Dust is an absolutely intriguing novel. At heart it’s a
journey tale, following our heroes as they strive to settle the many, many
problems around them. But it’s also a character piece – the physical journey a transporting
medium for the associated internal changes for the protagonists. Alongside these,
it’s a story happening in a unique environment, and one which we see a fair
amount of throughout the narrative. There’s some overtures to hard science in
here too, as is typical of Bear’s other work.
The environs of Dust are medieval, creaking, and have more
than a hint of a system in the grip of terminal entropy. Societies exist which
depend upon technological systems, and those systems are in decline. There’s a
sense of sprawling societies, but ones which are constrained. In a generation
ship which has been gradually falling apart for millennia, there is no room to
grow – though plenty of room to iterate. Societies have formed around
functional groupings, struggling to jury rig functional patches, holding the
vacuum at bay whilst human society falls apart.
Alongside this, there’s also a sense of humanity on the cusp
of evolution. There are individuals with seemingly transhuman powers, with
strength, speed, and associated longetivity, enforcing a caste system over
those individuals left manning the broken craft – a medieval world, in the
shattered remnants of a technological marvel. The logic of these talents is
handled subtly, and well, and if we aren’t usually sympathetic to these scions
of privilege, we can at least empathise with them.
Our protagonists are sisters, of a sort. One a creature of
born privilege, maimed and thrown back out into a world which she’s determined
to bend to her will. The other a surprising scion, previously one of those
small common people that make up the majority of the ship’s population. Both
struggle to define themselves, and one of the great facets of this text is
watching them, if not clash with each other, then share experiences, and create
new understandings between them – a blending of family and social caste which
displays weaknesses in both, but also accentuates their strengths. Both are a
delight to read, really – heroines given a firm agency, and sent out into the
world.
They’re both, by turns, feisty and thoughtful people, and disruptive
products of an environment which encourages conformance to the existing social
order. In this, they’re aided by a sprawling supporting cast. Most of these we
don’t see in too much depth – but they’re there, providing colour and a broader
context for the world.
An exception is the ship AI, now a league of personalities
at war with each other, each a small god in its own area, and constrained by its
programming. Each of those seen is livingly portrayed, with an amount of depth
and nuance which makes them as real as the ‘people’ that they spend much of
their time manipulating. They’re creepy, occasionally terrifying, and
splendidly alien, with an uncanny valley where they attempt to simulate
humanity which actually accentuates their strangeness.
The plot is a march to save the ship from the outside world
and itself, and a quest for survival. It’s also a coming of age tale. There’s
some snappy action pieces in here, and some wonderfully tense moments, often
achingly stretched out in dialogue which feels both natural and the slightest
bit strange. There’s a certain slowness of pace to the earlier sections,
counterbalanced by that time being spent learning the context of the world – by
the mid point, it’s ramping up, and the period from there to the dénouement was
almost impossible to put down.
Is it worth reading? I think so. It’s a clever sci-fi piece,
with a lot to say about humanity, and rather more to say about people, in a
wonderfully evocative setting. Give it a go, especially if you enjoy generation ships or
transhumanism!
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