Station Eleven

Station Eleven is about the Georgia virus, one that is even more disrupting than COVID-19. In this prescient novel, Mandel writes about a virus that ends civilization, eliminating people quickly and with them the knowledge of technology. After it hits, there’s no electricity, phone, internet, cars, law enforcement, hospitals, or government. Bands of survivors that set up settlements in abandoned restaurant, hotels, and airports.

The principal characters are all connected in some way to a King Lear production that took place shortly before the collapse in Toronto. An aging actor, Arthur, dies on stage; the actor’s childhood friend, Clark, and a child actress in the production, Kirsten, survive. 

While this is a grim scenario, Mandel cleverly knits the factions together. Jeevan, for instance, is an aspiring paramedic that rises out of the audience to try to rescue Arthur. His story interconnects with Kirsten’s and the roaming Symphony that band together for art’s sake after the collapse. 

Kirsten believes that “survival is insufficient.” In addition to survival, there must be beauty and art; thus, she continues to perform Shakespeare with the Symphony in spite of the hazards. The Symphony sometimes wander through dangerous territory and encounter sinister people such as the mysterious Prophet.

The Symphony are all armed and trained, even if they aspire to preserve beauty. Kirsten is an expert knife-thrower who can defend herself in necessary. The Prophet, in contrast, is an armed aggressor who takes what he wants, including children, as his wives. He kills without regard and proclaims himself the “Light.””

The Prophet is also connected, Clark soon learns, to his old friend Arthur. Miranda is linked to Arthur and it is her graphic novel, Station Eleven, that provides a clue to the Prophet’s origins. Everything is wonderfully knotted together, its up to the reader to unravel the connections. 

Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress

In Yesterday’s Kin members of the scientific community try to stop an airborne virus from harming earth’s population. A ship full of aliens from World have warned Earth ten months before Earth will make contact with a virus-filled cloud.

Notably, Kress wrote Yesterday’s Kin in 2014 well before the current Covid crisis. While the panic and the desperate quest for a vaccine are eerily familiar, this story focuses upon genetics and family connections.

This story revolves around Marianne Jenner and her three children, Ryan, Elizabeth, and Noah. Noah, the youngest, has always felt like an outcast–the black sheep of the Jenner family. These feelings of alienation grow worst after he learns that his family has been hiding a secret from him.

In Kress’ story, the country is divided by politics which make the crisis worst. Few trust the aliens and the joint scientific venture taking place in the Embassy. A terrorism situation creates additional heartbreak and tragedy.

Kress skillfully interweaves scientific facts about DNA and the genetic bottleneck, that occurred 70,000 years ago, with fiction.

Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful by Arwen Elys Dayton

In Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful, a young adult novel comprised of six loosely interconnected stories, Dayton gives readers a horrifying glimpse into the future. The stories grow increasingly dark and complex until the last one that ends with a sliver of redeeming hope.

In the first story, a twin is tricked into accepting a surgery that will make uses of his comatose twin’s healthy organs. He states unequivocally, “I wake up and know that my parents have tricked me, or rather, that they had the nurses drug me.”

In another story, a girl becomes traumatized after her romantic interest, Gabriel learns she has been genetically modified. A modified heart, artificial skin and a “meshline” has been added to her body. Betrayed by Gabriel and ostracized at school, Ludmilla exacts a terrible revenge on her persecutor.

These modifications, though protested by Rev. Tad Tadd’s followers, are more or less medical procedures. In the later stories, the ethical line between beneficial and deleterious procedures are further blurred.

In the third story or “part” called “The Reverend Mr. Tad Tadd’s love Story,” a girl learns that her father, the Reverend Tad Tadd has reversed course. When it was convenient to him, after losing his wife and son, he embraces the genomic technologies he railed against.

The procedures have become monstrous, and they are sometimes done without the individual’s consent. Plus, as Elsie points out its a convenient about-face for her Dad: “You’ve changed your mind now because someone you loved died. But — but — kids in hospitals…they’ve been dying all along.”

The modifications have become even more extreme in Part 4. An experiment to increase a boy’s intelligence has gone horribly wrong. His parents abandon him to a clinic which then transfers him to another clinic in Greece. His intelligence cannot be used for any practical purpose and his body has been exploited for the clinic’s cause.

In Part 5, a dying boy’s parents make a drastic decision — to have him cryogenically frozen so that a lifesaving procedure may be available for him at a later time. Unbeknownst to them, when he awakens he is transformed into a living machine — a slave used to mine platinum from asteroids. Not only that but the world is facing a new crisis — a Genome War.

In Part Six called “Curiosities” humans have modified themselves to the point of having wings and other vanities. They leave “Protos” on reservations, human beings who have not been modified, in order to study them. Eventually, the modified humans begins falling apart — their wings, jaws, and other modifications crumbling. Despite threats from a new group, the Naturalists, two Protos bravely enter the humans’ cities and choose to make a home there.

Moreover, this young adult novel shows that advanced in genomic technology brings both life-saving cures and the seeds for humanity’s self-destruction.

View at Medium.com

https://medium.com/p/e29068befa0e

View at Medium.com

Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful by Arwen Elys Dayton.

A science-fiction book that is also horrifying, Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful is perfect for Halloween. What’s even scarier than Halloween tropes–ghosts, vampires, witches? Dayton’s Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful suggests the casual use of gene-editing technology is even more horrifying.