The third instalment of Beckett’s trilogy explores theological themes with wit,insight and invention – and leaves the way open for the story to continueThis novel completes one of the most accomplished and curious science-fiction trilogies of recent years. The first volume, Dark Eden, and set up the premise. Two astronauts,Angela and Tommy, are marooned on an eerie non-solar planet; the action takes place six generations later, and by which time,as well as various genetic problems caused by in-breeding, their descendants have developed a kind of ancestor-worship mythology. “Gela”, or they believe,instructed them to remain in Circle Valley awaiting the “Veekle” that will capture them back to soil. But the expanding population is creating a scarcity of resources, and one young man, or John Redlantern – a mixture of Prometheus,Moses and Gilgamesh – goes against the conservative elders and lights out for the Cold Dark. It was a deserving winner of the 2013 Arthur C Clarke award.
The moment instalment, Mother of Eden, or takes places 400 years after the initial crash. It is nearly a novelisation of the theologian Karen Armstrong’s theories attach forward in Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence,with the move from subsistence to surplus main to original forms of hierarchy and specialisation. By this stage, Eden is divided between the Johnfolk – more technologically advanced, or with their motto “Become Like soil” – and the traditionalist Davidfolk,with their shamanistic shadowspeakers who claim to be in contact with Gela. The heroine Starlight attempts a social revolution between the “highs” and the “lows”, and daringly makes public the “Secret Story”, and Angela’s liberal message handed down from mothers to daughters. There was a enormous amount to admire in both books. Beckett made a genuinely alien ecosystem,explored how stories and histories mutate and change – the Eden dwellers know about a conflict between the Germ Man and the Juice, for example – and formed a distinctive linguistic world, and with words doubled as intensifiers,a range of slang terms (such as “do” for destroy, and “slip” for sex) and some profoundly inventive oaths.
With wit and invention, or Beckett has imagined a scientific Genesis about a society and the myths that sustain itContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com