Subject: Review of Lovelock by Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd

From: [email-masked] (James Terman)
Date: 11 Jul 1994 19:49:05 GMT

Review of Lovelock by Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd

_Lovelock_ is billed as the first book in the _Mayflower_ trilogy. Yep,
ol' Orson is starting another series! That crazy guy. For those of you
who feel that SF could use another Xanth novel before a new series by
Orson Scott Card, I hasten to add that he has actually written all the
books in his _Memory of Earth_ series. Although they have not been
published yet, Orson Scott Card has for the first time in his career
finished a series! Of course, it was the last series he started and
most of us have been awaiting a new Alvin Maker book for 5 years and
counting and we thought _Xenocide_ might actually end the Ender Wiggen
saga, but nooo... But, I digress. So the bad news is Card is starting a
new series, the good news is he has completed an old one leaving the
number of unfinished series constant, and the great news is that
_Lovelock_ is a fantastic book that I highly recommend. There, you can
now rush out and buy the book and pick up this review again when you
are finished. :-)

The story is told entirely as a first person account by Lovelock except
for some diary entries of other characters. Lovelock is a heavily
modified (both genetically and through cybernetic implants) capuchin
monkey. Lovelock is one of several examples of a Witness. A Witness is
designed to observe the daily life of its owner (who might be famous,
rich and/or both) for prosperity. A Witness's memories can be
downloaded and stored on computers. Witnesses are made from a variety
of species (we see an example of a parrot, which can speak, and a pig),
and all have at least human level intelligence. Lovelock seems to have
above normal intelligence and it is mentioned that he can read at a
rate of 3000 words per minute. Lovelock's owner is very famous and no
doubt he is top of the line.

Lovelock's owner (which makes Lovelock a slave as he comes to realize)
is Carol Jeanne Cocciolones (no I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce
it either :-), a world famous gaiologist, i.e. a scientist how studies
a planet's climate. Lovelock has spent most of his life happily
recording the life of Carol Jeanne with a love that is both conditioned
psychologically and amplified by his implants. Certainly, he wastes
little love on any other human he encounters be that Carol Jeanne's
husband, Red, their two daughters or Red's parents. Red, too, has a
Witness, a pig named Pink, although this seems more for his ego than
because of any accomplishment of his.

_Lovelock_ starts with Lovelock, his owner Carol Jeanne and her family
moving to the Ark, an interstellar, exploratory colony ship. Carol
Jeanne's skills as a gaiologist are considered vital enough for the
colony's success that she is allowed to bring her entire family,
including her two in-laws, who from the colonies point of view, are
dead weight. Since the Ark has a mission that might last a lifetime and
relativistic dilation guarantees that even if they return several
centuries will have passed on Earth, the Ark has been quite
self-consciously designed as a self contained society with a small-town
orientated lifestyle that Carol Jeanne and her family must get used
to.

If _Lovelock_ were just about people adjusting to life aboard a colony
ship, it would have been a fairly standard "soft" (i.e. focus on
characters rather than gee-wiz gismos) SF story. But while Carol Jeanne
and her family start to re-examine their lives and change the pattern
of their lives in a way they probably never would have done if they had
remained on Earth, none change more than Lovelock himself. On Earth,
Lovelock was a slave, but a rather happy one. He loved Carol Jeanne and
was conditioned to be absolutely loyal to her. But in the stress of
moving to a new life, Lovelock finds that he may not have been as
important to Carol Jeanne as she was to him. Over the course of the
story, Lovelock manages to overcome his training to the point where he
himself is the focus of his life rather than Carol Jeanne. And as
Lovelock ponders his future and the future of his species (which
numbers just one on the Ark currently), he realizes he needs help and
human allies.

As I have written this review, it seems in a way a hard novel to
summarize.  Oh, I could summarize the plot, the actions of the
characters and their consequences. Carol and Jeane's marriage breaks up
(with Red realizing he needs something else in more ways than one) as
well as their in-laws. They must suddenly adjust to a close-knit small
town life that, unlike on Earth, there is no escape from. But quite a
bit of this character change (I am not sure I would call it growth),
might seem tedious and soap-operish if it did not serve as a
counterpoint to Lovelock who does change AND grow.

Perhaps this was the problem with Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee's
Rama books. In Clarke's solo works, the characters only serve to move
the story along. Which is fine, as one reads Clarke to get a feel for
the grand sweep of the universe, not to get insights into the human
condition. Sadly, Gentry Lee's contribution to the Rama series was to
add a lot of _sturm und drang_ of pointless human squabbling. Oh, it
raised the question of how mature is the human race, but that is hardly
an original question and other people have done it better elsewhere.

In _Lovelock_, the strife that accompanies life in the Ark clearly is a
result of people reevaluating the patterns of their life when put in a
new environment. This happens in ordinary life too, a parent might die,
the kids grow up and move out (or move back in!), a career falters, and
suddenly people are breaking up their marriages, changing friends and
hobbies that might have suited them the rest of their life. Sometimes
on the outside, all this change might look rather pointless not
understanding the long denied dreams these changes might represent.
Other people might react the opposite, holding dearer to the patterns
of their life in reaction to change, and find people who respond to
change with even more change bewildering. However, all this makes it
easy to understand how and why Lovelock breaks his conditioning after
years of uncomplaining servitude. Lovelock gains our sympathy (and,
frankly, not too many of the other characters gain it), and we root for
his growth.

Of course, this growth is not without risk, and Lovelock starts to take
chances. There is a "secret police" in the Ark to guarantee that
nothing happens to disrupt the mission. And, an intelligent capuchin
who breaks his conditioning and starts to have goals his creators or
owner never intended is clearly a threat. In fact, it is sometimes
startling how obvious the realizations he comes to that shock him so.
It is hardly surprising that a Witness is considered, at best, a
beloved if useful pet and, at worst, a dangerous but useful device to
turned off at the slightest indication of danger. Glorying in his
special relationship with Carol Jeanne (far more intimate than her
relationship with her husband), Lovelock never realized how far down on
the totem pole he really was. Before, Lovelock never had any use for
humans besides Carol Jeanne, but now that his goals are expanded he
realizes that he needs, and can find, other human beings who might help
him.

_Lovelock_ is a stunning book and my only problem with it is that, as
the first book in a series, the story stops at a natural point, but you
still want to know what is going to happen next. I really started to
care about and root for Lovelock. So now Orson Scott Card has left me
with *two* series that I really want him to complete! I was also
pleasantly surprised about the result of the collaboration with Kathryn
H. Kidd. Ms. Kidd is no Gentry Lee, and the merging of their two style
results in a story that is recognizably Orson Scott Card, but something
more as well. As for Gentry Lee, I would suggest you read the foreword
to _Lovelock_ where Orson Scott Card is far more penetrating on the
dangers of collaboration than I could ever be.

Bottom line summary: yes, Orson Scott Card has started a new series,
but I would not let that stop you. Read it, you won't be sorry!

%A Card, Orson Scott
%A Kidd, Kathryn H.
%T Lovelock
%I Tor
%C New York
%D July 1994
%G ISBN 0-312-85732-2
%P 285 pp
%O hardback, USD21.95, CAD29.95
%V Book 1
%S Mayflower Trilogy

-- 
| James L. Terman                          | Science may set limits to know-  |
| [email-masked]              | ledge, but should not set limits |
| [email-masked]              | to imagination.		      |
|					   | 		   - Bertrand Russell |