The Real Story: Book Review

I just finished reading The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is the first entry in The Gap Cycle, which is a five book science fiction series that apparently expands massively in the next volume.

As I implied, this story is smaller and rather simple. It involves three main characters: Angus Thermopyle, Morn Hyland, and Nick Succorso. Most of the focus is on Angus, however, as this nasty and even monstrous man shows up at a bar with Morn at his side. This draws attention from almost everyone, but especially Nick Succorso. And theories naturally come along, with events seeming to unfold in a particular way. But that is apparently not the real story.

What follows is quite literally the real story, outlining the events as they actually occurred.

No Spoilers

The Prose

The first thing that stood out to me in this story was the prose. In particular, the perspective that Donaldson used was fascinating and worth mentioning. The beginning of the book opens with what I ended up calling "third-person plural." Instead of inhabiting the head of a particular person, or describing things from over and above, he describes the thoughts of many people in the bar. He communicates the character of this bar by breaking it up into groups: people who are passively observant, and people who are more attuned to the particulars of the situation. And he uses this to communicate the superficial details of Angus and Morn's situation, the one that leads to the fiction that was not the real story.

The rest of the story settles mostly in the perspective of Angus, as he deals with the two other characters. There are some deviations, as Donaldson relates the past experiences of both Morn and Nick when they become prominent in the story. In totality, the way Donaldson writes this story is in the third person omniscient. But there are caveats. This perspective is typically frustrating, as the author haphazardly lurches from one mind to the next and overwhelms the reader with a swarm of information from every head with no real structure. Much of the Stephen King novels I have read suffer from this problem. I don't read him as religiously as others, so his newer stuff might be better. I'm not sure. Either way, the writing I have experienced contrasts with Donaldson. While Donaldson does technically jump to different heads, he does this in a very controlled manner that keeps the reader grounded.

The prose is also a lot of telling, rather than showing. The author repeatedly relates certain ideas like Angus being a coward, and he does it not just by showing it through Angus' behavior, but by explicitly telling the reader. It's certainly not third person limited. I'm not sure if this is specific to this story, or if the rest of Donaldson's work reflects this. Either way, I think that Donaldson gets away with it. The story is allowed to be as slim as it is, in part, because of this. And Donaldson's themes come through more strongly. There is not much left for interpretation for the themes, certainly.

At the very least, I think the scope of my own understanding of writing as a craft has expanded. Once you get deep enough into the craft, the more you understand just how contingent much writing advice is. Showing over telling as advice is contingent on a newer audience that does not know how to balance the two and ends up falling far to one side. Later, you realize that both are important and that balance is key, depending on how you want your story to feel.

Part of the reason Donaldson gets away with the telling is that he doesn't fall into the exposition trap. In fact, there is barely any exposition at all. Donaldson regularly refers to things like "sniffers" and the like without explaining much, but the reader can grasp the general idea, especially from the repetition and the confidence in which the information is relayed. The exception is the zone implant, but the reasons for that are pretty obvious, given the plot relevance.

The Theme of Control

At the beginning of the book the reader is introduced to the zone implant. This is a device that can be put in the head of a person to induce compliance. The original idea was to treat epilepsy, preventing the seizures from taking over and knocking out the person in question. But as with most things, other usages started to crop up that were far from the original intent. Some involve more noble causes, like treating gap sickness, which is the insanity associated with being out in space under high stress. Others are less noble, including slavery.

Naturally, this book is almost entirely built around this device and an associated theme of control. One character relationship is characterized by the abuse of this device, and Donaldson does not hold back. Even as he portrays this abuse, he also twists this theme of control in interesting ways that turn things on their head. People are often slaves to their own insecurities, which can make them slaves to others—and it makes the reader question the degree to which people even have control over themselves. They might be the one in control on its face, but they are still slaves in their own right.

It was precisely this relationship that I immediately saw a connection to, for a certain relationship in The Darkness That Comes Before. I will not spoil either book. What I can say is that there is a similar theme about the complexity of control, though Bakker's situation is much more complex in terms of the insecurities and the relationship portrayed. I actually preferred Bakker's account, but that does not say much, as this book does a great job covering the idea.

Overall

It is worth mentioning that the parts of The Gap that I have read so far are much better than The Expanse. I have only read the first Expanse novel, though I am finished with the tv series (or caught up). While the grounded approach to space travel was an interesting angle, as Star Trek and Star Wars have never been that appealing in my adult years, The Expanse did not adopt a brutal enough angle to really catch my attention. By the time that I hit the sixth season, I was kind of rolling my eyes in frustration. The Expanse simply dipped its toes in the possibilities.

The Gap is everything that The Expanse was not. It smothers you with the outright cruelty that can manifest in the void that is space. It explores themes that only unflinching brutality can truly capture. And the characters were also the perfect abrasive and macabre type that I love in grimdark fiction. This might be science fiction, but it can have its dark elements too, and in ways that perfectly fit the genre.

