fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviewsscience fiction book reviews Charles Stross PalimpsestPalimpsest by Charles Stross

Agent Pierce murdered his own grandfather to join Stasis, the covert organization which works outside of time to reseed the Earth with humans every time they’re about to make themselves extinct. Pierce considers himself a loyal agent, and he didn’t even realize that there is a group that works in Opposition to Stasis — he’s only in training. So, why is someone trying to assassinate him?

Palimpsest follows Agent Pierce from initiation, through his twenty years of training, to his gruesome graduation ceremony, and onto his assignments as a new agent. The segments involving Pierce’s progress are written in both second and third person and are occasionally interrupted by chapters of Powerpoint-style lectures which show glimpses of alternate histories of our universe and describe the way the galaxy was restructured so that it could last for trillions of years.

It’s easy to see why Palimpsest won the Hugo Award for best novella in 2010. First of all, it’s beautifully written. This comes from “Slide 6”:

Six hundred and fifty million years later, the outlines of Earth’s new continents glow by night like a neon diadem against the darkness, shouting consciousness at the sky in a blare of radio-wavelength emissions as loud as a star.

And how can you not admire this?:

The day after he murdered himself in cold blood, Agent Pierce received an urgent summons to attend a meeting in the late nineteenth century.

You’d be tempted to think that time-travel, with its accompanying paradoxes, is a well-worn theme, and Palimpsest does re-visit some of the age-old questions, but it’s got some fresh and fascinating questions to ask, too: If a historical event is written over, which history is the correct one? (This is where the title “Palimpsest” comes from.) Is it ethical to decide who you want to be and then go back in time to remake yourself? What happens when a powerful organization evolves so that it has abandoned its original purpose and made itself its reason for being? What is the best way to make sure that the human species survives?

Pierce’s predicaments, and the issues he deals with, are exciting, but the story was so quick, sketchy, and subtle, and it jumps around so much, that I rarely had more than a tentative grasp on what was going on at any moment. I had to do a lot of rereading to make sure I knew what was happening, though I admit that I have rarely enjoyed being lost as much as I did here, and Stross was likely going for that effect. The characters, including Pierce himself, are also sketchily drawn, making it hard to connect with them. Pierce, who was just as bewildered as me, was mostly a passive character pushed along by his strange circumstances. Only at the end did he seem to seriously consider what he might do to affect his world (again, this was probably intentional).

In his afterword, Charles Stross says “Palimpsest wanted to be a novel. It really, really wanted to be a novel. Maybe it will be, someday.” I agree: Palimpsest wants to be a novel. It needs to be a novel. I want it to be a novel. This superb story deserves much more space and time (so to speak).

Palimpsest — (2010) Publisher: Welcome to the Stasis, the clandestine, near-omnipotent organization that stands at the heart of Charles Stross’s Hugo Award-winning novella, Palimpsest. By mastering the mysteries of the Timegate, the Stasis has repeatedly steered mankind away from the brink of utter extinction. Through countless millennia, through the ‘mayfly flickerings’ of innumerable transient civilizations, its members have intervened at critical junctions, reseeding the galaxy with viable potential survivors. In the process, they have reconfigured the basic structure of the universe, all in the name of human continuity. Pierce is a newly recruited member of the Stasis, serving out a complex twenty-year apprenticeship while struggling to find his way through the paradoxical maze of history (and unhistory) that surrounds him. As his once simple existence expands and replicates over vast stretches of time, Pierce uncovers a new and unexpected destiny, one that will embroil him in the larger purposes of the Stasis and in the ultimate, unresolved fate of humanity itself. Skillfully merging the threads of an individual life with the grandest, most overarching concerns, Palimpsest offers both visionary brilliance and narrative excitement in equal measure. Powerfully imagined, beautifully constructed, and writtenthroughout with great economy of means, it is the kind of mind-expanding mini-epic that only science fiction — and only a master practitioner like Charles Stross — could produce.

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  • Kat Hooper

    KAT HOOPER, who started this site in June 2007, earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University (Bloomington) and now teaches and conducts brain research at the University of North Florida. When she reads fiction, she wants to encounter new ideas and lots of imagination. She wants to view the world in a different way. She wants to have her mind blown. She loves beautiful language and has no patience for dull prose, vapid romance, or cheesy dialogue. She prefers complex characterization, intriguing plots, and plenty of action. Favorite authors are Jack Vance, Robin Hobb, Kage Baker, William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Richard Matheson, and C.S. Lewis.

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