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Common and Precious
by Tim Susman
(Sofawolf Press, 2007. US$17.95 trade paperback, 310 pages. ISBN:
0-9769212-9-4.)
Review by Elizabeth Barrette
Welcome to New Tibet. It's cold, and not just the weather. New Tibet
is a colony world, variously run by powerful corporations and organized
crime rings (which often overlap). It is populated by "huminals,"
or "New People," as the prologue explains: animals modified
to have human sentience and dexterity. The cold matters little to the
arctic foxes, wolves, Siberian tigers, snowshoe hares, lemmings, and
other species who call the place home.
Tiger Melinda has grown up in a privileged position -- a warm apartment,
servants, plenty of food -- luxuries not common on New Tibet. Her father
Barda holds a high position in both the corporate and criminal chains
of command. But that doesn't help Meli when she gets kidnapped and held
for ransom. It turns out that the motive is not simple greed, but rather
a desperate need for medical supplies. So begins Meli's introduction
to the other side of life on New Tibet.
"Life is common. Life is precious." The sign hangs on the
hospital wall where Meli's kidnappers have taken her. To her, it refers
only to the "precious ones" in the upper class; but to Shamil
and Cab and the other kidnappers, it means everyone. Even Meli. Even
the ghosts who dwell over the bridge in Ghost Town, the only warm place
on the planet. The more she sees, the harder it gets for Meli to cling
to the worldview she grew up with, for both lines of the sign are equally
true.
This is a coming-of-age story and a social class analysis; but it's
also a great novel, dark and bitter as fine chocolate. New Tibet itself
is strangely seductive, standing out from a starfield of interchangeable
science fiction settings. The characters are noble and base, gallant
and exasperating, and within pages you care deeply what happens to them
-- and you already know it's not likely to be good, on New Tibet, which
creates a humming tension that underlies the entire story.
If you liked George Orwell's Animal Farm, then you'll love Common
and Precious. It takes allegory further, presenting a fully developed
work of literature with characters who grow and change throughout the
story. It's about them ... but it's about us, too, and the good and
bad choices that people can make. Highly recommended.
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