Another first
publication to wash up on the shores, the Home Front is a well
conceived and executed book which serves as a strong introduction to
the series, the Automata Wars. I would hesitate to call it a novel,
in truth its a series of short stories, held together by the
overwhelming concept of the setting and background.
This background is well
established early on in the book and is simple enough to strike true:
the idea of a long, mysterious war taking place somewhere in the
world against a foe, the nature of the which is left a mystery,
beyond the idea that they are highly advanced machines that occupy
specialised roles within their society. Cooke creates 'Skimmers' and
'Burrowers' to menace the troops and android infiltrators who aim to
topple the humans from within through sabotage, treachery and the
creation of fifth columns. There's a sense of gleeful menace to her
writing in places, as she describes the actions of the automata;
never letting us doubt that these machines are a threat.
It is on the efforts of
one of the infiltrator androids, one Mr Black, that the narrative
really rests, as he worms his way through the home front, creating
menaces to undermine society. Perhaps fittingly he's studiedly blank
as a character, kept to the background most of the time, when he does
step into the centre stage, in the fifth story 'Festival' he is both
desperate and so goal driven that his personality is almost
incidental, especially when taken in comparison with the mask of
gentility he sports earlier in the volume. This functionalism
contrasts well with the conflicting natures, drives and fears of his
human opponents, which are deftly characterised by Cooke and well
drawn throughout the stories. Black's plans are well conceived,
without wishing to give too much away, a great deal of thought has
evidently gone into what would be feasible for a machine in his
position to be able to accomplish and the result feels neither too
exaggerated nor too timid, the balance is achieved with apparently
little effort.
His principle
adversaries are another group of shadowy figures, a group of
courtesans who seem to be working as a de-facto unofficial wing of
the secret service. They are for the most part left in the shadows,
serving as a set of enablers for the various heroes of the stories,
where they exist. Their madame, who we only meet in the last story,
is an interesting figure, coming across almost as if she were one of
the automata herself; again raising questions about the mechanistic
foes' true nature.
The book's world
building is well accomplished, from the beginning the book feels
grounded, there's a sense of time and place even if there are no real
nods to real places or events within the stories (there's one
reference to a place I recognise, but that's on the side of one of
the enemy's machines, which raises interesting questions about their
true nature). The idea that this is an alternate world is established
very simply and very early on when Cooke refers to soldiers wearing
red, which works simply because by the point in time in our own
history that corresponds more or less to the society she's
describing, the late Edwardian period, the British army had all but
abandoned the scarlet uniforms in favour of khaki. Other details then
fall in confirm the otherness of the world we're reading about, and
the author successfully establishes a society that feels familiar but
is filled with details that are new, and in some places alien. This
after all is a world where apparently the principle deity is largely
unacknowledged, even in a time of war and a church in a desperately
poor area is left abandoned apart from the few foolhardy souls that
make their way there especially.
Where the book does
fall down, a little, is in the structure and pacing. There's very
little to complain about with the latter but there were a couple of
occasions where the description feels heavy and I found myself
skipping through paragraphs rather than reading them properly in
search of action and plot. This is only a minor thing and it may be a
very personal one. The issue with structure is that there are places
where I, and again this may be personal, found myself mentally
rewriting sentences a little to make them make more sense in my head.
This is probably more a matter of writing style's clashing than
anything else however, and it should not discourage anybody else from
picking up and enjoying the book.
Overall though, this is
a fine collection of stories, well realised and written and building
nicely, in the incidental snippets between each story, towards a
satisfying revelation that hopefully will pay off in the second
volume. If you want a new voice in science fiction and to support the
vanishingly small number of women writing SF then I would recommend
picking up this book.
Comments
Post a Comment