Shortform

On the strength of three stories published over the past couple of years--'The Fluted Girl', 'The People of Sand and Slag', and 'The Pasho'--Paolo Bacigalupi has become one of those writers whose work I will seek out. So in the absence of dead-tree copies, I got myself an electronic copy of the October/November F&SF purely to read 'The Calorie Man'.

Like 'The People of Sand and Slag' and 'The Pasho', 'The Calorie Man' is set in a future of decline. It would probably be too strong to call these stories post-apocalyptic--the processes that lead to their worlds seem to have been more gradual than that--but they are all, in some way, lesser than our own. Lesser in spirit; lesser in knowledge; lesser, in the new story, in energy. 'The Calorie Man' takes place when fossil fuels have been exhausted. In its place, food is used as a universal energy source. The story opens with the protagonist, Lalji, visiting a kinetic shop; there he collects his springs, recharged by the labours of designed, degenerate beasts known as mulies. Calories have been converted to joules, and now the springs are tightly wound, ready to power his riverboat's engines for another few miles of travel.

Of course, in such a world, big business still exists. The biotech companies are now energy companies as well; their high-yield, energy-rich crops are patented, copyrighted and controlled, a coupling between food, energy and currency that has crippled society. All along the mississippi, small towns and villages pay their IP dues and ship calories downriver to New Orleans. The reason for Lalji's journey is to make a strike back at the men in control. He goes upriver to find a man, a calorie man, who may be just another generipper--one of those responsible for the state of things; 'generippers make monoculture', Lalji notes bitterly--or who may be able to help.

'The Calorie Man' is not as fully successful as some of Bacigalupi's earlier stories. Lalji's characterisation is by-the-numbers: a small-time crook convinced against his better judgement to take a job that could change society. His memories allow us to see the way the world has diminished, but he himself never comes alive. The writing, too, is generally not as imaginative or as vivid as we have come to expect (although there are occasional gleams through the grime, so it may be to an extent deliberate), and Bacigalupi's naming of things seems clunky and unlikely: SoyPRO, SuperFlavor, HiGro, AgriGen.

The setting and story, however, are elegantly built. Perhaps the best thing about both is their solidity. The economics of the society may or may not be plausible, but for the length of a novella they convince, enough to allow Bacigalupi to make perceptive and timely points about what defines haves and the have-nots, on both local and global scales. The technology, meanwhile, is enthralling, all dirty low-tech shortcuts laid over inaccessible high-tech foundations. The extent and implications of the genetic modification employed only become apparent towards the end of the story, but there is never a sense that the science itself is misguided; rather, it is a human failing, the ends to which it has been put. In fact, it is the same science that offers hope. Thoughtful stories about the possible effects of biotechnology are still not as common as they should be, and neither are stories about post-petroleum worlds. 'The Calorie Man' is a welcome addition to both canons.

Ever since the Hugo nominations were announced, I've been telling people that the novellette category is the peach. Now I get to put my money where my mouth is.

( the people of sand and slag, by paolo bacigalupi )

( the clapping hands of god, by michael f flynn )

( the faery handbag, by kelly link )

( biographical notes to 'a discourse on the nature of causality, with air-planes' by benjamin rosenbaum, by benjamin rosenbaum )

( the voluntary state, by christopher rowe )

( conclusions )

'The Pasho' is a story about cultural identities. It's also a story about the interactions between scientific/technological knowledge and culture. It's about trying to find a way to move into the future while at the same time respecting the realities of the past.

The Pasho of the title is Raphel, a young Jai man who has just returned from ten years of studying to be a Pasho in Keli. Pashos are Keli's version of some sort of priest or wise man; they are keepers of the scientific and technological knowledge that, it's implied, led to some sort of catastrophe centuries before. The Pashos job is to learn the knowledge and use it wisely, passing it out only sparingly, applying it only at the right times, in the right ways. Raphel's family and community back in Jai are somewhat suspicious of him now that he is a Pasho. It is as if he has been tainted by the Keli knowledge that he has learnt, and the time he has spent in Keli. He is literally shunned for his first week back in Jai, according to ancient traditions that used to have a scientific purpose (disease prevention) but are now superstitious custom.

The central conflict in the story is the battle of wills between Raphel and his Grandfather. The Grandfather is a great Jai hero. He keeps to the old ways, and is intensely critical of his grandson's new role as Pasho. He feels Raphel is betraying his Jai heritage by accepting Keli knowledge. He thinks that the Keli knowledge will encourage Raphel to begin to do things differently, and that if the way things are done changes it will cease to be a Jai way of doing things and become Keli, since the changes will be due to Keli knowledge. Raphel's attitude is that although he is using Keli knowledge to bring about changes for the Jai, the changes will still be Jai changes, because he is a Jai, so whatever he does is Jai and however he does it will be a Jai way of doing things.

According to the Grandfather, the Jai's cultural identity is in their rituals, their customs, their clothes. It's in the details of how they live, the facts of their day-to-day lives; what they eat, how they dress, how they make their living. For the Grandfather, to change any of this is to cease being Jai. Raphel's position is that the Jai's cultural identity is composed of all these practical things, but that it transcends them too. Perhaps the Jai's cultural identity is in the fact that they have done all these things and lived this way in the past, but for Raphel that doesn't mean that have to continue to do so in the future. Raphel honours the old traditions, but is not bound by them. He is trying to find a way to be Jai and to move forward, to change the way things are done, to improve how things are done even. He's trying to find a way of maintaining his Jai identity while implementing these beneficial changes.

'The Pasho' is more than just idle speculation about some far-future cultures. It's addressing very real conflicts and tensions that exist in many cultures today. How do we maintain localised cultural identities in a world of scientific, technological and commercial globalisation? That's the question that is facing Raphel and his Grandfather, and the story in 'The Pasho' is the playing out of the battle over how to answer it.