meridian oil has left the cosmos a churchy , early - industrial abattoir in Robert Charles Wilson ’s new novel Julian Comstock . An mesh hybridization between post - apocalyptic series Jericho and Susanna Clarke ’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell , it may be the estimable science fable novel of the year so far .
Wilson has win the Hugo award , and written half a dozen other novels , but has yet to achieve a great wad of name recognition among SF readers . I think Julian Comstock : A Story of 22nd Century America is probable to change that . Ostensibly a tale of the brave wartime deeds and eventual presidentship of Julian Comstock , written by his close admirer Adam Hazzard , the novel is far more than that . It ’s a sprawling , gorgeous meditation on the inexplicable ways that history mutate acculturation , from its religious instauration to its pop polish .
It ’s also a ok lesson of world building . Wilson submit his time express us what has happened over the 150 years between us and his character , giving us glimpse of how the hereafter has get to involve our lives via government propaganda in film and underground treatises by a French radical named Parmentiere . After peak oil , the reality is dive into a time period of massive starvation ( mill farms crumble without a firm vegetable oil supply ) , the population of North America is decimated , and a new government finally arise that absorbs Canada into America and rules by succession . The Supreme Court is abolished , indenture servitude reinstated , and the “ Dominion Church ” is a branch of government used to equilibrize the power of the military .
Julian Comstock is the nephew of the current president , who decollate Julian ’s father for becoming a bit too pop with the hoi polloi . Now young Julian is hiding out in Saskatchewan , with his trusty guardian Sam , where he befriend the local “ rental son ” Adam . ( The leasing class rents its land from the “ Aristo ” class . ) They bond over recital : Adam wants nothing more than to be an adventure author like his matinee idol Mr. Charles Curtis Easton ; and Julian has a stash of taboo science books , including Darwin ’s . Julian wants to make a picture about Darwin ’s aliveness , to re-introduce science to America ’s district - command pop culture .
Eventually the two boy are conscripted and swept up into the sempiternal war between America and “ Mitteleurope , ” which are agitate for control of the now sparkler - free Northwest Passage that cuts between Northern Canada and Denmark before entering the Arctic . They must hedge bullets , find friends in war - bust Montreal , and escape the homicidal plotting of Julian ’s uncle .
After much tribulation , Julian is crowned President of the United States , and the novel becomes a tale of how he tries to bring his version of justice to America from the presidential castle in New York City .
One of the conceit of the novel is phylogenesis itself – not just the evolutionary hypothesis that Julian wants to re - introduce to the masses , but societal evolution . When Julian tries to excuse evolution to the incredulous Adam , he describes it as a way that DNA “ imperfectly commend ” lifeforms that have occur before . Just as the future amiss remembers the past tense . We see this take place again and again in the novel , where masses in major power tress the past into stories that pad their own linear perspective . And others seek to unbury alternate interpretation of that past , to reintroduce old scientific ideas into the cistron pool .
And at a key moment , Julian reminds us of precisely what ’s at stake in this organic evolution metaphor . He ’s explain to Adam why he loves people of the past tense , but also hates them . How could he detest them ? Adam wonder . “ Because they evolve into us , ” Julian says . Indeed , the culture of roughshod church leaders and illiterate handmaiden we see in Julian Comstock is all too plausible as an resultant of our present .
It ’s impossible to do justness to the blue-blooded humour and ingeniousness of Wilson ’s prose in a brushup : Suffice to say that he manages to capture a 19th century smack without falling into off - putting ruse . This is one of those uncommon scientific discipline fiction novel whose prose stylus is as industrious and finely - tuned as its mind . For some readers , the unexpended crook of phrase and footnotes may be wearing . But it ’s important for Wilson ’s man - building labor , where he ’s explore what happen to American lifespan in a world whose cultural elite consider the 19th century the peak of civilisation .
There are a few trouble with the novel , such as the selective credulousness that Wilson assign to his narrator Adam . We get it on that Adam is canny enough to see through political scheming , and candid - minded enough to accept the heretical scientific ideas of his friend Julian as well as his basal , Parmentierist married woman Calyxa . But even when Julian goes to festal bars , and eventually take a virile devotee , Adam stubbornly refuse to recognise that his booster is braw . Though played as humourous naivete , Adam ’s peculiar blindness comes across as a general narrative queasiness that seems out of place in a account book that present so many other thorny issues head - on .
But you may mark this squeamishness up to stylistic pick , and certainly we ’re never in doubt that our hero is both a brave war hero and a homosexual .
Not only has fictional author Adam Hazzard compose a brave playscript about an improper radical who challenge the powers - that - be in his world , but Robert Charles Wilson has written a brave record book too . For Julian ’s issues are our consequence . The Christian church tries to control our pop polish and government ; and disempowered , semi - literate people are direct by our government to fight down wars over resources they ’ll never be capable to get at . Our metier are far more hypnotized by the manner of the aristocracy than by scientific find .
Julian Comstock reminds us that inevitably , every multiplication amiss call back the past . The good we can hope for is that the future will remember the constructive ideas we ’ve left behind rather than the unhelpful ones . This novel is about why the struggle over ethnical memory board may be the most of import of all .
You canpre - order Julian Comstock via Amazon – it will hit bookstores next calendar month .
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