Black Projects, White Knights
BLACK PROJECTS, WHITE KNIGHTS (Kage Baker) - Three Stars
BPWK is a collection of fourteen short stories by Kage Baker, all pertaining to the seven-book Company series. These are all supplemental short stories, providing more depth and detail to some of the characters in the Company series, but are not relevant to the main plot of the series and reveal no spoilers.
The biggest problem with most of the stories is that Baker can't decide whether she's writing for people intimately familiar with the Company novels or for people completely new to the universe. Some stories over-explain, others go the opposite direction. As a result, most of the stories settle safely in the three-star range, with one or two outliers in four-star territories.
Baker is at her best when she muses on her fairly Orwellian views of the future (specifically with regards to personal liberties). Baker's 24th Century England is largely 21st Century England with only a few subtle but significant cultural twists, making it all the creepier. As a result, the best short story in this collection is "Monster Story", about an SAT-like exam all 24th Century ten-year-olds take that determines the course of their entire lives (including what types of work they can do). Baker's preface is prescient:
BPWK is a collection of fourteen short stories by Kage Baker, all pertaining to the seven-book Company series. These are all supplemental short stories, providing more depth and detail to some of the characters in the Company series, but are not relevant to the main plot of the series and reveal no spoilers.
The biggest problem with most of the stories is that Baker can't decide whether she's writing for people intimately familiar with the Company novels or for people completely new to the universe. Some stories over-explain, others go the opposite direction. As a result, most of the stories settle safely in the three-star range, with one or two outliers in four-star territories.
Baker is at her best when she muses on her fairly Orwellian views of the future (specifically with regards to personal liberties). Baker's 24th Century England is largely 21st Century England with only a few subtle but significant cultural twists, making it all the creepier. As a result, the best short story in this collection is "Monster Story", about an SAT-like exam all 24th Century ten-year-olds take that determines the course of their entire lives (including what types of work they can do). Baker's preface is prescient:
In the future we will all be very healthy, very attractive, and very, very good. It will be illegal to be otherwise.
Today, the ordinary citizen in Britain is under more constant surveillance from remote cameras than in any other country in the world...In America, there is a movement afoot to outlaw serving large portions of food in restaurants, on the grounds that this is a criminal act contributing to obesity. Several public interest groups have successfully criminalized the wearing of perfume in public places. Many communities have laws in effect penalizing untidy yards or even the ownership of clotheslines, on the grounds that they lower property values. Can it be long until physical ugliness is prohibited too, for the mental distress it occasions in others?
Popular psychology now informs us that our misfortunes and illnesses are our own fault, brought about by our unconscious urges; secular puritanism, as I live and breathe! But surely Coercive Law will set us all to rights, and make certain that we cannot pose a threat to ourselves or others. Hooray.
posted by Kevin at 8:43 PM
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