Subject: Donaldson's "Gap" Series (Spoilers)

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 05:01:13 GMT

Stephen R. Donaldson's "Gap" series is brilliant, but not always palatable.
It is technically better than the "Covenant" trilogies in almost every
respect.  It is more tightly plotted, there are fewer one-dimensional
characters, and (halelujah!) Donaldson doesn't use ten-dollar words where
five will do.  The story is interesting -- riveting, in fact -- and is
allowed to become increasingly complex without becoming hard to follow.

The main problem which some readers will have with these books is that
most of the major characters are vile.

Reading the series has been like peeling an onion -- backward:  Each book
in the series is larger and more complex than the previous one.  The first
book, "The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict", is short (something that
probably hurt sales) and relatively simple.  It begins with the story 
the public sees:  A loathesome toad of a space pirate is somehow brought
down by a dashing freebooter, who leaves with the fair lady who was in the
pirate's grasp.  Then we get the story behind the story -- particularly the
story of how Angus Thermopyle (sic) enslaved Morn Hyland, and why Hyland
went off with Nick Succorso -- and it's appalling.  It's appalling, but
it's still a small drama played out on a small stage.

Donaldson ends the first book, "The Real Story", with an essay (excellent
in itself) on Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelungs", which provided much of the
inspiration for the Gap series.  

In "Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap Into Vision", the stage gets much larger,
and we begin to see what was missing from the first novel:  context.
Behind Morn Hyland of the United Mining Companies Police is the UMCP
itself, and behind it is the UMC.  Behind "space piracy" is the
infrastructure that makes it viable, such as illegal ship repair yards
and, most important, customers for the loot.  The customers are the
Amnion, a very alien race whose peace with humanity is uneasy and
unstable.  Amnion biotechnology has progressed as far as human mechanical
technology (which they purchase).  Indeed, their imperialism is biological: 
They do not wish to conquer humanity, but to change humans into Amnioni.  

Most of "Forbidden Knowledge" follows Nick Succorso's ship, Captain's
Fancy, on which Hyland has exchanged her earlier enslavement for a more
polished one.  By the end of this book, Captain's Fancy has reached
Billingate, the main illegal pirate base, Succorso has sold Morn's son,
Davies, to the Amnion, and promised them Morn, as well.  And the UMCP has
rebuilt Angus Thermopyle and sent him to Billingate on a mission of
destruction. 

In "A Dark and Hungry God Arises: The Gap into Power", the scope of the
story widens again.  This is also where the Wagnerian analogues start
falling into place.  The book begins with Holt Fasner (nicknamed the
Dragon), CEO of UMC, visiting his mother (heavy-handedly named 'Norna'),
for advice.  Their relationship is a good metaphor for most of the
relationships in the novel:  She is a medical prisoner, kept alive decades
longer than she wishes, because her advice is valuable to Holt.  Her
advice must be taken with caution, however, because if she can give him
apparently good advice which will destroy him, she will do so, and both of
them know it.  Mutually destructive relationships built on hate and need
are more the rule than the exception in this book.

"A Dark and Hungry God Arises" follows two parallel (and occasionally
intersecting, if you'll pardon the non-Euclidian metaphor) stories.  Back
on Earth, Warden Dios, director of the UMC Police, is working to destroy
Fasner's power without bringing down the UMCP.  

On Billingate, a game of plot and counter-plot is played out.  The UMCP
has developed (and suppressed) a defense against Amnion mutagens.  If word
of this gets out in human space, it could bring down the UMC.  On the
other hand, a hint of this defense has been given to the Amnion, to make
them more tractable.  The Amnion want Succorso because of his links to the
anti-mutagen, and they want Morn and her son, who may be the key to their
efforts to mutate human minds without mutating the bodies.  They are
willing to put a great deal of pressure on Succorso and on the owner of
Billingate, known as the Bill, but too much pressure will compromise the
willingness of humans to sell them human technology.  Similarly, the Bill
can't be seen to be selling them paying customers without compromising his
own credibility.  Succorso, who would cheerfully sell Morn and all her
relatives to the seventh generation, must worry about alienating his crew.
To the Bill and others, Angus's arrival is an unexpected wild card, and it
seems marginally better to let him in and see what he'll do than to refuse
him admission.  Milos Tavener, Angus's former captor and torturer, has
been sent with Angus, and given a control over him -- but their mission
doesn't look like one which Tavener is likely to survive. 

Donaldson plays the game fairly:  There may be some close timing and some
unlikely coincidences along the way, but all the characters behave in
manners which are consistent with what they are, what they know, and what
they need.  For most of them, what they need is to put the pieces of the
puzzle together quickly enough to survive the experience.  By the end of
the book, Nick Succorso's only hope of survival lies in cooperating with
Angus Thermopyle in rescuing Davies (a most unlikely Siegfried) from the
Bill and Morn from the Amnion. 

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the political battle between Warden Dios and the
Dragon is starting to generate real corpses.  Presumably we'll see a good
deal more of this conflict in the next book, "The Gap into Madness: Chaos
and Order."

As I said at the beginning, the skill with which Donaldson has constructed
this series is not in question.  (He does occasionally forget that he's
writing soft sf, and try to give more technological detail than holds up,
but that's the closest he comes to showing technical flaws.)  Most of the
characters are on the despicable side though, and so is much of their
behavior.  To Donaldson's credit, the worst of this behavior is implied,
rather than shown.  (The not-so-bad can still be pretty bad.  I could have
lived a while longer without the bar scene where the floor show consisted
of a woman cutting her breasts off without anesthetic.)

One might argue that the characters are not gratuitously ugly.  Most of
them have climbed out of miserable and impoverished conditions -- conditions
which are part of the background problem in this series -- and it's hard to
come out of such an environment without being twisted by it.  But ugly is
still ugly, and these characters and the ways they behave towards each
other are the worst things about the series.

If you haven't tried the series, and it sounds as if it's worth a try,
read the first book.  Not only is "The Real Story" considerably the
shortest of the books, but they get steadily better, so if you decide to
continue after the first book, you won't be disappointed.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked]

   "You have the reputation of being one of the nicest guys in the field.
    We both know you're a hyena on its hind legs.  How have you fooled
    everyone?"  "By keeping my mouth shut when I read garbage" -- Gene Wolfe