In the Country of the Blind.

In the Country of the Blind

Michael Flynn 

Tom Doherty Associates

0312874448 $27.95

A newer, edited version of a first-novel published in the 1980s, this recent effort by the author of the space-exploration series, Firestar, Lodestar, Rogue Star, Falling Stars, strikes many chords for a modern reader of SF. The most pervasive of these is the sense that someone or some group is controlling our destiny and that this control is possible. A second is the concept that history is predictable and malleable. The novel also extends the use of computing back into the 19th century, where a group is formed out of people who believe in Ideons, later called memes, ideas that one can foist upon the less discriminating public and therefore use to manipulate them.

The existence and effectiveness of this 'Cliological' (history as a science) group is accidentally discovered by a young, upwardly mobile black woman, Sarah Beaumont (p.19). She finds several abandoned 'Babbage' (p. 45) engines in a building she is considering as a real estate purchase. She begins research on the previous owners of the building and decides that she might name her apartment-complex after one of them, Brady Quinn (p.13). In researching Quinn she discovers the existence of an organization bent on controlling American society, and with its roots before the Civil War. Enlisting the help of several friends, she continues her research, only to find that she and her friends have become targets of some relentless enemy (p. 52). She is attack, friends of hers are attacked, killed or kidnapped and, in anger, she creates a computer virus that searches the web for instances of these societies' manipulations and has them sent to police offices and newspaper offices. In doing so, she plunges into an even more complicated set of intrigues, being taken-in by the 'good' Cliological group and having to change her identity.

This novel takes a lot of attention. The 'current' narrative is interspersed with glimpses of the historical figures who founded Cliology (p.31) This is how we discover that the group has split into two over the issue of how much self-aggrandizement is allowable. But it turns out two groups are not enough either. Because of Sarah's actions, they are able to deduce each other's existence but then find that there is at least one more, based in Europe. Sarah plans to flee for her life and is 'rescued' or enlisted by Red Malone (p. 63). Thus the novel presents the reader with a complex of plots and subplots and hasn't quite overcome its origins as a series of novelettes, as several competing Cliological societies try to eliminate their rivals.

One can almost chart the breaks in the several stories, while Sarah Beaumont is the one character who connects almost all the current-time scenarios and she connects them by being the target of assassins, one of which almost succeeds (p. 365). Yet the story is full of philosophical arguments to delight the classical reader of SF, as the various groups justify and adjust their practice of Cliology. This novel is not an easy-reading experience, and is therefore a conceptual delight.

The novel is followed by almost 50 pages of charts, graphs and explanations (which were originally printed in Analog, along with earlier versions of the story. They reveal that the science of history is not quite a fantastic subject. In fact, the book ends with a bibliography of Memeology, the 'real' name for this science. It references historical, philosophical and mathematical texts.