Review by Ian Braidwood
Cast of Characters:
Alice Fleury, Mortimer Gray, Adam Zimmerman, Silvia Ruskin, Madoc
Tamlin, Davida Berenike Columella, Christine Caine, Micheal Lowenthal,
Naimh Horne, Jean de Comeau, Solantha Handsel, TheodericConwin.
Well
here we are, at the consummation. If this novel doesn't work,
neither does the whole Emortality series…
The story follows the reincarnation of Adam Zimmerman and is loosely based
on the short story: And He Not Busy Being Born…
Yes,
I do realise that reincarnation is the wrong word, but reawakening
doesn't seem appropriate, since Adam has been away for over a
thousand years and rejuvenation isn't suitable, because Adam
has only been in storage; he emerges from cryogenic sleep with all
his ills and more.
Another
point that I feel is important enough to make is that And He Not Busy
Being Born… should not be allowed to dictate how The Omega Expedition
is interpreted. The intentions of an author writing a novel can be
quite different from those writing a short story, so my advice is
to allow the novel and short story to stand independently.
Our
narrator is Madoc Tamlin, who was Damon Hart's friend from Inherit
the Earth. He's a good choice, because he's no technician
and yet, a character who knows how to handle himself. He's a
likable man we can sympathise and identify with, and a man whose independence
is beyond question.
Madoc
is awakened as a trial run for Adam Zimmerman and not only does he
have to deal with the indignity of this, but he also finds that Christine
Caine – a notorious multiple murderess – has also been unthawed.
The fact that Madoc has no memory of being frozen down helps to ramify
his confusion, along with the setting – a space colony full of
emortals, who look like nine year old girls.
Thanks
to the Ahasuerus Foundation, Adam Zimmerman is a very important man;
indirectly responsible for the development of emortality itself. Not
surprisingly, every political regime from the Solar System and beyond
wants Zimmerman's approval. This is great, because we get to
meet Mortimer Gray again, as well as Michael Lowenthal and Alice Fleury,
Mathew's daughter. Not that it is necessary to have read The
Fountains of Youth, The Architects of Emortality, or Dark Ararat any
more than Inherit the Earth. Like the other Emortality stories, The
Omega Expedition can stand on its own two (metaphorical) feet.
The essence of The Omega Expedition revolves around the choice that Adam
Zimmerman is presented between the various different forms of emortality
available to him; for there seems to be an inevitable tension between
youthfulness and wisdom. However, before that, everyone has to deal
with a new threat from a completely unexpected direction – and
I'm not referring to the microbial blight revealed in The Fountains
of Youth.
The
Omega Expedition does come with a very useful introduction, which
not only recapitulates the plots of the five previous novels, but
explains that some of them are in fact comedies. This is comedy in
the Dr Strangelove sense, rather than Monty Python's Flying circus,
though The Omega Expedition does in some places read like a farce.
By this, I don't mean that novel loses its intellectual edge
or degenerates into nonsense, but that the characters often have little
control over what happens to them.
Overall,
I feel that The Omega Expedition is a very successful conclusion to
the Emortality series, as well as in its own right. Brian has left
a lot of significant material for last, which makes for a worthwhile
novel and delivers a lesson for those of us who dream for things beyond
our reach.
I
hope Brian is very proud of his achievements with these books, because
they are overt science fiction which could act as ambassadors outside
the field; for its lesson applies to them equally.
All
my hyperbole about these books has been vindicated.
A review by Paul Di Filippo is online HERE
A review by Bill Dynes is
HERE
|
