Chris Beckett (2) (1955–)
Author of Dark Eden
About the Author
Chris Beckett is lecturer in Social Work at Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge
Series
Works by Chris Beckett
Marcher [short story] 3 copies
To Become a Warrior 2 copies
Valour 1 copy
The Perimeter 1 copy
Sons of Eden 1 copy
When Will We Get There? 1 copy
The Welfare Man Retires 1 copy
Associated Works
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006) — Contributor — 545 copies, 5 reviews
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002) — Contributor — 532 copies, 5 reviews
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003) — Contributor — 501 copies, 1 review
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992) — Contributor — 429 copies, 4 reviews
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection (2011) — Contributor — 315 copies, 2 reviews
Solaris Rising 3: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction (2014) — Contributor — 44 copies, 6 reviews
Stories of Hope and Wonder: In Support of the UK's Healthcare Workers (2020) — Contributor — 11 copies, 1 review
Newcon Press Sampler — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1955
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
- Education
- University of Bristol (BSc) (psychology) (1977)
University of Wales (CQSW) (1981)
Goldsmith's College, University of London (Diploma in Advanced Social Work) (1977)
Anglia Ruskin University (MA) (English Studies) (2005) - Occupations
- social worker
Senior Lecturer in Social Work - Organizations
- Anglia Ruskin University
University of East Anglia - Short biography
- Chris Beckett was born in Oxford, England in 1955, and now lives in Cambridge, England. He has published three novels: Dark Eden, The Holy Machine and Marcher. He has been publishing short stories in the UK and the US, since 1990, and his short story collection, The Turing Test, won the Edge Hill Short Fiction Award in 2009, the UK's only national prize for single-author short-story collections.
His new short story collection, The Peacock Cloak, will be appearing at Easter 2013.
Chris Beckett works part-time as a lecturer in social work and he also writes text books on social work, in which he tries to use his experience of story telling to make the writing readable and lively. [adapted 7/23/2013 from Amazon.com]
Members
Reviews
Just as I feel I must buy a grocery item if I've touched it these days, I am also obligated to borrow any library book I touch. Given that library browsing slots give me 15 minutes to choose a stack of books, my novel-choosing heuristics are: semi-familiar author, appealing cover, and/or on the new acquisition shelf. 'Beneath the World, a Sea' met all three criteria. It was on the new book shelf, looked attractive, and I recognised Chris Beckett's name as I've read [b:America City|35711882|America City|Chris Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500566965l/35711882._SX50_.jpg|57211847], (which had interesting ideas but a rather flat narrative). My heuristics served me well, as I really loved 'Beneath the World, a Sea'. I can be stingy with five star ratings and struggle to articulate what exactly takes a novel from four to five stars from me. It tends to be some sort of emotional affinity, as I give plenty of excellent books four. In this case, the setting, themes, and narration were all exceedingly appealing. 'Beneath the World, a Sea' (which is also wonderfully titled) is set in a weird, isolated South American forest community. I adore spatially specific weirdness of this kind and was pleased to be reminded of [b:Annihilation|17934530|Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403941587l/17934530._SX50_.jpg|24946895] and [b:Infinite Ground|30256420|Infinite Ground|Martin MacInnes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463999496l/30256420._SX50_.jpg|50728268]. The latter is an especially apposite comparison, as 'Beneath the World, a Sea' also begins with a police investigation before developing in much more existential directions.
The protagonist, Ben Ronson, is a London police officer sent to the Submundo Delta to investigate the mass killing of native creatures called Duendes. To reach the Submundo, he and everyone else travelling there must spend several days in the Zona, a space of forgetting. Thus everyone arrives at the Submundo disorientated by a gap in their memory, to find the peculiar flora and fauna of the place have a powerful psychological effect. In the vicinity of Duendes, people become overwhelmed by all the thoughts that they would normally repress. The geographical isolation of the Submundo also creates a peculiar intimacy between its expat residents, which makes it easy to perceive the truths of others without enabling similarly acute self-perception. Beckett's writing manages the clever trick of being evocative without a great deal of description. The dialogue and streams of consciousness help to create a vivid and distinctive atmosphere throughout. I found the place beguiling and fascinating.
