Firstborn

I have a theory or rather an equation - the fabulousness of a book is inversely proportional to the time taken to read it. The lesser the time taken to read the book, the more fabulous it is and vice-versa. I took all of three days to finish 'Firstborn' but then again I am a huge fan of sci-fi and I consider Arthur C Clarke as my guru.

First, an advice - Firstborn is not a standalone book. It is the 'concluding' book of the Time's Eye trilogy from the two authors and to better understand the context of the book, the characters and the places you should read "Time's Eye" & "Sunstorm".

The trilogy revolves around a sentient race of god-like aliens that have taken upon themselves to preserve the life of the universe by ensuring that species do not 'waste' the overall energy of the universe. In effect it means to preserve themselves and wipe out any other species by use of technology that they have mastered over eons of existence.

In "Time's Eye", the Firstborns create an alternate earth - called Mir - in its own parallel universe by patching toghether slices from earth's history much like preserving the best chapters of a book in a different file before destroying the original book. The central character across the series is a UN peacekeeper - Bisesa Dutt - trapped on Mir. She is the one who manages to establish some communication with the Orb-like-Eyes present all over on Mir and who agree to take her back to her time.

In "Sunstorm" the Firstborns launch a major sunstorm that has the potential to sterilise not just earth but even the astronauts on Mars. Rather than sitting back and waiting for the inevitable, Earth bonds together and launches a massive rescue campaign that involves creating a massive sun shield around the earth to deflect the solar flares.

"Firstborn" starts 37 years after Earth has survived sunstorm and rebuilt itself. It is a wary world on a lookout for the next attack from the Firstborns. A species that has diverged into multiple directions - those who stayed back on Earth, Spacers - those who live in spaceships between worlds and Martians - those who have settled on Mars. Each one of these have their own idealogies and don't trust the other while belonging to the same species. As the Firstborn launch their latest weapon - a Q Bomb - against the humans, the species has to come together to fight this latest attack. The Q Bomb is capable of destroying matter by sucking it into a small pocket universe and then expanding rapidly in a Big Rip tearing the planet apart.

Bisesa Dutt is woken up from her hibernation by the govt of Earth as she is only one who 'understands' the Firstborns and could help but she is 'kidnapped' by the Martians to show her an artifact that they have discovered at the pole. This turns out to be the 'Eye', the all-watching artifact of the Firstborns. The human settlement on Mars has been able to tap into Mir in the alternate universe and communicate with Bisesa's phone there. The Eye sends Bisesa to Mir where she is able to activate her AI phone by using the power from her martian suit and decipher that the alternate pocket universe of Mir will rip apart in 500 years. At the other end the fact that the Eye was trapped on Mars gives the indication that the Firstborns can be defeated.

Stephan Baxter and Arthur C Clarke make you push your boundaries of imagination and understanding as they combine regular universes with pocket universes, communication between these two universes and the planets, concepts of a Q Bomb being able to rip apart a palnet from the regular universe and trap it in an alternate universe only to be ripped apart later due to speedy expansion while bringing in sentient races that are hell bent on destroying all civilisations.

Present day Earth communicates with Patchwork Earth (Mir) to put up symbols that are a signal to patchwork Mars. Residents of Mir build giant trenches in the shape of the symbols in frozen Chicago and light the oil in them. The sole resident of patchwork Mars sees the symbols and crushes the Eye that they have trapped. This sends a distress signal to the Q-Bomb in the present day universe which diverts its path from Earth to Mars. Mars, in present universe, is sacrificed to save Earth. Beat that for imagination!

While the trilogy should have ended on this soul stirring note of Mars' sacrifice, the authors extend it further like a Bollywood movie that does not need to. The couple of pages at the end spoil the party and rather than giving you a clean ending set the stage for another set of prequels or sequels of whatever -quels that Stephan Baxter intends to write.

The book raises some pertinent questions about our universe. Do civilisations that reach intelligence first try to control the rise of other civilisations? How often have we done that on our own planet? Do sentient civilisations have the right to decide how other civilisations live?

