A Bee-lief in the Common Good

“It is truly amazing how many flavours of dumb an apocalypse can spawn.” 

— Ada Risa (Bee Speaker.)

Bee Speaker — the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Dogs of War trilogy — is the capstone to an emotionally rich and intellectually satisfying hard science fiction series that deserves to be recognized with a nomination for the best series Hugo Award.

Bee Speaker's cover art
is by Pablo Hurtado
de Mendoza
(Image via Head of Zeus)

When the first Dogs of War novel was published in 2017, no North American publisher was willing to take it on. Children of Time had garnered Tchaikovsky some fans among science fiction readers, but he was still primarily seen as an author of multi-book epic fantasies.

Dogs of War was well received in the United Kingdom — earning a BSFA nod — but for years, it remained largely unknown in the United States and Canada.

That initial book introduced the audience to Rex, one of the first genetically-altered dogs bred and built as a loyal, obedient, and fearsome soldier. Along with his teammates — a hyperinteligent bear named Honey, a chamelon/lizard named Dragon, and a hive-mind swarm of Bees — Rex is dropped into the middle of a brutal war in near-future Mexico. If this were simply a war novel with a compelling protagonist, it would have still been a good piece of fiction … but Tchaikovsky shifts gears no fewer than four times through the story. With each pivot, the book becomes something more; a courtroom drama, a moral philosophy exercise, a political thriller. Tchaikovsky engages the reader with questions about moral culpability of those within a hierarchy, about the rights of animals, and more fundamentally, about what it means to be a person. It is a book that is complete unto itself, needed no sequel, and Tchaikovsky had no plans to write one.

Over the years, Dogs of War’s reputation grew by word of mouth. It resonated profoundly with some, and eventually found its readers. By 2021, it had earned a devoted following — and improbably, a sequel titled, Bear Head.

With Bear Head, Tchaikovsky took the story decades further into the future, centering the narrative around Rex’s teammate Honey. The sequel tackled the colonization of Mars by ruthless corporations using genetically modified humans to create a hierarchical civilization on the Red Planet. Like the previous book, Bear Head is about ways in which freedom can be subverted, but is more explicit in advancing an argument that if the rights of any sapient being are eroded then the rights of all sapient beings are at risk. Like the first book, it is complete unto itself and needed no sequel.

Which brings us to Bee Speaker, a novel that expands upon, refines, and also subverts thematic elements of the previous two novels in the trilogy. We may never have expected this sequel to exist, but are very glad it does.

Picking up centuries after the events of the previous book, Bee Speaker is set after a major technological collapse. On Earth — where much of the action takes place — the remnants of corporate feudalism have become warrior enclaves led by superannuated former billionaires and their descendant tribes, while subsistence farmers pay tribute from their meagre harvests, and a Bee-themed religion preserves what addled knowledge they can of the past. Mars — partially terraformed during the events of Book 2 and populated by genetically engineered humans, dogs, and other bioforms — fared slightly better than the Earth, having been forced by circumstances to maintain their technology for survival reasons.

Dogs of War has gained readership
over time, eventually being translated
into a variety of languages such as
French, Latvian, German, Catalan,
and of course Polish. 
(Image via Goodreads)

The book follows the exploits of modified human Ada, canine Wells, and lizard Irae — Martian engineers who are lured to Earth by a cryptic distress signal. Their expedition is the first contact that the two planets have had since the fall of Earthbound civilization and they stumble into unexpected situations and a clash of cultures, unintentionally upending local power structures.

The Martian characters operate under a misapprehension that the people of Earth will share their ideas about acting in the common good; while members of the feudal warrior culture make rash and impulsive decisions based on macho notions of honour. The book could be read as a parable about the impossibility of human progress, or as a comment on turning your back on the care and feeding of a working democracy.

While the previous books explored the pitfalls of hierarchies of high-technology and of corporate dominance, Bee Speaker posits that when democratic governance fails and technology crumbles, the worst sorts of low-tech hierarchies will reassert themselves. It also shows how even those who enjoy being at the top of the pyramid will eventually be brought low by the very hierarchies they believe in.

