Sunday, February 05, 2006
Review of Fledgling
Octavia Butler's latest novel Fledgling opens with the character we will come to know as Shori Matthews in utter darkness, incomprehensible pain, and amnesia. Through the course of the novel Shori recovers from her wounds and discovers herself to be a member of a vampire-like race known as the Ina.
The Ina drink the blood of "regular" humans for their sustenance, but rather than completely draining their victims or turning them into the undead, too, as conventional vampires do, they develop a harem-type arrangement with around eight symbionts. This is not a one-way benefit to the Ina because their saliva contains some kind of drug which not only gives an undescribable euphoria to those they bite but extends their lives to two hundred years or so--years of good health and good mental acumen. The Ina can use this power over their humans to make them do anything they wish. Also, it is a drug addiction from which it is impossible to recover. Once a human and Ina have been "joined" (being bitten on a regular basis for a few days), not having the drug for more than a week proves fatal to the human.
The Ina live in collective, communal arrangements with their own family members (divided by gender) as well as all of their collective symbionts. While the Ina do have incredibly long life spans, in the five hundred year range, they are not immortal as conventional vampires are. Also, they do have reflections, aren't harmed by crucifixes or garlic, and can't transform into wolves or bats. What they do have in common with vampires besides the blood sucking thing, is an almost superhuman strength, speed, and capacity to recover from wounds. Also, they will get a serious sunburn from sunlight and are entirely nocturnal, basically falling unconscious with the sunrise.
Shori is different from other Ina in this regard, though, as she is the result of genetic experimentation. Some of her genes are grafted from a black woman. Hence her appearance differs from other Ina. They tend to be melanin deficient. (They are described almost as albinos.) Also, although she prefers the nocturnal life, Shori can force herself to stay awake during the day and is OK as long as she keeps her skin covered.
It is as a result of her genetic difference that her injuries at the beginning of the book are derived. She and her mother's and sisters' group have been attacked, their buildings burned, and entirely killed by a group of Ina who view Shori as an abomination because of her genetic relationship to humans. Some Ina see humans as vastly inferior (sort of like domestic pets). Although completely burned and given severe head injuries, Shori somehow survives and recuperates. (One wonders why her human attackers sent by their Ina bosses didn't just sever her spinal cord at the base of the skull?) Eventually Shori develops her first Ina-human relationship with a guy who just happens to be driving down the road she is walking on, away from the devestation of her family's compound. She hooks up with her father and brothers, but they, too, are destroyed. Shori manages to save her own first symbiont and two others from her father's group. They make their way from Seattle to another Ina household in northern California, who become their allies. Most of the latter half of the novel is a trial-like affair with the Ina responsible for Shori's family being tried and punished by the larger Ina community.
Shori is eventually vindicated, but not without sever costs. During the trial one of her favorite symbionts, an older librarian from Seattle she first met when she was just trying to figure out who she was named Theodora Harkin (anyone read Mina Harkin in Bram Stoker's Dracula?), is murdered. Also, her entire past of fifty odd years and her family have been taken from her by the brutal attacks. She will need to figure out where she stands in the world and what it means to be Ina (or at least mostly Ina of a Ina-human genetic combination).
Because of this feeling of imcompletion at the conclusion of the novel, I'm hoping for at least a sequal if not a longer series of books about Shori. At the end of the novel Shori is still sexually immature. Although she is in her fifties, because she is still a youngster by Ina standards, she appears as a pre-teen black girl. So in subseqent novels I would like to see Shori having children. (At the end of the novel she is already engaged to the sons of the Ina family in northern California.) I would like to see how Ina children are weaned and first take symbionts of their own. Do they breastfeed? Also, I hope that Theodora Harkin has a granddaughter that Shori can hook up with later, as I really liked her character especially. The antoginistic Ina family has been broken up and adopted by others, but because they're still alive, will they come back to give Shori more trouble? This Ina family is not entirely a rogue group, and there are many others who are prejudiced against her as well as many others that are fascinated by her ability to stay awake during the day. Also, this novel was told from Shori's perspective. Wouldn't it make for an interesting novel if the novel were told from the humans' point-of-view? Break the narrative up into eight parts, with each human telling their own tale?
One of the memorable qualities of the book is its sensuality. Although Ina drink blood and eat raw meat exclusively, their humans still need to eat. So their meals are described in loving detail. We can almost smell and taste some of these get-togethers. Ina and humans can and do have sex with each other (heightening the effects of the Ina saliva drug), but Ina can only reproduce by their own kind. In fact, one of the disturbing aspects of the novel is picturing Shori engaged in various carnal relations with her symbionts, given that she appears as a preteen black girl. (She does think like an adult, though.) I appreciate the rich bisexual sexuality of then novel.
