Subject: LOOKING FOR THE MAHDI by N. Lee Wood

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 Oct 1997 20:17:43 -0500

LOOKING FOR THE MAHDI by N. Lee Wood
         Ace, ISBN 0-441-00450-4, 1997 (1996c), 337pp, US$5.99
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1997 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This book is not without flaws, but it did keep me up until 3 AM to
finish it, so I guess that serves as a recommendation.

     Kahlili bint Munadi Sulaiman is a television journalist.  She covered
a war in Khuruchabja -- not unlike the war in Iraq, from the description
-- and now finds herself involved in escorting John Halton to Khuruchabja.
But neither are what they appear: Sulaiman is also K. B. Sulaiman, male
journalist because frankly, there was no way a woman could cover a war in
a Muslim fundamentalist country, and Halton is a fabricant.  Besides the
issue of gender, there is also the layer of deception and concealment
inherent in the television journalism business: the newscasters are just
"bubble-heads" repeating the words fed to them and nothing is what it
seems.  Given the fact that the whole Middle East situation in real life,
and in the book, seems tied up with identity in strange ways, I am sure
that this emphasis on multiple and hidden identities is not accidental.  I
might quibble that "Khuruchabja" sounds more Central Asian than Middle
Eastern, but let it pass.  If you question whether Sulaiman could carry
off her disguise, consider Linda Hunt in the film THE YEAR OF LIVING
DANGEROUSLY.

     Halton is also trying to conceal his identity.  Fabricants are not
entirely popular, even with heavy government regulation.  This regulation,
by the way, is one of my two major complaints.  LOOKING FOR THE MAHDI was
obviously written before the recent cloning announcements, but even then
reproductive technology had gone far enough that the sorts of definitions
of "human" used here would never have been accepted.

     Wood thinks through this whole issue of concealment more than most.
Her characters need to acquire more than just the clothing and the hair
cuts, they need to think and react the way their false egos would.  They
do not always succeed.  One of the things that makes the story ring true
is that they are not perfect at it.  They make mistakes.  Things happen
beyond their control, and they have to deal with it.

     Wood focuses primarily on intra-Muslim strife, and maybe because both
(all?) sides are Muslim, she seems to avoid the stereotypes and extremes
that so many writers fall into when they have the Muslims all on one side
as inhuman monsters bent on destroying Western civilization.  My only
other complaint is the ending--I find Wood's "solution" to the Middle East
situation unlikely, to say the least.

     I haven't read Wood's first novel (FARADAY'S ORPHANS), but after
reading LOOKING FOR THE MAHDI, I will be looking for that one as well.
Wood is an author to watch and LOOKING FOR THE MAHDI is a book to read.

%T      Looking for the Mahdi
%A      N. Lee Wood
%C      New York
%D      1996
%I      Ace
%O      paperback, US$5.99 [1997]
%G      ISBN 0-441-00450-4
%P      337pp

Evelyn C. Leeper    |  [email-masked]
+1 732 957 2070     |  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough
to make us love one another. -- Jonathan Swift