Subject: Review: "Memento Mori" by Shariann Lewitt

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: 24 Aug 1997 19:47:43 GMT

"Momento Mori" by Shariann Lewitt
		A Postview, copyright 1997 p-m agapow

A mysterious plague breaks out on a distant colonial world.  Self-imposed
quarantine and the machinations of an adolescent AI leads to social
breakdown, hedonism and an outburst of "terminal art."

If you've seen Shariann (S.N.) Lewitt's books before, you probably have an
impression of them as B-grade militaristic SF, a la Claremont or Drake.
If you've gotten past the drearily stereotypical covers and blurbs (a
friend described their appearance - alas accurately - as "cyberfluff")
you'll know this is an underestimation.  Lewitt has a keen skill for
intense characterisation and plots set in non Anglo-saxon cultures.  There
is a sense that her characters belong in their world - the woefully titled
"Cybernetic Jungle" has a memorable image of two Brazilian streethoods
cheering on their favourite soccer teams while living in a an apartment
with one's mother where pirated biochips are growing in several jam jars
stuck in the back of the closet.  Perhaps not always entirely successful,
Lewitt is at least interesting.

"Momento Mori" is a progression from her previous work, further away from
military and even criminal scenarios.  Although the immediate comparison
is Camus' "The Plague," a better point to reference would be "On the
Beach" with a dash of Pat Murphy's "The City Not Long After."  However
"Memento Mori" is much blacker.  There can be no graceful fading of the
colony's life, as the inhabitants turn to theft, partying or even just
carrying out their rituals as usual.  They do not even have the assurance
that they are completely doomed - a cure for the virus may be found but it
will be more due to luck than persistence or hope.  Even the art at the
edge of death is moribund and empty.  Forced to confront meaning and
death, the protagonists struggle to maintain normality, rebel and burnout.
The story does sag briefly between the setup and the exploration of the
characters.  One character - a chess savant in the spasms of adolescence -
seems after much "screen time" to just disappear from the story. However
the people of the story are again well-drawn and their mental turmoil
nicely sketched.

Unfortunately the progression to "Memento Mori" has also flattened some of
the richness in Lewitt's previous work.  The culture of the colony Reis is
a touch vanilla.  Although very European (as opposed to English/American)
and richly filled in, it is not as diverse or as interesting as some of
her previous worlds.  Also if all mention of AIs or virtual reality were
stripped out then the technology would look very 1990.  Admittedly the
AI/VR threads form a significant part of the story, but still in many ways
"Memento Mori" is barely an SF novel.  Although the focus is on the
characters and not the technology, the setting is somewhat problematic.
At one point we are told the death rate is so high that the electronic
newspapers find it physically impossible to list the dead.  This seems
quite implausible.

Not one for those who like action-packed stories, this is still a
worthwhile book.  Perhaps not as good or as different as it could have
been, it is still a worthy addition to the canon of Lewitt, whose work I
will continue to follow with interest.  [***/interesting] and the later
films of Hal Hartley on the Sid and Nancy scale.

%A Shariann Lewitt
%T Memento Mori
%I Tor
%C New York
%D 1997
%G ISBN 0-312-86294-6
%P 286pp
%O paperback, Aus$16.95

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked])
Postviews SF/F reviews site: <www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews>