Review by Ian Braidwood
Cast of Characters:
Lisa Frieman, Detective Inspector Mike Grundy,Stella
Filisetti, Edgar Burdillon, Peter Grimmett Smith, Chief
Inspector Judith Kenna, Helen Grundy, Dr Chan Kwai Keung,
Dr Morgan Miller, Leland, Arachne West.
Do you remember Helen of Troy? Do you recall
the story of Greeks building a wooden horse and hiding
some men inside, so that when the Trojan's wheeled the
animal into the city its defences were undermined?
Well Troy was ruled by Priam and his daughter
Cassandra, was doomed to make prophesies of events she
was powerless prevent; so to be a victim of The Cassandra
Complex is to see misfortune coming and yet be unable to
stop it.
I was a little wary of having this book spoiled for me - this is the
first of Brian's novels to be expanded from a short story that I've already
read - The Magic Bullet.
I needn't have feared, Brian hasn't just
reused the premise, but extended it significantly. In
fact the extension is crucial in order to understand the
Emortality series; though The Cassandra Complex is much
more than a filler, it's an integral part of Brian's
future history, linking our era with that of Inherit the
Earth.
Like the first Emortality novel, this is a
taut, exciting thriller, which follows Lisa Freimann as
she unravels the mysterious kidnapping of friend and
colleague Morgan Miller, and the total destruction of
Mouseworld, a legendary experiment in population
dynamics.
Beyond the story, there are meditations on
Malthusian concerns about rising population and Brian
neatly explodes the myth of lemmings with the charm and
clarity of Richard Dawkins.
The Emortality series is really beginning to
shape up into something impressive and it's already
tempting to say it's beginning to rival the Werewolves
trilogy as his best work. Brian is writing as well as he
ever has and there's no doubt that The Cassandra Complex
is one of the best things he's ever written.
A review by Paul Di Filippo is online HERE
A review by Ernest Lilley at SF Revue is HERE
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