All The Birds In The Sky

Charlie Jane Anders

Titan Books/Newsouth

Otago Daily Times, June 11th 2016

In addition to being founding editor of tech-culture blog io9 and host of the literary variety show Writers with Drinks, American science fiction writer Charlie Jane Anders has two novels and over 100 pieces of short fiction to her name.  This versatility is clearly evident in All The Birds in the Sky, a delightful little tale of a witch and a scientist brought together by fate (and AI) in order to save the world.

As children, Patricia and Laurence’s friendship of convenience is based on little more than the fact that both are social outcasts. Laurence spends his spare time inventing things – a two-second time machine and a home-made neural network being his most successful creations to date – while Patricia, who would rather be outdoors than anywhere else, can (sometimes) talk to animals.

Although Patricia accepts Laurence’s technological ambitions with equanimity and is happy to sit talking to his home-made computer, the reverse is not true. Uncomfortable with Patricia’s abilities and her growing reputation as a freak, Laurence begins to distance himself from her as her and their relationship eventually ends as awkwardly as it began.

When they meet again a decade later, each has found their place among like-minded individuals. Laurence is working on a scientific project trying to develop an escape route for humanity if/when the world succumbs to climatic catastrophic, while Patricia’s magical community is determined to heal the Earth, even if it means sacrificing humanity in order to do so. Yet neither feels fully accepted by their colleagues, and they gradually re-establish the shared sensibility that informed their former partnership.

In the interim the two opposing groups, each with the best of intentions, sleepwalk towards disaster; the scientists forge on with their plans to establish a wormhole to another dimension despite the risk that doing so could destroy the planet, and the magicians warn constantly about the danger of self aggrandisement whilst simultaneously insisting on their right to act as judge, jury and executioner of the human species. And Patricia and Laurence once again find themselves allied against their peers, although this time the stakes are far, far higher than those they faced childhood.

The underlying message is very clear – scientist and environmentalists need to work together if we want to save to save the planet, dammit! – and in the wrong hands this would make for an insufferably moralistically and doom-laden story. However Anders’ use of fable-like elements – talking animals, cruel parents, charms, curses and a rogue assassin – successfully leaven the darker aspects, and her skills are also evident in the subtle shift of tone that occurs as the characters age.

The fairy-tale undercurrents of the first half shading into something closer to urban fantasy in its second, and the trappings of modern technology and scientific theory plausibly rub shoulders (and share similarities) with the magic. I finished All The Birds in The Sky feeling that maybe, with a bit of luck and some carefully-timed nudges from outside agencies, true love might just save the day.

https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/delightful-tale-science-and-magic