Reaction

Something that I have noticed is that people's mindsets suddenly change when they are confronted with subject matter that makes them uncomfortable. Everyone has the line drawn somewhere. For some people, the line is harm toward children. I still can't stop chuckling at one review of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane:

 

For other people, the line is at SV. For yet another crowd, it is the intersection of SV and children being the victim. True to the second group, here are a number of reviews that I managed to find on the page for The Real Story in particular:

    

    

    

I've don't really take these types of objections very seriously. I have some thoughts from a writer's perspective, on one hand. Ultimately, I just write what I want, and people can ignore my writing at their own discretion. While I have proximate reasons for why I write what I do, there are no ultimate reasons. We just have to admit that what we write is something we just do because we want to write it. Nothing profound there.

On another hand, there is an obvious shift in how some topics are talked about by readers. From what I can tell, a topic like murder can be touched upon by anyone without outrage. Presumably, I can be as insensitive as I please. I could have characters crack jokes about murder victims and insult them for whatever reason. There is even a whole sub-genre of romance that is essentially just love stories with a murder mystery thrown in to make the story more interesting. Imagine that kind of logic applied to SV.

But because SV crosses the line for some people, not only are there many people who think it should never be touched upon, but there is also a need to treat the issues with care even if it is allowed to be depicted. Not that this is a bad thing, of course. For some reason, the thinking changes. There must be special justification for why SV was included at all. The critics often can't give think of any justification. But it is worth asking, how do you justify murder in a fictional story? The death of a loved one, especially by murder, is a serious issue. And you could argue it is worse than SV, given that there is the possibility of life after the horror of SV. But no one ever demands justification or even sensitivity for murder depictions.

What's more, there are a host of people out there that have the sudden compulsion to plop their asses down in armchairs to speculate about fetishes and promote morally degrading just-so stories to explain why the story was written. I just ignore them, as the burden of proof is on them to justify their speculation. But it is still interesting to see how people react to the things that make them uncomfortable, and how irrational it all is.

Men Writing Women

Here is one line in the book that I know is probably being referenced in one of the above reviews:

 

Out of context, this looks rather bad, lol. And it sparked some discussion on one of the discord servers that I am on. But I am actually willing to defend it in the context in which it was written. In the story, this is meant to reflect the psychology of one of the characters, showing the insecurity and fear within. It is not so much a description of reality as it is a description of the observer's own distorted mind. The line certainly has the corn feel to it. But I think it works for its purpose.

Conclusion

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I think I will give it an 8/10.

Spoilers

The Ending

The book is very thematic, but it is also very heavily based on characters, from which the themes emerge. I already mentioned the main three characters: Angus Thermopyle, Morn Hyland, and Nick Succorso.

Angus is the one who suffers from the serious problems with control. And this is reflected in his backstory. While he was growing up in a facility, he was put under the protection of a man who was supposed to keep other abusers out of reach. But Angus was fixated on the control that his protector had over him, telling him what he could and could not do. So, he conspired to destroy his protector, as Angus considered him yet another abuser. And Angus succeeds, but only insofar as he manages to frame and remove his protector from the situation. Angus suffers even worse when he is repeatedly abused by the people his protector was keeping away.

Angus' end kind of reflects this in its own complicated way. In the aftermath of his backstory, he is pathologically fixated on this idea that he is a slave to other people. This is why he dominates and abuses Morn. He fears her. And his destruction ultimately comes because of this pathological desire to remain in control. He can't give up Morn. And then he is reduced to having to ask for mercy from Morn herself and is only alive at the end because of her choice to protect him.

Morn is another troubled character, though in her own way. She is a police officer, someone who was inspired to become a cop by her parents, though with some resentment for their absence early in her life. She is an idealist. But in this world, she comes to head with the brick wall of reality. She ends up going mad with gap sickness and kills her own family and crew. And then she is enslaved by Angus, who feels intimidated by her very existence. She is so broken that she sees Nick as a means for escape, and for no other reason. The book implies through Nick's backstory that she has not been saved at all, as Nick is another problem in his own right. Maybe the next story will touch upon that. The story ends with her ostensibly manifesting stockholm syndrome and deciding to save Angus from execution. Either that, or she decided to have mercy on him. Or both. Choose your interpretation.

Nick is the final character, a man who simply sees something that he wants, and he takes it. Donaldson straight up tells the reader that he hates women because of his past. He was taken advantage of, and now he likes women only insofar as they serve his interests. Donaldson wanted to undercut the notion that he was a hero, instead calling him a villain who simply victimized Angus. Which is true, even considering Angus' character.

Also, Nick Succorso took the name of another. This was off-handed, but I imagine it will become relevant later on.

Conclusion

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I think I will give it an 8/10.