Lightborn: Seeing is Believing... [Paperback]

On the face of it, 'Lightborn' might be considered a sort of high-tech zombie novel. It's not.

Everyone in the country uses the 'Lightborn' technology, or 'shine' as it is popularly known. Shine works at the lowest levels of the brain and effectively allows people to re-programme themselves. As Amir Ansari (a shine programmer but also someone who warned against the possible dangers of Lightborn) says:

'We're doomed to an essential apehood unless we can change our deepest programming. And let's face it: people have very little self-control. We're mostly a set of biological levers waiting to be pulled. But we can change that, and that's what shine can give us. Better neurochemical paths. New ways of being.' (P183)

But then, 'The Fall' happens. In the town of Los Sombres (The Shadows), 'the shiny' start going violently mad. The only ones not affected are either pre-pubertal children or 'burn-outs' - criminals and others whose brains have been changed in order to prevent them from benefiting from Shine.

Some escape into a quarantine area, gather around a ranch. Here Xavier, a 14 year-old whose puberty has been postponed by taking kisspeptin, his 'shiny' mother endlessly knitting, Powaqa, a Hopi wise-woman, Chumana, a beautiful Hopi girl, various other refugees and latterly a strange 'John Doe' character, live out a precarious existence as bombers scream overhead in futile attempts to obliterate the lights of Los Sombres.

Meanwhile, in Los Sombres itself, all is not as it seems. There are survivors and a sort of society is functioning, helped by Roksana, the Pakistani/Polish/African daughter of Amir Ansari. Although she is seventeen, she appears immune to the Shine.

Then, back at the ranch, Xavier runs out of kisspeptin. He must venture into Los Sombres to try to replenish his supply. And there Roksana and Xavier meet up.

If you've ever read any Tricia Sullivan before, you'll know that her writing sometimes borders on the hallucinogenic. At times, her worlds seem like J G Ballard's - strangers wandering around bizarre post-apocalyptic landscapes - but her writing is not nearly so cool or detached, rather more Samuel Delany or even Theodore Sturgeon. Certainly, the idea of 'Lightborn' sounds reminiscent of Delany's 'Babel-17' - like a new operating system for the brain.

'Lightborn' is not simply a zombie novel. There is way more going on here. Consider the names of the characters. Powaqa - Hopi for 'witch', Chumana - 'snake maiden'. And Roksana - from the Persian for 'star, bright, dawn' (according to Google, a popular name in Poland). There are clearly spiritual, possibly theistic, and even evolutionary overtones to the story.

And then there are the names of the sections and chapters - 'Just Another Zombie Apocalypse' (P 158), 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' (P 165), 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' (P 287), even 'Borg Moment'. All clues to the 'post-human' themes going on here.

In some ways, this is the most conventionally written of Tricia Sullivan's books to date. But thematically, it is surely the most powerful too. It is, of course, very well written, (o.k. maybe the second quarter is a bit slow). But the writing is evocative (sprinkled with four letter words by the way), her heroine is, as usual, fallible but thoroughly likeable. Overall, this is really good, thought-provoking adult science fiction.

Tricia Sullivan is one of those writers you want to keep a close eye on. One to watch, as it were. Hailing from the US, she began publishing fiction right around the time she immigrated to the UK - not that I would for a second suggest the glorious climes of Britain inspired her, somehow. (Mayhap she found her muse in the monotonous grey clouds, eh?) In 1999, she took home the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke award for her third novel, Dreaming in Smoke. After publishing a trilogy of fantasy novels under a pseudonym, she returned to the fertile fields of sci-fi in 2004, and there she's remained.

Lightborn is her first novel in three years, and in truth, it feels three years old. An arbitrary, insignificant nip in time, you might think - indeed - but if one thing's been done to death in that period, it's sexy vampires. If there's another, it's got to be kids scraping by an existence in a physically or psychologically isolated remnant of civilisation after The Day the World Went Away. Breathe easier: thankfully, there are no sexy vampires in sight in Sullivan's latest. Not a one.

Alas, there has been a calamity. In Lightborn's case, shine was what did it. Since you ask, shine is, and I quote, "The ultimate in education, self-improvement and entertainment - beamed directly into the mind of anyone who can meet the asking price." A technology embedded in the waveforms of light, capable of projecting an understanding or an instruction or an orgasm; whatever you please, really. Inevitably, in the city of Los Sombres, shine evolved, became hostile enough to pose a threat to the entire US. Not knowing how to stop the renegade shine's spread, nor able to justify dropping a nuke amid a civilian population - however deranged - the government opted instead to close Los Sombres' borders. No-one in, no-one out.

Not everyone's affected by the shine. For one thing, kid's aren't able to process shine till they come of age, and there a few, a very few adults, who have been "burned out" because of some crime or indiscretion. Unfortunately for the kids and criminals, they're trapped inside the quarantine zone with a horde of not-zombies. Xavier lives on an impromptu Native American reservation on the Los Sombres outskirts, necking bottles of Kisspeptin inhibitor to put off puberty, and thus the sad half-life of a shiny. When someone steals the last of the camp's supplies, he saddles up Bob Newhart (the horse) and takes to the city, where he meets Roksana, and realises the truth about shine is not at all what he - and the rest of the world with him - has been led to believe.

Lightborn is an over-familiar experience from the first page, a retreading of well-trodden ground - think The Extra by Michael Shea, last year's Boneshaker and The Hunger Games - that brings little innovation to the table. Its pubescent protagonist is a dullard, if a necessarily inquisitive one, and while Roksana and the supporting cast are more interesting - Elsa in particular is a darling wee scene-stealer - the wet blanket Sullivan dubs Xavier rather chokes any sense spontaneity from her narrative. Lightborn gets substantially more interesting in its last act, as Sullivan's narrative ambitions metamorphose from the ho-hum struggle for survival into something suddenly grandiose and accordingly absorbing, but unfortunately it's a case of too little, too late.

That said, even lesser Tricia Sullivan is an improvement on much of the technically and creatively brain-dead genre fiction out there, and Lightborn has its moments. The award-winning author laces her text with wit and humour: the novel's five parts are named in excellent taste after prog. rock operas such as Shine On You Crazy Diamond, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Brain Salad Surgery; individual chapters are headed irreverently; one of Xavier's inspiring speeches in the late game is interrupted by the rumbling of his stomach. So perhaps, as with The Extra (which also features giant mechanical spiders), one isn't to take this tale too seriously. Add to that, it's an easy, fast-paced read. As with the best writers and directors, Sullivan gets out of the way of her story, lets her art speak for itself, and that's a fine thing. It's only a shame Lightborn doesn't have much to add to the conversation.

By far the best SF novel I've read in a long time, LIGHTBORN is fiercely intelligent, with all the intense speculation of the best science fiction, but also with the sheer, heart-thumping excitement of a really great zombie thriller. The two POV characters are intensely real and sympathetic, grounding the speculative aspects of the novel in a strong emotional connection - I really, really cared about what would happen to both of them, but especially to Roksana, who's a really fabulous, strong but vulnerable heroine.

I loved it.