io9
Two spies, one trained in the art of lying and the other in the art of reading people for signs of subterfuge, have been sent to steal alien technology from Amazonia, a planet ruled by man-enslaving lesbians. Our spies are emissaries from a male-dominated, interplanetary government ruled by ruthless artificial intelligences who enforce carbon neutrality on all worlds by genociding any group that uses too much energy. Their hope is that the alien technology can end the eco-fascist reign of terror by providing an infinite source of renewable energy. This premise for Elizabeth Bear's novel Carnival, published a little over a year ago, is so intriguing that you'll keep reading just to watch the fine machinery of her thought experiment unfold.
Bear, whose books come out so quickly that you'll blink and miss one, is famous for combining high-octane military/spy tales with eccentric and subversive subplots. In last year's Undertow a traditional actioner turns out to hinge on the politics of mining practices. And in her recently-released Dust, a battle for power on board a ship that's traveled for generations is full of little kinks that make her characters stand out as intensely realistic in unrealistic surroundings.
But back to Carnival, a novel where all the traditional ideas of liberal science fiction like matriarchies and ecotopias are turned on their heads. When lesbians rule a planet, they don't create peace and harmony: they become obsessed with guns and honor and dueling. They enslave all men (except homosexuals, whom they call "gentles"), using them to breed and for labor. And they engage in brutal guerilla warfare to gain power in government.
The novel's back story, though dealt with only cursorily (which is too bad), is even more interesting. A group of radical eco-liberationists create these super-powered AIs designed to reduce Earth's carbon footprint no matter what it takes. So the AIs proceed to kill the entire human population of the Northern Hemisphere, getting rid of all the white people they can. They continue to do regular "assessments" of the human population, killing anyone who takes too much energy without giving back to the society in some significant way. All breeding and energy consumption are strictly controlled. Everyone must be a vegan or die. To escape, humans begin populating other planets where they can use more energy without getting "assessed."
Meanwhile, the human population becomes more conservative, outlawing homosexuality because everyone has become so obsessed with a desire to breed in the face of massive birth control programs. Anyone who challenges the idea of reproductive sex becomes, ironically, suspect. Bear's idea that an eco-regime like this would breed conservatism rather than progressivism is really quite smart, and world-building junkies like me will love her careful attention to how ideologies might evolve over time.
And for those who could give a crap about world-building, well you're in luck too. Most of the narrative is about Vincent and Michelangelo, two super-spies on Amazonia posing as diplomats. They're lovers, which makes them outcasts in their own culture but ideal for this mission since the only males the Amazonians tolerate are gay ones.
As they get embroiled in local politics and factions, as well as meeting the AI ghosts of the aliens who occupied Amazonia before — leaving their energy-generators behind — the plot thickens and there are some genuinely cool spy vs. counter-spy vs. counter-counter-spy moments. Some of the Amazonians want to help the spies because they want to keep Amazonia free of the eco-facists, and others want to help bring in the eco-fascists in order to liberate the enslaved men. Plus, there's pistol dueling.
Unfortunately, sometimes the spy stuff gets so thick that it veers into being incoherent, especially since Vincent and Michelangelo are doing missions they have to keep secret from each other. There are actually passages where you can't figure out who is spying on whom, and that can be a problem when you've already got a lot of confusing alien stuff happening too.
But what pleases about this novel, and the reason I'd recommend it as a good way to get into one of the most prolific and exciting science fiction writers working today, is that it manages to do what so few SF novels can. That is, it offers an intriguing, intellectually-rewarding glimpse at one human possible future while also telling a rip-roaring yarn. No, it's not terribly realistic. Most of Bear's other books have a strong dose of fantasy, and you can tell she's used to explaining tech via magic rather than hard science. But as a thought-experiment, Carnival is a great success, and a good rejoinder to the greenies in these eco-obsessed times.
Carnival [Amazon]
Comments
"Bear's idea that an eco-regime like this would breed conservatism rather than progressivism is really quite smart, and world-building junkies like me will love her careful attention to how ideologies might evolve over time." Why the hell do these sentences give me deja vu?
@Ghede: Because the book came out a year ago and you already read reviews of it?
Yeah, warrior Amazonians is such a topsy-turvy, novel idea...