Being a fan of that fact that sci-fi pushes your imagination and of Arthur C Clarke, I rate the book 3.5/5.

The Flea Palace

Every city has its apartment complexes. And every apartment complex has its stories. Stories of love, hate, worries, compassion, stress, depression, exhiliaration and a gamut of other emotions. And it has its secrets. Secrets that the apartment dwellers harbor from each other and a lot of times from themselves as well.

The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak is a story of one such apartment complex with a known problem which hides so many interesting issues in it. Under the expert hands of Elif Shafak, the angst and psychosis of each of the ten flats are revealed in it we see a slice of life in Turkey. Not from the beautiful postcards that the governemnt would like you to see and believe but from the true eyes of people who live the daily life. And that's what makes this book so interetsting. As you read the story of the 10 apartments in Bonbon Palace plagued by the smell of a garbage dump outside the building, you realise that each one of these could be someone you know from your apartment complex as well.

Could the person in Flat 203 in your apartment complex be actually like the divorced academician in Flat no. 7 of Bonbon Palace who loves to indulge in philosophy and talk big things while unable to deal with the fact that his wife left him but is having an affair with someone in the apartment complex as well as another friend? Could he?

Elif Shafak offers us a varied mix of emotions and issues through the residents of Bonbon Palace. She introduces us to a woman who has been forced to become independent because she perceives her husband to be a wimp, who is pregnant with a second child but is obsessed with protecting the pregnancy and her first child through all sorts of superstitions because she lost her first three pregnancies. The beauty is how Elif Shafak also shows us her son's emotions and how because of the overbearing nature of the mother, he too is going the same route as the father.

There is a student with his dog in one of the flats who is obssesed with death, who has pasted various forms of posters, writings, pages and slips on the ceiling of his flat. Who has no direction in life and would rather be lost in a haze of smoke alone with his dog than be found mingling with people and interacting with them. Twin hairdressers who were seperated at birth and lived in different countries but now together, who have nothing in common but stick together. Their touching story of guilt and redemption. A wife who has lost her identity and is only known by her husband's name, who is an alien in a foreign land and is unable to adjust herself to this new life. A woman who is a mistress to a fat olive merchant but happy in that existence with no expectations from life, who is clear with the academician that they can never be friends or lovers but only sex partners. Her descent into misery and self infliction is especically interesting and left unanswered. A lady with a hygiene OCD whose child gets lice and it turns her world upside down. A woman whose house is forever closed and who does not invite anyone inside. A family living in a fortress of a house with some sort of pet always kept outside. Another family with working parents leaving their three kids with their grandfather who loves to tell scary stories to them.

Bonbon Palace is a smasgosbord of emotions and glimpses into the daily lives of everyday people. The permeating garbage smell is the common link which unites them and seperates them at the same time. It is a treatise of social issues and makes you think as you read through it.

The book does get verbose in some parts as Elif Shafak seems to get carried away with her writing and goes off on a tangent. While there are some brilliant insights into some aspects, there are also some stories that sound redundent in the long run. Some flat residents that would best have been left untold because they have nothing to offer. She does try to link each of the flat residents and their stories with the others but it comes out as forced in some parts and nicely obvious in others. And therein lies the issue of the author. If you read this as her first book, you may miss out on reading her most brilliant book - Forty Rules of Love. But if that's the first one you have read, you will be like me - wanting to read her other books to rediscover the magic of Forty Rules of Love.

This is not a breezy read book. It takes time and sometimes effort to run through the story hoping to find some connection somewhere. Don't read this book expecting a serial fashion of one chapter leading to another with a logical ending. Rather read it as a documentary of daily life with parallel chapters and stories that hope to come together at the end with a logical ending. Do they? Not completely because the twist in the tale is at the very end and believe me it is a wonderful twise that will make you question everything that you read.

I would rate this at 3/5.