Monday, September 14, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 22, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

The Doors of Eden is the latest book from British SF/F author Adrian Tchaikovsky.  I've read one novel and one novella by Tchaikovsky and had mixed feelings.  The novel, the much acclaimed "Children of Time" (Reviewed Here), was a fascinating idea-based SF novel featuring the evolution of an alien species (Spiders!) over generations, but well it didn't have any characters that I particularly enjoyed, limiting my excitement about it (I'm more into character-focused stories).  The novella, his "Firewalkers" (Review Here), had much more interesting characters while still exploring interesting ideas about artificial intelligence, class, and more in a post-apocalyptic world.  So when I was given the chance to read his latest novel (out already in the UK) in advance, I was a little bit hesitant.

And The Doors of Eden kind of justifies my hesitancy.  Like both of the aforementioned works, it has strong interesting ideas - dealing with evolution, parallel Earths, and different ways of existence here - and it even has a few characters whom I really liked.  And then it has certain character relationships and behaviors that just seem treated kind of poorly - particularly in the transphobic actions of its villain - which kind of mar the whole thing.  The result is an uneven book with enough moments to keep me interested throughout, but repeatedly had me facepalming at times at how some things played out, which prevents me from recommending it wholeheartedly.

Trigger Warning:  The antagonist deliberately deadnames (and worse) a trans character, seemingly just to show how evil and transphobic he is.  It's....not done well.  More on this after the jump, but if that's a problem, this book is not going to be for you.

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Lisa "Lee" Pryor and her girlfriend/lover Elsinore "Mal" Mallory, aspiring "Cryptid Hunters", followed a youtube video to a spot of the British countryside where a strange bird-like creature had been seen.  The two expected to find nothing, but instead found themselves in a strange freezing cold blizzard that came from nowhere, hunted by such creatures....and as they tried to escape, only Lee returned.

4 Years Later, Lee has half convinced herself that it was all a hallucination, when she is contacted out of the blue by Mal by a mysterious phone call.  That call leads Lee to the site of a strange break-in at the home of a famous scientist working with MI5 and a cryptic encounter with Mal and a strange-looking companion.....

Soon Lee finds herself tied in with circumstances involving MI5, a possibly Mad Scientist, a Data Analyst with special intuition, and a powerful corporate big head with his own personal hit squad.  Circumstances stemming not just from our own world, but from the beings that have evolved on many many other version of Earth - beings who are starting to appear more and more in our very wold.  Circumstances that threaten to destroy every Earth....if the right people across many worlds can't come together to find a way to save it all.....
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In a way, The Doors of Eden feels very much like a combination of Children of Time with a more character focused novel.  Each chapter is preceded by an excerpt from a book telling how evolution differed on a different parallel earth from our own, and how those worlds were transformed as a result, and these passages are very reminiscent of COT and nearly always interesting (some of these passages come into play in the main story, others do not).  Meanwhile in between those we follow a series of viewpoint characters: Lee, Julian (an MI5 Agent), Alison (an MI5 Analyst), Kay (A Scientist who everyone wants), and Lucas (a henchman for the antagonist), all of whom get involved in the story as things move along.

These characters work to varying degrees, with some being very easy to root for and read and others just falling flat.  Lee is easily the most empathizable, the young lady with no reason to be dragged into all of this other than circumstance - her lover's falling into a parallel world 4 years prior - and Lee's handling of it all - the crazy circumstances, Mal's return, and more - is really done very well.  Julian and Alison's stories (they're kind of tied together) are more of a mixed bag: Julian is clearly interested in Alison and can't admit it, but he's married already to a woman we never actually see which kind of makes the relationship aspect of their story feel more awkward to read than for him to live, and Julian's status as the straight man MI5 agent in the wackiness just makes him kind of boring.  Alison by contrast is a bit more interesting - she's an introverted (possibly on the spectrum) data analyst who winds up getting involved in the whole mess through an out of our world contact, and her reaction to it all is always fascinating.

And then there's our final two characters, Kay and Lucas.  Kay is a trans woman scientist, who is easy to like as she is fought over for her abilities....but otherwise is more of a macguffin than anything else.  And Lucas seems to exist solely to give us the lowdown on what his boss Rove is doing, as Lucas finds himself going along more and more with Rove's plans seemingly on the certainty that Rove is going to scheme his way to the top, and therefore Lucas might as well make himself too useful to get rid of.  But it's kind of an annoying point of view, because you keep waiting for Lucas to decide enough is enough long before the book really decides to come to such a point.

These characters all wind up in a plot that's really interesting in how it combines this concept of multiple Earths and parallel evolutions into what is first a thriller plot and then more of a high concept scifi plot in the final act.  This works out really well overall, and the ideas are really interesting - Tchaikovsky does a great job demonstrating the many ways life could have evolved, and what results from those choices (sometimes good outcomes, sometimes not so much) and our characters interacting with some of these really adds to the interludes telling the stories of those evolutions straight out.

At the same time, that plot is lessened by the utter waste of a human antagonist, in the form of greedy corporate bigwig Rove.  Rove works fine as a villain as an evil corporate bigwig who wants to take advantage of the multiverse for his own greed, no matter the costs to anyone else.  But then the book decides to make him extra villainous first by having him be not just a transphobe, but forcing the book's only trans woman character (Kay) to dress in male dress and to deadname/misgender her.   And then when his final plot is revealed, it's the least interesting thing ever, he's basically a Nazi.  Lucas - Rove's henchman from whose perspective we see his actions - basically comments how uninteresting Rove's nazi plot is when it's revealed, and as a reader I can't help but basically agree - it's completely unnecessary for his actions to make sense or to be evil, and just feels like a pointless addition that could be offensive to some readers.  Just like we've thankfully evolved (mainly) past the idea that SF/F villains need to rape (or threaten rape) to demonstrate their evilness, having them demonstrate transphobia for the same end is just something authors should not be doing anymore unless such actions serve other purposes in the narrative, and well they really don't here.

The result is a novel that is somewhat uneven, with some parts I really liked and others that just seem to be a total waste in the narrative.  Which makes it kind of hard to recommend, so fair warning.
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