Power, punishment parsed in surreal, challenging sci-fi

Winnipeg Free Press

10 hours ago

Three giants find themselves jammed into a spacecraft, hurtling through outer space. Just why or how they got there is not immediately apparent, to themselves or the reader. But one thing is clear: things are not right.
So begins Pip Adam's Audition, a novel that blends science-fiction and social commentary in a surreal text which challenges readers to question both the penal system and how people can live with each other, despite cruelty, violence and past mistakes. First published internationally in 2023, the latest from the New Zealand-based Adam is now available in Canada.
The first section of Audition unfolds entirely in conversation between the novel's three protagonists, as they try to piece together not only what is happening to them, but how they got there to begin with.
Rebecca McMillan Photography
Pip Adam
Alba, Drew and Stanley weren't always giants. They're pretty sure of that, anyway. But then, they aren't sure of much at first. Had they volunteered for this mission, or had they been forced or coerced onto the ships? When had they started growing larger than their neighbours, and how did that become a problem?
'No one really understood how tall they were and whether they'd stopped growing,' Adam explains in a section titled Leaving. 'Three to one was what everyone agreed — because it made everyone feel more comfortable.'
Without spoiling anything, the answers are not made clear until the ship passes an apparent event horizon, whereby there is no going back to the way, or the where, things were before. Their memories become clearer, though that in itself is problematic, as are the interconnected relationships between the three of them, which are based, in part or whole, on violence and betrayal. However, their othering from society brings them together, both literally and figuratively, as all three begin to grow and become giant.
''It started slowly,' Alba says. 'Like these things always do — aided by a healthy hope that it isn't happening at all, a hope that kept everything at bay, made orderly decisions possible and then — it happened very quickly.''
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There are certainly some leaps to be made by the reader throughout, and even then not everything is apparent. Apart from Alba's memories of prison, reawakened following the event horizon, little in Audition is straightforward. Indeed, a rejection of the binary is implicit to the narrative itself. Instead, Audition is frequently surreal, at times fantastic, and plays with structure, iteration and repetition.
What is clear is Adam's use of metaphor to make the argument that the prison industrial complex is both inhumane and dehumanizing. Hierarchical systems of power and punishment are rejected, in the end, while fluidity, both figurative and literal, are embraced.
Audition
'What is very important to the place Alba came from is who is above and who is below and because this ordering and valuing is everywhere and done by everyone, it seems inevitable that, when they were left on their own in their cells at night, it would follow them all there too. The idea of below and above seems pointless here. It's like the fall had stripped it out of them,' Adam writes.
While Audition may be a challenging read, these are challenging times. The book isn't without humour or whimsy, although it deals with a heavy subject and themes. Readers who brave the journey may well find themselves the better for it.
Sheldon Birnie is a Winnipeg writer and author of Where the Pavement Turns to Sand, a collection of strange stories.