Book Review: Enigma Black, by Sara Furlong-Barr

At an unspecified time, presumably in the not too distant future, the United States is rocked by a series of terrorist acts. This gives the president at the time the opportunity to secure his grip on power, enforcing a curfew, being granted a third consecutive term in office, and gradually curtailing civil liberties. Totalitarianism slowly closes its grip on the nation, all under the pretext of keeping the people safe. The perpetrator of these terrorist attacks is, apparently, an almost superhuman figure who comes to be known simply as ‘the Man in Black’. Among the victims of these attacks were the parents and brother of Celaine Stevens. Ten years later, slowly recovering from this trauma, Celaine is beginning to build a life for herself. She has a good job in a bank, dear friends, and the love of her life, Dr Chase Matthews.

Suddenly, into this life, steps a strange figure, Blake, offering Celaine the opportunity to gain the revenge for which she has always longed. In order to combat the Man in Black, the government has begun a research program to develop a team of ‘superheroes’. With one of these heroes having recently been killed, Blake recruits Celaine to become his new partner in this endeavour. To do so, however, she must leave behind the new life she has built for herself and disappear. There follows the story of Celaine’s training and development as a ‘superhero’, and her subsequent missions with Blake.

This is the first part of a trilogy, so although there is action here, there is also a sense in which this volume is setting the scene and preparing the ground for what is to come. 

The story is told partly in the first person from Celaine’s point of view, and partly in the third person. This could potentially lead to confusion, but Ms Furlong-Burr actually handles this quite well: it is always clear when the perspective changes. Celaine’s character is well-developed, but I didn’t exactly warm to her. Although the author does a valiant job of taking us through the anguish of Celaine’s decision to leave her life behind, I wasn’t quite convinced that she would do this so readily on the basis of the fairly flimsy and fragmentary description of what, exactly, she was committing herself to become. Other characters are fleshed out to varying degrees. I’m not exactly sure why, but I never quite became emotionally invested in them. This may have something to do with the writing style, which lacks a certain economy. Consider a sentence such as this, from Chapter One, which describes a character’s reaction to the gambling machines in a casino:

On top of the shrill, deafening noises emanating from them, he found himself having to shield his eyes away from the flashing lights the ones at this particular casino seemed to favor.

Personally I find this too verbose. A more succinct, punchy style would help to bring me closer to the action, and closer to the emotions of the characters. The action scenes and fight scenes were among the better written sections; the quieter moments were perhaps those when wordiness intruded on intimacy.

The overall scenario for this story—the incremental loss of freedom in the name of ‘security’—is frighteningly plausible. It is also not difficult to buy into the conspiracy elements. As concerns the details of the plot, there were a few that bothered me. However, I was prepared to overlook most of these, as what action/adventure book or movie does not have some fuzzy plot moments? Having said that, I was not at all sure why an increase in the body’s levels of adrenalin (which is how these people are engineered into superheroes) would enable a human body to impact a concrete wall at very high velocity, leaving the body unharmed but the wall dented. I guess a certain level of implausibility is inevitable when we are dealing with stories about people with superhuman abilities.

Although I was not aware of a huge number of typographical errors in the text, some of those that I did notice were clangers: for example, the use of the word ‘varietal’ when the context made it pretty clear that the author meant ‘veritable’—this happened more than once. There were also several other incorrect words (eg. ‘decent’ for ‘descent’, ‘raucus’ for ‘ruckus’).

As the first in a trilogy, it is difficult to rate this. I would like to see what comes next, before giving a definitive opinion. However, on its own merits it rates around three stars. Let’s hope that Ms Furlong-Burr can deliver at least four stars next time.

Australian Election, 2013: The choice that really isn’t

I’m afraid it’s time to reflect once more about the sad state of politics in Australia. I’m not interested in the personalities of the leaders of the main political parties. Do I really care if one or both of them are occasionally cranky? Some of the greatest leaders and politicians in the history of the world had personalities that made it difficult to be in the same room with them. Who cares! What I really care about is whether our leaders have a creative vision. The most creative, visionary people in the world, I suspect, are often proper bastards. It goes with the territory. They are also people who are prepared to take risks and take a stand, even if it is unpopular.

