Customer Reviews

Electric Forest

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

 

 

One thing can be said about Tanith Lee, she knows how to create sympathetic, interesting characters that you want to find out more about, and sustain your interest in the book. She also has a tendency to write twist endings (in this case, a double-twist ending)that are either contrived or downright infuriating (and this one is both). "Electric Forest" is a short novel telling the furturistic story of deformed Magdala Cled. She is offered by sadistic millionaire playboy scientist Claudio Loro to become beautiful. He does this via a process called "consciousness transfer": Magdala's body is kept alive in a "glazium" capsule, while her consciousness is transferred to a simulate body of a beautiful woman. When Magdala discovers that the body she is inhabiting is based on the genetic pattern of a real woman, she tries to discover who she is, and why Claudio would want her to impersonate this stranger. The balance of the story plays like a science-fiction espionage story, and is not bad, but the low rating is due to the infuriating epilogue (I would have been happier had it been dropped) and the lack of the overall quality I've come to expect from Tanith Lee.

While spending her entire life on Indigo (a planet in the Earth Conclave) as a repulsive outcast because of her deformed appearance, Magdala Cled is startled, yet intrigued, when a rich, attractive scientist named Claudio Loro approaches her with the promise to transform her into someone beautiful by relocating her consciousness into a new body. Magdala agrees, but at the same time, she can't help but wonder what exactly his intentions are.

Although I love Tanith Lee's writing, "Electric Forest" isn't my favorite book by her. Granted, it is short (approximately 150 pages), but the technical jargon in the pre-screening and post-screening chapters baffled me. These two beginning and ending sections weren't really necessary to the story, in my opinion, and only seemed to muddle the plot. Still, I would recommend this book to sci fi fans, for a quick read.

Magdala Cled, ostracized and shunned all her life for her physical ugliness, is one day approached by a stranger with an offer: does she want to become beautiful? Why, yes, yes she does. Of course she does. When you are born into a world where everyone looks perfect except you, wanting to be the same is hardly superficial. Magdala doesn't feel human, isn't even treated as one. And here comes the ticket to life as something better than sub-human. Even if this ticket comes from a domineering, insanely abusive madman.

Claudio Loro is the madman. Stunningly handsome, amazingly rich, a genius scientist--he's everything Magdala isn't, and in a position of complete control and power over her. He introduces her to an artificial body of surpassing beauty. This, he tells her, can be hers. If she does what he says. If she agrees to be his experiment. And so it goes: quickly it's revealed that she isn't going to become his Galatea. All there is is an illusion, of her consciousness being fooled into thinking that it now inhabits this construct. Though Claudio refuses to tell her much of anything, least of all the why. Why Magdala? Why Christophine del Jan, the woman who looks just like Magdala's new body? Why is Claudio so obsessed with her?

This is PYGMALION. From hell.

At first I was put off at how passive Magdala is, and it's a symptom common in an awful lot of Tanith Lee's protagonists, but let's be fair: Claudio holds the key to her survival. The capsule containing her original body must be maintained. If her body dies, there goes her consciousness. He holds this fact hostage, lords it over her, happily gloating over it at every opportunity. He subjects her to constant psychological torture, and sometimes throws in physical for good measure. He installs Magdala in Christophine's home and grooms her to despise the woman who is everything she can never be, who has everything she never had. Magdala's self-defense mechanism of emotionlessness thaws under this assault as Claudio forces her into one situation after another where she has to confront new and distressing experiences, to which she reacts with strong emotions. Partly herself, partly parroting "tri-V dramas," Magdala bends, almost breaks... and becomes her own person. Which is astonishing, considering. There are moments where she turns the tables on Claudio, striking back with mind games she learned from him. She becomes curious. She questions his motives. But even then she can't help the love-hate relationship she has with him, because after all this is the very first time in her entire life she's exposed an interpersonal relationship. Literally, he's the only human being who regards her as an individual and takes interest (albeit a scary, detrimental one) in what she does, how she thinks. Even though she recognizes that he's manipulating her, it's difficult for her not to act according to his script, and Christophine del Jan is easy for her to hate.

