Lord brings Caribbean voice to science fiction

February 11, 2013 @ 6:39 am


| Zoom

(AP) - "The Best of All Possible Worlds" (Del Rey), by Karen Lord

Science fiction gets a Caribbean perspective in Barbados-based Karen Lord's "The Best of All Possible Worlds."

The ambitious novel follows the plight of the male survivors of a superior human civilization, reduced to lonely refugees by the annihilation of their home planet. They settle on a galactic hinterland that's home to their very distant relatives, along with pioneers and misfits making the best of homesteads, uncertainty and dismissal by supposedly superior societies.

Lord imagines the planet as an expanded Caribbean, a complicated population subtly divided by physical traits, lineage and language. She trades, though, the Afro-Caribbean folk traditions that influenced her first novel, "Redemption in Indigo," for the works of Ray Bradbury as inspiration for the quest at the heart of "The Best of All Possible Worlds."

The survivors must navigate tense conflicts over beliefs, social customs and the trafficking of goods and people as they try to find their place in a new world. Their search for wives and stability is by turns amusing and harrowing as they balance the rigid traditions of their past with the habits of a culture far more accustomed to migration and upheaval.

"The Best of All Possible Worlds" is overlong and its narration can be clumsy, but it poses an interesting question: What parts of you do you fight to preserve when everything you know suddenly changes?

___

Online:

http://merumsal.wordpress.com/

___

Follow Jennifer Kay on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jnkay.


(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
MyNorthwest.com - Purpose of Comments statement
Bonneville Media encourages site users to express their opinions by posting comments. Our goal is to maintain a civil dialogue in which readers feel comfortable. At times, the comments can descend to personal attacks. Please do not engage in such behavior. We encourage your thoughtful comments which: have a positive and constructive tone, are on topic, are respectful toward others and their opinions. Bonneville reserves the right to remove comments which do not conform to these criteria.

Comments