Seeker. By Arwen Elys Dayton.
Delacorte Press. $18.99.
I Remember You. By Cathleen
Davitt Bell. Knopf. $17.99.
Arwen Elys Dayton’s Seeker, the start of a trilogy, is an
unusual book cast in a very usual form. On the surface it is yet another
coming-of-age fantasy with dystopian overtones (and an occasional, rather
pointless reference to science, as if that turns it into science fiction). Also
on the surface, it is a story of friends and friendship, of family squabbles
and outright war (both between families and within them), and of the usual
dread discoveries that people, things and life itself are not what the
protagonists were led to believe before they all went through life-changing
circumstances. What is different here is not so much the framework, not so much
the story arc, as the characters. Dayton actually does manage to humanize the
protagonists and keep readers interested as the tale veers from the perspective
of one to that of the next and the one after that. It is certainly true that
the episodes told from various characters’ viewpoints do not have particularly
distinctive styles – in that sense, the characters are types and their language
is always the same, rather than suited to each one’s individual personality.
However, in an adventure novel for ages 14 and up, this is actually something
of a strength, allowing focus on the action and the characters’ interactions
rather than requiring readers to delve too deeply into motivations and
personalities. The basic notion here is the typical one of a coming-of-age
trial that turns out not to be what everyone expects: Quin Kincaid, nominal
central character but more like the first among equals, is expected at age 15
to become a Seeker, a role she has been told is an honorable one that involves
protecting people through special training and the use of a weapon called an
“athame” (three syllables: ATH-uh-may). Quin has been training for her Seeker
life with close friends Shinobu, who is also 15, and John, who at 16 should be
too old to become a Seeker but who came to the training late, through
mysterious circumstances that have allowed him to complete it. Or almost complete it: Quin’s father, who
is in charge and is an especially unpleasant character even when compared with
typical authority figures in genre books like this one, deliberately dangles
the Seeker possibility before John so he can snatch it away at the last minute.
This leads to a cascading confusion of events that soon reveals deep-seated,
multigenerational animosity and what is essentially war among various powerful
families, with John’s – which, interestingly, has its stronghold in an airship,
a rarity in fantasies of this type – having suffered severe victimization that
John may, just may, be able to do something to reverse.
A typical sort of love story
also burbles along here, with Quin and John the usual star-crossed lovers from
opposing families whose animosity is right in line with that of the Montagues
and Capulets. But Dayton makes the Romeo-and-Juliet theme, along with several
others, less conventional than usual in books of this sort, setting the
characters themselves – not just their parents – against each other, and
introducing complicating factors of all kinds and in all places (different
parts of the book take place in different locales, although as with the
characters themselves, the geographical places are not described in any
particularly differentiating detail). At the foundation of the book is a set of
three laws, whose resemblance to Isaac Asimov’s justly famed Three Laws of
Robotics is likely deliberate: “First law: a Seeker is forbidden to take
another family’s athame. Second law: a Seeker is forbidden to kill another
Seeker save in self-defense. Third law: a Seeker is forbidden to harm
humankind.” Indeed, the third of these is almost identical to Asimov’s “zeroth”
law, introduced long after the first three; and this third law in Seeker lies at the heart of everything
that occurs. Seeker lurches a bit in
its narrative, and Dayton seems aware that her broad-brush opening section,
while certainly exciting, leaves a few too many questions unanswered, because
she next offers a section of background that explains the history of some of
the characters more clearly. One such character, whose 15-year-old body belies
her extension through time, is not a Seeker but something called a Dread, and
as this character, Maud, becomes increasingly intertwined with others, Seeker takes on greater depth and
strangeness. Because this is the
first book of a trilogy, one of its primary requirements is to start the story
with a tight focus and eventually widen the canvas so that there is much more
to be revealed in succeeding books. Dayton handles this aspect of the novel
quite well indeed, creating a satisfying teen-adventure fantasy here while also
raising enough questions of the “what does it all mean?” variety so that
readers will look forward to the second book, Traveler, due out next year. Ultimately, what sets Seeker above many other books in its
genre is the skill with which Dayton keeps the narrative moving, refocuses its
perspective, widens and broadens the story, and implies that, however serious
and mysterious things may be, there are matters of even greater consequence
still to be revealed. The story arc and actual writing style are not
particularly distinguished, but the book’s pacing, skillful use of multiple
viewpoints, and ability to interweave unexpected implications with what seem at
first to be straightforward action scenes, are elements that set it apart.
Much more conventional and
heart-on-its-sleeve romantic, Cathleen Davitt Bell’s I Remember You targets the same age group with a story that also
includes fantasy elements masquerading as science fiction (here, a sort of
time-travel-cum-telepathy) but that sticks in all its essentials to the
longstanding trope of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy regains girl (or the
other way around). There is nothing profound here at all, but there are many
attempts, some of them successful, to tug readers’ heartstrings. It is tempting
to call this too a Romeo-and-Juliet story, especially since the female
protagonist is actually named Juliet, but in fact her romance with Lucas is
approached from a somewhat different angle. True, the two of them come from
different worlds – he is a star athlete, she a straight-A student; he plans to
enlist in the Marines after high school, while she is certainly going to
college. But the drama here comes not from these differences but from the fact
that Lucas seems to remember things that have not happened yet – including
falling in love with Juliet and eventually dying in war. This whole setup is
pretty silly, and has been done many times before: future self may have
returned in some way to relive the past, and can the future be changed with
foreknowledge? However, Bell plays the whole scenario straight and as if it is
new. Lucas and Juliet interact, express uncertainty, struggle to understand
what is going on and if anything is
going on, and so forth. Lucas’ flash-forwards – or memories, if that is what
they are – come more often and grow increasingly ominous, and eventually Juliet
decides that the memories are real, that Lucas will indeed die after joining
the Marines and being sent to war, and that there must be some way to use the
advance knowledge to prevent his death from happening. In real science fiction,
paradoxes of this sort have long been explored from many angles, often with
considerable thoughtfulness, but in I
Remember You the whole “future memory” notion is simply a plot device
within a teen-romance book. Eventually the young lovers break up, Lucas
does join the Marines despite his apparent memories and Juliet’s deep-seated
misgivings, he does get sent to war, and certain other “remembered” events
begin to happen just as anticipated. By this time, teenage romance readers will
be rooting desperately for there to be some
way, somehow, for everything to work out – and it does not spoil anything to
say that Bell, bending over backwards to deliver a happy ending, finds one. It
may not be believable, but little in this (+++) book is – and believability is
not the novel’s reason for being. This is a tissue-and-handkerchief book, one
intended to mirror the deep yearnings teenagers so often feel during first love
while providing a setting just sufficiently outlandish to yank those feelings
here and there before offering a last-minute sigh of relief. Thoroughly
predictable, efficient in its delivery of the chills and romance that its
readers will seek, I Remember You is
really not memorable at all, nor is it really meant to be: it is romance, with
a fillip of time-travel fantasy, offered purely as entertainment.
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