The cyclical nature of dark ages and renaissances will remind some readers of Walter Miller Jr.’s Canticle for Leibowicz, as will the role of religion in preserving knowledge. In Tchaikovsky’s book, however, the religion is based on the worship of Bees — the hyperinteligent hive mind who is the one character tying all three books together. One of our favourite characters in Bee Speaker is Cricket, a pious, easily influenced, and intellectually vulnerable young monk of the Apiary (the name for the church of Bees).

Uplifted animals have been a staple of science fiction for decades, but are often depicted either as just normal people, or as somehow … lesser. Informed by his passion for ethology (the study of animal behaviours), Tchaikovsky’s depiction of uplifted animals avoids these pitfalls; he seems to grok the canine soul, and offers us non-human characters who are not lesser, but inescapably other. We suspect that those who have had a dog in their life will appreciate this aspect of his speculative writing.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ability to create stories infused with abiding empathy for all creatures great and small has helped solidify his following. This trilogy puts these insights front-and-centre. Although they may not be his best-known novels, the Dogs of War books might be his strongest and most emotionally interesting.

Bee Speaker is not in any way a sequel we expected, but it is one we are very glad exists.

Old Man's Boss Baby

(Image via Goodreads)

There’s a saying in the labour movement: make someone a boss and they’re going to act like a boss.

It’s an observation based on a familiar pattern of workers becoming managers and then acting in ways that put them at odds with the needs of the proletariat. The system incentives people to make decisions that serve the few instead of the many.

This is, fundamentally, the problem with John Scalzi’s latest novel. Starter Villain is narrated in the first person by Charlie, an underemployed and financially precarious teacher who inherits a megacorporation after the death of his estranged uncle Jake. Charlie quickly learns that Uncle Jake’s business empire involved global extortion, illicit genetic experiments, and orbital laser platforms; the protagonist inherits the role of corporate supervilain.

It’s an amusing and intriguing premise … one that could have been used to interrogate capitalist systems of power. Instead, Charlie is presented with a series of facile moral quandaries that are resolved when his ‘common-sense’ and ‘hometown values’ lead him to simplistic solutions for complex situations.

He’s a boss … but he avoids acting like a boss because the book skirts around the perverse incentives that (in the real world) drive many in the management class to act like psychopaths. The novel suggests that the evils of capitalism are not based on structural problems, but on the fact that the wrong people are in charge.

Possibly the most egregious example of this is in how Charlie deals with workers’ rights at his secret volcano lair. Early in the novel, he’s introduced to a pod of genetically enhanced intelligent dolphins, and he learns that they have formed a labour union in order to demand better compensation and working conditions. Although the complaints of the dolphins are depicted as being valid, their negotiating tactics are portrayed as obstreperous and confrontational. That is, the reason they have been unable to resolve their contract negotiation is because of worker intransigence. This dispute is resolved when Charlie takes the time to listen to the workers without getting angry at their antics.

The problem with this understanding of labour relations is that it diminishes the agency of the workers and portrays the skills of managers as superior instead of specialized.

Now, it should be noted that this type of labour union depiction is a significant improvement over the anti-worker rhetoric that was common in science fiction of the 1940s-1970s. But it is still based on ideas of management-class paternalism; this is a story in which the liberation of the cetacean proletariat derives not from the emancipation of the worker but from the benevolence of management. However, in reality, anything that can be offered by a good boss can be denied by a bad one.

Maybe it's a bad idea to put people into positions
of authority based on who their uncle was.
(Image via NPR.com)

Ignoring worker perspectives has a long tradition in science fiction stories. Scalzi’s work fits neatly alongside Asimov’s, Dick’s and Pohl’s; evidently well-intentioned towards workers, but ultimately reinforcing management supremacy and failing to platform worker agency.

One highlight of Starter Villain, however, is a denouement which relies on worker-led interspecies solidarity. Not only is this a philosophically coherent plot mechanism, but it showcases percussive action that few authors writing today are capable of.

