By Kendra Hibbert
November 14, 2003
When I was a kid, there was a book in the school library called SPACEDCRAFT 2000-2100, A.D. by Stewart Cowley that was so exceptionally popular with everyone that the only way you could ever get your hands on the copy was to know the kid who currently had it checked out and be there to snap it up when he/she handed it back in. The book was about the fictional vehicles built for space travel and eventually to serve in an intergalactic war that started in 2048 (the book was written in 1978 when the year 2000 seemed a feasible time to start commercial spacecraft production). There was incredible detail put into the specs of each ship and an amazing ‘history’ laid out to read in between full page drawings of spaceships that just looked really amazing. Cowley later went on to write another book called GREAT SPACE BATTLES that our school didn’t have in its library but became the stuff of legend in the playground. But this is not a column about Stewart Cowley and his amazing spaceship books. It’s a column about a book that just came out that’s equally as cool – ROBOTA, by Doug Chiang and Orson Scott Card.
ROBOTA first came to my attention while I was going through the new trailers at apple.com and I saw the one Chiang had made up to promote this book (you can see it here). At first I thought it was a film (I mean, who wouldn’t, it was on the trailers section) and I was curious as to why no one else was talking about it. Then I realized the trailer was for the all-too-often neglected book medium and it all made sense. Actually, Chiang prefers to call it a “film book” which, as he explains on his Web site,
 |
is “an art book story told in a film-like manner.” Doug Chiang is ROBOTA’s creator and illustrator. He’s also the design director for the STAR WARS prequels, and was for years a creative director at Industrial Light and Magic. Chiang explains in the Foreword that the idea for this book had its genesis when he was a kid growing up in Michigan and he made a sketch of flying saucers floating over a fleet of tall ships. The image stuck in his head (there’s actually a painted version of the picture in the book) until decades later, right in the middle of Star Wars production he became obsessed with the concept and decided to add to it, coming up with the story and the characters and fleshing them out in various paintings.
One of the truly inspired decisions of this project was the choice to get award-winning Science Fiction writer Orson Scott Card to come in and write the novel. Card became a Sci-Fi writing legend with his immensely popular ENDER’S SERIES which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in various years. Though his contribution to this book seems to be minimal, (make no mistake this is Chiang’s baby) his writing helps to ease through the sometimes cliched storyline. It’s written in a stripped-down style like some kind of Greek mythology or Aboriginal legend. Essentially that’s what this story is – a modern mythology that plays with all the archetypes of folklore around the world – exactly what Lucas was trying to do with his Star Wars series.
The story of ROBOTA is a history. The book begins with a human character, Caps, waking up in a strange craft with amnesia. Caps meets Rend, a monkey who can think and talk with as much brainpower as a human and who seems to know more about Caps than he’s letting on. The pair venture out into the world only to come up against soldiers of the Robot army who want to kill them. They’re saved by Juomes, an intelligent gorilla, and later Beryl, the female warrior, who explain a little of the history of Robota to Caps. Through them we learn about the jewels that the animals wear which allow them to gain intelligence. Joemes’ jewel, however, has been taken by the robot army and the team must travel to the Robot base camp. With the help of Elsyeo. a rogue robot they meet along the way, they sneak into the city and try to get it back before Juomes reverts to animal form again. But before they can save Joemes they are caught and taken before the robot general Kaantur-Set who is after Caps because he believes him to be the latest incarnation of a legendary figure called Font Prime.
Honestly, the story really isn’t the strongest aspect of this book. It’s all right, but nothing spectacular. All of the really interesting concepts are glanced over to favor the typical “savior” tale which everyone has heard a million times before and will probably hear a million times more in sci-fi action movies in years to come. But really, this book is all about the pictures. The depth and imagination of the world comes through way better in Chiang’s illustrations so, if you have a particular hatred for these things called words, you could feasibly just look through the book and make up your own story and still get your money’s worth.
Incidentally, if you do happen to be a school librarian, I strongly recommend getting this book instead of pouring your meager annual book budget into the works of Dickens or that crazy cat Shakespeare. While those guys are destined to fade into the woodwork of literary history, ROBOTA will be remembered by school children everywhere as the coolest book they’ve ever read.
Next Column: THE TIME TRAVELLER’S WIFE - a book caught in a deadly struggle between entertaining science fiction time travel book and mind-numbing dramatic love story. Come back in two weeks to see which side wins out.
E-MAIL THE AUTHOR |
ARCHIVES
