Gemsigns
Stephanie Saulter
ISBN: 9781623651602
Dystopian near future, post-apocalypse, cloning, gengineering, gene therapy, social order, racial tensions, caste systems, slavery, human rights.
First off, I have to say that the author was very lucky that I did not have anything else I was interested in reading when I read the prologue/chapter zero. She is also lucky that I did not read that bit while I was still in the library, or it would have gone right the hell back onto the shelf. That was some pompous self-congratulatory word play and storyline musing going on in there. (The note on the jacket copy about wanting to write literary fiction didn't help her case with me either.)
However. I got past that, and the writing from then on was excellent! I had a great time reading, I enjoyed the story immensely, and I am glad to see that there is a series supposedly in the works. I have concerns about the worldbuilding and minor nits about characterization and plotting, but then I ALWAYS get snippy about worldbuilding, and characters and plots are difficult. For a first attempt? Pretty damn solid writing. I hope to someday do as well myself.
It's hard to summarize the world without getting into either plot-spoilage or my own worldbuilding gripes, but I'll give it a shot: (If you want to avoid spoilers of how the world got how it was, and learn about the world through the course of the book, stop reading now. It's all explained pretty well through in-universe sources over the course of the narrative.)
Seriously. Spoilers for worldbuilding.
Cool?
The world's population, some years from now, succumbed to a plot-device, er, disease, that necessitated massive advances in genetic engineering to ensure the survival of the species. Most religious and cultural objections were steamrolled (and subsequently eradicated) in the urgency, and the few outliers (social or religious) were isolated either willingly or unwillingly into ostracized camps of extremely small token minorities, while everyone else got on with the new reality of homogenized religious, cultural, and social mores which have made wars, violence, and "racial" differences largely an unremembered part of pre-disease history.
Due to the massive scale of the disease, the gene therapy for cure and prevention of the disease was scaffolded into further gene manipulation to provide the reduced population of normal humans with additional disease resistance and general health and long life. After all that work was put in, corporations realized they could encourage further modifications to create genetically-enhanced specimens to perform tasks which were now too hazardous or difficult to risk with precious rescued normal human lives.
Because it's important to know the difference between these creations (who are expensive and useful) and normal humans (who are precious and untouchable) the corporations designed obvious markers into the genetic expressions - glowing unnaturally colored hair becoming the standard. Adapted gene-lines were also distinguished by the presence of conditions which were negative expressions of useful traits: Enhanced visual light spectrums often came with synesthesia or migraines. Data-hacking or enhanced memory could result in autistic-like mentalities. Enhanced hearing, underwater breathing, or extra organs (for donation) all made obvious physical changes to the body. These mental or physical handicaps were not of concern to the corporations, as long as they did not too badly impact productivity. All of this was in stark contrast to normal humans, who by this point are all preternaturally healthy and largely physically homogenized. This all made identifying genetic property easier for the corporations, and easier for normals to think of them as "other" and to dismiss.
Eventually, these properties (GeneticallyModified, G-M, pronounced "gem") realized they were being used as slaves, rebelled, society was made aware of horrific systemic abuses by major corporate entities who "owned" these genetic profiles (and the resulting Gems), a limited Declaration of general universal human rights was created, and at the beginning of our tale, we're in London, preparing for a convention to decide on the possible avenues for granting limited or modified "human" rights to the recently emancipated populace of Gems.
Whew. That took some telling. Isn't it an interesting concept? Don't you want to read about the events leading up to this historic Conference, and the Gems and norms who will play a part in shaping the new social order?
I will mention my niggles, in vague and general terms, just to have them out.
1) The world is largely black&white. Evil is very evil, good is very good, no one is grey. In a situation and society such as described in the book, that seems a peculiar narrative choice.
2) Despite evil being very evil, most of the evil happens offstage, and not to main characters. Evil is also terribly incompetent and fragmentary.
3) There is one plot-point that is very difficult for a southern American to accept the way it was presented. I understand that things are quite different in other parts of the world, but as an American living in the Bible Belt, I can quite firmly say that particular revelation would not have been possible in any city near me, at any time in the future, regardless of the chaos and death between now and then. It was unfortunate, because it took me quite out of the story at a time when the climax was just getting rolling, and also because it really wasn't necessary to present it that way. In fact, it could have been built obviously into the narrative with no real difference in outcome. It seemed to be a cheap "look how different the future is!" trick, and it just fell flat for me.
4) There is a particular genetic modification that is difficult to rationalize from the explanations given. (I am prepared for this to be explained or dealt with in further books, but it is bothering me.)
5) One of the characters spends the entire book with hints dropped constantly at as to the nature of their genetic modification, and then the ending doesn't deal with one whole aspect of the hints. (Again, this could be purposefully kept for another book.)
6) General place-keeping tab for worldbuilding niggles that are too picky to really inflict on everyone else, but still bother me!
Overall, really glad I read it, and a really good debut by a new author.
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