Souls in the Great Machine

Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy

I'm not sure quite why I was thinking about this book today, since it's more than a decade old.  Maybe because in my branch bookclub this morning we were talking about odd authorial choices, and in a completely different context I was talking to someone about a fencing demonstration.  (Coming soon at the Mariemont Branch!)  But the combination of those two thoughts brought to mind Australian writer Sean McMullen's 1999 science fiction novel, Souls in the Great Machine.

It's certainly odd!  It's a wonderful loopy, wildly inventive work of imagination.  And it features swashbuckling librarians.  (You knew we studied more than cataloging in library school, didn't you?)

Far in the future, after the devastation of the Greatwinter, new, low-tech civilizations have arisen in Australia.  The civilizations survive in spite of the Call, a mysterious compulsion that sweeps periodically over the land and draws humans and animals irresistibly toward the south. 

They've developed new technologies (wooden clockwork devices, sail-powered lightweight trains) that can function despite the disruptions of the Call.  And the Highliber (mayor and head librarian) of the town of Rochester is secretly developing something even more elaborate, a computer run by clacking abacuses and human operators rather than electronic circuits. 

Dissension among her own librarians, political rivalries among the mayorates, threats from desert nomads, and the merciless Call all work against her efforts.  But if she doesn't succeed in raising her society's technological level, no one may survive the return of Greatwinter.

Now, there isn't really great depth of character here, but McMullen has created a fresh and delightfully dazzling imagined world.  This is one of the reasons I enjoy science fiction among other genres.  The whole process of watching authors create things from scratch is so fascinating. 

And fencing librarians--how can you beat that?