The confrontation between Magdala and the real Christophine marks the novel's turning point. It's a wonderful, well-wrought scene vibrating with tension and the irreal prospect of staring your perfect double in the face. Complex, charged. And here, Christophine reveals what's really going on. Why Claudio is doing all this. Why he's targeting Christophine. Everything.

To say anything more would be spoiling the best parts of the book, and considering that I usually have no scruples spoiling the everloving daylight out of books I review, you can take this as a verdict that ELECTRIC FOREST is really, really good.

On the planet Indigo, a beautiful but heartless world of physical perfection, a deformed, rejected woman is offered the chance to leave her body behind and become beautiful. But what will be the price? I really enjoyed this short novel and its exploration of consciousness transferral. The heroine of this short novel, Magdala, has been in a state of near non-existence until she meets the mysterious Claudio, and with little ability to make decisions, awakens in an artifical body and begins to make it her own. In a world where beauty has become boring, she is excited by it and yet filled with hatred at the cruelty of Claudio who reminds her of what she truly is, and terror at the threat of having her new beauty, and body, taken from her. I wasn't too bothered by the pre and post screenings that weren't really part of the story, and yet explained what it was about. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys scifi, especially virtual reality stories.

I imagine that I am going to have quite the addiction on my hands now. My second novel by Ms. Lee, I have already hopelessly fallen in love with her futuristic worlds of holostat illusions, decadent bungalows in the sky and trees of indigo blue. As for her charactors, her writing allows me to feel their pain and anguish as though it were indeed my own. Even the antagonists are far too intriguing to truly hate. But, on with the novel...

The life of Magdala Cled is that of a severly deformed misfit in a society of rich snobs who were geneticly created to ensure that they would become physically attractive. Magdala, on the other hand was born to a prostitute Mother and unknown Father who dumped her off into a group home after she was born because she never bothered to have an abortion.
Her she lives and goes out into the world, but her life is "lifeless" really because everywhere she goes people are so disgusted and frightened by the sight of her that even going to work is an ordeal. Her only companionship at all is the stuffed toy cat she hides in her apartment.

But that all changes when the beautiful, rich Claudio spies her on the street and gives her the opportunity to have a whole new body through a transfer of consciousness. Now Magdala is beautiful--and under the complete and total control of a derranged mad scientist who indeed has his own selfish vendetta in mind--especially when Magdala realizes that she is an exact copy of a real living woman. A woman who Claudio desipises for mysterious reasons and Magdala hates for the reason that she is everything that Magdala could never be because of her physical deformities.

It is heart wrenching to watch Magdala's dull life change into one of mystery and grand intrigue. To watch her charactor transform having been given the chance to experience feelings and emotions that she never could before because of having no friends or human contact whatsoever. To watch Claudio torment her with mind games and grand thoughts only to remind her of what she really is, something which she is always grimly aware of herself. And all the while as she contemplates her newfound situation, Magdala realizes her feelings of love/hate for Claudio, the one man who dared to notice her, and questions his motives. To live a life knowing it is not really hers at all, and that it is no longer even in any of her own control.

My only gripe about the novel was it's shortness in length. I also agree with one of the other reviewers comments about the pre and post screenings being completely unnessasary and muddling to the plot. But even so, this was such an enjoyable read that I have to give credit where it's due. I'm a Bona Fide Tanith Lee fan now. I can't wait to read more of her novels.

Many times Tanith reminds me of Philip K. Dick, not so much in style but in output and lack of recognition. Amidst an array of pretty good works there are flashes of pure brilliance but you wonder why she hasn't become as popular or as famous as lesser lights.

This book is one of the pretty good ones. A science fiction thriller set in a planet where everyone is genetically engineered to be "perfect" the one outcast is a daughter of a whore with every deformity available. When the mysterious Claudio shows up to offer her a new body via consciousness transferance she jumps on the chance. Only Claudio isn't telling her everything and he's a sadist to boot. As she tries to comprehend why Claudio gave her the new body and Claudio's overall agenda you move with her through dizzying plot twists.

There are about 3 different plot twists at the end and they come pretty fast. For me they make the book enjoyable and intriguing. This was not Tanith Lee's greatest work and there are several places where it feels like we are waiting for something to happen. However, it is a short book and great for an enjoyable afternoon.