My familiarity with science fiction literature is, to say the least, not anything to write home about. I've read Solaris by Stanislav Lem, mostly because I liked the Tarkovsky version of the film. Off the top of my head, that, and a cyber punk story written by William Gibson, are the only science fiction books I remember ever having read. The idea of science fiction literature seems thrilling to some extent, but my very prejudiced hunch about science fiction literature is that it erects a massive structure of plot combined with a world building principle that, in the end, boils down to a science fetisch. I'm not that interested in the future of science, to give you my honest opinion. I think that we tend to have a way too exaggerated belief in science as the driving force of changes in human life.
My friend M talked a great deal about Cyteen, a science fiction novel written by C.J. Cherry, published in 1988. His enthusiasm about the book made me curious, and I decided to read it. At a snail's pace, I did. At first, as I dived into the story, I was very confused. I felt I was not equipped with a perspicuous presentation of the form of life the book depicts. This didn't prevent me from reading on and I gradually gave up on the desire to have the structure of the world of the novel all laid out before me, summed up in heavyweight sentences. Instead, I realize that we don't have a perspicuous presentation of our own world either. What would that even look like? The stylistic dimension of Cyteen that first appeared harrowingly fragmentary to me, is rather quite true to life. We have differing descriptions of what goes on. Politics, economics and technology don't occupy a settled position in our lives.
Cyteen is a planet on which humans settled in the year 2201. By then, humans had already built stations on other planets and the economy on earth had degenerated increasingly. Travelling had altered radically due to the invention of faster-than-light space probes. Cyteen consists of "pockets of breathable atmosphere in an otherwise deadly environment". The novel revolves around the region of Reseune, a research zone in which some the planet's inhabitants is bred in genetics labs, some of which are azi, "assistants" (a form of slaves) to human beings who mostly learn things taking "tape", which means that they don't learn stuff in the setting of human interaction, but rather, by means of subconscious stimulation. Non-azi also take tape to some degree.
A circle of politicians and researchers make up the gallery of characters, which makes it only natural that Cyteen explores the intermingling of politics and science. At the beginning of the novel, Ariane Emory, an important genetic designer/politician, is murdered. A researcher named Jordan Warrick is, it appears, the perpetrator. A clone of Emory, Ariane II, is bred to take up Emory's work where she finished it. See, Ariane is also a clone psychologically. Through childhood and adolescence, Ariane II struggles with her position as successor, as somebody for whom destiny is sealed, as somebody who has to reach a particular "standard". Ariane I was the leader of a political party called The Expansionists, the agenda of which is to expand the union of stations surrounding Cyteen and also to continue the cloning technology. From an early age, Ariane II, aided by her two security azi, gains entrance to the world of politics. Ariane I and II have a complicated bond to the Warrick family, who are also gifted researchers: personal relationships are linked to political ones so that it is never quite clear what is what.
Cherryh paints a dark, suffocating even, panorama of political and scientific life. There are no hints of indulgence in technological trinkets; Cyteen is the dystopia of science. (In my academic work, I struggle with understanding Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, after having read Cyteen, I have a much stronger grasp of what "world-alienation". "alienation from the life-world", could mean.)
Cherryh depicts a political system dependent on blackmail, secret inverventions and a totalitarian network of surveillance. Her novel could be said to incorporate a light streak of Foucauldian views on power as the personal relationships of the book are impossible to understand apart from the roles science, politics and technology play in the characthers' lives. Cherryh's attempts at developing a nu-speak of Reseune makes the centrality of technological psychology particularly evident. The characters of Cyteen often talk about themselves as if from a third person perspective, using the language of tape interventions and detached psychology. This is a world of "psychsets", a world in which spontaneous reactions are reduced to irrational "flux". Grant and Justin are lovers. They also grew up together. Justin's father is sent away as he is accused of the murder. Eventually, Justin is allowed to visit. Grant, however, is not. Left behind at Reseune, he worries about what will happen. Will security tamper with him? Security could do whatever they like. Grant is the property of Reseune. In the lonely hours of the night, Grant takes some drugs that will help him get access to his psychsets. He takes some sedates to cope with the flux. - This situation is typical for the characters of Cyteen. They react to situations; but their world makes such reactions dangerous. This goes for azi and non-azi alike. Azi are slaves to non-azi. Both groups are restrained by the dangers of flux.
To be honest, I was fascinated with Cyteen more on the level of ideas than as I was impressed with it as a literary work. Cherryh's language is not so stringent as I would desire it to be. There are a few oddities. On Reseune, the treasure of curse-words seems to have been shockingly overlooked. If one would count the instances of the bland word "damn" in the novel, one would reach an impressive amount indeed. But maybe the recurrent clinging to this particular word could be interpreted as the overall impoverished sense of language (linked to the ideology of science) that Cherryh hints at in her characters? What I like about the novel is its extensive use of dialogue. It fits the story to develop a complex world a lot dissimilar from our own by means of conversation. A problem, however, is that Cherryh is prone to underestimate the complexities and layers of conversation. At some points, it bothers me that she moves on the surface.
One thing that I found a bit wearisome in Cyteen was how Cherryh was prone to hold up sex as a primordial, irrational drive that has nothing to do with society. You know the picture: dark, human passions cluttered among people striving for progress and efficiency. (Dr. F?) This said, Cherry raises the issue of heterosexism in a very admirable, subtle way. One could even say that this particular subject is treated with much more subtlety than other things. One could read stuff into that, but I prefer not to.
On the Wikipedia site for Cyteen, I find out that Cherryh is soon to publish a sequel!
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