Today Obscurists, we’re talking about a fairly unsettling dystopian sci-fi by J.C. Gemmell called “The Visionary.” And it’s a no thanks from me on the vision of the future that visionary comes up with in this story.
What I love about this book:It’s a deeply unsettling and scary story when you get right down to it. I like things that can get under my skin because most stories don’t fill me with dread anymore; often, the best they can do is startle me. “The Visionary,” though, isn’t scary because of the all-too-real sounding natural disaster that takes place, or even the raw violence and disarray that inevitably happens when a dark age kicks off during an apocalypse. No, it’s the society that “builds back better,” if you will—that is cold and alien—that creeps me out.
There is a lot of intrigue in this story, more so than I expected when I started reading it. Most scenes have at least two layers to them, what is happening and being said on the surface and what people’s actual intentions are underneath all of that.
I listened to this novella in its audiobook format because, well, naturally, I did if you’re a repeat reader of this blog. In any case, Jennifer Aquino has a subtle trick to her narration that I absolutely adored, and that is staying true to the sound of her characters’ voices while simultaneously demonstrating how they’ve aged throughout the story. Part of it is the material Gemmell gave her to work with, but there is also that performer’s flourish of how, especially, Xin-yi sounds as a girl vs. as a woman. Many narrators go wrong here by exaggerating, but Aquino uses the same voice with only modest modifications to tone and pacing, which I feel is way more impactful.
What I don’t love about this book:I don’t love Xin-yi, and I don’t mean this as a criticism or that she’s poorly written as a character. I think she’s written wonderfully—I just don’t like her much as a person. As a protagonist, she has an arc and grows as a person, and who she comes out as—when everything is said and done—is someone I don’t like all that much. I suspect, Xin-yi herself doesn’t like Xin-yi all that much toward the end, but I can’t get too much into it in the non-spoiler side of things.
Stylistically, I think this story is as ambitious as any other big sci-fi story, but I don’t have a real good grasp of the rules of this world—or even a well-defined concept of how the super science of this universe works. For instance, despite reading a whole novella about them, I still don’t precisely understand what is it that visionaries do exactly or how their powers work.
There are explanations for things and technology, but they are primarily just surface-level stuff that ranges from the mysticism of “Star Wars” to the technobabble of “Star Trek.” It’s a minor complaint because the story’s point isn’t necessarily to focus on the technology featured but how an engineered society rebuilds.
