Imagine you live in a 2014 that has been at peace for the
last century. There was something
like the Great War, but it seemed to have ended as almost as soon as it started
with the Great Armistice of 1914. After that, peace and prosperity. No Great
Depression. No Hitler. No Holocaust. No Second World War. No lingering Cold War. No War on Terror. Just humanity,
linked arm in arm, marching upwards together to the sunlit highlands. It indeed does
sound like a paradise of sorts.
It’s certainly not our world, but it’s the world one Cassie
Iverson inhabits. In many ways it’s probably preferable to our own, but as
pleasant a world as it may be, Cassie, her parents, and others who are members of the
secretive Correspondence Society suspect the awful truth: that human progress
has being interfered with – even directed – since the dawn of radio
communications, by an alien intelligence with its own indefinable goals. An
alien intelligence that would do anything – including murder – to keep its
secret.
Burning Paradise
is Robert Charles Wilson’s latest alternate history novel. Taken with his
earlier novels, Mysterium (1994) and Darwina (1998), it returns to a theme of
a false reality – layered or overwritten upon our own by an external entity.
It’s a similar theme expressed by Phillip K. Dick in many of his works, such as
VALIS (1981).
I definitely recommend Burning
Paradise. Besides being well
written, Wilson paints fully realized alternate 2014 with a few choice turns of
phrase – no mean feat. It’s
another reason I like Wilson and consider him one of the spiritual successors
to Phillip K. Dick. Verdict: very readable and thoughtful fiction.
What's Next?
As I slide another blog posting in under the wire, I note that the eight-episode miniseries based on Stephen King's 2011 novel 11-22-63 (reviewed earlier on this blog) has begun to air on Hulu. I hope to be able to have a review of at least the early episodes for you soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment