Amazon's e-book samples are too short, only about 18 pages in length, good luck applying that ol’ “50 pages rule” here. Fortunately The Speed of Dark (2003 Nebula Award winner) is immediately intriguing and I was sold on it by the end of the short sample. I keep hearing good things about Elizabeth Moon and Elizabeth Bear in sci-fi websites and forums, I get them mixed up a lot as I have not read either one until now. Elizabeth Moon surpasses my expectations with this book, hopefully Elizabeth Bear can do likewise very soon.The title The Speed of Dark has a very sci-fi ring to it, it is actually a phrase to contrast the speed of light. The idea is that there is always darkness before light, therefore darkness must somehow travel faster than light because it is always ahead. This is a metaphor the author is employing to represent knowledge illuminating ignorance, so it not some kind of crazy bad science.The book is set in the near future, the protagonist Lou Arrendale is an autistic man working in a department of a company that exclusively employs autistic people for their superior concentration, greater pattern recognition or other cognitive abilities. Lou copes admirably with his autism and is generally happy – if not quite content – with his life, then one day he is informed that there is a cure for autism and his life immediately changes even without before the cure becomes available to him.The Speed of Dark is often compared to the classic Flowers for Algernon as both books deal with improvement of the brain through neuroscience. Both books are also poignant, brimming with compassion and tug at the heartstrings. Don’t worry about having your heart broken by the author though, Elizabeth Moon is not Thomas Hardy. Prior to reading this book I knew next to nothing about autism, not having met any autistic person. I can not claim to know a lot about it now as this is a work of fiction but Ms. Moon’s son is autistic so I believe her depiction of autism to be realistic. In any case her portrayal of autistic characters has the feel of verisimilitude. Most of the novel is told in the first person from Lou’s perspective (with the occasional switch to a few secondary characters where Lou is not privy to what is going on in his absence). This is the first book I have ever read that take me inside the head of an autistic person. The very clever first person narrative of Lou is fascinating in and of itself. Lou’s stilted use of language is very formal, polite and precise. Here is an example:“ "Don can be a real heel," she says.“Don is not a heel; he is a person. Normal people say things like this, changing the meaning of words without warning, and they understand it. I know, because someone told me years ago, that heel is a slang word for “bad person”. But he couldn’t tell me why, and I still wonder about it. If someone is a bad person and you want to say that he is a bad person, why not just say it? Why say “heel” or “jerk” or something? And adding “real” to it only makes it worse. If you say something is real, it should be real.”More importantly Lou’s narration enables me to feel the gulf between himself and “normal” people. Social nuances or cues are entirely beyond his ken, as are voice intonations and most facial expressions. He is also hopeless with colloquial terms, idioms and metaphors. All the characters in this book are very believable, the autistic characters are particularly vivid and sympathetic. They all seem to have a pure heart, I don’t know if this is true for all “autists” in the real world but the selfish and prejudiced “normals” they come across raises the question of whether normality may be overrated. After all, only a “normal” person would consider hurting someone who has never done them any harm.Most of the book reads more like contemporary mainstream fiction than science fiction, the sci-fi component of it only comes into play well into the second half of the book. This is not a sci-fi thriller, this is not a page turner, I did not want to turn the pages quickly to find out what happen next, I wanted absorb the story page by page and hope that Lou will be alright. From what I have heard Elizabeth Moon generally writes action packed military sci-fi or fantasy so I guess this book is atypical of her works. It appears to be a heartfelt story based on her own experiences with her son that she wants to share with us. I feel privileged to have read it, it is a beautiful book that I will never forget.
