Science fiction has always been a genre shaped by authors who required an outlet for their frustrations with the status quo. To escape the social, political, economic and gender restraints that shackled their societies, they fashioned new and dynamic futures that functioned as canvases for the innovative civilizations their minds imagined and their hands painted. This is how the genre has undergone numerous evolutions since its inception in the early 20th century without losing its relevance to the present moment. Whatever problems preoccupy us now, there are authors out there imagining the endgame and welding onto that framework a story that allows us to explore the issues of the day.
It should come as no surprise then to discover that the last decade of science fiction has been, to a substantial extent, preoccupied with the outcome of what now seems like inevitable environmental collapse. This is the pressing, eschatological issue of the day. We may well hold together enough tatters of our civilization to begin to rehabilitate our planet, but it seems unlikely in the extreme that we will manage to do this without social upheaval and, all its concordant human suffering, on a massive scale. So what will society look like when we emerge from this crisis into a world beyond fossil fuels? Will it maintain the freedoms we hold dear, or will it forsake them in light of a more effective way of combating all of life's problems? The Quiet War is a thoroughly entertaining exploration of one man's answer to this fundamental query.
In the 23rd century, humans have long since taken to the stars to escape an Earth devastated by anthropogenic climate change. Setting down roots on the moon, Mars and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, these Outers, as they have come to be called, build new civilizations while they look back at a browned and grayed Earth upon which the remainder of beleaguered humanity labors to mend a broken planet. Where the technologically superior Outers are free to innovate and adapt to their new circumstances, gluing their communities together with a radical form of democratic socialism that binds everyone in common cause and shared toil, Earth-bound humanity reforms itself around religion and authoritarianism, both heavily influenced by the green policies they are forced to adopt in order to save themselves. Where the Outers diversify into numerous post-national states, the humans on Earth calcify into two major powers, the European Union and Greater Brazil, both of which appear to be exploitative oligarchies designed to funnel power and privilege into the hands of the omnipotent families that control them. As much as certain factions may wish otherwise, war between such opposing ideologies is all-but inevitable.
Though Earth is now enjoying a slow recovery, it has not come quick enough for North America which is now a devastated wasteland ruled by corrupted churches and prowled by powerful gangs. Out of this mess scrabbles two of the stories four protagonists, Macy Minnot and Cash Baker. The former is a biologist who escapes the ruins of Pittsburgh to work her trade in the Outer colonies. The latter is a fighter pilot from Texas who submits to surgical upgrades of his mind and his nervous system so that he can fly Greater Brazil's newest line of combat ships. Both represent the exploited underclass of Greater Brazilian society. Macy fights her enslavement, rebelling until she is beyond their influence. Cash, meanwhile, conforms, thrilled by his upgrades and the blessings they have granted him.
The Earthside humans could not have rehabilitated their planet without genetic engineering and it is this pursuit which empowers and enables the novel's other two protagonists. Sri Hong-Owen is a gene wizard, a leading scientist who also belongs to one of the ruling clans within Greater Brazilian society. As brilliant a political tactician as she is a biologist, she works to continue Earth's recovery while quietly agitating for a conflict with the Outers that she hopes will bring her face-to-face with her century's most brilliant geneticist. Eight, meanwhile, is the product of one of Sri's experiments, a genetically grown assassin who is deployed as a weapon against the Outers in the conflict that consumes the second half of the novel. Together, Sri and Eight represent both the science that has healed Earth and its costs. For the tide of public opinion on Earth has turned against such massive genetic manipulation, causing minds like Sri and people like Eight to be abhorrent to what Earthers view as the natural way of life.
At first, The Quiet War seems as though it will suffocate from its own inertia, but once Mr. McAuley's complex novel shudders into motion, it becomes a tense and tightly plotted rumination on the nature of politics and extremism. The Outers, democratic and individualistic, ought to be the heroes of the piece, preserving, in the face of the authoritarian threat from Earth, the traditions readers recognize and cherish. However, the author argues that just because a society worships freedom does not make it virtuous. On the contrary, the author contends that all political systems, no matter how liberal they are, are susceptible to subversion from internal extremists who, in their dissatisfaction with the status quo, are perfectly willing to sew widespread chaos in order to actualize their radicalism. Virtue, if it is to be found anywhere, must be located in a peace that transcends ideology, a peace that acknowledges everyone's right to act freely and to not have another's will imposed upon them; a lesson for both liberal and authoritarian states. This is a difficult point that Mr. McAuley manages to make vividly and forcefully.
Slow to ignite, but once it's burning this is quite the vivid and combative journey. I will certainly be scooping up the sequel. (4/5 Stars)
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