Comply Or Die

Little did Aristoteles know how his ideas of governing polis would transform over the next two-thousand and so years. Politics in general has become a mechanism enabling mass management and manipulation, rather than protecting the individual’s rights and livelihood. Look at the popularity of Occupy- movement – people do feel powerless in front of institutions where no one seemingly is in charge. How do you possibly make ethical decisions when you’re given roughly two options, one as bad as the other? I will not go further with this history of politics malarchy, since I began writing a review on an excellent science fiction e-book by Richard Evans.

Politics, mass management and manipulation are interesting themes throughout the novel so your humble reviewer is not wandering to a dead-end sidetrack here.It’s all lies, lies, lies! In Evans’s Kosmonaut Zero the reader finds it hard to determine for the web of characters who to trust and what goes on behind closed doors. Always a bonus, in fiction at least. One thing that comes to Kosmonaut Zero’s characters rescue is the printed word – files marked top secret, naturally – and hopefully this e-book – not top secret by any means – will do the trick for you as it did for me. I couldn’t put my laptop down for a second.

Main events in Kosmonaut Zero are set in the Soviet Russia of late 1960s. Evans is very talented in creating atmospheres. It is one thing to describe a building so that it jumps off the page, but a completely different thing to create a realistic surrounding that conveys the political, social and economical context of the setting.

This future is concrete and stone, asphalt and angles. Celestial blue buses are timetabled for the people, snaking along the street below her grey apartment block. Everything is small, everyone is distant. The city is a clockwork mechanism. She imagines herself down there, a stick figure in the snow, a cog in the dark city.

Here is the very paradox of this speculative communist state – you are alone in the crowd. One tiny piece of instrument in the mass machinery that ticks, ticks, ticks – day in, day out, like a clockwork. Perhaps the urban alienation is not restricted just to communist states in the past – take a good look around Monday morning on a crowded Central line tube carriage and tell me there is a strong sense of community somewhere there. Or if you’re not London-based, choose any metropolis you wish. Or take your humble reviewer’s word for it.

Cold and concrete as the streets of Kosmonaut Zero’s Soviet Union may be, they become vivid in Richard Evans’s enchanting prose as we follow the fate of the main character Marina Alexandrovna Mernova. Again, stroll down the streets of the city of London during a hectic lunch hour and you’ll spot her in the crowd. Neatly dressed, plum-coloured lipstick carefully applied, not one hair amiss on that perfect bob haircut. That’s the outside. Within there is the nerve wrecking conflict between family life and career. After her parents death in a car accident, Marina is left alone with her younger brother Leon. Luckily there is also a matriarchal auntie Yelena assisting these siblings when KGB needs Marina on assignments.

Marina makes a grave mistake in the beginning that becomes her downfall. The problem is, she does not know what she is doing and for whom. Marina, if anyone, is a well-trained comrade but like for all the characters in Kosmonaut Zero it is never an option to do the right thing simply because no one knows what it is. Who do we trust? When? Where? And for the record, your humble reviewer was reading this in a very non-paranoid mood.

At first, Marina is being recruited for a new scientific programme with promises of fame and fortune: you may become one of the great heroes and take your place in the Communist history. Due to her lack of knowledge that caused the dramatic error, she is soon faced with an option – comply or die. It’s either electro-shock treatment for psycho-political schizophrenia, or she has to sacrifice herself to this scientific project at least to save her loved ones at home from the shame and disgrace. What could be worse than a niece and an older sister betraying the party and the country?

As the narrative proceeds more characters begin to entwine with the Soviet project. Viktor Baldin, the KGB director is the ringleader in this inhumane scientific breakthrough. He sees all, he knows all. Nothing escapes Baldin’s hawk eyes.

The project doesn’t take place in Moscow under everybody’s eyes, but at a historical setting Star City where chain smoking Colonel Vasily Andreyevich Orlov works as Baldin’s right-hand man. As an ex-cosmonaut he now concentrates on white-collar duties and consumption of papirosa cigarettes.

Little by little, a team of internationally acclaimed scientists are gathered by whatever means necessary to Star City so that the experiment can start. Needless to say, none of this can go through official channels. Marina – unaware of what future beholds for her – has brought in Doctor Oleg Ivanovich Spassky and Reiko Komukai from Kyoto Primate Research Centre.

Why these particular people, you may ask? Doctor Spassky has been hiding in Kyoto under a false name of Doctor Birin. Spassky has a 79114 blue ink tattooed in his arm – souvenir from Mittelbau-Dora camp. Marina points this out and asks where it came from. In Spassky’s view sometimes you are in Party’s favour, sometimes not. Marina believes loyalty to be the key that will save you from getting numbers tattooed in your arm. If only she knew much worse things await her for something she understood being involved with. Spassky’s character unfolds little by little, and we do find out what happened in his past – all of which explains why he is hardly repulsed by blood, decapitation taking place next to him barely unhinges him and he just remains… Unnaturally stable at all times.

