THE EMBEDDING

Ian Watson's first novel, published in 1973, was one of his best, and an acknowledged classic of science fiction. Its theme is not a traditional sf topic, but a very intellectually challenging one: language as the means to bridge the gap between human consciousness and the otherness of the objective world. In Watson's fictional "embedded" language of the Xemahoas, a Brazilian Indian tribe, "This-Reality" is converted into the transcendent pattern of "Other-Reality," which is the world of pure being. The Sp'thra (who represent the essential otherness of the objective world, everything about it that we do not understand) bargain for the brains of speakers of this language, which they desire to learn. At the end, the main character experiences a breakdown of reality and a cognizance of a new state being, reminiscent of such occurrences in the work of Philip K. Dick.

 

MIRACLE VISITORS              

This, along with THE EMBEDDING, was listed on the top 100 SF books of all time by Interzone editor David Pringle. Here, Watson represents obsession with UFOs as a legitimate religious impulse leading to a "UFO state" of consciousness. Overt allusions to William Blake and Carl Jung help put this work in context as an attempt to mythologize (through science-fictional motifs) the eternal quest for unity of awareness. The aliens in this book, however, do not, as they do so often in conventional SF, represent the most expanded potential of higher knowledge. This responsibility is placed on the human mind and imagination.

MOCKYMEN

Watson's most recent novel is on the surface a bit more conventional sf story than his classic novels above. However, it is great fun and encompasses some adventurous story telling, involving Nazi plots, zombified drugged-out "Blissheads," and a dangerous quest to save Earth from evil aliens. This is done in the context of the author's usual incisive social analysis and realistic characterizations. What kind of salvation would it be, as in this book, if we depended upon an extraterrestrial race to come in and solve all our global political and ecological problems for us?