Bisection is a 2024 self-published novel by author Sheila Jenné and most notably, the book is a Self Published Science Fiction Competition 4 (SPSFC4) semifinalist which my judging group is setup to review. The novel features a fascinating premise that seemed really hard to write well: the protagonists are a pair of beings who share the same body, Tria (the Right) and Resa (the Left), as their species (the Kinaru) are human-like except each one of their brains is segmented into two beings - the Right, who is logical, rational and planning; and the Left, who is feeling and emotional. And so we read about Tria and Resa as they stow away on an alien ship and discover more about themselves, each other, their species and the universe...especially as things go awry.
The result works far far better than I could've expected, even if the concept is by some definition a little simplistic. The story contrasts the emotional/logical beings of the Kinaru with that of both an alien Shatakazan species and that of the humans on Earth in ways that really deal with interesting themes: oppression in the name of knowing what's best, the value of emotion and empathy as opposed to just cold reason, individual actions and autonomy vs consensus based communities and more. The story is also not preachy as it goes from beginning to end, and while there are a few moments that made me laugh in their plot convenience, in general this is a rather compelling interesting SciFi novel that pays off its interesting concept.
Plot Summary:
On the planet Kinaru, the dominant species - also named the Kinaru - are human-like beings with segmented brains, such that each body contains two beings: the more reasonable, logic-first thinking beings on the Right half and the more emotion-first and feeling beings on the Left half, although generally speaking most of their bodies and decisions are controlled by the Rights. Kinaru society is organized such that decisions are made on a communal basis, including the decisions to pair up for marriage and reproduction, and with such decisions largely being made by Rights. It's a society that is only 8,000 years old, and yet one which is on the surface peaceful and stable, without any contact with the rest of the universe. That alas, is about to change.
Tria il Resa - Tria the Right and Resa the Left - are starting work in the cold Northern Continent trying to examine the conditions for the possibility of alien life elsewhere when they stumble upon an alien encampment that was trying to use those same conditions to observe their species. Tria is excited by the possibility of alien contact and Resa feels desperate to get away from a planned life she is not happy with, one where she feels oppressed and without control despite Tria's niceness towards her. And so they stow aboard the alien ship as it takes off. Together, amidst these unknown aliens, Tria and Resa will discover more about the universe, about other species, and about their own species and their own beings...and the discovery will change both of them forever....
It's kind of hard to describe this book without going too far into details and spoilers, so I'll leave it at that. But what makes this book really stand out is that it takes a concept that could be utterly laughable or out of a cheesy episode of the original Star Trek and somehow treats it with respect and introspection and drama. The concept is of course that each person has two personalities, an emotional* and a logical* half, where both personalities are independent beings with some control over the body (although the logical has learned to usually be in full control where it matters) and can speak to each other in their respective heads. It's a fascinating concept that the book shows us through occasionally altering the perspective of the story, with about 80% being told from the perspective of Tria and 20% from the perspective of Resa.
*I'm being a little bit simplistic here: as the book makes clear, especially over time, each half of a Kinaru has a predisposition to be logical or emotional, but is not lacking the other part of their personalities entirely. Thus Tria does have emotions, they just don't rule her and she has trouble expressing them or appreciating things like art and music that are based upon them, while Resa can be logical and plan, but she doesn't have much interest in doing so.
Tria and Resa's odd co-occupancy of the body is contrasted with that of the alien species, the Shatakazan (green lizardish aliens?), who are far more advanced and have formed a society where everyone belongs to certain factions that detail their ideals in life: so the curiosity sect cares about, well, curiosity, the Liberty sect cares about freedom of free association (sort of), and Unity which is essentially against the whole system since they believe it allows the strong to oppress the weak. Other htan one major alien, Karnath, who befriends both Tria and Resa, we don't really get to know the individual Shatakazan very well (a flaw in this book), but the book uses their ideas about their sects and humanity itself to contrast the situation Kinaru like Tria and Resa face. And this isn't done in some preachy fashion - it's done in a plot that doesn't really drag and features at first a murder mystery and then a conspiracy thriller plotline to force characters to action and realizations that work well to demonstrate the book's themes.
These themes feature not just the idea of the importance of both emotion/feeling AND logical thought for people's lives, but also themes of communal vs individualized communities, and of oppression of minority groups by the majority, even without them realizing they're doing it. We see that with the Kinaru as illustrated by Tria and Resa - to Tria's mind at first, while she notices the diminishing and harmful language used by other Rights, she thinks that she treats Resa well and well of course the Rights with their logic should be in charge because they are logical and less impulsive (not that Tria can't be impulsive as well) and can think things through. And yet it becomes clear very quickly that Resa is depressed from even this arrangement, because she has no autonomy in her life under Kinaru even with Tria's good treatment...which is even more painful for her because she's the one who feels these feelings the most. It's a plot point that becomes very relevant here that Murder-Suicides by Lefts are a not uncommon occurrence on Kinaru as a result of this, because the Rights cannot understand how the lefts are feeling until they feel they have no other choice. And of course it's certainly not that the logical halves are always better - they can't understand art as well (which is why Kinaru has almost none) and don't appear really able to understand how other people are feeling or acting from their appearances...an especially clear problem for interacting with other species, even if not as much on Kinaru. And so Tria struggles to convey her feelings to Karnath, her alien friend, while Resa can easily do so in small bits of body language. All of this is contrasted by the Shatakazan, whose people's sects also allow the question to form of whether the sects allow oppression of minority sects and of those who have no choice but to join the oppressive sects of their parents, and of our own human race, who themselves struggle to behave civilized due to such oppression and individualized feeling based decision making. There's a lot going on here in these ways and it may seem simplistic, but it's done really well through the characters and the character development we see from these protagonists.
Not everything works super well of course. A fellow reviewer noted that the ability of Tria and Resa to adjust to the alien ship and beyond is perhaps a bit too easy and more noticeably to me, the plot features the main characters being able to move and escape from traps and imprisonment WAY WAY too easily, to the point it's almost laughable. Other than Karnath, the other Shatakazan characters were really hard for me to tell apart and that was kind of a problem as things went on and other ones became more important. The more I thought about the plot twists that shift the book into thriller mode for a bit, the more it kind of seemed silly and utterly improbable, so yeah, the plot here largely functions to make sure the setup for the ideas and the character development actually can occur. And yet this character development and the themes work really really well, so I had no problem staying in the narrative until I was finished with the book.
Still overall, Bisection is a really well done sci fi novel with a fascinating hook and excellent characters and themes. Would definitely recommend for other readers and the SPSFC Finals most likely.
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