Reiko Komukai is an expert in her own field – operating neuroreceiver on primates and in worst-case scenarios even performs necromancy. We learn a little bit about her life as the story unfolds, but her main defense-mechanism against personal problems is work. Her only professional weakness – in her supervisor’s mind – is that she gets emotionally attached with the objects of animal testing.

These two scientists possess interesting opposite characteristics. This juxtaposition unfortunately in your humble reviewer’s mind doesn’t quite carry on until the very end of the novel. The good-hearted, animal-loving humanist versus the cold-blooded scientist-maniac- couple becomes a bit stereotypical after awhile. Nevertheless, for the plot to work its wonders this pairing is an essential element.

With this team of experts, the preparations for the first manned voyage to Mars can begin. The spaceship Aelita is all good to go – now we just need ain integrated biomechanical being who can take the seven-month ride. They do have an ideal candidate in mind already.

If this was a Marxist review on the book – which, it is not – your humble reviewer would comment on the fact that all these different scientists and people involved with the project might as well be assembly line workers either puting Fords together or fulfilling the five-year plans. Nobody knows exactly what they are working towards. None of them know the area of expertise of other characters involved in building this manned Aelita. Have we really moved that far from modern man’s nightmare where workers have become alienated of what the actual finished product is? And how on God’s earth do we in our present knowledge industry have any control over what we produce? How do we know what we are a part of?

Again, pardon moi for the sidetrack…

Robin McCall from Manchester enters the story. Canny lad. He works in a Northwestern institution where we see the same conflict between ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ as in all work places. Robin feels like a school boy in a head master’s office when he’s having meetings with his superiors, for example. Mysterious Mister Loxley hands him a task of tracking the Russian craft, monitoring the telemetry and communications, since Robin is the only one with Russian language skills. Robin hasn’t a clue what’s going on, but at least he’ got his girlfriend to occupy his mind with. Forty-eight hours spent together in Oxford can easily ruin a relationship. We’ve all been there.

Complications arise. Marina’s transformation to Kosmonaut Zero was not easy physically, but unforeseen symptoms come up with psychological alteration too. Spassky’s initial reaction is that the earlier tetrahydralics are acting up and suggests Reiko does her magic with neuroreceiver and sedative substances. While Reiko takes care of Marina, the two form a friendship that will eventually lead into Reiko’s discovery of the bigger picture - with grave consequences. Before that, she does ensure Marina benefits as much as possible from the neuroreceiver apparatus – endorfin, serotonin, melatonin, adrenaline, noradrenaline, orexin, enkephalin… Whatever neurotransmitters and hormones one would produce normally, if you were not in Marina’s/Zero’s state.

Again, another interesting aspect and theme of the novel is the age-old mind and body- relation. Does our life consists of simple impulses travelling through our synapses in our neurosystem? Can it really be that simple? If that is the case, then why the bloody hell life can be so difficult sometimes? And now, back from the sidetrack….

Aelita – the spaceship – is as ready as can be, but there are doubts about Marina/Zero’s amygdala and hippocampus. Amyglada are a group of nuclei in human brain that process memory and emotional reactions. Hippocampus on the other hand is a part of the brain that amalgates long- and short term memories. Hence the concern – Marina/Zero can’t control the ship without these nuclei, but they might include parts of her original personality. Not to worry – more drugs and off Aelita goes.

All is well and dandy for the Soviets until Aelita hits the British territory. Simultaneously, a sudden impulse arises from one of the scientists at the Star City control centre – Marina/Zero is set free. This is when Robin McCall enters a conversation with Marina, who no longer has any idea what or who Zero is. The dialogue between Robin and Marina is what you’d expect two people saying to each other when they first meet at a cocktail party – except Robin promises to tell the world what happened here. For real. Not what government official press releases would say. The exchange doesn’t last long, but this human contact also plays a major part for the rest of the narrative.

Giving away the rest of the plot would be tempting, particularly with my gossiping mania. But it’s best we remain here. Let us say that twists and turns take place. Good novels often have them, so take that as a good sign. Aelita does land safely somewhere, rest assured. So does Marina. Find out for yourself, for God’s sake.

Available from Amazon

About the author:

Richard Evans’s biography from his website

Born in Manchester in 1964, Richard was a songwriter during the 1980s and early 1990s – writing and performing on guitar and keyboards with bands including St Vitus Dancers (Crass Records, 1982), Playing At Trains (Idea Records, 1987) and James (Sire, 1988).

He moved into writing in the late 1990s, beginning with an experimental short story Between A Man And A Machine. This later became the first Sorber & Fox novel, Machine Nation, followed by two more works in the same series – Robophobia and Exilium.

Richard has received Writer’s Bursary and three Individual Artist Awards from Arts Council England. He has also contributed short stories to a number of collections.

He has been featured on radio, television and online, for the BBC and independent broadcasters, and has written factual articles for a number of popular science magazines, including T3 and The Sky At Night.