It was also very nice to read a book set in 1990. That's recent enough not to require much adjustment for historical events and attitudes, yet also a time before the internet and mobile phones made us perpetually accessible to each other. The Submundo is physically and thus informationally isolated from the rest of the world, although various characters discuss how this could be changed. One proposes to build a monorail, which would traverse the Zona and widen the life opportunities of the Mundinos. These are the descendents of South American people dumped in the Submundo by colonial intruders in the 1860s. They established themselves in villages around the delt, creating a religion unique to the place. One of the main characters is an anthropologist who studies their ways of life, which include killing Duendes. Via this anthropologist and others, the narrative considers colonialism and financial neo-colonialism in an interesting and subtle way.
Although there are several intriguing themes of this kind, the questions at the core of the book are more philosophical and concern the sense of self. I absolutely love it when what could have been a criminal investigation plot turns into something far weirder and more existential. This is quite often attempted, but can be difficult to pull off. Beckett subverted my expectations brilliantly and turned Ben Ronson the upright cop into a fascinating character, who is essentially investigating himself:
From the start, there are references to Ronson hiding and repressing things. When he finally reads the notebooks from his time in the Zona, they are electric: his other forgotten self taunts him with terrible deeds he may have committed. He is profoundly shocked and shaken by this, as well he might be. Although other characters have interestingly varied reactions to the Zona and Submundo, Ronson's is the most compelling. It makes you wonder: if you were going to a place you knew you'd retain no memories of, what would you do? To a very controlled person like Ronson (and me, incidentally), it could be an opportunity to take risks that you wouldn't normally entertain. The tension around whether Ronson acted on any of his darkest thoughts in the Zona is sustained brilliantly. Did he just experiment with being a freer person, one who admitted his bisexuality? Or did he commit violence, even murder? The narrative acknowledges that anyone who works for the police must have at least the potential for deadly violence. Alternatively, is he just mocking himself for being a coward out of self-hatred?
I very much enjoyed the ambiguity and piquancy of the ending: Ronson re-enters the Zona and relaxes back into some other self. His mission to investigate the Duende killings has faded into the background, indeed within the Submundo it is hard to see the killings as crimes at all. The Duendes are utterly inhuman and resemble small parts of a single huge organism. There is no indication that their numbers are diminishing and they make no efforts to avoid humans, in fact quite the opposite. The anthropologist and scientists cannot explain how the Submundo works or what the Duendes are. A businessman's efforts to fly into the Submundo, to invade it with the modern world, quite literally crash and burn. Thus the place remains satisfyingly mysterious to the end, as the narrative concerns its psychological impact upon visitors rather than the impact that visitors have upon it. The Submundo could be an analogy for various different things, yet I also appreciated it as a throwback to Victorian tales of strange undisturbed places that Western minds can't cope with. Beckett combines elements of those stories with sci-fi and contemporary psychological insight, to brilliant effect.… (more)
The protagonist, Ben Ronson, is a London police officer sent to the Submundo Delta to investigate the mass killing of native creatures called Duendes. To reach the Submundo, he and everyone else travelling there must spend several days in the Zona, a space of forgetting. Thus everyone arrives at the Submundo disorientated by a gap in their memory, to find the peculiar flora and fauna of the place have a powerful psychological effect. In the vicinity of Duendes, people become overwhelmed by all the thoughts that they would normally repress. The geographical isolation of the Submundo also creates a peculiar intimacy between its expat residents, which makes it easy to perceive the truths of others without enabling similarly acute self-perception. Beckett's writing manages the clever trick of being evocative without a great deal of description. The dialogue and streams of consciousness help to create a vivid and distinctive atmosphere throughout. I found the place beguiling and fascinating.
It was also very nice to read a book set in 1990. That's recent enough not to require much adjustment for historical events and attitudes, yet also a time before the internet and mobile phones made us perpetually accessible to each other. The Submundo is physically and thus informationally isolated from the rest of the world, although various characters discuss how this could be changed. One proposes to build a monorail, which would traverse the Zona and widen the life opportunities of the Mundinos. These are the descendents of South American people dumped in the Submundo by colonial intruders in the 1860s. They established themselves in villages around the delt, creating a religion unique to the place. One of the main characters is an anthropologist who studies their ways of life, which include killing Duendes. Via this anthropologist and others, the narrative considers colonialism and financial neo-colonialism in an interesting and subtle way.
