TITLE:  The Original

AUTHORS:  Brandon Sanderson & Mary Robinette Kowal 

NARRATOR:  Julia Whelan

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DESCRIPTION:

"Hugo Award-winning authors Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal team up in this exclusive audio-first production of The Original, a sci-fi thriller set in a world where one woman fights to know her true identity and survive the forces that threaten her very existence.

In the near future, humans choose life - for a price. Injectable nanite technology is the lifeblood that flows through every individual wishing to experience the world through the lens of their own theme. While death from mortal wounds is still possible, life is made easier in a socially liberated society where automation and income equality allow passion pursuits to flourish over traditional work. Renewal stations are provided to every law-abiding citizen for weekly check-ins, which issue life-sustaining repairs in exchange for personal privacy. But what becomes of those who check out, of those who dare to resist immortality and risk being edited under the gaze of an identity-extracting government surveillance system?

When Holly Winseed wakes up in a hospital room, her memory compromised and a new identity imposed on her, a team of government agents wastes no time stating their objective. With intent to infiltrate and defeat the terrorist group ICON, the agents tell Holly that she is now a Provisional Replica and has one week to hunt down and kill her Original for the murder of her husband, Jonathan. If she succeeds, she’ll assume her Original’s place in society. If she fails, her life will end. Holly’s progress is monitored by an assigned contact that feeds her information as she confronts the blank, robotic world around her, discovering that others view life through the theme of their own choosing.

With her newly implanted combat and deduction skills, Holly fends off both attacks by terrorists and doubts about her own trustworthiness as clues lead her to her Original - and to the truth about Jonathan. In the end, one body remains and one walks away. Although questions persist, one thing is certain: Life will never be the same."

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REVIEW:

An entertaining romp through a possible future world.

Read out of order, therefor reviewed out of order, sorry.

This time Kowal sends the Prince Regent's glamourists to London in order to give Jane's sister a proper season. Unfortuantely, it's the Year of No Summer, 1816. There is labor unrest and dirty tricks and this whole business of finding Melody a suitable husband.

The interweaving of the real food shortage and labor unrest with the fictional and fantastic Worshipful Company of Coldmongers is very well done. Certainly there were a great number of children working in many dangerous industries at the time to provide a suitable model. Part of the great charm here is how closely Kowal can follow the Austen model of trying to find a suitable husband for a single woman of 20, and also bring to it further depth of plotting and character development and world-building.

And there is thrilling courtroom drama.

Library copy.

When faced with an historic horror, most of us immediately think "How could they?" It is inconceivable that good people would stand by and do nothing in the face of genocide or chattel slavery. Some things seem so obviously wrong. But of course people are always doing horrible things while other people try to stop them, or stand by, frozen into inaction by all the other people who are also not doing anything, or don't even notice the wrongness so deeply embedded in their society.

Thus, the enslavement of millions of people. There's really nothing about it that isn't horrific: kidnapping, owning people, rape as a means of production. Kowal tackles this one head on, sending the Vincents out to deal with his family's sugar cane plantation in Antigua. She does an excellent job of looking at if from different angles to solve their problems. And although it's fantasy, there's no pretending like a little magic can fix all this.

Altogether a really interesting way to take Jane Austen and run with it. This particular series has the historical period down, and manages a gentle touch when addressing all the ugliness Austen eschewed. And a big plus, there is some humor and Jane does get some witty comments in, but it isn't just snappy comebacks.

Library copy

Had this just been a book of Regency magic and manners it would have been charming enough: the period is evoked more convincingly than usual in both dialog and mores. But no, Kowal wasn't content to leave it at that: there are complications such as creative and technological insight and war. You don't get a lot of that sort of development, which is a pity, because I really love seeing characters work through problems and setbacks. There were also books being read, both for information and group entertainment, which doesn't appear nearly as often as it should in books.

So, awesome. All the pleasures of an Austen novel, such as the mortifying realization of how the regular and normal behavior of one's family is perceived by others. But also the kinds of things that are left out of Austen. Although she must have known a great deal about solving problems in her work and testing out various options, I can't recall any instance of someone actually doing anything like work, let alone encountering challenges in it. And the wars, of course, were never mentioned directly, despite the number of officers in uniform who are so very appealing to the young women. Mind, I'm not saying that Kowal is trying to fix Austen in any way, just that she has found interstices in which to introduce other elements without seeming to contradict the historical feel. Plus, the heroine is not beautiful and knows it, a rare element in fiction.

I'm very eagerly looking forward to reading the rest of the series, and then moving on to Kowal's other work.

     The Glamourist Histories start with an extremely well-done Jane Austen sort of Regency  romance with magic as an art form. Then with each subsequent book Kowal makes great leaps in the development of the art, development of the characters within their marriage, the opportunity to take her couple places Austen never went like the Napoleonic wars and the slave trade, while always managing to maintain the Austen tone.

It's kind of astounding even though Novik does essentially the same thing with the Forester/O'Brien tradition of naval war novels.

And now I'm off to read, because writing this up I realized that I skipped the second book in the series entirely. I knew my September was rough, but, wow, that's a pretty huge error to make.

Library copy