Ken Catran

Deepwater Black – The Complete Story (all 3 books), by Ken Catran (1997), is a very cool and classic work of science fiction and in my opinion the most enthralling from the “ark in space” sub-genre ever written, or that I’ve encountered anyway. I have read this trilogy back-to-back with Battlestar Galactica, by Glen Larson and Robert Thurston (1978), although there are more books of this type with Arkship Obsidian (and sequels), by Niel Bushnell (2017), being more recent show more additions.

The environmental movement, specifically campaigning on climate change and global warming, was in its early days when this story was written and it must have seemed like original futurology to have a plot where the Earth (and Mars) become uninhabitable because of us, so in order to allow Earth time to repair itself and be able to support human life again, and for a virulent virus to die out in the terraformed Martian colonies, arks are sent into space on a voyage lasting hundreds of thousands of years, eventually to loop back and re-seed home with a brand new ecosystem. Phillip K. Dick described polluted territories on Earth but that was from atomic war and, anyway, the non-terrestrial colonies were unaffected.

Due to the length of the journey, a live crew needed to navigate and wrestle the ship through the difficult stretches of space in the final home leg. Rather than keep the race alive for generations, the solution has been to propagate a new crew from a gene bank aboard the ship and raise them from children using a matronly computer programme, which both teaches and entertains them using virtual reality (remember – published twenty one years ago).

That’s the peg the adventure hangs on, but the plot darts off quite freely and readably from there as we find out about the history of the individuals that the crew were cloned from, the entertaining and often zoo-like dangers of deep space, character interplay where they clearly fancy each other but aren’t sure how to manifest that, doh, then there’s a ton of intrigue when they various shipboard systems develop minds and agendas of their own.

I loved reading this book but there were a couple of little red question marks. Why is Earth referred to as a star? Sol is our star. Then there’s “…cloned from gene cells” – What’s that then? All animal and plant cells are genetically derived, although red blood cells lose their nucleus as they mature and therefore are without DNA, which codes genes, but a gene is not a type of cell, actually. Sorry to be pedantic but I did ask for patience once so I could translate the instructions on the back of a condom packet. Criticisms then? Nothing significant. “How do you [know] these things, Conn?” I spotted a new sentence hard up against the preceding full stop in book three and thought that was ironic, i.e. no space in a book where there’s so much of it, but apart from that it is a very clear and magical read. Yoona and Reb are particularly strong and innovative characters that you’ll feel yourself drawn into the crew alongside. As I read through this, in my own mind I was Yoona (did I just admit that?).

It’s really science fiction. Even the origin of the fantasy adversaries is explained by scientific process. I couldn’t quite accept the explanation for prexes (pre-existence hallucinations) being possible because you can inherit behavioural traits but you certainly cannot inherit a memory, but at the end it became clearer how these memories had been deposited and even that made grudging sense. There is a eugenics angle to this story, making us face our own values about what kind of humans and other species we would choose to be the future human race. Would you just select the beautiful people, the flawless decorative types, the strong and the fast perhaps, or would you prefer a random selection which might give you more chance of including a few thinkers and artists in the replacement pool of the human genome. Would you, as Noah, squash the mosquitoes on your ark?

A television series was made based on this book, which I somehow managed to miss, probably by not being alive yet, which is another thing I can blame my parents for. However, I’ve done my research and been told by someone who saw about half of it that it was close to the book plot but the TV series didn’t film on Mars or Earth, Yoona was called Una and had dark hair rather than blonde, the show didn’t have the character called Dennie from book two and they’d added some extra background about Bren that his human donor from thousands of years before had lived in an authoritarian regime. Well, that sure wasn’t in the book and I doubt it was necessary to include it. I’d really like to see this TV series, if anyone knows if it’s still being streamed somewhere or on disc. On, come on. Someone? I pay in glitter.

Some stories make me yearn to get my own space ship someday. Deepwater Black is entertaining, imaginative, would capture a young adult audience’s attention but does a lot more for me than ninety something percent of shallow YA material and I have to say that it’s thoroughly imagined and comes fully recommended. The action doesn’t stop or even wane, but just switches at pace into new action. You don’t just want to know what comes next, you need to know.

In a nutshell, this is the first story I’ve ever read that made me want to run around on walkways and get a jump suit with my name on it. show less

Found this in a Lilliput Library and when I saw it I vaguely remembered enjoying Ken Catran’s science fiction novels when I was pretty young. I think I liked the other series better than this one, but I figured I’d give it a go for old times sake.

It’s 2044 and Earth has been crippled by irresponsible human pollution, while new genetically-engineered strains of humanity have been sent out to colonise the solar system. These colonists are now in their second generation, so this has show more become a 1984-type future of the past.

Anyway, the story centres around an Earth boy known as Dex and an asteroid-born girl called Asa. The story only mentions that they’re young and I pegged them as about 13 as that’s generally how they act. But Dex mentions drinking coffee and wanting a “strong” drink so maybe he’s supposed to be in his late teens.

They are thrown together for a mission to Neptune’s moon Triton, along with some other colony-born characters, and a whole lot of prejudice and jerkiness ensues. Dex eventually learns not to be such a racist jerk, although I’m honestly not sure about Asa. It’s strongly hinted that her story isn’t over so I perhaps it’ll be explored in the next book of the series.

The mystery is pretty interesting, with objects and people from Earth’s distant past appearing in the icy storms of Triton. However, Dex’s familiarity with concepts from the past seems to be all over the place and raises a lot of odd questions. He can’t identify armour, beards or poo, but DOES know the etymology of “holiday”? Surely even in the distant future of 2044 (!) the concept of shielding your body with tough material in order to protect yourself is still applicable, even if plate mail is obsolete. And beards and poo? Surely you should still know what they are unless genetic engineering has been used in more ways than the novel mentions.

Still, I think I’m being a bit too critical of what is really a fun and easy-to-read book for children, and which I certainly enjoyed at the appropriate age. I really need to learn to sit back and enjoy instead of picking everything to pieces. I’ll certainly look out for the rest of the books for a full refresher. show less

A bundle of letters are rediscovered and sent to the Alexander Turnbull Library. The letters are correspondence between Harry Wainwright, who fancies himself a knight of the round table, and his sweetheart Jessica. Harry is 17, not quite 18, and can't wait to enlist for the Great War. He defies his parents and instead of returning to boarding school, runs away to war. Their correspondence begins idealistically but gradually becomes more cynical as they experience the realities and horror of show more war. Harry takes part in the Gallipoli Campaign (25 April 1915 - 9 January 1916) and Jessica becomes an army nurse. Harry is caught up in Battle of Chunuk Bair (8 August 1915) and the influenza pandemic of 1918 looms on the horizon. Touching and sad. Books like this will become ever more popular as the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I nears. show less

Another fun foray into my youth. Although I've forgotten a lot of what went on in these books over the years, there's actually one scene here that had stayed with me through the decades. That was the scene in which the kidnapped Cela customises her cell in all the riotous colours of her home world.

The plot here was pretty complex, though I think I've figured most things out - such as Morwenna's constantly contradicting actions.