Customer Reviews

Degranon: A Gay-Themed Science Fiction Adventure (Sons of Taldra)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I came to Duane Simolke's sci-fi novel, DEGRANON, after first having sampled the author's short stories, as included in THE ACORN GATHERING, Writers Uniting Against Cancer.

DEGRANON is sci-fi that warrants the attention of any serious aficionado, gay or straight, fascinated by alien worlds that mirror our own world -- complete with mind-bending drugs, political machinations, rigid class structures and struggles, cults, small-mindedness, corruption at all levels, loves, hates, aspirations, frustrations -- even bigotry; the planet Valchondria has mainly color-blind societies, long-eliminated prejudices arising from different colored skins having merely evolved into repression of the color-sighted minority by the majority who only see in black and white.

Admitteldy not a breeze-through novel, with its time-travel elements that take the plot from past to present to future to present to past, and its comments upon societal mores and relationships -- experienced through the complications of time travel -- it's nonetheless worth the effort for those who don't mind "food for thought" served up with the dessert of sheer good reading.

NOTE: For those who might prefer an experimental dose of Simolke, before taking on this, his 197-page sci-fi opus, try his and his fellow authors' "shorts" in his non-sci-fi THE ACORN GATHERING which -- all author and editor royalties donated to the American Cancer Soceity -- provides the dual rewards of good reading and benefiting a good cause.

If you love science fiction and you don't mind gay heroes or a complicated plot, then you should read this novel. I enjoyed it and hope to read more by Duane Simolke. There was an earlier version of Degranon, but Simolke rewrote it and added more gay characters. I haven't read the first version, but I like this one.

Degranon is another world, or a religion, or just a book - depending on who you ask. Whatever it really is, it's a threat to the survival of the planet where Taldra and her family live.

Admitedly sci-fiction is not my cup of tea and that is a big gap if you want to read Degranon, since I think the main inspiration for this novel are the old fashioned classic of sci-fiction, but more the '70 and '80 style. In those year, due to the political climate, people were trying to understand the right level of government influence in your everyday life, and to do that utopian worlds were developed on fictional novels (as often happen).

Degranon has an interesting approach: is the world a better place to live if there are no differences among the men, nor of colors or of genders? If people is unable to see colors, and they see only in Black and White, then they cannot single out people due to the race; if being gay is as ordinary as being heterosexual, then it's not something you are sigled out for; if being woman, or man, doesn't influence your authority or your chances to be a leader, then it's not something you have to fight for... but to remove all differences is the path to a better world or to a tyranny? I think the most excel minds are born as a challenge to the system, and so in a society like the one at the beginning of this novel, it's only natural that you will have a situation of clash with the power.

It's interesting to notice that, even if the author himself says in the preface that Degranon included a gay theme (While I thought of Degranon as a science fiction novel that included gay themes but only minor gay characters, I found that many of my readers identified with those gay aspects. (...) With all of that in mind, I kept wondering what Degranon would be like if I rewrote some of the major characters as gay.), there is not even once the word "gay" in all the novel: the homosexuality is so blended (or recognized) in this future society, that there is not need to singling out someone as gay or heterosexual. Actually you understand someone is gay only since he is in a relationship, or he is interested in someone else of his same-sex. So I quite disagree with other reviews I read about this novel, when the reviewer warns the possible sci-fiction reader of the gay-theme of the story, since there is really little of gay in the story.

The second aspect of the novel I noticed, and liked, is an almost regression to family value; in this modern society the family has lost of importance. Dr. Lorfeltez, later Taldra, should be impartial, her quest should be to create something better for the society, but she is also a mother, and a lover, and I felt for her impossible to separate these two side of her persona. Her choices are both for her people and her sons, and when the choices clash against each other, I'm not sure she is impartial enough; that is basically something very old fashioned, she is indead a mother, and that is something that no future government can change. Taldra is also the reason why this novel is and is not gay themed: Taldra is a woman, a mother, and this is mostly her story, nothing gay here; her twin sons are gays, or at least you can understand that (two times, referring to Argen's possible partner, people use the word "boyfriend"). Now I'm not entirely sure Taldra's behaviour is healthy, and I read a tad of fanaticism in her, but I suppose her motherly nature helps in balancing it.

While I feel somewhat bad criticizing someone's first work, Degranon is just not ready for public consumption. There is a reason it was not printed by one of the major printing houses. It feels like it was written by a thirteen year-old. I think the best way to illustrate this is to give some examples:

"Sydra instinctively reached for her laser pistol, but then remembered setting it on her desk. The Top Maintainers never allowed weapons in the upper levels of Urloan Control. Apparently, the Top Maintainers never expected the leader of the Degran cult to slip past the most advanced security systems in all of Valchondria. 'What is your aim? What did you do to them?'"

"With his access to Life Unit and his secret understanding of both temporal doorways and spatial doorways, Geln had managed to adjust the doorway enough to get it closer than any of his people had ever gotten to the time of the great kings of Degranon. And now he was taking Taldra's child there. Yes, he would let Telius live, but he would avenge Taldra's rejection, her insult."

"As the lights springing into his face and body allowed his features to emerge, they revealed a middle-aged man of immediately evident wisdom and confidence-his brown head fully shaved, his dark eyes gleaming with wonder, his simple robe stretched by a muscular body. But most surprising and impressive of all, he didn't look the least bit frightened or astounded. Instead, he merely looked delighted and curious, like an explorer who knew where he was going but not what he would find when he arrived."

Eep. I actually feel maybe the book should have between one and two stars, but because I was sucked in by a positive review (five stars!), I feel something of a need to balance it out. The author is trying to follow in the footsteps of other classic dystopian works: Brave New World or 1984, but is not up to the task.

To get some perspective on what I like, I've read and enjoyed a fair bit of science-fiction (including BNW & 1984): just about anything by Neal Stephenson (especially Snow Crash or The Diamond Age), Greg Egan's Quarantine, Dan Simmons' Hyperion, Ender's Game, Gordon R. Dickson, Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, Saberhagen, Philip K. Dick, Philip Jose Farmer, Brian Aldiss, Greg Bear.... Harlan Ellison also rocks. I also enjoy less serious works (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or Calahan's Crosstime Saloon). Short fiction, Degranon just hurt. So save your money (or buy my used copy!)