F/SF

Deadman Switch by Timothy Zahn is something a little different, a slow-burning but high-tension legal thriller wrapped up in science fiction dressings. It is also a multilayered story featuring anti-religious prejudice, providence, and the morality of lying. This particular work is more on the literary end of the adventure fiction spectrum, but it does have some traditional adventure elements to help keep things moving.

A major reason for the pace of the book is that its protagonist, Gilead Raca Benedar, is a man without the power to affect his environment. When a book is on the pulp end of the spectrum, protagonists tend to be in the mode of a romance, superior to both other men and their environment. Gilead, a member of a widely disliked religious minority in a largely secular society, lives his life at the sufferance of others.

He is not quick on the draw or the greatest star pilot in the galaxy. He does however have a remarkable ability, one that is the source of both the ire he faces from society and his livelihood. Gilead is a Watcher.

Watchers train their children from an early age to see. Their motivations are fundamentally religious in nature, seeking to appreciate God’s glory as manifested in this world. This is an entirely imaginable mental discipline, something like the kind of flexibility and balance and strength a lifelong practitioner of gongfu would enjoy, except that instead of training their bodies, they train their minds to see everything, instead of allowing mental models to fill in the gaps in perception. However, it turns out that their hyper-focused awareness produces an immense interpersonal advantage, as Watchers read the body language of others so astutely that it feels like they can read their minds.

That in and of itself would probably be enough to make others uncomfortable in their presence, but Gilead’s sect was involved in a rebellion with millenarian aspects a couple of decades ago. Wider society feels quite justified in their dislike of the Watchers. The multilayered low-grade persecution of Gilead’s people makes for a fascinating bit of background to the milleu.

Deadman Switch was originally published in 1988, and an interesting element is that the cultural references of its spacefaring society are mostly Russian. In 1988, the Soviet Union was still in business and the Berlin Wall was still standing, so while it is not perhaps so unusual to use the other superpower of the day as a reference point, it is unusual in that the Patri and its colony worlds are largely secular, but not at all Communist.

Jerry Pournelle imagined a future where Russia was a part of the coalition that conquered the stars, but in his CoDominium the Russians were as enthusiastically Orthodox as the Russians of the real world are again becoming. Neither Pournelle nor Zahn imagined Communism going forward, but they wrote sharply divergent paths for religion.

Pournelle was explicitly using Arnold Toynbee’s model of history in his CoDominium, but I don’t think Zahn was trying to make any kind of macrohistorical point. Gilead being intensely religious in a society that is mostly indifferent is simply an interesting source of tension for the book.

Not that a book whose central theme is the application of a technology that requires a direct human death each and every time it is used is lacking in tension. This is exacerbated by Gilead’s lack of power; he is almost entirely reliant on persuasion and artful misdirection to get anything done. Which is hard, when no one likes you.

In another author’s hands, I can see how this book could have easily become insufferably preachy. It is slow, and I think that is probably just in the nature of the kind of story that Zahn is trying to tell here. This isn’t the first time that Zahn has tried to tell a story of this sort, and Zahn’s ability to set the scene and create interesting characters hooked me strongly enough in the first few pages that I was willing to stick around and see how it all turned out. I think Zahn did a great job with this book, but I suspect it would bore readers to tears who like things fast-paced. If you are interested in science fiction with litfic aims that is wholly based however, then you may find this of interest. ( )

mixing religion, super-abilities and scifi. It did seem a bit slow, but man, the tricks Zahn pulls out of his hat are great. ( )

Timothy Zahn is one of my favorite writers and has been very influential in my own writing. Like me, Zahn writes a lot of space opera, and he's most famous for his Thrawn series of Star Wars novels. But he's been writing a long time and has some great other stuff as well. His Quadrail series (Night Train to Rigel, Odd Girl Out, etc), in particular, is a great read.Recently, I heard about another of his books, Deadman Switch, which features spiritual themes. Since I use a lot of spiritual themes in my specfic, I wanted to check it out. It was published in 1988 and is out of print, but I tracked down a copy on Amazon and read it last week. What a fantastic read. I highly recommend it.A bit more of a mystery than a space opera, the premise of the book is that the Patri, a coalition of planets, has found a rich source of minerals in the rings and moons around the planet Solitaire. There's only one catch, the system is surrounded by a mysterious cloud which prevents ships from entering. The only way in is using the Deadman Switch -- carrying a zombi along who is killed and then flies the ship through the cloud. Death Row inmates have become the zombis of choice, and when his boss buys a large conglomerate on Solitaire to get a license to travel there, Gilead Raca Benedar is sent with the boss' son to check out the new property and tend to details.The problem is that Gilead belongs to a Christian order called "the Watchers,"who have unique powers of perception allowing them to read minds. His integrity and values raise objections with the Deadman Switch idea, but then he discovers that one of the zombis on their ship (they carry two -- one to go in, one to get out) is a fellow Watcher, and Gilead is convinced she's innocent. When he sets out to prove it, drama ensues.Eventually, Gilead takes drastic steps to protect her and escapes with her to the nearby planet Spall, hoping to find Smugglers raiding the system to use as zombis instead. In the process, they discover a new form of intelligent life previously undiscovered and end up launching a huge investigation and scientific inquiry which ropes in both watchers, Gilead's boss, local officials, and a local religious sect. When it is discovered that a large fleet is on its way to attack the system, Gilead and the others scramble to find a way to deal with the situation.If I tell you more, you would know too much, so I'll leave it there, but suffice it to say the ending has plenty of surprises and the book is a great read. I read 50 pages a day until the last day when I read over 100 because I just had to know what happens. I would have read more other days too but have too much going on. It's a pageturner, in other words, and filled with Zahn's trademark solid science, interesting and complex characters and complicated, unfolding plotting. Truly a great read, and if you can track it down, I highly recommend doing so.The spiritual themes are used similarly to the way I use them in my work: Christian influenced characters without being preachy, so I think even those scifi fans who are agnostic or not fans of religion would enjoy it.I put a link to Zahn's site on my website. I highly recommend checking out his books. You won't regret it.For what it's worth... ( )

One of my favorites when I was a teenager, I was pleased to find that I still greatly enjoyed it when I reread it recently. Has a nice moral conundrum at the center, some intriguing ideas about society, and a fabulous science fiction conclusion. ( )