A reader from New Zealand –or strictly a listener: he’s heard Dark Eden and Mother of Eden as audiobooks – writes to me as follows about the story of Eden so far:
I would love to see future development in the relationship
between the colonists and native life, more exploration of the intelligence
hinted at. Less of the nastiness or is it mental illness as a result if the
inbreeding. I know conflict is been used to create tension but it’s not so
inspiring to think the lowest denominators are so easily taking over
society.
It seems to me that there are a number of different approaches that can be taken to the construction of any fictional world. One, clearly favoured by this particular reader, is to be optimistic, to write inspirational feel-good stories about people making discoveries and overcoming adversity. There is plenty of fiction that does just that.
Another, equally valid, is to be pessimistic, and to write stories that warn us about unpleasant places where we might end up if we’re not careful. J G Ballard described his work in such terms.
A third is to be neither optimistic or pessimistic but to attempt to hold up a mirror of some kind to the world we see around us. And this is the approach I incline to. I really don’t think the people of Eden are any “nastier” than the people of Earth. They’re just human, with all the virtues and vices which that implies. In fact, I defy anyone who follows the news to tell me that the planet Earth, taken as a whole, is in any way a fairer or kinder or safer place than the planet Eden!
For me this is a really interesting response, given that my first reaction to the book was just how well it distilled all the failings of terrestrial human civilisation, and how well it reflected the processes and institutions that have shaped human history here on Earth. And I don’t count myself as a pessimist particularly. The reason for being angry at the failings of the world around us is surely the belief that there is at least a chance to make it a better place.