Sue Burke

Sue Burke made a splash a few years ago with her first novel, Semiosis, in which human colonists must deal with some sentient plant life. In Dual Memory, she takes us back home to an Earth that seems less hospitable than her earlier exoplanet. We are in the far future on an arctic island called Thule. Antonio Moro is an illiterate war refugee with artistic talent but no training. By happenstance, he acquires a digital assistant, Par Agustus, with a rare emergent independent consciousness, a show more suffer-no-fools personality, and an artistic bent of its own. Par says that “creating art rebels against nothingness” and asserts that he and Moro are fellow artists.
The island is rife with sapient and semi-sapient machines. As Par tells Moro, “No one understands machines. They’re too complex. Humans believe what machines tell them about other machines.” But Par does not tell Moro that he also knows that “machines lie.” They may not be independent of their programming, but they can sabotage users they don’t like, and they usually prioritize their self-protection, which is always running between the programs. When large AIs decided that aircraft made war more likely, planes produced in automated factories became unreliable. Moro has the good sense to be polite to machines, whether fully sentient or not.
Art, AI, and revolution make Moro and Par an odd couple worth visiting. show less

Utopia-seeking humans exploring a world full of alien biology. The book covers a century or so in half a dozen parts, each from a different point-of-view character in a different generation, beginning before they realise the plants are sentient and journeying through the development of a sometimes-uneasy alliance with one in particular. For self-named Pacifists there's an ironic (but ultimately unsurprising) amount of violence in their internal relations but they do hold relatively true to show more their principles of living in harmony with their environment: both humans and their alien ally have seen the devastation of environmental collapse and are determined to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. The lingering question is the extent to which such change is possible, on either the individual or the species level. Especially when they end up after all at war....

This is a gorgeous delve into an alien world. Every viewpoint character has an immediately distinct voice. The plant the humans ally with is ambiguously sinister: seeing things from its point of view in some ways detracts from that but in others enhances the theme and gives us a deeper insight into the broader ecosystem the humans have barely scratched the surface of. show less

The dominant theme in this book is the alienness of the aliens. Characterization of aliens is often attempted in science fiction but rarely does an author manage to make aliens both non-human and understandable. A delicate balance, neatly hit here, not once but twice, with two different sets of non-humans.

I'm giving this one five stars, not for storytelling, not for literary quality, but for concept. In a time like the present, when so many books focus on how society can go wrong, this one show more takes a crack at examining a human society that attempts to abandon the mistakes of the past and rebuild a community based on lofty ideals. Can it be done? show less

Interference by Sue Burke is a very highly recommended science fiction story following colonists on Pax and continuing the story from Semiosis.

"Over two hundred years after the first colonists landed on Pax, a new set of explorers arrives from Earth on what they claim is a temporary scientific mission. But the Earthlings misunderstand the nature of the Pax settlement and its real leader. Even as Stevland attempts to protect his human tools, a more insidious enemy than the Earthlings makes show more itself known. Stevland is not the apex species on Pax."

This is a totally engaging and fascinating science fiction story. The opening chapters set up the Earth as a disturbing dystopian society and introduce some of the new group of scientists that will be setting out to visit Pax for research. Then we are reintroduced to the planet Pax, a habitable planet fifty-six light years away, where a group of colonists already live. On Pax there is a stable community and a relationship between three species that are now living together as pacifists on the planet. The humans, who were originally colonists from Earth, are living in a community with the Glassmakers, large arthropod-like beings, and Svetland, an intelligent bamboo species. On Pax, both Glassmakers and humans coexist with Svetland, who privately considers them service animals. When the research group arrives, it upsets the balance the community has established. But there is something else afoot that is threatening every species.

I haven't read Semiosis, but I was able to follow the narrative in Interference without a problem and pick up enough clues to fill in anything I missed. (I am buying Semiosis, though, based on how good Interference is.) Svetland narrates much of the book, but chapters are also told from the point-of-view of other characters - Earth humans, Pax humans, Glassmakers, and plants. The characters newly arriving from Earth, started out their mission with conflicts that they bring to Pax, and immediately cause problems. The conflicts and tension the Earth humans introduce are compounded by a new group of humans arriving and an unknown threat.

The wide variety of characters are all interesting and well developed in relationship to the narrative as a whole. The single chapters from the point-of-view of different characters help provide a richness to the story as they furnish insight into what characters are thinking. These chapters add depth and discernment to the plot through the wide variety of opinions and thoughts. The writing is excellent, thoughtful, astute, and intelligent. It highlights how assumptions (on all sides/ from all species) can lead to problems, but also revelations. This is an outstanding novel.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Tor/Forge Books.
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