Accidental Creatures (Paperback)

~ (Author) "THIS building is condemned by the WEB Nine Zoning Authority..." (more)
Key Phrases: Hector Martin, Night Hag, Nathan Graham (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anne Harris's second novel welcomes readers to the Detroit of the future--a city of extreme poverty and extravagant wealth, were every life is overshadowed by the megalithic biotech corporation GeneSys. With the rise of maglev transportation and the death of the auto industry, the name Motor City has become an anachronism. There are no jobs except GeneSys jobs. One can either pass an exam and obtain an office job at GeneSys headquarters or work in the dangerous biopolymer-growing vats in Vattown. Chango Chichelski, a sport (a mutant from exposure to lethal growth medium in the vats) with a passionate love of the Detroit of her grandmother's stories, chooses instead to fall through the cracks. Chango lives in an ancient motor car and spends her time haunting (and committing to memory) buildings slated for demolition.

Her life changes when she rescues, and then falls in love with, a fanged and four-armed sport named Helix. Helix is the adopted daughter of Hector Martin, the brilliant but emotionally unstable head scientist at GeneSys. Weary of her isolated life, Helix flees into Vattown, intending to become a vat diver. But her plan is opposed by Chango, whose union-organizer sister Ada died after contact with the vat's growth medium, and by the vat divers themselves, who refuse to accept a sport within their ranks.

Accidental Creatures is an action-packed tale full of intrigue, betrayals, and flashy characters. Interestingly, the sports of the Vattown underworld--drug dealers, junk artists, and healers--look positively normal compared to GeneSys's corporate denizens, who scream, cry, fight, and lie outrageously to retain or advance their positions in the corporate hierarchy.

Harris's writing style is not for everybody (for instance, readers allergic to comma splices should approach with caution). But for the less grammatically persnickety, Accidental Creatures may prove to be a rewarding tale of outsiders and identity. --Eddy Avery

From Publishers Weekly

Despite a strong beginning and initially sympathetic characters in interesting relationships, Harris's second novel (after The Nature of Smoke, 1996) is derailed by undigested psychological material, and winds up as an uncomfortable adhesion of fantasy and hard SF with elements of disaster movie and a barely coherent metaphysics. Harris convincingly creates a future Detroit in which car manufacturing has been supplanted by a biotextile industry. Now people drive maglevs, sit in living, self-cleaning chairs and watch interactive soap operas. Vat divers brave deadly sickness to harvest materials for manipulative employer GeneSys. After Ada organizes a successful strike against the company, she dies under mysterious circumstances. Her sister Chango wants nothing to do with vat diving, but she falls in love with a four-armed woman named Helix with a strange affinity for the vats. Halfway through the book, Harris switches genres and reveals in a few summary pages that Helix has been spawned by Lilith, a creature biologically engineered for vat diving who has taken on the qualities of a primeval goddess and rebelled against GeneSys, now understood to be a sort of rival god. Thereafter, it's one extravagantly ad hoc turn after another as the plot rushes in a direction quite at odds with the biotechnological buildup and the social realism of the opening. There may be a couple of good novels?one fantasy, one SF?embedded within, but shoehorning them together has diminished both.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; Reprint edition (October 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312875606
• ISBN-13: 978-0312875602
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 3.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #894,650 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Home Girl Nails Near-Future Motown, May 6, 2000

By	Paul H. Giampetroni (Detroit, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accidental Creatures (Hardcover)

As a long-time resident of the Motor City, it made me proud to read the work of Anne Harris. Less abstract than William Gibson, Harris does her homework when it comes to carrying on the cyberpunk anthem. Reality based near future concepts such as cell-animate tattoos and post economic apocalyptic cityscapes make this a must read for sci-fi fans. Detroit is lovingly portrayed as the industrial juggernaut trying to cope with its gentrification. Boundary issues, class struggle, and corporate rape are as entrenched in the mid twenty first century as in the mid twentieth century. The image of Southwest Detroit as "Vattown", where biopolymer vats spew forth organic based synthetics at the degradation of the working class hits home. This book is clearly a coming of age for Harris, and gives the reader a clear sense of the struggles we, as the first industrialized city in the first industrialized country, will continue to face. Gender issues are dealt with in a mature manner with respect to both sides, and none of the insipid "Grrrl" axes to grind. All of Harris's characters stand on their own merit regardless of sex, sexual preference, or race.

