Gene Wolfe's "Memorare" (novella, science fiction): Tales of tomb raiders & tomb protectors
If this were a Hindi movie rather than a written story, it would likely have got the label "masala": it has something for all tastes & will likely not completely disappoint anyone, though there is nothing particularly worth remembering. It even has romance, & a bit of erotic flirtation!
And it's not one story, but many - strung together in the big main story that also serves as frame. Stories are primarily about human graves in space. Some of those who dug them into asteroids did not want any grave diggers - so they built elaborate traps. Thesis of the story is that these traps are evil; nosy grave diggers have a right to safely get into the graves!
Title is a name for these graves - probably from the perspective of those dear to the departed.
There are occasional astronomical references, but they sounded more fluffy than factual.
Full text of the story is available for download.
Story summary.
March Wildspring is a journalist shooting a documentary on human graves in space that are death traps for invaders. He is doing it with his own private money, & is operating alone in his "hopper". Hoppers are small private space ships about as common in this future world as cars are today. They can transport you from earth to Jupiter in a couple of days.We see him raiding, I think, 5 different graves - 3 dangerous, one of them evil too. Over the story, he will by joined by his girlfriend Kit Carleson, his ex-wife & Kit's friend Robin Redd aka Sue, & Sue's current husband James Frankie Redd aka Jim. By the end of the story, Jim & Kit will be dead, & March will be very successful & rich.
All the graves are either in asteroid belt, or in orbit around Jupiter.
In the two benign graves, they will encounter holographic simulations of the dead entombed there, powered by AI - so you can converse with the dead normally. At least in one of these cases, the simulation could physically open the grave door - I don't recall if author explained how.
One of traps will simply attempt to kill the invader with some kind of knife; March's expert raid will end up mutilate one of the buried bodies.
Second trap has evil androids as lure & killers, & pressurized interior containing poisonous gas.
Last of the traps - the really evil one - is the most elaborate. It operates in a manner similar to Comarre in Arthur Clarke's "Lion of Comarre": you are in permanent hallucinations once you enter it. These hallucinations are so enticing - those who enter never want to leave. Our brave hero retains his sanity, & tries leaving with his 3 comrades. Two die, one is left behind, & only March is successful in leaving. He will come back again to rescue Sue.
A note for Indian readers.
Story makes two very brief references to India: possible Sanskrit inscriptions on one of the graves, & a short introduction to the tribes of Thugs that operated along highways in parts of Rajasthan some centuries ago. In one case, the author is completely off the mark; in other, partly.These references made me skeptical about some of the other seemingly factual statements, & somewhat reduced the credibility of the author.
Incidentally, there was a very well made Hindi movie about these Thug tribes may be a decade ago. I cannot recollect the name though, & IMDB throws up too many matches to be of much use. Ending had Thug parents killing their own child - returning unannounced from boarding school to surprise them; anyone recollect the name of movie?
Collected in.
Fact sheet.
"Memorare", short story, reviewFirst published: F&SF, April 2007.
Rating: B
Passed first round of nominations for Nebula Awards 2007 in novella category.
Nominated for Hugo Awards 2008 in novella category.
All stories of Gene Wolfe.
5 comments:
May I just say that you should assume that the character is the one who is mistaken, rather than the author? If you're not that familiar with Wolfe, I can forgive that mistake, but many of his works are heavily allusive and I doubt he wrote his story without knowing what he intended.
Thanks syrion. This is only my second Wolfe story; I cannot really claim familiarity with author's style.
I assume your comment is w.r.t. "A note for Indian readers". It has been a while since I read this story, but if I recall correctly, it's not a character that is mistaken; mistake was in statements describing the background. At least that is how it appeared to my naive in Wolfe's style eyes.
I see. :) Well, one of Wolfe's favorite tricks is the unreliable narrator, and "Memorare" is in first person. All of the description is therefore subject to the narrator's flaws.
Not saying that Wolfe couldn't be wrong, of course, it's just that after reading The Book of the New Sun and its antecedents, along with a pile of his short fiction, it seems unlikely Wolfe just made an ignorant mistake.
He's one of my favorite authors, obviously. :P
Actually, mistakes like this aren't uncommon even among well known authors - there were parts in Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light" based on Indian mythology that were completely contrary to common lore & custom. Whether they are genuine mistakes or conscious can be hard to tell - but I've seen them so often in cross-cultural writing that I'm not surprised by actual mistakes. Understanding nuances of a completely different culture can be very hard - not to be gained by reading or even living there for a short while.
Anyway, thanks for enlightening on Wolfe's style. I have one of his short story collections - "Endangered Species" - lying around somewhere. May be I'll have a different opinion of him after I'm through with that.
The Sanskrit reference is a brief reference to the protagonist, March, being unable to differentiate between Sanskrit and Arabic.
The Thug reference is spoken by the character March, and any mistakes are within quotations of statements by the character.
I wouldn't normally bother to make the correction, but your blog is the second Google return on a search for "memorare gene wolfe".
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