Different Senses by Ann Somerville

Title: Different Senses
Author: Ann Somerville
Publisher: Smashwords
Buy the book: Smashwords

Blurb:

Being shot triggered Javen’s genetic empathy. As a result, he lost his career and his lover. Now he has to adjust to losing the job and the man he loved, as well as a unsuspected racial heritage. Born to privilege, his search for a new career brings him in repeated contact with the despised banis race, and he finds himself drawn towards the people and their concerns.

Review:

“Oh, you probably believe you’ve suddenly become this enlightened pro-indigenous chuma, but I know your kind. I’ll be waiting for you to trip up and show your true colours. Your type always do. Hear this, Ythen. There is more to udawa than symbols and rituals and teachings. There is more to the people of the Spirit than the belief, and the history. You’ll never understand us, unless you live with us, work with us, suffer with us, and you can’t suffer with us because you are Kelon and you look Kelon. This is an amusing pastime for you. My aunt has given her whole life to the service of our people and the Spirit, as have I. There is no point of commonality between us, no comparison.”

I sucked in my teeth. “So, no chance of a shag, then?”

As a general rule, I’m not a fan of politically motivated space operas. I like my space operas to be light as meringues and clothed in the type of silver lame’ jumpsuit that was popular back when Buck Rogers was all in vogue. I don’t consider this a failing as much as I do a personal preference. By all means, have all the heavy-handed intrigue in space you can shovel, and I’ll sit here quietly rereading Different Senses.

Ann Somerville’s anthology of cases featuring the once and future colonial policeman, Javen Ythen, has strong underpinnings of race and politics and is, it’s true, set in space. But it’s much more than that.

The planet of Medele is described as being much like a near-future India, with a caste system consisting of two separate races: the indigenous Nihani (pale skin, blue eyes, red hair) and the colonizing Kelons (dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair). The prologue opens with Ythen, lucky enough to be born Kelon, on patrol in the city of Hegal, casually harassing a Nihani youth in response to a Kelon shopkeeper calling in an “ILT” (Indigenous Loitering Threat) before becoming embroiled in a high-speed chase and winding up shot in the line of duty. When he comes to, in his governor father’s private hospital suite, an ugly truth surfaces: Ythen’s suddenly become empathic. And as empathy is a Nihani-only trait, Ythen’s newfound ability is seen as an embarrassment by his family, indicating as it does, a Nihan in the formerly spotless family tree.

But more than an embarrassment, Ythen’s empathy costs him his job, forcing him to become a PI; the law explains that if empaths were cops, they might have an advantage over knowing when criminals are lying. Much later in the book, a Nihani client breaks to Ythen the harsh truth: the anti-empathy laws are racially motivated, designed to keep Nihanis out of key political positions.

This book is easily the best treatment of race I’ve seen in scifi in a long, long time, possibly ever. Not only are the two warring cultures incredibly well thought-out, but no detail is left unattended to, and Ythen and the reader are both regularly blind-sided by prejudice, most of it his own. The most affecting story in the collection, “Javen and the Seeker’s Gift”, is in fact the story that tackles this problem head-on. When Javen is retained by representatives of a high-ranking Nihani priestess to recover a sacred stolen artifact, he starts off by unintentionally insulting her and displaying an astonishing naivete about the Nihani people. While Ythen does wind up solving the case, his focus is much more on trying to unlearn the prejudice that’s been drilled into him by a Kelon lifetime. He also falls deeply and tragically in love.

As a protagonist, Javen Ythen is arrogant and impatient, and nearly pathologically unlikeable. But he’s also interesting, and I’ll take interesting over likeable any day of the week.

The first case Ythen takes, for instance, involves a theft at the forensics lab directed by his ex-lover, Kirin (“Javen and the Ex”), and Ythen’s determination to solve the mystery is motivated solely by revenge; he’s frank about wanting revenge on Kirin and the wee toy-boy lover who’s replaced him in Kirin’s affections. And that’s it.

But he pulls it off. He’s right about both Kirin and the toy-boy, and it’s only as a side effect that he realizes he might be good at being a PI. Over the proression of the anthology, Ythen becomes no more likeable, but he does grow and he does learn, and that process is powerfully interesting. Somerville’s assembled a cast of well-defined and multi-dimensional supporting characters to help him through, and the tension between Ythen and his Nihani love interest, Shardul, is scorching.

The fact of Ythen’s homosexuality, along with that of many other characters in the book is dealt with masterfully. It’s woven skillfully into the background, just another detail of life on Medele. Many of the characters are in non-heterosexual relationships, and the clever trick Somerville pulls off is that you really can’t have a discussion or focus on that aspect of life on the planet when the reality of the ingrained caste system is so cruel and crushing that it dominates all other aspects of these characters’ lives, leaving cuts and bruises on everyone it touches, Kelon and Nihani alike.

Now for the bad news.

The cases themselves are terribly plotted. They have gaping logical holes and in places founder under Ythen’s spiritual quest to “Be a Better Person.” The last case in particular, “Javen and the Night of Fire”, where race relations on Medele deteriorate to the point of violence, is borderline incomprehensible. But there’s so much interesting drama going on that doesn’t involve the plots–Ythen’s deteriorating relationship with his Kelon parents, his acceptance of Kirin as a friend, his tragically thwarted romance with Shardul–that it’s possible to let a lot of the poor plotting slide.

For example, the story “Javen and the Lost Girl” ostensibly tells of how Ythen investigates the suicide of a Nihani woman whose family refuses to believe that she killed herself. He does bring them closure, it’s true, by uncovering more details about her life, but I found the ending very lacking. It was like the story had been building to a point it never reached, and instead of summiting, skirted round the side and back down, eager, almost, to get on with the luscious backstory.

The true thrust of the collection is Ythen’s journey from privileged, prejudiced Kelon oppressor to Nihani civil rights activist. It’s a collection that’s deeply character-driven and could nearly dispense with the private detective framework and just attend to the actual business of the story.

None of which makes this a bad book. On the contrary, the nuanced thoroughness with which Somerville has designed Medele, combined with the soulfulness of the relationship between Ythen and Shardul, makes for compelling reading.