Although there are several intriguing themes of this kind, the questions at the core of the book are more philosophical and concern the sense of self. I absolutely love it when what could have been a criminal investigation plot turns into something far weirder and more existential. This is quite often attempted, but can be difficult to pull off. Beckett subverted my expectations brilliantly and turned Ben Ronson the upright cop into a fascinating character, who is essentially investigating himself:
The forest had crept into him. Last night it had been hard to let it in, knowing that it was about to be taken from him, but somehow this morning it had crept back in. Being Ben Ronson didn't seem so important now, with these big spiral leaves hanging down all around him, those quivering white helices opening their crimson mouths... And what was Ben Ronson anyway? He imagined a kind of web which linked up objects out there in the world with memories and nodes of feeling in long branching chains. At any particular moment almost all of this web was in darkness, and if he had a self at all, it was a kind of spotlight that swept back and forth through these hundreds of millions of branching chains, searching for some kind of meaning, some kind of sense that he was connected to something he wanted.
I very much enjoyed the ambiguity and piquancy of the ending: Ronson re-enters the Zona and relaxes back into some other self. His mission to investigate the Duende killings has faded into the background, indeed within the Submundo it is hard to see the killings as crimes at all. The Duendes are utterly inhuman and resemble small parts of a single huge organism. There is no indication that their numbers are diminishing and they make no efforts to avoid humans, in fact quite the opposite. The anthropologist and scientists cannot explain how the Submundo works or what the Duendes are. A businessman's efforts to fly into the Submundo, to invade it with the modern world, quite literally crash and burn. Thus the place remains satisfyingly mysterious to the end, as the narrative concerns its psychological impact upon visitors rather than the impact that visitors have upon it.
I am delighted that sci-fi authors are starting to examine the consequences of climate change in meaningful ways, rather than treating it as set dressing. Consequently, I spent most of ‘America City’ thinking that I should have been appreciating it more than I was. A comparison with Kim Stanley Robinson’s [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123], one of my favourite novels of 2017, will help to explain why. Both novels are set in the 22nd century, centre on the impact of climate change in America, and engage with politics in some detail. They differ in two important respects: underlying philosophy and writing style. To address the latter first, while [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123] was involving and vibrant, ‘America City’ felt curiously flat. I am being over-sensitive, or is this sort of thing oddly lacking in affect?
Consequently, I also found the characterisation unengaging on an emotional level. I enjoyed the plot on an intellectual level, while having no real interest in the characters and what happened to them. Balancing the geopolitical and individual is an inevitable challenge of climate change novels, and one that several have dealt with well: [b:Clade|23307015|Clade|James Bradley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423038784l/23307015._SY75_.jpg|42861864], [b:American War|33311863|American War|Omar El Akkad|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1481495007l/33311863._SY75_.jpg|52910875], and [b:All the Birds in the Sky|25372801|All the Birds in the Sky|Charlie Jane Anders|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429225322l/25372801._SY75_.jpg|45119441], as well as [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123]. Here, I found the main character Holly to be little more than a cipher, albeit one playing an intriguing role in geopolitical events.
The philosophical contrast was still more marked. Kim Stanley Robinson’s [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123] is resolutely hopeful and has faith in the ability of people to form communities and work together. While climate change has damaged Robinson's New York, social bonds and institutions have adapted rather than breaking. Chris Beckett’s book, however, is entirely lacking in hope and faith in humanity. ‘America City’ is a novel steeped in the shock of Trump’s presidency, referred to a hundred years later as The Tyranny. Its themes are the ease of manipulating voters by using social media to spread lies, the incredible hypocrisy of the American dream, the deep xenophobia of nearly all Americans, and their refusal to accept any responsibility for climate change. In the world of ‘America City’, political power is still owned by billionaires who complain that the poor have it too easy. Meanwhile, ordinary people only care about themselves, won't give up any comforts to help others, and are deeply susceptible to xenophobic demagoguery. To be fair, politics has somehow got saner, as the president is less of a maniac than Trump and the Christian right has declined. Nonetheless, this is a fundamentally fatalistic novel. I assume this explains the abrupt ending: there’s no catharsis to be found.
