Ink (edition 2012)

Ink was one of those books that required a lot of attention and was totally worth it. Brilliant author, somehow a book that really felt it shone as an ebook.

The world of Ink isn't far away enough from reality to be just another dystopia...

While brown-skinned peoples are tattooed and targeted, stripped of their rights and their children, their ancestral spirits are literally working with and for them, even when the characters themselves are not aware of the power they wield.

The story feels disjointed at times, so the reader needs to stay hyper-aware. This magical realism does not flow uninterrupted, but the tale is timely and the characters beautiful enough to forgive the difficulties of narrative. ( )

A fascinating book based on a truly remarkable concept that posits a US government which requires all Hispanics to be tattooed, an action which allows and leads to further legal restrictions ~ and worse ~ on that population. What seemed at first an utterly implausible idea became, as i reflected on it, surprisingly possible, though not actually likely.

Having lived in the United States for some twenty years, immersed in what is truly one of the most racially aware, if not racist, cultures in the world, i found myself appreciating the underlying truths on the book: The general fear of the unknown, by Americans in general, because it is different, is clear; the amazing passivity with which huge numbers of Americans allow their government to assume a larger and larger rôle in their lives, despite their constant lip service to the ideals of small government, no matter what that intrusive government does; also, to be fair, the individual kindness or loveliness of many Americans individually rather than en masse (as much as a cliché as it is to say it, while i find the American people in general rather unpleasant, many of my best friends are Americans ~ indeed, i married one). It is part of the novel's interest that the group which is being oppressed is not that group in actuality most discriminated against, African-Americans ~ or whatever the currently correct term is ~ but Vourvoulias has chosen to make the fastest growing ethnic group in the US her victims; this has raised a number of challenges for her, some of which she has risen to quite well, including the matter of a word for the group ~ the titular “ink” ~ which is universally used within the book.

In mine opinion, however, she has been less successful in her treatment of African-Americans themselves, as there is, if i recall correctly, only one identifiably Black character, and there is really no difference between that character and the other non-Inks other than the colour of the skin. The United States is, as mentioned above, one of the most vocally egalitarian, yet practically non-egalitarian, societies in the world, yet the true underclass of the society is that of the African-Americans; they are the group most closely linked with the idea of prejudice, the most underprivileged group, the class closest to the position of the Inks in the novel. I suspect that Vourvoulias found that it would be impossible, if she even thought about trying, to use Blacks as her victims, and anyone she may have run the idea past would have dissuaded her.

Another facet of the book which i found rather distracting, though i can see (or, at least, imagine) that some readers would probably find it one of its strengths, is the intrusion of the generally unseen world of magic into the world of reality. There are several ways in which Vourvoulias allows these worlds to intersect; each of them is, to me, either confusing or annoying. The most consistent manner is that several of the Inks have some form of dæmon or alter ego which occasionally comes to the fore, most notably during times of stress or conflict, in particular when she shows them in conflict with evil dwarves which, while not appearing to actually be alter egos of anyone, are intimately linked with the pain and anguish caused by the government's Ink policies. The most acceptable (to me) intrusion of magic is the ability of one of the non-Inks who helps subvert the government's policies to manipulate the land around him and actually cause it to change, shape or characteristics, to enable people to hide or do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to.

In the end, i'm afraid that Vourvoulias has tried to put too much into a novel which will not carry it. As much as i enjoyed the plot, the conception, the characterisations (and the characters), i found the book as a whole a bit more than i could comfortably read. I would like to have seen the idea developed without some of the extra themes, the magic, or the importance of story-telling. This could have been a superb work of speculative fiction, had it not left so many questions dangling ~ how did the government bring in the Ink policies? what was the political landscape which permitted these developments? do Latins or Hispanics from other than Central and South America (Spain, Portugal, Italy) have to have tattoos? The single idea of the tattoos is so powerful, in mine opinion it should have been allowed to develop fully. A success then, for me, but not as successful as it might have been. ( )

There were things I liked about this book and then at other times I was distracted by the disjointed writing style of the book. Actually, it appeared that the author had good ideas for two different books but ended up combining them into one. In particular, I liked the subject of the attitudes and responses that are developing in our country about immigration from Mexico, Latin America, and South America in particular. The intertwining of the myths were unnecessary. The message of the book would have been much stronger without the mythical/fantasy aspect. ( )

The ink of the title refers to tattoos that are mandatory for all immigrants in Vourvoulias’s near-future version of America. "Ink" is also a general term used to describe any person who has such a tattoo. The story follows a set of characters, some "inks" and some not, as they experience the societal and personal upheaval of the country’s descent into xenophobic bigotry. The action moves back and forth between several characters’ points of view, allowing us to experience the unrest through different eyes. Woven in with the more prosaic story about a society in upheaval, there are fantastical elements to the story, involving spirit animals and magic, closely tied to the mythology of South America. I’m guessing that some might find this part of the story distracting or derailing, but I liked it. I felt that it adds depth to the characterizations, and in illuminating the richness of the cultures, serves to remind us that "ink" or "illegal" does not define a person, a group of people, or an ethnicity.

Ink is not an easy book to read, precisely because it is so plausible. The setting is near-future-ish enough that one could easily envision many of these events taking place tomorrow — and one is forced to recognize that the xenophobia necessary to make it happen most definitely does exist in modern America. I recommend Ink as an interesting and challenging read for sf and non-sf fans alike.

The above is an excerpt from my full review, which is posted on my blog at http://www.englishchick.com/blog/?p=55 ( )