Scalzi is an author whose work we’ve often admired. His brand of quippy, accessible prose is often entertaining and fun. The Collapsing Empire novels were engaging and well-thought out parables about the dangers of science denial. Old Man’s War is a modern classic for a reason. But Starter Villain hews to some of Scalzi’s more irritating writerly quirks; a protagonist who’s a bit too smug propped up by smart-alec sidekicks. This is admittedly a comedic novel … and nothing is more subjective than comedy. So this farce might be more to some peoples’ tastes than ours.

Not all labour unions are created equal, and nor are depictions of labour unions in science fiction. The past few years have seen some of the best SFF about labour unions ever published (among others, we’d highlight Babel by R.F. Kuang, 

We Built This City by Marie Vibbert, & Hunger Makes The Wolf by Alex Wells). Simply put, Starter Villain falls short.

同理心的触手 (The Tentacle of Empathy - Mandarin Translation)

 过去二十多年里，科幻界一种值得思考的动向，是作品中描写“非人类”意识的方式在不断演进。

图片来自 Hachette UK

自从这一作品类型诞生以来，许多创作者以令人钦佩的努力，将人类级别权利的主体不断扩充到越来越广大的生命群体。不过，在起初的几十年里，他们多数很难构想全然异类的存在。诸如克林贡人（《星际迷航》）、伍基人（《星战》）、克孜人（拉里·尼文作品）、咖喱星人（英剧 Doctor Who）及魔马克星人（美剧 ALF）等，其异于人类之处无外乎身形和文化。甚至如《巴比伦五号》中号称混成先天地、希夷不可知的“卧龙族” (Vorlon)，又如《星际迷航》里全知全能如 Q 者，亦未能免俗于骄矜、忿怒、寂寥等人之常情。

在我们看来，最近约25年来社会增进了对神经多元性的认识，并且在科幻作品中有所反映。自上世纪90年代起，在孤独症群体的自我主张运动（以及与之相伴的神经多元化运动）促进下，对那些被诊断为孤独症谱系症候群的人及其行为习惯、处理问题方式，社会上的排斥和污名化程度逐渐有所缓解。这一转化的实质，是我们对人的主体体验有了包容面更广的理解；藉此，人格的尊严得到了更广泛的支持。从弗诺·文奇《银河界区》系列小说中对爪族和聚能者反规范的认知方式总体正面的刻画，以及阿德里安·柴科夫斯基《时间之子》系列中塑造的波蒂亚族裔和鸦形族身上，我们都能感受到与孤独症者自我主张运动一脉相承的文化线索。说到底，因为有着一股精干的作者群体不懈地努力从内心深处理解与他们迥异的心智，科幻得以与神经多元化运动齐头并进，为多元的认知方式正名。无论这是有意为之还是无心插柳，其价值是肯定的，因为将形形色色的认知呈现在作品中有益于建立同理心。

10月4日面世的小说《山与海》是雷·奈勒 (Ray Nayler) 崭露头角之作，它将我们的视线会聚到科幻的异认知文化传统。

作品设定于不久的未来，通过多个人物交织的视角，表现他们在踌躇和跌撞中朦胧地摸索同情心在他们人生中的地位。它讲述的，是人们一次次尝试抓住同理心扭动中若隐若现的触手。

小说有两股主要叙事脉络。其中之一跟随海洋生物学家阮夏博士，在偏远的鲲岛探索此前不为人知的章鱼物种及其认知和社会行为。另一线索以立志在商界出人头地的英行为主角，追随他在自动化捕鱼船上被奴役的遭遇。

这些相互穿插的情节构成了作品情感上的阴阳水火。英行的故事被绝望和剥削笼罩着，而对发现的憧憬推动者阮夏的经历。尽管两者判若云泥，但两人相同之处是在不得已的境地下反省人生的不如意。因此，相似的情感主题贯穿着两人的叙事线索。