Frankly, I don’t even care about huge budget deficits. Robert Menzies was a conservative politician who was prime minister of Australia for a total of eighteen years through the fifties and sixties. Not once did any of his governments deliver a budget surplus. Once upon a time (in a galaxy far, far away) governments sought to improve the life and well being of the people of the nation for which they took responsibility; and they didn’t depend on ‘market forces’ alone to achieve this. In my opinion, the history of the last fifty years is ample proof that market forces do not, of themselves, make this world a better place, and often make it worse. ‘Growing the economy’ simply doesn’t cut it!

We are told that we have a choice in this election, a choice between two visions for the future of this nation. I see a vision from neither of the leaders of the major parties. All I see are managers, potential managers, not visionaries (their other main concern being, of course, to get elected). They are merely quibbling about the details. Here’s a thought. If you were to pop all of our politicians from the two major political parties into a large hat (Bob Katter must have a spare one somewhere), then draw them out one by one and assign them randomly to one of those parties, would we actually notice any difference? I suspect not. This is why many people will no doubt vote for one of the minor parties, or vote informally. We are totally and completed deluded if we believe that either of the major parties present us with a real choice. 

There is just over a week to go to the election as I write this, and it is all pretty depressing.

The New Novel: Life Drawings

Within the next two or three weeks I hope to release my new novel, Life Drawings. Like all my novels, it is a story about real people in real situations. I love exploring what it means to be a human being. It is always my aim to write ‘truth’. A truth, not the truth. I love reading science fiction and fantasy. Although the best of these also reveal some kind of truth about us as a species, and each of us as individuals, they also allow us to escape our everyday reality. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately) that is where most of us spend most of our time. I am grateful that I have not faced any major catastrophes or tragedies in my life, at least so far. I am grateful for that because ordinary, day to day life is generally enough of a challenge. In this novel, as in my earlier work and as, I hope, in books yet unwritten, I seek to shed just a little light, on just one little corner, of human life.

I have prepared the following brief blurb for the book:

Tom and Diane are two young misfits who embark upon a timid relationship. Supported by friends and family, harassed by an increasingly disturbed Anglican priest, they begin an exploratory journey, discovering themselves and each other. But a dark secret from Diane's past is slowly closing in on them. 

Do Tom and Diane have a future together? 

Who will live, and who will die?

For me, there is as much tension and suspense in wondering what will be said next in a conversation, in wondering whether two people will make it together, as there is in wondering whether Bruce Willis will again foil the bad guys; or in wondering whether Robert Langdon will again solve the mystery, just in the nick of time. More, actually, since we pretty much know the outcome of those scenarios from the beginning. And because, although I am probably not going to be called upon to save the world (again), I probably will be expected to engage in another conversation sometime soon! 

So there it is: the first little taste of what is to come. And below, also, is a first glimpse of the cover (or what probably, may, could be, will be the cover). Stay tuned for more news!

The Rudd-Abbott Debate

The rest of the world (and probably most of Australia, too) probably doesn't care about the political debate between the current Australian Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader which took place last night here in Australia. So this blog is probably just me, shouting into the ether. It will no doubt sink without a trace. But there is so much to say about it, that I refuse to keep quiet, whether anyone bothers to read this or not.

Who Won?

This, of course, is one of the big questions that everyone wants to ask (and answer). I thought that the current Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was the clear winner. He spoke with a much greater command of the facts, and with much greater authority. I think he made a mistake repeating the 'GST scare'. I don't think anyone buys this. That lost him points in my book. But Mr Abbott, the Opposition Leader, seemed to have nothing more to say than the usual slogans. Rudd may also have lost points for using notes which, apparently, was against the 'rules'. More about that later.

Most of the polls I have seen gave Rudd the edge in the debate. An ABC Twitter poll, run for 30 minutes immediately following the debate, had Rudd ahead by 72% to 28%. I have seen no subsequent mention of this. On 'average'—although how you actually average such polls needs to be explained—Rudd seemed to win. So why did the headlines all say it was a draw? But what is one to make of such polls anyway?

Did Rudd Cheat?

Unfortunately, the actual content of the debate was almost completely lost, because the headline of almost every web page and every newspaper ran with the 'Rudd cheats' line. Apparently the rules agreed to by both parties precluded the use of notes. Did Rudd simply disregard these rules? Was he given the wrong advice? Why did no one prevent him from using the notes on the night? Whatever the answer to these questions, I suspect it cost Rudd dearly, since the issue completely dominated the news. It seems to have been, at the very least, a tactical mistake.

