WHEN literary novelists try their hand at science fiction, the results can be mixed. Refreshingly, Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein: A Love Story is a wildly inventive reimagining of one of science fiction’s most beloved stories.
Published a year after the bicentenary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the novel offers parallel stories of “future fear”. One is a fragmented, fictionalised account of Shelley’s life set against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution and its attendant horrors. In it, Mary Shelley’s stepsister Claire Clairmont taunts her lover, the moody poet and literary celebrity Lord Byron, with the possibility of a mechanical loom capable of writing poetry. Later, Byron’s daughter, Ada Lovelace, dreamily contemplates a computer as big as a city, capable of housing (and mimicking) all strains of human life.
Alongside this story runs a modern-day narrative in which transgender surgeon Ry Shelley assists tech savant Victor Stein inĚýhis attempt to create an artificialĚýintelligence. It is populated with eccentrically reworked characters from Shelley’s life: Ron Lord, the venereal AI sexbot manufacturer; Polly D, an investigative journalist (a play on John Polidori, Shelley’s friend and inventor of the modern vampire story); and Claire, this time round the organiser of a World Barbecue Cooking Contest.
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The novel careers wildly between different styles, at times lyrical, gloriously raunchy, pulpy and absurd. But in Winterson’s hands, a strange amalgam emerges.
What is the mind? Where does the physical end and the spiritual (or indeed intellectual) begin? How do our bodies shape our experiences? What is love? If the future of AI frightens some characters, whether they live in the past or in Winterson’s twisted present, others find unexpected consolations in the prospect of artificial companionship. Even theĚýcoarsest of Winterson’s cast prove themselves capable of contributing to the conversation.
Exhalation, the second collection of previously published short stories (and two originals) from Ted Chiang, whose “Story ofĚýYour Life” was thoughtfully adapted for the screen as Arrival, also moves with ease between theĚýscientific and the fantastical.
“The Lifecycle of Software Objects” follows a former zookeeper, Ana Alvaredo, as she raisesĚýan intelligent digital pet over a period of 20 years. Chiang avoids dystopian temptations, preferring instead a clear-eyed andĚýeven-handed reconnaissance of new technologies. Alvaredo’s relationship with her “digient” raises ethical questions about theĚýnature of sentient life, and theĚýexistential threat posed toĚýartificial life by technical obsolescence.
“Omphalos”, by contrast, a storyĚýoriginal to this volume, eschews realism to imagine a world in which the dating of trees reveals a universe created by God at a fixed point in history. But an astronomical discovery shakes the world’s faith, and forces its devout protagonist to conjure up new and valid reasons to keep going.
These are two stand-outs of an impressive collection. Winterson’s novel blazes with fireworks; Chiang’s work is more restrained. Surprising tenderness and force of feeling emerge from his seemingly affectless prose. Exhalation provides startling ways to imagine the future – and, crucially, finds a place for humanity there.
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Helen also recommends…
Will Wiles’s surreal and apocalyptic take on the London novel, Plume, is a timely exploration of the nature of truth Ěý
Chen Qiufan’s debut novel, Waste Tide, translated by Ken Liu, is an accomplished eco-thriller full of soiled and toxic beauty
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Jonathan Cape
Knopf
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Helen is an editor, award-winning writer and senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia
