A terrible
novel by
Amy Thomson.
The novel is told from the point of view of a
human, Juna, marooned on an
alien world, and one of the aliens, Ani (aka Spiral, aka Anito, aka Anitonen) who helps her survive.
The aliens are not very alien - they're basically "
men in rubber suits." At one point, Thomson tries to shock the reader by revealing that the aliens
eat their own young. Big deal! I've read
The fucking Sparrow - you can't frighten me!
The aliens in The Color Of Distance were not believable. They talked by making
pictures - their skins were basically big
color monitors. Despite this purely visual language, they had
sounds associated with words. How this works is never explained - at some point Juna's computer figures out that Ani's name is "Ani", rather than "
spiral shaped thingy".
The computer is one of many devices Thomson uses to avoid having to think of details like "plot." Another is "linking", which is basically a
Vulcan mind-meld, with
magical healing powers. Every problem in the book is solved within 20 pages - there are no failures.
And that's what
pissed me off most about this book - it was too
perfect. The only reason I read to the end is the hope that Thomson would throw one of the characters off a cliff to try to make the book more "
poignant" (a heart-attack wouldn't do, linking could fix that). But, alas, the book had a
happy ending. Every
issue that
could have caused interesting conflict was avoided. Can Bruce love Juno's
transformed alien body? Who knows - we'll just change her back.
In the end, this book left me with a deep feeling of
emptiness, as though I had just watched 8 hours of
TV.