Throughout the narrative, discussions recur regarding the dichotomy between merely complaining about the world from a position of privilege and actually doing something - which inevitably makes things worse. Which is a better response to the end of the world: protecting your tribe at the expense of others, or withdrawing to make pottery? It’s a false dichotomy and a very depressing one, so if you want to feel better about the world I’d recommend reading [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123] instead. Beckett has a valid and interesting perspective on the future, indeed a totally understandable one if you extrapolate directly from from the current position. ‘America City’ captures very neatly how America looks from Europe as 2018 gets underway. Putting aside how plausible the plot is, and it makes a certain amount of intuitive sense, 'America City' is a tale of blind short-sighted nationalism that doesn’t quite bother to be cautionary. It heavily implies an inevitability of violence and stupidity which, frankly, is not what I think we need right now. I want stories that give me reason for hope, or at least a new perspective. This one felt horribly familiar from the morning's headlines.… (more)
As Richard had feared, Holly was away a lot, in a place that Richard had no feeling for and didn’t want her to be. But they still worked hard at staying together. One weekend in February, when Holly had been working even longer hours than usual, the two of them drove north across the border to spend an evening with their friends Ruby and Ossia.
Consequently, I also found the characterisation unengaging on an emotional level. I enjoyed the plot on an intellectual level, while having no real interest in the characters and what happened to them. Balancing the geopolitical and individual is an inevitable challenge of climate change novels, and one that several have dealt with well: [b:Clade|23307015|Clade|James Bradley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423038784l/23307015._SY75_.jpg|42861864], [b:American War|33311863|American War|Omar El Akkad|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1481495007l/33311863._SY75_.jpg|52910875], and [b:All the Birds in the Sky|25372801|All the Birds in the Sky|Charlie Jane Anders|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429225322l/25372801._SY75_.jpg|45119441], as well as [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123]. Here, I found the main character Holly to be little more than a cipher, albeit one playing an intriguing role in geopolitical events.
The philosophical contrast was still more marked. Kim Stanley Robinson’s [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123] is resolutely hopeful and has faith in the ability of people to form communities and work together. While climate change has damaged Robinson's New York, social bonds and institutions have adapted rather than breaking. Chris Beckett’s book, however, is entirely lacking in hope and faith in humanity. ‘America City’ is a novel steeped in the shock of Trump’s presidency, referred to a hundred years later as The Tyranny. Its themes are the ease of manipulating voters by using social media to spread lies, the incredible hypocrisy of the American dream, the deep xenophobia of nearly all Americans, and their refusal to accept any responsibility for climate change. In the world of ‘America City’, political power is still owned by billionaires who complain that the poor have it too easy. Meanwhile, ordinary people only care about themselves, won't give up any comforts to help others, and are deeply susceptible to xenophobic demagoguery. To be fair, politics has somehow got saner, as the president is less of a maniac than Trump and the Christian right has declined. Nonetheless, this is a fundamentally fatalistic novel. I assume this explains the abrupt ending: there’s no catharsis to be found.
Throughout the narrative, discussions recur regarding the dichotomy between merely complaining about the world from a position of privilege and actually doing something - which inevitably makes things worse. Which is a better response to the end of the world: protecting your tribe at the expense of others, or withdrawing to make pottery? It’s a false dichotomy and a very depressing one, so if you want to feel better about the world I’d recommend reading [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471618737l/29570143._SY75_.jpg|49898123] instead. Beckett has a valid and interesting perspective on the future, indeed a totally understandable one if you extrapolate directly from from the current position. ‘America City’ captures very neatly how America looks from Europe as 2018 gets underway. Putting aside how plausible the plot is, and it makes a certain amount of intuitive sense, 'America City' is a tale of blind short-sighted nationalism that doesn’t quite bother to be cautionary. It heavily implies an inevitability of violence and stupidity which, frankly, is not what I think we need right now. I want stories that give me reason for hope, or at least a new perspective. This one felt horribly familiar from the morning's headlines.… (more)
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I found Beckett's writing compelling, yet hoped for a resolution or twist at the end of the book which did not come. The acknowledgements mention that he began it during one of the 2020 lockdowns. There is a strong theme of seeking meaning and happiness in constrained circumstances and with a strong awareness of mortality. This makes for a slightly unsettling read, but one that doesn't reach any firm conclusions. The meta elements of a novelist trying to write a novel did not really work for me, despite my interest in the narrator. Beckett is definitely a writer I will continue to read, although I much preferred [b:Beneath the World, a Sea|42193366|Beneath the World, a Sea|Chris Beckett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549462318l/42193366._SX50_.jpg|65798461].… (more)