There are elements that one expects from a Robert Charles Wilson novel. The “world-next-to-our-own” device is a favourite, as explored in Darwinia (1998), in which the entire European continent is replaced by a new ecosphere with an evolutionary history alien to Earth's. Dilations in time are another trick Wilson has employed, perhaps most successfully in his Hugo Award-winning 12th novel, Spin (2005), in which the cosmic clock moves forward by millennia while a powerful machine race maintains real time on Earth. In fact, Spin, the first book in a trilogy, uses both devices: A portal to an alien world, kind of like the one in Stargate but cooler, appears at the end of Spin.
But Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Wilson's 14th novel, is unlike anything we've seen from the American-born Canadian author. The only traits that mark it as a Robert Charles Wilson novel are its nearly flawless writing and pitch-perfect characterizations, as well as a fearlessly optimistic vision that acknowledges but does not succumb to the approaching darkness.
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America, by Robert Charles Wilson, TOR, 413 pages, $32.95
Stephen King famously referred to Wilson as “probably the finest science-fiction author now writing.” That unfettered endorsement from the King of Horror Fiction is somewhat confining, for Wilson is an author with considerable cross-genre appeal. While he wields the big tools in the SF writer's kitbag – the time-thingy previously described, alien intelligences and more – Wilson looks through a humanist rather than a technological lens.
In Julian Comstock, which is based on a novella published in 2006, Wilson presents a North America that has collapsed into dictatorship. The loss of oil, the effects of climate change, and the panic of a False Tribulation encouraged by a rise of religious fascism, have left the Western world scrambling to rebuild without adequate models to emulate.
The book begins in the year 2172, in a North America ruled by a hereditary presidency embodied at present by Julian Comstock's uncle Deklan. Securing his presidency by murdering his more popular brother, Deklan Comstock turns his attentions toward nephew Julian. Rather than feign madness, Julian joins the army under a false identity and ships out to defend Labrador from the Dutch. But a predisposition for heroism cannot be suppressed in an adventure story. Eventually, young Julian makes a name for himself with some wartime derring-do and comes at last to embrace his destiny.
However censored it may be, the North America of 2172 is once again a print culture wherein writers are celebrated and read
Julian Comstock is high adventure on one level. Its narrator, Adam Hazzard, is a writer of hyperbolic adventure stories, and Wilson maintains this perspective with unshakeable consistency. It's great fun to read, but the unreliable narrator also brings to question the veracity of the narrative voice in fiction. Julian Comstock is as much about the practice of storytelling as it is about the dangers of dictatorship and the inherent corruption that goes with unquestioned power.
The future presented in Julian Comstock more resembles the 19th century than anything the World's Fair predicted for “the world of tomorrow.” Typical science-fiction elements are few. There are allusions to the excesses of the 20th century, a period known as the Secular Age, but its legacy as the most documented era in human history is all but erased. Digital technology has vanished, leaving unreadable discs and useless computer components piled high. Books have survived, but only those approved for the public by the literalist theocratic wing of the new North American Union known as the Dominion of Jesus Christ on Earth. In response to this situation, the characters must invent history with the scraps available to them.
There are pluses to the loss of mass information. However censored it may be, the North America of 2172 is once again a print culture wherein writers are celebrated and read. It's the perfect world for a writer and lover of the printed word like Adam Hazzard. Yet he's not immune to the moments of self-doubt that plague all writers at times. When Adam worries over the ephemeral nature of life and the futility of leaving a record behind, Julian Comstock councils, “You must not make the mistake of thinking that because nothing lasts, nothing matters.” It's good advice in any age.
Other reviewers have described Julian Comstock as a steampunk novel. In a way, it is. The steam-powered technologies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are everywhere in the book, but Julian Comstock more resembles a Victorian novel than a steampunk novel. The narrative moves without hurrying, and the voice, both colloquial and formal, is irresistibly pleasant. Julian Comstock is science fiction with a broad appeal, from a writer who continues to surprise.
Mark D. Dunn is a musician and writer living in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
