Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.
But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.
Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.
***
Is seeing the same as believing?
It used to be, for me. I can't tell you how many nights I spent lying in the long grass of the family garden, staring at stars as they twinked like fairylights hung from the heavens, wondering what in the world was out there. And wonder was the word, because whatever was out there—and I was sure there was something—it was awesome, obviously.
I absolutely believed that, then. These days, damn it all, I don't know that I do. My fantasies are much more mundane in nature now. I get a nasty neck when I look up for too long; lying in long grass leads, as like as not, to another load of washing to manhandle in the morning; and on those increasingly rare occasions when I am given to ask what more there might be, I think: maybe this is it.
But readers? Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente—"a decopunk alt-history Hollywood space opera mystery thriller [...] with space whales," according to the author—had me stargazing again.
The events Radiance revolves around take place in 1944, but not the 1944 we know, folks. This world is not at war—in part, perhaps, because its people have been exploring space for almost a century already, and colonising every scrap of land they can. "You weren't anybody at the imperial picnic if you didn't have a planet," (p.118) one of the many and various mums of our missing main character has it:
"Because that's where the Callowhales are at!" she, whoever she may be, would answer.
"And Callowhales—what are they?"
"Well, they're these great big sleeping beasts whose milk we drink to stay strong in space!"
"But why do they make milk, mummy? And do you think they mind us drinking it?" Severin, even then, would need to know.
"Oh, my lovely little Rinny, you ask so many questions!" mummy number seven or eight would say. That, and only that, because even after using these creatures for so many years, nobody knows exactly what the Callowhales are, or why they produce the nutrient-rich fluid that's been a key part of humanity's expansion into the stars. Nobody's asked the questions because, at bottom, they're afraid of what the answers might mean for the species. Severin has no such vested interests. She's only interested in the truth, however embarrassing or hard-to-believe or indeed dangerous it may be.
It used to be, for me. I can't tell you how many nights I spent lying in the long grass of the family garden, staring at stars as they twinked like fairylights hung from the heavens, wondering what in the world was out there. And wonder was the word, because whatever was out there—and I was sure there was something—it was awesome, obviously.
I absolutely believed that, then. These days, damn it all, I don't know that I do. My fantasies are much more mundane in nature now. I get a nasty neck when I look up for too long; lying in long grass leads, as like as not, to another load of washing to manhandle in the morning; and on those increasingly rare occasions when I am given to ask what more there might be, I think: maybe this is it.
But readers? Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente—"a decopunk alt-history Hollywood space opera mystery thriller [...] with space whales," according to the author—had me stargazing again.
The events Radiance revolves around take place in 1944, but not the 1944 we know, folks. This world is not at war—in part, perhaps, because its people have been exploring space for almost a century already, and colonising every scrap of land they can. "You weren't anybody at the imperial picnic if you didn't have a planet," (p.118) one of the many and various mums of our missing main character has it:
By the time I made my entrance, all the planets had their bustling baby shantytowns, each and every one with a flag slapped on it. [...] Moons, though lovely, just lovely, are consolation prizes. Sino-Russian Mars. Saturn split between Germany and Austria-Hungary. French Neptune. American Pluto. Spanish Mercury. Ottoman Jupiter. All present and accounted for—except Venus. Nobody owns that Bessie because everyone needs her. (p.118)"Why, mummy? Why does everyone need Venus?" I imagine a young Severin Unck asking the latest lady on the arm of her famous filmmaker father.
"Because that's where the Callowhales are at!" she, whoever she may be, would answer.
"And Callowhales—what are they?"
"Well, they're these great big sleeping beasts whose milk we drink to stay strong in space!"
"But why do they make milk, mummy? And do you think they mind us drinking it?" Severin, even then, would need to know.
"Oh, my lovely little Rinny, you ask so many questions!" mummy number seven or eight would say. That, and only that, because even after using these creatures for so many years, nobody knows exactly what the Callowhales are, or why they produce the nutrient-rich fluid that's been a key part of humanity's expansion into the stars. Nobody's asked the questions because, at bottom, they're afraid of what the answers might mean for the species. Severin has no such vested interests. She's only interested in the truth, however embarrassing or hard-to-believe or indeed dangerous it may be.
