In Vigil, a dying oil tycoon is visited by ghosts
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Wake up
George Saunders, Bloomsbury
Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of short stories (or short novels). Just as I sink into them, they are done. But as interesting people keep writing interesting works like these, I feel obligated to keep reading them, and this week I’ll be featuring not one, but two of these relatively slim tomes.
Firstly, it is Wake up by Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders, whose novel Lincoln in the Bardo was a global hit. IN Wake upcomes the ghost of a woman named Jill “Doll” Blaine descends to earth to oversee the final hours of an oil tycoon named KJ Boone.
Jill’s job, as she sees it, is to comfort. She enjoys helping a soul find peace with what they have done. But it turns out Boone doesn’t need comforting. He is quite happy with the decisions he has made, even though his life as an oil magnate inevitably involved so many lies and so much environmental destruction.
The story takes place during the last hours of the tycoon’s life. Other ghosts appear, as do family members. Everyone comes looking for some kind of moment of reckoning with the tycoon. Jill, our narrator, frustrated by Boone, ends up tossing back and forth, revisiting elements of her own life and death before returning to her position at his bedside.
As you’d expect from a renowned wordsmith, every line of Saunders’ work is fresh and lovely. He is an enemy of the boring and the clichéd.
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As interesting people continue to write interesting short stories, I feel obligated to continue reading them
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But in the end I found myself unsatisfied with Wake upits resolution. I think I expected to get more understanding of Boone’s heart. Or, perhaps stupidly, I wanted the same bill that everyone in history wanted. I also felt that Jill was the most interesting character in the book and I would have liked to have spent more time exploring her tragic backstory.
However, no one can deny Saunders’ brilliance and artistry, or the relevance of the issues he explores Wake up. I think it’s probably a book that deserves to be read at least twice.
The rain seekers
Matthew Kressel, Tor Publishing
Now to The rain seekers by Matthew Kressel. This is essentially a series of short stories, but with a narrative arc running through them. The protagonist, Sakunja Salazar, is an influencer-turned-journalist living on Mars at a time when the planet’s terraforming efforts are finally bearing fruit.
There is now open water on the red planet, and at certain times you can even breathe air, unless a rush of oxygen-poor air blows in to ruin the moment. Sakunja joins a buggy ride deep into the Martian wilderness with a group intent on being the first to see rain on Mars. It’s a lovely and poetic idea.
Along the way, Sakunja interviews his fellow rainseekers, asking them about their lives and reasons for wanting to see rain from March. Each of these tourists’ stories contributes to the overall story of the group traveling into the wilderness.
Kressel is very good at telling people’s stories, powerfully and with just a few words, and that gives the short story some weight. The stories build into a vivid picture of the solar system as it is in Kressel’s vision of the future.
I think the least successful part of the book, for me, was Sakunja himself, who never managed to arouse my interest or sympathy. However, this is an enjoyable and very human piece to terraforming classics like Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars trilogy.
Emily also recommends…
Juice
Tim Winton, Pan Macmillan
If you are interested in oil tycoons and their role in climate change, this book is for you. We travel far into the future in this novel, but it turns out that there are still people alive who can be punished for what went wrong. It’s a fantastic piece of work – and this month’s New Scientist Book Club pick!
Emily H. Wilson is the author of the Sumerians series (Inanna, Gilgamesh and Ninshubar, all published by Titan) and she is currently working on her first sci-fi novel. She is a former editor of New Scientist and you can follow her on Instagram @emilyhwilson1
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