I am looking forward to Harris's next installment with great anticipation.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Original sci-fi with actual science and characters., August 23, 1998

By	YouSerper (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accidental Creatures (Hardcover)

Accidental Creatures is an interesting, well paced sci-fi thriller with some actual "science". The main characters are not only well crafted but original, sexual and beautiful. Yes, beautiful. Images created on paper of the four-armed Helix and that little brat Chango are quite unforgettable. Self-serving antangonists grow from within the story and bio-growth medium goo, where divers risk their pathetic lives to earn a living. The end goes a little too far with the whole evil corporation thing - but, a little too far can be fun. And it is.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A powerful writer, passionate about ideas, June 30, 2007

By	Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

An old adage recommends that you should write what you know. Perhaps heeding this advice, Anne Harris has used her hometown of Detroit as a backdrop in both her debut novel, THE NATURE OF SMOKE, and in her sophomore effort, ACCIDENTAL CREATURES. The Motor City of ACCIDENTAL CREATURES, however, is somewhat different from its present incarnation. GM, Ford and Chrysler, are gone, replaced by the aptly named GeneSys as the major corporate presence. Detroit is now famous for the valuable biopolymers produced there. Instead of factory workers assembling cars, the city now is home to an unfortunate group of exploited "vat divers", who physically harvest biopolymers from huge vats filled with a toxic growth medium. Although the names, products and employees have changed, one thing remains the same--corporations still focus on the bottom line, in the process making the lives of their employees miserable.

The two chief characters of ACCIDENTAL CREATURES are a thief named Chango, and the woman who later becomes her lover, the mutant female Helix. Chango scrabbles to survive on the edge of Detroit's mainstream. She longs to make big money as a vat diver, even though the job killed her older sister Ada, who may have been murdered in retaliation for her union organizing activities. Chango meets the innocent Helix and is immediately taken with her, due to her unique appearance. Even in a society accustomed to aberrations (years of vat diving has spawned a number of grotesque birth defects), the four armed, fanged Helix stands out.

Raised by GeneSys research scientist Hector Martin, a doting father determined to protect her from her dangerous past, Helix has until now had very little experience with the real world. Hooking up with Chango changes everything-Helix discovers the existence of the vats, and, despite Chango's protestations, is inexorably drawn to them. Helix, it seems, is an unexpected byproduct of her adoptive father's genetic experiments, a new life form designed to thrive in the vats. Her very existence, however, constitutes a threat to the livelihood of GeneSys--she and her forerunners, whose creation has been concealed from GeneSys by Martin, are targeted for death by the corporation.

Harris is a convincing storyteller with a gift for getting and holding your attention--portions of this novel are absolutely riveting. A master at creating realistic backdrops for her action, Harris' rendering of the corporate milieu is totally convincing, eerily familiar to anyone who's worked for a large company. Vattown is equally plausible--it's all too easy to buy in to the urban nightmare she creates. This attention to detail combined with the vitality of Harris' ideas and the book's breakneck pace keep the pages turning at a furious rate.

It's only after that last page is turned that one realizes that the book is something less than the sum of its parts. It's hard to classify this novel, since Harris never quite decides what type of story she wants to tell. Judging by its gripping opening, you'd think you were reading a polemic on labor, a suspense novel set in the near future with employer-worker relations as its main concern. The story veers from this direction early on however, into a dystopian fantasy, when Harris introduces Chango. Still later, it becomes a fairy tale, wherein an ugly duckling grows up to discover that she's really a Queen.

Overall, the book's virtues balance its imperfections, making for a satisfying read. Harris is an author who merits attention, a powerful writer, passionate about ideas.