Sci Fi Month: The Race - Nina Allan (book review)

Find out more about Sci Fi Month here.

I admit it, I bought this book without any knowledge of what it was about because the cover was pretty! That worked out pretty well for The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet earlier this year, which I still can't shut up. It seems that I have a weakness for pictures of starry skies. (Just look at my blog background for further proof of this.)

The Race is a book in five parts, each one focusing on a different character, but these five parts make up two stories which are linked in some way. The first part, "Jenna" is set in a bleak future, a place recognisable as the South East of England, but in a dismal landscape that has been ruined and poisoned by fracking. Jenna and her brother Del try to make their way in that world, in a town whose main attraction is the illegal racing of smartdogs - greyhounds which have been genetically modified with human DNA. Del is an angry, bitter young man, only softened by the birth of his daughter Luz Maree (known as Lumey.) But when Lumey is kidnapped, everything changes.

Nina Allan creates a convincing society in the first part of The Race, a world that draws you in. The narrator, Jenna, is smart and endearing, but I felt that her brother Del's characterisation did not ring true. He just didn't seem all that bothered about his beloved daughter's safety, and as he focuses on raising the ransom money by winning a smartdog race, his priorities shift towards the winning; he seems to almost forget about why he's doing it. If the end goal was anything else, I could accept him being sidetracked, but not when the life of his little girl is at stake!

The second part, "Christy" switches to our own world, or something very like it. I was warned by Ellie's review that if I was expecting the book to be all about fracking and smartdogs, I'd be disappointed, so I went into The Race without any particular expectations. Yet as I engrossed myself in part one, I still got drawn into Jenna's world and story, then felt a little bit cheated as Allan revealed how the stories fitted together. When you read a sci-fi novel, you know it's fiction, and yet you trust the author to let you suspend your disbelief for a while. But within the "Christy" segment, Allan gave a new context to "Jenna," and it felt like a cop-out, at first. If she'd given us the stories in a different order, there may not have been that feeling of betrayal - but also, the novel would be less remarkable. And there are one or two hints that the link between the two settings is not as straight-forward as it initially appears.

The third part, "Alex" follows on from Christy's story from a different perspective, giving a sort of commentary on the novel the characters are in, where different timelines and lives bleed into each other in ways that they shouldn't. Then for the last two parts we return to Jenna's world, several years after Lumey's induction. Yet there are inconsistencies here too. Place names, spellings have changes since the first part, and we seem to have travelled further away from the real-world setting than would be likely in the time that passed since "Jenna." It's almost as though every character has not only a slightly different perception of reality, but that reality itself is different for everybody. What if everyone lives in intersecting but subtly different worlds?

The Race is an intellectually fascinating read, full of deep ideas about communication, about perception of the world, and with a bit of meta-commentary on the writing of a novel. It takes the familiar and makes it strange. The plot is a bit sprawling and untidy, but full of twists and revelations, and I appreciated that Allan does not spoon-feed the reader with all the answers, but leaves you to draw your own conclusions. But unfortunately, after being lured in by an incredible first segment, then having the rug pulled out from under my feet, I lost a bit of my emotional investment in the actual story. Still, it is a book with a lot to say, and I think it would benefit from a second reading to see what I missed first time around.

I really hate "looking into the mirror" descriptions but this is
actually an important moment in the book.

Shelve next to:

• Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
• The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
• The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

The Fictional Man - Al Ewing

Some time ago, Hollywood started bringing fictional characters to life using cloning technology. Why employ actors when you can get the real deal? It is every author's dream to have their characters brought to life, and when Niles Golan, author of the Kurt Power thrillers is invited to meet with The Man From Talisman Pictures arranges a meeting with him, Niles thinks it's his lucky day. Perhaps he is too hasty: Kurt Powers is not to be brought to life just yet. Instead, Niles is tasked with adapting an old film, a secret guilty pleasure from his youth, for a new audience. The problem is, Mr Doll is terrible; offensive to everyone and not in an ironic way. Niles traces the story back, through an episode of a Twilight Zone-esque series called The Door to Nowhere, inspired by an obscure and creepy children's book which was itself based on a short story. From a writer's point of view I found it fascinating to chart the evolution of a story, and was curious to see what Niles would do with the tale in his turn.

As a narrator, Niles is far from likeable; he is self-important and hypocritical, tells himself "he's not prejudiced because his best friend is Fictional," but his true nature makes itself known when he gets angry. Quite frankly, it's astonishing that his friend Bob and his ex-wife haven't cut him out of their lives a long time ago. His string of Kurt Power novels come across similar to Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. Though I can't speak for the quality of the latter, it is clear that Niles is deluded about his greatness as a writer. He goes through life with an internal monologue, narrating possible turns of events in a hilariously terrible and melodramatic style. (In my review of The Gum Thief, I said that even deliberately bad writing was still bad writing and horrible to read. The Fictional Man is an example of deliberately bad writing used well, to comic effect.)

Yet despite its unpleasant narrator, The Fictional Man was a lot of fun to read, prompting embarrassing giggling and commentary on public transport. It contains a plethora of popular and nerd culture references; Niles' friend Bob is clearly based on Batman, and the world seems to be full of Sherlock Holmeses, who have to club together to solve the murder of one of their own. Bringing fictional characters to life can be a dangerous business, and there are passing references to "the Dexter Morgan incident," which probably don't need to be expanded on. Coming to this story straight from the original Star Trek series, the review of the 1960s Door to Nowhere episode (starring William Shatner) made me grin, because I could very well picture what was being described.

The Fictional Man is a brilliant piece of metafiction which making the reader think about the nature of storytelling and the line between fiction and reality, which may not be as clear-cut as one might think. Niles isn't a likable character, but he is an entertaining one, and as the book progresses he is challenged to think about his attitudes towards the "Other" - that is, the Fictional people he shares a city with. Niles' quest to find the definitive version of a story which had undergone many adaptations and transformations kept me hooked, and I got through the novel in two sittings. Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the the workings of fiction as a living, ever-changing thing.

If you enjoy this, you might like:

Redshirts: John Scalzi
Ready Player One: Ernest Cline
The Eyre Affair and its sequels: Jasper Fforde.