Subject: EVOLUTION'S SHORE by Ian McDonald

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 16:08:50 GMT

EVOLUTION'S SHORE by Ian McDonald
       Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-37435-4, 1995, 355pp, US$12.95
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Once again Ian McDonald has written a science fiction novel of the
future (and, no, that's not redundant) which reminds us that the future is
not going to be all high-tech and shiny, nor is it going to be all Euro-
American.  EVOLUTION'S SHORE (known as CHAGA in Britain) is set in Kenya in
the early part of the 21st century.  McDonald's protagonist is Gaby McAslan,
a newswoman from Northern Ireland, who manages to land a job reporting on
the situation in Kenya.  And just what is that situation?  Well, it seems
that "parcels" from outer space have landed at various places around the
world along the equator and a strange life form or forms has emerged--and is
spreading.  And this appears to be connected with strange goings-on around
Saturn as well.

     McDonald does a good job in depicting the strangeness of the alien life
form, but he does an equally good--and perhaps more important--job of
depicting the strangeness of his future Kenya society.  This is not the
"back-to-traditional-values Kirinyaga" that Mike Resnick writes about, but a
society in touch with and affected by the rest of the world, yet also
maintaining its own path and its own ways.  This is not to say there is
anything wrong with Resnick's construct as a plot device.  But he is using
the artificial "Kirinyaga" as the basic premise of his story, while McDonald
is using 21st century Kenya as the background of his extra-terrestrial
science fiction premise.  As such, his Kenya must be more believable as a
real extrapolation of today's Kenya, and I believe it succeeds in this.  In
fact, the irony is that (for me at least) McDonald's background is more
interesting than his core premise.

     Like many readers, I suppose, I started reading science fiction because
it portrayed a world different than the one I knew.  Maybe it was that the
world was in the far future, when people had paranormal powers, or maybe it
was on a distant planet with a fight for survival against dangerous animals
and harsh conditions.  As I grew older, I discovered that there were places
just as strange and just as interesting here on Earth (as Lawrence Watt-
Evans noted so well in "Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers").  And I
started to look for authors who had realized this--who figured out that they
could set a story in a society other than their own.  Various "cyberpunk
authors" do it in various degrees.  George Alec Effinger does it in his
"Marid" trilogy.  Maureen McHugh does it in CHINA MOUNTAIN ZHANG.  Gwyneth
Jones does it in WHITE QUEEN.  And Ian McDonald does it, here and in many of
his earlier short stories.

     Given all this, I think having a Euro protagonist is the right choice.
One might ask if this isn't just a copy of Hollywood always having an Anglo-
Saxon protagonist even in a movie set in Peru or China, but I don't think it
is.  When you watch a movie you see not what the main character sees, but
what the director and cinematographer films.  But when you read a book not
written by an omniscient narrator, you see things through the main
character's eyes, and from the main character's viewpoint.  So having that
viewpoint the same as the majority of the readers makes sense (as anyone
who's ever tried to read a book written for people with a different cultural
background will agree).

     My only objection might be that the space mission pieces don't seem to
match the rest of the story.  (Then again, how much do today's shuttle
missions "match up" with life in Kenya today?)  There may be a few too many
science fictional references, especially towards the end, but this seems to
have been intentional overload, as the "postface" is a line from Samuel
Delany's TRITON: "In science fiction, everything should be mentioned at
least twice ... with the possible exception of science fiction."  But these
are minor quibbles in an otherwise excellent and fascinating novel.  This
one is making my Hugo nomination ballot.

     [In Britain, this novel is called CHAGA.  One may only speculate on why
the publisher thought it necessary to change the name for an American
audience.  Or why it appears to be missing from the publisher's list of
upcoming books on their Web page.]

%T      Evolution's Shore
%A      Ian McDonald
%C      New York
%D      November 1995
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      trade paperback, US$12.95
%G      ISBN 0-553-37435-4
%P      355pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
Sometimes I have intermittent problems, and sometimes I don't.