@Tim Faulkner: Well maybe I've just read too many novels about matriarchies that are all about peace and harmony and crap.
Grabbed this as an impulse buy at the supermarket, very nice read.
Im sure there's a hentai version of this somewhere...
@Annalee Newitz: I bet you liked that one episode of Futurama...
Snu-Snu ^__^
I did not like this book. Mostly because I couldn't stand Michaelangelo or Vincent. And the deus ex machina at the end didn't help either. But the worldbuilding was good and as a thought-experiment it worked.
Also, the matriarchal planet is only technically ruled by a lesbian. The Prime Minister is a lesbian but every woman on Amazonia isn't gay. The main female character is straight, forex.
And if you read her blog, you would know that one of her Promethean Society novels is coming out as a French (!?) graphic novel.
Oh wait, that's Fantasy..never mind. Although as bad as she bends genres, it might be relevant to this blog.. It's all rock and roll to me.
sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out.
After I quit reading Dust about halfway through, at the point when I realized it was just a ridiculous combination of Roger Zelazny and a Harlequin Romance novel set aboard Aldiss' Non-Stop, I refused to give ELizabeth Bear a second chance. Nothing about her novels' premises or execution indicates to me that she is anything more than yet another paperback mill like Laurell Hamilton or Andre Norton: writers with just enough command of the language and the rudiments of storytelling to churn out endless novels and trilogies for readers too dull to realize what ACTUAL science-fiction and fantasy are supposed to be.
Then a buddy of mine said, "Read Carnival. It's really cool."
So I did.
Or, rather, I tried. I got in twenty pages and said to myself, "Wow, no wonder Dust read like something that had been done to death by the end of the 1970s--all of her novels are like that."
The concepts behind Carnival were all exhausted by the end of the 1980s. And she doesn't even *tries* to update them in any way for the contemporary world. Just more of that idiotic eco-feminist utopianism that LeGuin dabbled with, Pamela Sargent flirted with, and Marge Piercy and Sheri S. Tepper absolutely drove into the damned ground. Carnival had all the originality of a soap-opera episode.
Warrior Amazons or be-robed, wisdom-spouting Earth Mothers, eco-feminist utopias are patently idiotic, and I cannot believe someone in the 2000s is even writing this crap. I can't believe people are BUYING it!
Females are no better than males at running things: both sexes will inevitably screw up anything they turn their hands to because, at the end of the day, we're still both *human*.
@donkeyjote: Is that the new "I think I saw porn that started like that..." ? Because I like it. :D
@Annalee Newitz:
Yeah, I agree. Actually I'm rather tired of the both cliches. Matriarchies would not be pacificist, enlightened and tree-hugging granola gals nor would they by the nerd-boy fantasy of metal brassiered, psuedo-lesbian dominatrixes.
My guess is that a world mostly dominated politically and economically by women (straight or gay) would be no better or no worse than our world. Wars, economic exploitation and environmental damage would be roughly as common our world.
Basically at some point in collective human behavior and cultural evolution gender and sexual orientation just don't matter that much. Warfare, technology and economic abuse are artifacts of civilization, not male or female drives. The negative aspects of human civilization transcend gender and sexual orientation. Sorry but, we all to blame here.
Then again, I'm just a boy. Maybe I only believe that to divert blame.
@Pegritz: Not only did you not read the book, you didn't even read Annalee's post. You aren't as quite smart as the other kids on the short bus, are you?
@Pegritz WTF, Carnival was a half-serious, half-funny, critique of 70s ecofeminist utopian SF.
Sounds like you stopped right about at the awesome GAY BUTTSEX IN SPACE. Coincidence, or not?
I think we've got your number...
@Liz Henry: Surprise buttsechs!
the ending was a bit deus ex machina, although at least there was a bit of setup for it.
otoh, i really enjoyed the book and i'll forgive its flaws.
i really want to see the "phoenix abased" sculpture
i read Dust and enjoyed it once i got into it (about a 1/3 of the way in). so i picked up Undertow and i'm not enjoying it as much. i'll probably get the next book in the Jacob's Ladder series, only because i have an issue with leaving a series unfinished, dammit.