In the future, a cure for autism has been developed and is given to all babies (still in the womb or just born) that test positive for the disorder. Lou is born a few years to early for the treatment and is therefore in the last generation of autistics. After going to therapy for most of his childhood, he is now a functioning adult with his own apartment and a steady job with a pharmaceutical company that uses his advanced pattern recognition abilities. He has "friends" who are both autistic (his co-workers in his special division) and normal (in his fencing group he goes to once a week). Although he labels these individuals as friends, he struggles with all the nuances a friendship entails.A new treatment is developed that will "cure" autism in adults and Lou is offered the opportunity to be one of the first test subjects. Because autism affects all aspects of Lou's life and personality, will he still be himself without the disorder? With input from his autistic and normal friends, Lou attempts to deal with his regular problems and the decision of whether or not to take the treatment.This book is paced very slow, but I thought that was in context with how Lou thought through personal interactions. I also enjoyed how Lou progressed as an individual through different experiences. Even with his structured life and routine, life still pushed him to change and adapt. After reading the book, I felt I had a better insight into autism, but also felt that the author made some leaps to truly explain what it felt like to be autistic. It works in the context of the story (in the future with advanced therapy available) but not so much with where we are right now with autism knowledge and research. This book made me more aware of our social nuances. Right after I finished the book, I was at a family get-together and found myself paying more attention to how "normal" people interact socially. Like the rules for helping to clean up after dinner. What is the right number of times to offer to help when the host refuses? Not offering is rude. Offering to many times when the host refuses is pushy. The perfect amount is somewhere in the middle. How silly that we offer to help when we may or may not actually want to help and the host initially refuses regardless of whether or not they want the help. Lou would have been mystified by the whole process and felt it was stupid. Watching it play out with Lou's perspective in mind, I had to agree!Also note that this is a story about what it is like to be autistic, so plot wise, not much ever happened. The "events" in Lou's life would be non-issues in a book about a non-autistic person. The story was set-up to have some corporate thriller aspects, but these went nowhere. The ending of the book is pretty sloppy. It felt like the author was slowly building up to a major event through 300 pages and then suddenly got tired of the book and tried to wrap everything up in the last 20 pages. There were no loose ends exactly, but several plot lines that built up throughout the book were shoddily explained in a sentence or two and tacked at the end of the story. One particularly irritating one was the mystery of why Lou's workplace was so pushy to have him take the treatment. This was answered in a single throw-away sentence that didn't even really make sense. Overall, an ok book to read. It did change how I perceive social situations and gave me some insight into how an autistic person thinks about things. Normally I would give an extra star for my changed perceptions but the ending was executed so poorly, I take off a star for that. Overall: 2.5 stars.
What do You think about The Speed Of Dark (2005)?
Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon tells the story of an autistic man in the near future where advances in medical technology have cured many diseases. The protagonist is in a small group of people who were born just before these advances and so have grown up in a world where their disability is a close anachronism. This is a subtle, introspective work that focuses on psychological, philosophical and theological questions about normality and quality of life. I could not help but cast actor Jim Parsons, from The Big Bang Theory, in the role of the hero, and throughout the book his was the voice and face that I imagined as Lou. I also was led to compare this work to Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison, his non-fiction autobiographical work about his life with Asperger’s Syndrome as well as Philip K. Dick’s work Martian Time-Slip. There is some very thin characterization, almost straw man, that weakens the larger credibility of the narration, but the ending is very good and well worth the time reading.
—Lyn
"Sometimes I wonder how normal normal people are, and I wonder that the most in the grocery store." Started the book thinking it was simply a novel about a man with autism. After I few incidents I had to shift my thinking to that of it being an almost science fiction novel. Then I could read it more easily, and the black and whiteness of the characters made more sense to me. A fiction based on imagined, or hoped for, future science (which is actually not so very future anymore). I really enjoyed seeing the world through the eyes of a man with autism. Some favorite excerpt from the book:"I do not think God makes bad things happen just so that people can grow spiritually. Bad parents do that, my mother said. Bad parents make things hard and painful for their children and then say it was to help them grow. Growing and living are hard enough already; children do not need things to be harder. I think this is true even for normal children. I have watched little children learning to walk; they all struggle and fall down many times. Their faces show that it is not easy. It would be stupid to tie bricks on them to make it harder. If that is true for learning to walk, then I think it is true for other growing and learning as well. God is suppose to be the good parent, the Father. So I think God would not make things harder than they are. I do not think I am autistic because God thought my parents needed a challenge or I needed a challenge. I think it is like if I were a baby and a rock fell on me and broke my leg. Whatever caused it was an accident. God did not prevent the accident, but He did not cause it, either....I think my autism is an accident, but what I do with it is me.""...I pay attention to color and number more than most people. They don't notice, so they don't care....What am I missing, as they miss seeing the beautiful numeric relationships? ....What I have in my head is light and dark and gravity and space...and colors and numbers and people and patterns so beautiful I get shivers all over."
—PhilorChelsy
This book is outstanding. Moon's believable hero is a genius trapped in an autistic shell. The characterization was vivid and touching, I grew to love the man and feel very strongly about the things he dealt with. I even found myself getting angry with the bad things people were doing thinking, "they can't do that!" even though the book was just fiction. It was outrageous and yet believable. I loved how the author didn't relegate the autistic man to being stupid or unable to comprehend big words. She clarified the difference, making me think about the how we think intelligence means being able to think and process quickly when capacity is even more important. The only problem I had with the book was the ending which I felt was rushed and unsatisfying. While I didn't agree with all the choices the characters made, that wasn't the problem. I just felt that the ending was too pat, too cut and dried and it left me discombobulated.It wasn't enough to dissuade me from giving the book five stars. I really loved the book and wish there were a whole series based on this character. Of course, the nature of the issue in the book is necessarily a one-book plot. Alas.
—Kelly H. (Maybedog)