Notes or No Notes

The more important question, it seems to me, is whether this is a sensible requirement. My answer to that is a most definite NO. There are two important points to make. First, no leader can be expected to be completely on top of every issue and every policy that could be raised in such a debate. It is ridiculous to expect them to be so. This is why we have a cabinet of ministers, with advisers. A leader has to delegate, and be prepared to let others make important decisions, because they are in full possession of the relevant information.

Second, in a debate such as this, what do we, the public, want from our leaders and aspiring leaders? Do we want well-considered responses, backed up with accurate information (notes) or off-the-cuff, ill-informed, generalised slogans (no notes)? I know that I want the former. 

A debate such as this only serves to encourage slogans and sound bites. Let's do better than this. For the next debate I strongly suggest that the rule about no notes be abandoned. If it is not, then I strongly encourage both the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader to break the rule. Let's have an informed debate. And please let's stop expecting our politicians to know everything about everything. It is simply ridiculous.

Asylum Seekers

Those of you living in Australia will certainly be aware of the issue of asylum seekers travelling from Indonesia to Australia in barely seaworthy vessels. Many hundreds of lives have been lost as a result of this very risky strategy. I'm not sure how widely this issue is reported overseas. I know that other countries face their own issues with asylum seekers. The issue is extremely politicised and polarises the Australian population. Politicians are tempted to propose what they perceive to be potentially vote-winning hardline policies. Many people in our society seem to expect a quick fix to this worldwide problem.

At the end of 2010 there were approximately 15.4 million refugees around the world. Different sources provide different figures for this, but let's be clear that it is a great many people. If the Australian Human Rights Commission is to be believed, this number has been falling over the last few years as several million people have been repatriated. Let's be clear that 'refugee' and 'asylum seeker' are not synonymous. Many asylum seekers are not, finally, granted refugee status. It is difficult to find reliable figures for the total number of displaced persons; and even the 'official' sites do not always seem to maintain a clear distinction between the number of asylum seekers and the number of 'genuine' refugees. There may be as many as 43.3 million 'displaced persons' around the world.

OK. So we have established that the whole asylum seeker/displaced person/refugee issue is huge, and possibly intractable, unless we think we can suddenly fix all the many problems that force people to leave their homes. There are many reasons for this, of course, among them: war, famine, persecution, flood, and so on.

The main point I want to address here is what seems to me to be the incredibly narrow definition of refugee according to the UNHCR. Here it is: A refugee is someone who,

owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country...

So someone fleeing their country because of war, famine, flood or any other reason that does not include this element of persecution, can never be considered a refugee under the guidelines of the UNHCR. This seems to me to be a ridiculously narrow definition of refugee given the present economic, political and environmental state of the planet. It was devised at a time when it was necessary to protect certain ethnic and religious groups from persecution. This need remains. But it seems extraordinarily lacking in compassion to refuse refugee status to someone who flees their country because it is being torn apart by civil war, or because it is no longer able to provide enough food for its population, or because (as could happen in the future) it disappears under the rising ocean. 

Australia, as a signatory to the Refugee convention, is only under an obligation to grant asylum to those who meet this very strict definition of refugee. Does not compassion demand more of us as a nation? Rather than seeking to narrow the eligibility of the selection criteria, don't we have at least a moral obligation to broaden them? I am not suggesting that Australia goes it alone down this path. But there is talk of revising the Refugee convention, which, after all, was put in place to deal with a fairly specific issue at the time. Let's not be fooled, though, into thinking that this will in some way diminish the problem. The only compassionate and humanitarian way in which the convention can be revised is by broadening the definition of refugee to reflect the current state of the world. This will mean that more, not fewer, people will need to be granted asylum. At the moment we are not even scratching the surface.

Book Review: The Cat Did It by Claude Beccai

This is the story of a year in the life of Clara, a seventy-something-year-old woman, widowed, living alone, struggling to make ends meet. It tells how her life is changed by the arrival of a cat on her doorstep. The cat, not so very important in itself, is the catalyst that brings into Clara's life a crowd of new people, and triggers a series of events, some dramatic, some not so. There are elements of the thriller, the crime novel and the real life drama here, although the novel does not finally settle into one genre rather than another.

