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John Birmingham, Emergence: Free review copy. I guess John Birmingham felt that his previous work was insufficiently on the nose for the white male power fantasy market? If this book has a thesis, here it is: “Dave Hooper flew, and the city passed beneath him. Failed husband, absent father, wastrel, and asshole, he flew through the night air …. Beneath his boots slipped the rusted roofs of the shotgun shacks and cinder block apartments, some of them slumped and all but tumbled down, others maintained with the best of intentions in the face of the crushing, relentless weight that bore down every day on those millions of people, those countless millions, who lived at the bottom of the heap. Dave Hooper flew over them all.”
The protagonist is a cheating jerk who spends his money, literally, on hookers and blow instead of supporting his two young sons or paying his taxes. He is also the chief safety officer for a drill rig drilling further under the ocean than anyone’s ever gone. When monsters invade the rig, he’s the only one who fights back, and in the process somehow takes on the lead monster’s knowledge, as well as gaining incredible powers of healing, strength, speed, vertical leap (63 feet!), and sexual prowess to go with his suddenly hot bod, such that blonde military nurses throw themselves at him. Although he was an abused child and can’t help thinking in racist, sexist terms, he knows that’s not okay, and fundamentally he is a good guy whose prowess is needed to save us all from monster invasion. (At this point even John Ringo may be saying OH JOHN BIRMINGHAM NO.) Also there are a lot of brand references I found distracting, though in fairness I don’t mind when Stephen King does it, so I could just be looking for icing on the cake.
Many people react badly to Mary Sues; I occasionally do myself, when I’m not there for her. But give her credit: Mary Sue is rarely a tax-dodging bad dad before she enters the narrative and rearranges it to suit herself. (P.S.: Another book with the same title, David Palmer’s Emergence, is a highly enjoyable Mary Sue in which a pubescent genius survives the viral apocalypse and then saves the world. I loved it as a teen, though I suspect it holds up less well in adulthood, judging by my reaction to the 2008 sequel, which I recently tracked down.) I feel like there’s a material difference between older John Wayne type male power fantasies and ones I see now: the older heroes were isolated from society; they might have broken women’s hearts, but they didn’t present as ongoing failed attempts to participate in society the way guys like Birmingham’s protagonist do, or the white guy on The Strain (who was also failing his kid) or even John Travolta’s character in Face Off (likewise). There’s a lot to be said about the change from the fantasy “failing as a partner is okay because you are really a hero underneath” to “failing as a father is okay because ditto,” though I’m not sure I can say anything but that I find it depressing. If you can suppress your urge to guffaw, this is a briskly executed power fantasy, but I liked his earlier work better because it wasn’t so specifically directed at an id that is not mine.
Rachel Manija Brown & Sherwood Smith, Hostage: Second book in what the authors say is a quartet, featuring teens in a postapocalyptic world where many people have Changes and the tyrant who runs a nearby mini-empire kidnaps one of the protagonists, who has a potentially deadly/incredibly useful power. In response, the others in his group seek to retrieve him, only to end up with a captive of their own. Meanwhile, they struggle with various forms of trauma, the (plausible) breakup of various teen relationships and the exploration of other teen relationships. The picture of human nature is pretty hopeful—even the awful people have their good sides, and most of the protagonists are super-sensitive to others’ needs, knowing that good faith isn’t enough. I still want more of the people-eating crystal trees, though.
The protagonist is a cheating jerk who spends his money, literally, on hookers and blow instead of supporting his two young sons or paying his taxes. He is also the chief safety officer for a drill rig drilling further under the ocean than anyone’s ever gone. When monsters invade the rig, he’s the only one who fights back, and in the process somehow takes on the lead monster’s knowledge, as well as gaining incredible powers of healing, strength, speed, vertical leap (63 feet!), and sexual prowess to go with his suddenly hot bod, such that blonde military nurses throw themselves at him. Although he was an abused child and can’t help thinking in racist, sexist terms, he knows that’s not okay, and fundamentally he is a good guy whose prowess is needed to save us all from monster invasion. (At this point even John Ringo may be saying OH JOHN BIRMINGHAM NO.) Also there are a lot of brand references I found distracting, though in fairness I don’t mind when Stephen King does it, so I could just be looking for icing on the cake.
Many people react badly to Mary Sues; I occasionally do myself, when I’m not there for her. But give her credit: Mary Sue is rarely a tax-dodging bad dad before she enters the narrative and rearranges it to suit herself. (P.S.: Another book with the same title, David Palmer’s Emergence, is a highly enjoyable Mary Sue in which a pubescent genius survives the viral apocalypse and then saves the world. I loved it as a teen, though I suspect it holds up less well in adulthood, judging by my reaction to the 2008 sequel, which I recently tracked down.) I feel like there’s a material difference between older John Wayne type male power fantasies and ones I see now: the older heroes were isolated from society; they might have broken women’s hearts, but they didn’t present as ongoing failed attempts to participate in society the way guys like Birmingham’s protagonist do, or the white guy on The Strain (who was also failing his kid) or even John Travolta’s character in Face Off (likewise). There’s a lot to be said about the change from the fantasy “failing as a partner is okay because you are really a hero underneath” to “failing as a father is okay because ditto,” though I’m not sure I can say anything but that I find it depressing. If you can suppress your urge to guffaw, this is a briskly executed power fantasy, but I liked his earlier work better because it wasn’t so specifically directed at an id that is not mine.
Rachel Manija Brown & Sherwood Smith, Hostage: Second book in what the authors say is a quartet, featuring teens in a postapocalyptic world where many people have Changes and the tyrant who runs a nearby mini-empire kidnaps one of the protagonists, who has a potentially deadly/incredibly useful power. In response, the others in his group seek to retrieve him, only to end up with a captive of their own. Meanwhile, they struggle with various forms of trauma, the (plausible) breakup of various teen relationships and the exploration of other teen relationships. The picture of human nature is pretty hopeful—even the awful people have their good sides, and most of the protagonists are super-sensitive to others’ needs, knowing that good faith isn’t enough. I still want more of the people-eating crystal trees, though.
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Thanks!
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howdy
Yes I'm here now. I added you to my circles so I can keep up with your writing here.
I'll be posting mainly to El Jay although I may post some fan fic here in the future.
Good to read your reviews of these. I'll be around.
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