January 17, 2009

Book 3: The First Immortal

The First Immortal
James L. Halperin

The jacket of this book totally sold me; sure, I was a little leery of this unknown sci-fi adventure, but it had a fantastic premise and I decided to give it a chance. Despite its usually-subpar writing, I found The First Immortal incredibly entertaining and, almost despite itself, a thought-provoking piece of speculative fiction. If nothing else, this book has inspired me to write a book of my own condemning many of the fatal writing flaws effortlessly exhibited by this book. It's almost too bad that the writing of the book is so self-conscious, because its topic is incredibly interesting and, as a matter of plot, is dealt with well and in several unique facets. Halperin proposes a world in which cryonics (post-death freezing of the body in hope of future rehabilitation) becomes feasible in the coming century and studies the effects of its prevalence on societal attitudes about everything from death to the role of humanity in the universe to gay marriage. The science appears well thought-out, even if the timeline is a bit optimistic, and Halperin does an excellent job of creating a consistent future world that is believable in its completeness. He does not stop at exploring death but expands his vision into the future of computers and artificial intelligence, with the occasional irrelevant pimping of his other book (I can tell without even having read it). The future he explores is always interesting and is obviously well-researched and carefully considered; it's too bad his characters and general writing fall so far below the competence level when his setting excels.

The plot itself is set up to cover just over 100 years and focuses on Benjamin Franklin Smith (a rational deistic scientist with an estranged- though totally legitimate- son, go figure) and his descendants as they deal with the emerging and exploding science of cryonics. Halperin does a good job of drawing a portrait of Ben in the beginning, but clouds any judgment with what I like to call the Obvious Hammer, a style of writing in which the theme is emphasized to the detriment of any literary quality. Teenage Ben and his best friend Toby sit around having unbelievably existential discussions in the days immediately preceding Pearl Harbor, and while Ben's outlook on life as the world's most precious commodity goes a long way to describe his fascination with cryonics, it does not need to be so incessantly beaten into the reader. Other characters are, for the most part, underdeveloped two-dimensional moving plot devices; the glaring exception is Ben's sole son Gary, who is characterized fully only to become baffling and inconsistent several times throughout the book. Characterization is clearly not Halperin's strong point, and though readers are at least interested in his actors, it is clear from the beginning that the book is mostly a forum for a lengthy exploration of the effects of cryonics on society. Far too often, Ben and co. simply represent different sides of a philosophical debate instead of nuanced, individuated human beings.

Though its biggest writing flaws are its lack of reliable characters and its stunning use of the Obvious Hammer, The First Immortal has some truly questionable structural decisions. The first person narration is entirely misplaced and serves only to confuse the reader; the "I" comes in at entirely inappropriate moments and reminds us that there is no plausible way the narrator could know everything about his great-grandfather's childhood or his ordeal during his time at a World War II prison camp (well, I suppose that with immortality and a perfect memory Ben may have had time to narrate all of this, but why to his great-grandson and not, you know, to readers directly?). Additionally, though the overall time span of the book works, certain jumps are too large and there are huge gaps in the general sense of this world. The book inexplicably switches from a diary-like format, with dates simply listed to deliniate sections, to an AP-fronted style without so much as a warning or even a page break. This latter style makes sense and is deployed effectively to give readers headlines relevant to the time in question, saving Halperin time in constructing and explaining technological developments, but its sudden appearance seems gimmicky; it would have been more effective if used uniformly throughout the book. Halperin's use of seemingly-irrelevant detail in these headlines is excusable because it gives readers a working knowledge and certain familiarity with the strange new world, but he all too often describes his words with laughably unrealistic dialogue- there is so much redundant explaining between characters who would already know everything being said that it almost becomes a running gag, entertaining rather than infuriating.

This, then, is the fundamental conclusion that I draw about The First Immortal: it is a wonderful attempt at using fiction to explore some truths about existence, with a strong sense of its issues and themes, but it takes itself way too seriously and its author is really a terrible writer. The ideas presented are excellent and interesting, but the poor writing demeans them and makes the whole book come across as yet another work of bad sci-fi, which is too bad because there is something behind the book that is incredibly interesting and telling. I actually enjoyed this book despite its many glaring writing flaws because the world it presents is so compelling and so realistic that I was sucked in and hooked. Sure, the book isn't helped much by its introduction ("Two [incredibly self-righteous and too-serious] Caveats") or its bibliography/further reading postscript that makes the whole book retroactively seem like an advertisement for cryonic freezing and research, but it is, at heart, fun. I don't know if I would exactly recommend this book, but I did enjoy it despite my inherent and near-constant desire to groan. It's bad, it really is, but it transcends its horrible writing to become entertaining rather than infuriating and worth a look.

Grade: C

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