Debatable Space by Philip Palmer (2008, 533 pages) – Interesting. I won’t go so far as to say it actually succeeds, but this is an interesting concept. It’s really two stories – a pirate crew kidnaps the immortal (and still foxy) mother of the Supreme Dictator of the Universe and the story of how she went from a freckle-faced cherub to the mother of the Supreme Dictator of the Universe. Sounds pretty readable, right?
It might be too much of a good thing because it took me forever to get through this. What’s more, I never had a yearning to pick the book up and finish it. I did, but as the story wore on and on, I considered moving onto the next book and leaving this one unread (something I never do).
After a bumpy start where we meet half a dozen pirates (some who die instantly) and try to figure out why this pirate would kidnap such an unlikable woman in the first place, the story abruptly shifts from space to a little girl’s bedroom.
It took a few paragraphs for me to realize we’d gotten into a new story – the biography of a philosophy professor who lived through centuries and begat the Supreme Dictator. But, her story is much more interesting that the pirate’s tale. Through technology and scientific advances, she turns from a Plain Jane to a forever twenty-five-year-old femme fatale. We experience her victories and failures, her lovers, her breakdowns and her careers. She’s a successful author, head of an African charity, a classical pianist, a heart-attack victim, and an accidental mom who alternately blames herself for her son’s faults and forgives herself.
How could a reader not be moved by a woman who sends anonymous emails to the executives of a drug company who created a Super-AIDs virus so they could peddle the worthless remedy? She tells them they have been infected by a virus that causes depression and itching. It’s a lie, but she’s pleasantly surprised with they start jumping off buildings while scratching themselves bloody. In the meantime, she’s developed the disease and has to have her skin replaced. She doesn’t give up easily.
Unfortunately, at the time she’s kidnapped, she’s become jaded and obnoxious. Her story is an interesting one – following a woman from our time until centuries in the future as she encounters new technology and old lusts – but the relationship between the pirate captain and the hostage reminds me of The Taming of the Shrew. The crew is made up of interesting people: a perpetual child, a wolfman, a creature made out of flame, and a lady boxer. They should be more interesting, but we don’t spend a lot of time with them in spite of the fact that the author loves to change point of view every other paragraph.
Too much of this book felt like a long collection of short stories about this megalomaniac of a woman (I guess her son comes by it honestly) sewn together with the pirate story. They free the universe and kill the dictator but using secret weapons that only the pirate knew and weren’t hinted at previously.
A very frustrating book, about 250 pages too long, and with no development of the characters to turn them from two-dimensional characters into more lifelike ones. I didn’t like them, and that makes it tough to keep on reading.