大学刚毕业，在激烈竞争中斩获首个职位的英行，还没来得及上任就遭人下毒和绑架。他被关押在太平洋某处的渔船里，被迫日复一日做着处理死鱼的沉重劳役，没有喘息也没有报酬。在如此令人绝望的设定下，我们慢慢发现，还有数百条这样的奴隶船正在大洋中破坏性地开采资源，为了追求短期利益而消灭着一切有销售价值的生命。英行的个人历程主要在他自己的思想中展开。他开始思索自己原本的志向在这一剥削体系下的作用，并且在最为残酷的条件下刻意教自己习得同理心。此处，我们最赞赏的，是作者对受奴役的工人依靠团结进行自发组织的描写。奈勒探索的主题，一方面是资本家如何用科技将其剥削的受害者隔绝在自己的世界之外，另一方面是劳工为何往往被非人的制度压制服从。属于英行的环节是小说中最富于力量和感情的部分，不过对很多读者而言可能因情感太浓重而难以消化。幸好，阮夏的情节主线为作品增添了更丰富的内涵。

英行遭绑架和奴役的遭遇并非天马行空的想象
而是现实的反映。我们推荐阅读《纽约时报》
上伊恩·乌尔比纳撰写、时报摄影总编 亚当·迪恩
配图的系列报道《 公海劫波 》
（图片来自《纽约时报》）。

阮夏的环节跟踪的是她通过艰苦的努力，一面试图沟通人类和章鱼之间理解和交流的天堑，一面试图领悟和接纳她自己的孤独。原来，她这份在远海研究海洋生物学的工作，是来自拥有鲲岛并将其置于严密看守下的跨国企业“双灵公司”。这就引发了一系列问题：为什么该公司的利益与章鱼联系如此紧密？它会如何利用章鱼？属于阮夏的大部分情节是通过反衬加以深度刻画的，这依靠的是描写她慢慢与另外两名公司雇员之间信任关系的展开：来自蒙古的安保专家阿勒腾琪琪格，以及“埃芙琳”，世界上唯一真正达到人类水平的人工智能体。

对未来世界勉强运行的地缘政治体系和掠夺式资本主义的极端情形，小说中进行的塑造既有令人唏嘘的真实感，又有引人入胜的细腻表现。奈勒的外交背景所赋予他的视角和知识，让读者能够信服他笔下的故事。

不过，作品感染力的真正核心，是通过不懈的探索揭示了人类解读主体体验的丰富方式，各种不同的感官系统和神经体系如何构建个体对世界的理解，还有人工智能可能的演化路径及其对人造意识的影响。我们无从知晓其他生命体内心的活动，也不能断言对他心的描写是否真的可能实现。不过，我们感觉到奈勒的文字也许已经接近其极致。对章鱼智能可能的演化脉络，以及其形态、能力和脑部生理构造如何造就它们对世界的感受，作者的猜想建立在深入而周密的探究上。因此，从该小说我们可以看到神经多元化运动在科幻作品中非常深刻的体现。

归根结底，奈勒似乎在拷问的是，既然我们作为人，和同类之间都难以建起相互理解的桥梁，又如何能有终一日与异种生命心有灵犀？这部作品不时令人心碎，同时又交织着充满希望的思绪。它确实值得一读。

本杂志编撰团队感谢雨果奖提名，并借此机会挑选了2022年度若干得意之作翻译成中文，以飨参加本年度世界科幻大会的中国友人。译者：Zoë C. Ma [https://zoe-translat.es/]

The Tentacle of Empathy

One of the most interesting evolutions within science fiction over the past two decades has been the ways in which non-human consciousnesses are depicted.

(image via Hachette UK)

From the dawn of the genre, there has been a commendable attempt by many authors to expand the definition of what beings are worthy of human-level rights. However, in earlier decades many have struggled to imagine something truly alien; Klingon, Wookie, Kzinti, Gallifreyan, and Melmacian are all only differentiated from humans by body shape and culture. Even the supposedly ancient and unknowable Vorlons of Babylon 5 and the omniscient and omnipotent Q of Star Trek seem to be governed by human emotions such as arrogance, wrath, and loneliness.

We would suggest that over the past quarter century, an increasing societal understanding of neurodiversity has been reflected in science fiction. Starting in the 1990s, the autistic self-advocacy movement (and the associated neurodiversity movement) have helped destigmatize behaviours and problem-solving practices often associated with those who have been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. In essence, this is broadening our understanding of the human experience, and thus promotes human dignity writ large. There is a line that could be drawn between the autistic self-advocacy movement and the broadly positive depiction of non-normative cognition among the Tines and the Focused in Vernor Vinge’s Zones of Thought novels, and the Portids and the Corvids of Adrian Tchiakovsky’s Children of Time books. In essence, science fiction has paralleled the neurodiverse movement in destigmatizing diverse cognition thanks to a small cadre of authors who have been making an effort to get into the heads of intelects that are alien to their own. Whether doing so was intentional or not, it has value, as showing the richness of different forms of cognition helps build empathy.