There is something very endearing about Clara. The story is told in the first person and largely in the present tense, from her point of view. The reader is invited into her inner life and struggles, as well as to witness the events which crowd this year of her life. She is a spunky, courageous, slightly unconventional woman, who enjoys her solitude, but, ultimately, comes to value the unusual people that the cat, directly or indirectly, introduces into her life. There is Cynthia, the aging, wealthy many-times married socialite, and Mackey, her equally aging gay friend. There is Tony, a sophisticated business man, whose business is mostly illegal and somewhat dangerous. There is Robin, the hapless son of Clara's late husband, of whose existence she previously had no knowledge. And there is the Native American family, mother, father and two children, together with their other relatives, who adopt Clara as their own.

During this year Clara witnesses a gangland shooting, becomes a 'mule' within Tony's organisation, and finds herself the recipient of unexpected financial resources from a variety of sources. Clara's narration of these events and the insights she gains into herself are told with a wry, self-deprecating sense of humour. The story itself relies a little too much on coincidence for my taste. It loses steam in places. I was also unconvinced by the way in which Clara became so trusting of certain people so quickly. There is a slightly chaotic and seemingly random element to the narrative at times, which could be explained in terms of the narrator's personality, but I suspect is related more to that of the author. While this chaos worked well sometimes, there were occasions when more discipline would have helped the telling of the story. There is a kind of stream of consciousness which needed to be reined in from time to time. The story needed more structure and discipline in the telling. Sometimes the words seem to be rushing onto the page. Grammatically this is reflected in numerous run-on sentences and comma splices. I think that some of the typographical errors might also be attributed to this uncontrolled gushing forth. There were, overall, too many grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors in the book. I gather that the author's first language is French rather than English, so this may account for some of the errors.

In summary I was impressed by the enthusiasm and energy of the writing, reflected also in the character of Clara, but this was marred sometimes by a lack of discipline and structure: the balance was just not quite right. I give The Cat Did It three stars.

First Person Point of View

First person narrative seems to be very popular at the moment, and I wonder why this is. For me, it raises several issues that I have been wrestling with for some time.

When an author chooses to write a novel in the first person, they are committing themselves to maintaining the voice of that person throughout the entire story. This may be difficult to sustain. Failing to do so leaves the work seriously flawed. However, succeeding may not lead to great results either. As the reader, I may become bored with the tone, bored with the character, bored with this single point of view.

With first person narrative the reader only gets to see, hear, know and experience what the narrator sees, hears, knows and experiences. It is sometimes argued that this is a good thing in thrillers and mysteries, and it may be so. First person involves us directly in the story, seeing it as it unfolds for the narrator, experiencing it as they do. The disadvantage, however, is that it is not possible to say something like this: 'Behind him, the figure moved from the shadows.' Unfortunately, he can never see what is behind him. For the reader I would suggest that seeing something the character does not see actually adds to the suspense.

Sometimes I also like to write detailed descriptions of a new scene. When this is done in first person, it always seems somewhat artificial, as people seldom observe things so closely. It is also nice to be able to describe the actions or appearance of characters in a way that they would rarely do themselves. Consider a passage such as this:

His eyes darted from side to side. He fiddled nervously with the toggle of his jacket, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

How would I write that from a first person POV and reproduce the same effect? This simply does not sound right:

My eyes darted from side to side. I fiddled nervously with the toggle of my jacket and beads of sweat formed on my forehead.

It is difficult to imagine a person thinking about themselves in this way.

Finally, I wonder, sometimes, whether first person narrative is used to cover poor writing and poor grammar. When using first person I can blame these things on the narrator. I can claim that it is an integral part of their character. Effectively, the entire novel becomes direct dialogue, and so the stylistic rules that apply to this must apply to the narration too. How do I, as an editor, know when to correct bad grammar in a story with first person narration? Perhaps this is just the way the narrator speaks. The flip side of this is that as a writer I am limited by the character's knowledge and abilities. I can't write: 'The street was lined with Dahlias' if my character has no idea what a Dahlia looks like. 

It may be that these issues simply mean that it is a greater challenge to write using first person narrative, since the story has to be told well and effectively within these somewhat narrow restrictions. Perhaps I have not yet mastered these skills. On the other hand, I believe that all of the advantages of first person narrative can also be achieved by creatively using third person POV. I certainly feel that third person POV gives me much more freedom and scope as a writer. I would love to hear from others about which point of view they prefer to use and why. I would also love to hear people's opinions about why first person narration seems to be so popular at the moment.