Dystopian future puts son's life in jeopardy

Winnipeg Free Press

4 days ago

In The Quiet, London composer and author Barnaby Martin crafts a gripping tale of a near-future dystopia in which the sky is deadly and British citizens worry the government will abduct their children.
Those threats are top of mind for Dr. Hannah Newnham, an anthropology professor who teaches nights while minding six-year-old Isaac, a mute musical savant who's shown in the prologue to be a prime target for kidnapping. Children with his abilities are who the British government wants.
In the late 21st century, the atmospheric Soundfield appeared without warning, creating a barrier around the world that destroys anything that touches it. It also drastically increased the UV and heat effects of sunlight, causing an epidemic of cancer, droughts and a global migration crisis.
The Quiet
In the U.K., this led to a totalitarian regime where the army slaughters refugees arriving on its shores who are already half-dead from exposure. Rationing and scarcity are commonplace. All societal activity is reversed; only at night is it safe to go outside.
Its psychological effect wears on Hannah: 'Now I can't tell what time it is. It all seems dark to me.'
Her love for Isaac makes his safety more important to her than national security, which drives the story. She feels a bitter responsibility for the government's rationale, if not its policies: her research on human evolution unearthed shocking insights into the Soundfield.
Its ever-present Hum and its musical Calls are indecipherable. Despite Hannah's insight into its patterns, which stumped her colleague and lover Elias Larsson, a physicist, not even she knows where it came from or why.
While trying to eke out a living, Hannah defends Isaac against threats both bureaucratic, such as the university security guard who won't let her six-year-old in without a pass, and tyrannical, when a government agent breaks into her flat to get him.
She also struggles to care for her mother, dying of skin cancer and increasingly alone after Hannah's brother joins the army. 'I tried to come up with ways to help her — walks by the lake, board games, listening to her favourite music together — but nothing really worked. She was in a room that was locked from the inside.'
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Martin's deft weaving of ideas from genetics, music and history strengthen the story, even as they raise questions. What is the Soundfield? Why is Hannah forbidden from teaching about her groundbreaking paper on it? What's the connection between children like Isaac and what the regime wants?
As Hannah observes, science itself isn't as black-and-white as we'd like. 'When you think of people making discoveries, you imagine the point of inspiration, the moment when every idea comes together in a single thought, but in reality, science is just work. It's weeks and months of reading, writing, and checking and double checking. But it's also a process of finding questions that you can't answer, or not even finding the questions at all.'
That, unfortunately, is the only problem in an otherwise excellent novel. Martin's evocatively written, tense story is driven by mysteries about the characters, their world, and how those unfold. But despite satisfying twists and shattering revelations, there is at least one left unsolved, which makes for an unsatisfying ending.
Still, The Quiet remains a fascinating sci-fi novel, one that rings all too true in our climate-changing world with the threat of fascism at multiple doors.
David Jón Fuller is a Winnipeg writer and editor.