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The Ferryman
Justin Cronin (Orion Books)
IN THE canon of contemporary science fiction, reality is a shaky concept. Books and movies have probed, pummelled and pulled apart the fabric of the material world to reveal countless deceits.
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Such revelations are the source of paranoid nightmares in works like The Matrix, The Truman Show or William Gibson’s Neuromancer. Then there are the more lucid deceit-fantasies in the vein of Total Recall, Inception and Westworld. Elsewhere there are stories in which utopian filters obscure harrowing truths.
In this latter category you can find equal room for the gleaming pulp of Logan’s Run, the grime of Soylent Green and the sheer stateliness of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s Never Let Me Go. It is no spoiler to say that a new book by Justin Cronin, creator of the bestselling fantasy horror trilogy The Passage, joins them in the same existential and ontological terrain.
From the moment we meet Proctor Bennett, living comfortably on the idyllic, secluded island of Prospera, it is obvious that his utopia is about to explode.
The rules of this particular paradise are convoluted, but seemingly benign. At the end of their long, enriching lives, Prosperans undergo a process of “retirement” and “reiteration”. After a short break in a luxury clinic, called the Nursery, their memories are wiped and they return in adolescent bodies, ready to start life afresh.
Bennett’s role as Ferryman is to facilitate this journey – something he does without concern or doubt. That is, until he is tasked with “retiring” his father. Cue a last-minute cryptic message, and Bennett is waking up to what all but the most naive reader already knows: Prospera is not what it seems.
This imbalance between the protagonist’s innocence and the reader’s experience could cripple a lesser novel. Doubly so, when the book is so indebted to the sci-fi classics, including the majority of those mentioned previously. Yet somehow, Cronin pulls off a trick that rivals the one performed on the Prosperans’ ageing bodies, as he transmutes the well-worked themes into something not only original, but surprising and profoundly moving.
For me, though, Cronin’s book has an emotional current that sets it apart from, and arguably above, the chilly speculation of many of those precursors. From the early, moving scenes, in which Bennett comforts and bids goodbye to his father before his reiteration, it is clear that Cronin has far more interest in the humanity of his story than in the apparatus that underpins it.
The Ferryman does have interesting ideas about how its future works, but aside from one key conceit – which would be too much of a spoiler to mention here – the book never dwells long on exposition.
That isn’t to say Cronin can’t write consummate technobabble. The central speculative technology is superbly developed and, in the way of all truly great science fiction, leaves you uncertain where the author’s imagination ends and cutting-edge research begins.
Cronin is also unafraid to create moments of striking surrealism: a waterfall at the edge of the world that flows upwards is a particular highlight. And there are moments of extreme disorientation, sudden ruptures that at first suggest missing pages, but are in fact all part of Cronin’s grand thesis.
Some seasoned sci-fi fans may guess where the book is heading, but for many readers, possibly most, the third act reveal will be truly astonishing. What seems to begin as a belated post-Matrix riff on the nature of reality becomes an exploration of creativity and creation, memory and freedom, grief and love. Plus, it manages all this while telling a tale that feels familiar, even though it is only the broadest outline that you will recognise.
By the end of The Ferryman, you may very well find that you were as clueless as Bennett all along.
For another unusual take on ageing, see “Titanium Noir review: Gripping, philosophical science fiction”
Neil McRobert is a writer and podcaster based near Manchester, UK
New Scientist Book Club
The Ferryman is the first pick for our new book club. Read along with us at newscientist.com/bookclub
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