Customer Reviews

Other Nature

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I just finished reading _Other Nature_ about thirty minutes ago. I'm still in a bit of shock. It's that good.

Stephanie A. Smith is relative rarity in the Science Fiction genre, an author who doesn't insult your intelligence. You don't catch the rich subtleties, tough. She isn't going to shove your nose in it until you realize what she is trying to say.

The story, unlike so many science-fiction stories, doesn't depend on a nifty little idea. It's about people, and a small town.

This novel will probably be rejected by many, which is a shame. If more science fiction was like this, I would read it a lot more.

Stephanie Smith uses a possible (all too near) future to explore many subtleties about what it is to be human and to explore transcendence.

As Stephanie indicates in her own review, this book will not find it's audience easily, its subtleties may elude many. On the other hand, I find it on par with the widely heralded, often quoted, seminal work in the same (sub) genre, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ. I find this less of a post-disaster novel than a study in human nature through the exploration of not-quite or perhaps more-than human nature.

Anyone who is intrigued by the subtleties of complex human relations and with possible ways we might transcend ourselves as a species and culture should read this book.

Yes, it can be dark and stark but I found rich subtle messages woven into that weft. Whether read literally or as somewhat of an allegory, I found it to be rich in substance to reflect on.

I read this overlooked classic around 10 years ago; scenes from it still haunt me and give me chills. S. A. Smith plays deftly with SF genre conventions and those of feminist science fiction to focus on questions of what it means to be human - not in the sense of "what it means to be human" in a speech of Captain Kirk, but instead in a way that made me think "How should I live my own life? What is important?" As post-apocalyptic fiction with brooding, thoughtful atmosphere it stands with John Crowley, Octavia Butler, Greg Bear, Gwyneth Jones, Peter Dickinson, Pat Murphy.

"But wait - this is just a story about some people in a small town community or some sort of Kim-Stanley-Robinson-esque hippie commune. Where is the science?" Well, yes. We all know what kind of novel would be written that focuses around the elided scenes in the protagonists' visit to (and escape from) the dystopian post-apocalpyse San Francisco; it's been written countless times. Here is the "other" story to that story. Very subtle and cool.

I was initially excited about reading this book but very quickly I became more than a little disappointed. But I kept reading anyway. Smith's language is, indeed, beautiful. Unfortunately, language is only one of the many facets of a well written, well thought out novel. Smith has developed a small slice of the world that used to be part of the United States, shrouded it with the mystery of its past and introduced its inhabitants and the strange problems surrounding the lives and deaths of their children. But nowhere does Smith answer any of the questions she has posed. Nowhere does she explain the truth behind the mystery. The characters are underdeveloped and I could find myself caring less about their fate. And her ideas about adaptation and evolution are just plain silly. It would take much longer for the evolutionary or adaptive process Smith is describing to take place than she has allowed for...certainly the ruins of lighthouses would be nothing but dust by the time such evolutionary changes in humans could take place. The very foundation for Other Nature is, to put it bluntly, bad. There are better things out there to read.