Ray Nayler’s debut novel The Mountain and the Sea, which hit shelves on October 4, puts this tradition into focus.

Set in the near future, the book weaves between the viewpoints of several characters who are each in their own ways tentatively and clumsily reaching towards a slippery understanding of the role compassion might play in their lives. It’s about trying to grasp a writhing and elusive tentacle of empathy.

The two primary narrative threads follow Dr. Ha Nyugen, a marine biologist making discoveries into the cognition and social behaviours of a newly-discovered species of octopus living near a remote island of Con Dao; and Eiko, an aspiring businessman who is enslaved on an automated fishing vessel.

These interspersed stories act as an emotional yin and yang within the book. Despite Eiko’s tale being one of despair and exploitation and Nyugen’s driven by the hope for discovery, both characters are forced to examine why their lives are lacking and, thus, both narrative threads share fundamentally similar emotional themes.

Eiko’s kidnapping and enslavement is
not fantasy, but rather a reflection
of real-world practices.
We’d recommend Ian Urbina’s
New York Times article series
The Outlaw Ocean, which has
photos from Times
photo editor Adam Dean.
(Image via New York Times.)

Drugged and kidnapped shortly before starting his first, coveted, job out of university, Eiko finds himself trapped on a fishing vessel in the middle of the Pacific ocean, forced to process fish carcasses for mind-numbing hours of back-breaking unpaid labour. This is a bleak setting, in which we slowly learn that there are hundreds of such vessels strip mining the oceans, extirpating all saleable life in the pursuit of short-term profits. Eiko’s personal voyage is mostly in his head, as he begins to analyze the role he had previously intended to play in this exploitative system, and with deliberate effort tries to teach himself empathy in the harshest of conditions. We particularly enjoyed the depiction of solidarity-based organizing among enslaved workers. Nayler explores both the ways in which technology insulates capitalists from the victims of their exploitation, and the ways in which workers are often forced into compliance through inhuman systems. Although Eiko’s chapters are some of the strongest and most affecting content of the novel, they might have been too emotionally exhausting for many readers, if the book hadn’t also been enriched by Nguyen’s story arc.

Her chapters follow a dogged attempt to bridge the gap in understanding and communication between humanity and the octopuses, while she simultaneously grapples with her own quiet isolation. The marine biologist, it turns out, accepted a remote job from the multinational corporation Dianima, which owns and fiercely guards the island of Con Dao. This leads to questions of why the corporation is so interested in the octopuses; and how they might be exploited. Much of Nguyen’s arc is put into sharp relief through the slow development of trust between her and the two people who are also bound to the island by their shared employer: Altantsetseg, a Mongolian security expert and Evrim, the world’s only truly human-level artificial intelligence.

The novel’s depiction of semi-functional future geopolitics and extreme forms of predatory capitalism are sadly believable, but written with interesting nuance. Nayler’s background working in the foreign service has given him a perspective and a knowledge that lends the story credibility.

But at its core, the strength of the novel is in how richly it explores the ways in which humans interpret experiences, how different sensoria and neurological architecture might construct individual understandings of the world, and how artificial intelligences might evolve and what that could mean for their sentience. It’s impossible to know what's going on in another being’s head, nor whether depicting these processes can ever be accomplished, but we suspect that Nayler has done this about as well as possible. The speculation on how octopus intelligence might have evolved, and how their form, abilities, and physical brain shape might perceive the world are meticulously explored. In this way, it could be interpreted as one of the most in-depth examples of the neurodiversity movement reflected in science fiction.

In essence, Nayler seems to be asking how humans might ever be able to build a bridge of understanding with an alien race, when we often can’t even do so amongst our own species. It’s often a heartbreaking novel, but one worth reading and one that’s laced with threads of hope.