The description of these women reads like a résumé for one of the Bene Geserit sisters. I think any feminist who hasn't read the Dune series could do so if they want the best model for female empowerment that I can imagine. The Bene Geserit-Honored Matre hybrid will make the ultimate warrior women in the multiverse, much more powerful than the Fish Speakers. No lesbianic puns intended.
I was completely intrigued by Dust, and I am picking up more of her work. My one problem is I get her and Elizabeth Moon mixed up...between all of SF's Elizabeths and diff. flavors of "Robert Wilson"s, I get confused easily.
Interesting that no-one has proclaimed this an 'Al Gore wet dream' and then proceeded to pontificate on how it is the role model we should all follow -- lots of other blogs would have had a few 'converts' anyway -> yippy-skippy for io9
((or are they lurking?))
@Pegritz:
-with all due respect-- wow. can you say j-a-d-e-d ?
Based on your standards of sci-fi that would mean only 3 or 4 worthwhile reads a year - i'd rather be dead.
@corpore-metal:
I think that any 'leader' group or category that encompasses a single-view or has a narrow set of values would fundamentally collapse or only exist in a police-state sort of set-up (well, except for the new york city swingers syndicate - but, i digress)
But how often do we come across a stimulating read that extolls a system of diversity, harmony, inter-value peacefulness, and such... i mean a story without conflict - can that be a workable, readable story??? Isn't that Creative Writing Rule Number 1? No clash of values -> no story?
@Jeff-Minor:
I wouldn't call the Bene Gesserit role-models for feminism, because, as powerful as they are, all their power comes from manipulating men behind the scenes. Even though they have cool mind powers, to me they personify the old chestnut that "Oh, women have all the real power because they control men with sex!", which completely falls apart when someone asks "So why haven't we had a woman president yet?" I've only read the first "Dune" novel, though, so I may have missed something.
@Death_Worm: Well, you need to read all the way to the end, with Chapter House Dune. And don't read any of the Dune books written by Herbert's sun, or your brain might be destroyed. Power to control men with sex, money, whatever is still power. And the Bene Geserit sisters are more then breeders, they weave the fabric of the culture, they work to ensure humanity survives. They are the only saving grace in Herbert's universe.
I recently read carnival and undertow (based on recomendations from this site, natch) and thought they aren't terrible until the end. she just wraps everything up with a little dues ex machina and then bam happily every after in each book.
not to mention that they have identical plots - superspy killer in love, questions of loyataly, ecological damage, humans that are greedy, aliens that know better, magical god plot resolution, bam happily ever after
this is not to say i didn't like the premise or the setup, but I was like huh? at the end of carnival and then i couldn't believe she pulled the same exact crap to end undertow.
if you changed the names of the characters in each book you could put one chapter from carnival followed by one chapter fron undertow and follow the plot right along because the have the same plot.
Carnival is probably her best, Dust is good too.
Undertow is kind of a mess, though.
All IMO, of course.
-Kle.
P.S. - all you naysayers: Sure, she isn't the best author of all time, but she does solid, workmanlike prose with some good ideas thrown in. It's just entertainment after all, and some of us are book addicts with a habit to feed. If I could only bring myself to read the Best Three Books of every year, I'd have to kill myself.
I think Bear uses the buckshot method of writing: she blastes out a ton of stuff and she knows at least a few bits are going to find their target. I think she's possesed by a writing demon. I wonder if she sleeps???
Jeff-Minor, if you really want sex that badly, convincing women to read Dune in order to control you with sex is probably not the best way to get it.
Now, if the rest of you folks *really* want a novel that inverts fantasy stereotypes, try A Companion To Wolves, which Bear wrote with Sara Monette.
@JoshJasper:
Dude, that is not an issue with me. My mother is the only woman who controls me. And with food. :)
@designguybrown:
Sure, stories the begin with "and they lived happily ever after" are dull. But I'm just saying that I've read both cliches of matriarchies, the granola gals and the leather gals, and I find both wanting in terms of realism. I mean think of real women leaders, Golda Meir, Thatcher, Indira, Elizbeth I, Clinton, Catherine the Great, etc. Would these historical figures fit into either cliche? No.
Anyway, on to your other point, I don't think Al Gore or anyone except grumpy ol' misanthropes (By that I mean human, both straight and gay, male or female.) would want to live in either society posited in this book.
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