ahead to the year 2109 and recounted the intricate career of immortal Joshua Ali Quare, who had escaped to Mars in the wake of the Meme Wars. Artificial personalities, able to inhabit human minds, had fought for possession of Earth. Eventually, a single artifact triumphed: the entity known as One True, and its operating system, Resuna. Following came Candle (2000), which deployed the perspective of a hunter named Currie Curran, a loyal servant of One True who was given the assignment of bringing in a rogue human as yet untainted by the parasitic mind-ruler of Earth.
Now Barnes turns his full attention to Mars, which, along with all the other human settlements in the solar system, remains a refuge for baseline humanity. (One True is blockaded on Earth, although it still makes frequent assaults with probes on Mars and elsewhere, seeking converts.) As in Orbital Resonance, our heroine is a young girl. Terpsichore Melpomene Murray, niece of the earlier namesake, is an ecospector. With her father, she lives a migratory existence across the inhospitable but slowly softening Martian landscape, clad in suits that serve as mobile homes, looking for underground water and methane resources that will aid the terraforming of Mars. This is the only life Teri has ever known, and her culture, the rounditachi, exhibit a completely different attitude to Mars than the cloistered city-dwellers. Only the "froyks"—humans genengineered to survive on Mars without artificial aids—are more intimate with the planet.
On their way to an annual Gather, where the rounditachi will commune under large shelters, Teri and her dad make a huge methane strike. Now rich, Teri envisions an easy future, plagued perhaps only by the infidelity of her fiancee. When her engagement indeed falls apart at the Gather, she is hurt, but picks up the pieces of her life easily. The Gather disperses and Teri and her father must lead some children to school across the Martian wilderness. However, real disaster strikes in the form of the Sunburst, an immense solar flare that disrupts technology and communications. Placed in charge of the caravan, Teri finds herself stretched to her limits. When her brave attempt to rescue a band of similarly stranded froyks comes apart, Teri discovers that the only thing worse than relying on oneself is relying on Resuna.
A novel series that happily channels Heinlein
By now, John Barnes must be exceedingly tired of being compared to Robert Heinlein. Yet any discussion of his work—this sequence at least—must start from such a point, especially since the new book summons up such welcome echoes of Heinlein's Red Planet (1949) and Podkayne of Mars (1963). But if we are going to insist on the comparison, then at least it might be substantiated with particulars. What are the essential qualities of Heinlein that Barnes seems to embody? A fairly "transparent" yet flexible and vigorous prose style, laden with colloquialisms both current and futuristic. A high regard for virtues such as self-reliance, ingenuity and courage. A keen exegesis of how societies and their infrastructures work and interact. A positive outlook which does not exclude tragedy. And finally, a predilection for talkiness, for scenes where characters thrash out issues and controversies and philosophical conundrums in pages of speechifying.
And Barnes indubitably exhibits all these characteristics. All of which is not to say that Barnes is imitative or unoriginal. Far from it. His take on terraforming Mars features some brilliant extrapolations utterly different from any recent ones. His adolescent protagonist is a true postmodern teen, not the Mademoiselle-era girl Podkayne was. And his whole concept of the Meme Wars and the emergent personality called One True is absolutely riveting, an arresting speculation never exploited before—or at least never so well—by other writers. Moreover, his creation of the rounditachi culture features excellent work as well.
But I'm experiencing a little frustration with the course of Barnes' future history. The first book worked fine as a low-key introduction to the scenario (which also resembles the Nine Worlds stories of John Varley, himself once heralded as Heinlein's successor). Then readers got knocked on their butts by Kaleidoscope Century, which recomplicated all the action and introduced time-travel as well. (A fleet of our descendants is on its way from the future to help mankind beat One True.) Candle stepped back from pushing deeper into the timeline in favor of a small-scale adventure. Now Sky, while introducing an intriguing new venue, essentially replays many of the issues and themes of Resonance and refuses to move any further into the 22nd century.
