Review: Icarus Descending, by Elizabeth Hand

 Icarus Descending, by Elizabeth Hand

 a review by Rich Horton

Icarus Descending concludes Elizabeth Hand's Winterlong trilogy, which comprises her first three novels. Winterlong was published in 1990, Æstival Tide followed in 1992 and Icarus Descending in 1993. The second and third novels have never been reprinted except in Open Road ebooks, and Icarus Descending did not even get a UK edition, while Winterlong got a very nice Harper Prism edition in the late '90s. I must say I do think that represents the relative quality of the books -- the second and third books are good, but Winterlong is special. And, I confess, I do wonder if the events in the latter two novels were part of the original conception -- in some ways they seem second thoughts, and it's almost as if a trilogy consisting of Æstival Tide, Icarus Descending, and a third novel might have worked better. Winterlong, I believe, stands powerfully on its own.

That said, I did enjoy the second and third novels in the series. And to be fair, the action in those novels is clearly set in the same future (possibly with mild adjustments) as Winterlong, and there are shared characters. Icarus Descending opens, however, with a brand new character, Kalamat, an "energumen", one of many genetically modified clones of the daughter of a great scientist, Luther Burdock. Burdock died a couple centuries earlier, but his daughter's clones, modified to be giants (roughly 9 feet tall), to be very intelligent and very strong, and to have three year lifespans, have been slave labor for the Ascendant class. (Yes, I did think of Blade Runner.) Kalamat lives on one of the Ascendant space stations, and recently all the humans ("masters") on her station died of a plague -- purposely spread by a revolutionary hoping to free all the various "geneslaves" in this dark future. Kalamat quickly learns that her fellow energumens on other stations are trying to unite, and to return to the "Element" (Earth) to join the effort of freeing the geneslaves on the Earth, and also to meet their now resurrected father.

This seems at base an honorable project -- and indeed it is. But it's soon clear that it's being led by Metatron, the military AI we learned about in the previous novel. Metatron is insane, and his goal is to kill all humanity, and to rule over the survivors (mostly the geneslaves.) He also is aware of Icarus, an asteroid which will soon crash into Earth -- so he plans to take over the never fully used starships of the Ascendants and escape. Kalamat is skeptical -- and she also has but a few weeks to live.

The other two strands of the novel follow familiar characters. In one, we again meet Wendy Wanders (from Winterlong) as she and her zookeeper friend Jane and the intelligent chimpanzee Scarlet Pan flee the ruins of the City. They happen upon an old old house, now a hostel of sorts, run by a gay couple -- a centuries old man and a much younger one. This couple is supporting the revolution of the geneslaves, and before long they send Wendy and Jane on to the city in the Appalachians that is the center of the revolution -- Cassandra. (I was also reminded of the "Long Long Time" episode of The Last of Us.)

The third thread follows the cyborged "rasa" Margalis Tast'annin as he, along with another AI, Nefertity, and the boy Hobe escape the ruins of the arcology Araboth. They are trying to find Metatron, a quest which leads them to fly to Kalamat's station. But Metatron is a step ahead of them, even though Nefertity, a much more virtuous creature, is hoping to stop him. So they too return to Earth, to Cassandra, as Icarus descends. The fate of Nefertity, of Tast'annin, of Jane, and indeed of humanity itself (and really the geneslaves too) hangs in the balance ...

There is lots to like here. Some compelling characters. Strong writing. Some additional fascinating imaginative constructs. A morally challenging situation. And for all those things it is worth reading. But, alas, the ending fizzles out. Some confrontations that seemed set up never happened. Some characters were essentially just dropped. As a conclusion to the Winterlong trilogy, it's a disappointment. As a book on its own -- or a sequel to Æstival Tide -- it's just fine, but I think it needed at least a couple more chapters, and possibly another book.