Anyways, I loved this book, and I can't wait to see what Ms. Butler has in store next. (I also very much liked her two previous books to this one, The Parable of the Talents and The Parable of the Sower--maybe reviews of those will be undertaken in future posts?)
The Ina drink the blood of "regular" humans for their sustenance, but rather than completely draining their victims or turning them into the undead, too, as conventional vampires do, they develop a harem-type arrangement with around eight symbionts. This is not a one-way benefit to the Ina because their saliva contains some kind of drug which not only gives an undescribable euphoria to those they bite but extends their lives to two hundred years or so--years of good health and good mental acumen. The Ina can use this power over their humans to make them do anything they wish. Also, it is a drug addiction from which it is impossible to recover. Once a human and Ina have been "joined" (being bitten on a regular basis for a few days), not having the drug for more than a week proves fatal to the human.
The Ina live in collective, communal arrangements with their own family members (divided by gender) as well as all of their collective symbionts. While the Ina do have incredibly long life spans, in the five hundred year range, they are not immortal as conventional vampires are. Also, they do have reflections, aren't harmed by crucifixes or garlic, and can't transform into wolves or bats. What they do have in common with vampires besides the blood sucking thing, is an almost superhuman strength, speed, and capacity to recover from wounds. Also, they will get a serious sunburn from sunlight and are entirely nocturnal, basically falling unconscious with the sunrise.
Shori is different from other Ina in this regard, though, as she is the result of genetic experimentation. Some of her genes are grafted from a black woman. Hence her appearance differs from other Ina. They tend to be melanin deficient. (They are described almost as albinos.) Also, although she prefers the nocturnal life, Shori can force herself to stay awake during the day and is OK as long as she keeps her skin covered.
It is as a result of her genetic difference that her injuries at the beginning of the book are derived. She and her mother's and sisters' group have been attacked, their buildings burned, and entirely killed by a group of Ina who view Shori as an abomination because of her genetic relationship to humans. Some Ina see humans as vastly inferior (sort of like domestic pets). Although completely burned and given severe head injuries, Shori somehow survives and recuperates. (One wonders why her human attackers sent by their Ina bosses didn't just sever her spinal cord at the base of the skull?) Eventually Shori develops her first Ina-human relationship with a guy who just happens to be driving down the road she is walking on, away from the devestation of her family's compound. She hooks up with her father and brothers, but they, too, are destroyed. Shori manages to save her own first symbiont and two others from her father's group. They make their way from Seattle to another Ina household in northern California, who become their allies. Most of the latter half of the novel is a trial-like affair with the Ina responsible for Shori's family being tried and punished by the larger Ina community.
Shori is eventually vindicated, but not without sever costs. During the trial one of her favorite symbionts, an older librarian from Seattle she first met when she was just trying to figure out who she was named Theodora Harkin (anyone read Mina Harkin in Bram Stoker's Dracula?), is murdered. Also, her entire past of fifty odd years and her family have been taken from her by the brutal attacks. She will need to figure out where she stands in the world and what it means to be Ina (or at least mostly Ina of a Ina-human genetic combination).
Because of this feeling of imcompletion at the conclusion of the novel, I'm hoping for at least a sequal if not a longer series of books about Shori. At the end of the novel Shori is still sexually immature. Although she is in her fifties, because she is still a youngster by Ina standards, she appears as a pre-teen black girl. So in subseqent novels I would like to see Shori having children. (At the end of the novel she is already engaged to the sons of the Ina family in northern California.) I would like to see how Ina children are weaned and first take symbionts of their own. Do they breastfeed? Also, I hope that Theodora Harkin has a granddaughter that Shori can hook up with later, as I really liked her character especially. The antoginistic Ina family has been broken up and adopted by others, but because they're still alive, will they come back to give Shori more trouble? This Ina family is not entirely a rogue group, and there are many others who are prejudiced against her as well as many others that are fascinated by her ability to stay awake during the day. Also, this novel was told from Shori's perspective. Wouldn't it make for an interesting novel if the novel were told from the humans' point-of-view? Break the narrative up into eight parts, with each human telling their own tale?
One of the memorable qualities of the book is its sensuality. Although Ina drink blood and eat raw meat exclusively, their humans still need to eat. So their meals are described in loving detail. We can almost smell and taste some of these get-togethers. Ina and humans can and do have sex with each other (heightening the effects of the Ina saliva drug), but Ina can only reproduce by their own kind. In fact, one of the disturbing aspects of the novel is picturing Shori engaged in various carnal relations with her symbionts, given that she appears as a preteen black girl. (She does think like an adult, though.) I appreciate the rich bisexual sexuality of then novel.
Anyways, I loved this book, and I can't wait to see what Ms. Butler has in store next. (I also very much liked her two previous books to this one, The Parable of the Talents and The Parable of the Sower--maybe reviews of those will be undertaken in future posts?)
