The Memory of Earth
After I stumbled over Orson Scott Card’s open letter about his Homecoming series, I had to try The Memory of Earth myself. I had an unsuccessful go once at the Book of Mormon, so I appreciated the opportunity to hear the story unencumbered by pseudo-King-James English far more than OSC intended anyone should. (Reflecting on the comparative literary merits of holy scriptures would probably not be wise. All I can say is, at least the Koran was short.)
I enjoyed The Memory of Earth, though possibly not quite enough to track down the other four volumes of the Homecoming series. Lifting the characters and plot from scripture sounds like a good, traditional epic plan, and the story rolls along quickly under this outside influence. The serialization of polygamy was especially apt. The novel’s moral focus was very sharp, of course, and Nafai’s pivotal decision a debatable one for us non-Mormons.
On the nitpicking side, the time frame was way, way off. I doubt a fleet of artificial satellites could remain in orbit of a planet with a lavendar moon for forty million years, nor do I believe human society could remain socially and genetically unchanged for that long, whatever the AI in the Sky. The cover-up of the source material was so good in general that I found myself unduly annoyed when the main characters took a more obviously Biblical jaunt into the desert at the behest of said AI in the Sky.
But that’s more nitpicking than the book deserves. OSC has evaded LMB’s line between sci-fi and fantasy, which she draws at the supernatural. Technically, an AI isn’t supernatural, but the characters react to it as if it were and the end result is more convincing than the explicit supernatural of LMB’s or Guy Gavriel Kay’s fantasy. (Let’s not even mention Gaiman, eh?)
I don’t consider the supernatural a hallmark of fantasy - it’s not required, and when something of that ilk is present, it can end up just as naturalized as OSC’s AI in the Sky. I don’t consider anything in LotR particularly supernatural, for instance. The Elves and even the Valar are integrated into the background. There are no burning bushes.
It’s not the supernatural but the unnatural that makes fantasy fantasy - the sheer lack of rational justification for elves and magic and rings and so on. (Note that I didn’t say scientific justification.) Fantasy is about what cannot be, science fiction about what can be. An invisible, divine hand moving the stars could be, but Middle Earth is purely, unabashedly counterfactual.
The moment you start justifying, say, Pern, with genetic engineering, you’ve moved into the realm of science fiction. Walter Jon Williams calls some of his work fantasy, but I didn’t see the counterfactual in Metropolitan and he doesn’t seem like the sort of person to write the fantastic. Nor, come to think of it, does LMB. She lets her deities do too much work, and that smacks of explanation. When she writes an elf, just one dying-immortal, fleet-footed, inhuman, unjustifiable elf, then I’ll enjoy her fantasy.
If you’re going to lie to me, then lie already.