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Escape Plans
To VENTUR the Subs were a nuisance.
They were fed and housed under the stern but loving care of the great machine systems. They were housed in space-saving underground accommodation, designed to protect the surface of their planet, and perfectly functional if not luxurious. Their culture was respected, some even had employment. In reality, VENTUR saved them, and their planet, from their own thoughtless harm.
But some refuse to be appropriately grateful. Some refuse to know their place...
Visiting the homeworld, ALIC hoped to find a little old-fashioned excitement on the "Subcontinent". A retired games creator, however, ALIC can't resist when Millie invites her to play a game that is wholly unique. One from which she struggles to escape, as her life becomes entwined with the people around her as they strive for revolution.
First published in 1986, ESCAPE PLANS was lauded as an original feminist cyberpunk novel, one which pulls no punches in its exploration of humanity's relationships with computers, and our own flaws and follies.
They were fed and housed under the stern but loving care of the great machine systems. They were housed in space-saving underground accommodation, designed to protect the surface of their planet, and perfectly functional if not luxurious. Their culture was respected, some even had employment. In reality, VENTUR saved them, and their planet, from their own thoughtless harm.
But some refuse to be appropriately grateful. Some refuse to know their place...
Visiting the homeworld, ALIC hoped to find a little old-fashioned excitement on the "Subcontinent". A retired games creator, however, ALIC can't resist when Millie invites her to play a game that is wholly unique. One from which she struggles to escape, as her life becomes entwined with the people around her as they strive for revolution.
First published in 1986, ESCAPE PLANS was lauded as an original feminist cyberpunk novel, one which pulls no punches in its exploration of humanity's relationships with computers, and our own flaws and follies.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1986
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69 people want to read
About the author
Gwyneth Jones
149 books108 followersGwyneth Jones is a writer and critic of genre fiction. She's won the Tiptree award, two World Fantasy awards, the Arthur C. Clarke award, the British Science Fiction Association short story award, the Dracula Society's Children of the Night award, the P.K.Dick award, and the SFRA Pilgrim award for lifetime achievement in sf criticism. She also writes for teenagers, usually as Ann Halam. She lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and two cats called Ginger and Milo; curating assorted pondlife in season. She's a member of the Soil Association, the Sussex Wildlife Trust, Frack Free Sussex and the Green Party; and an Amnesty International volunteer.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 7, 2014
‘To VENTUR, the Subs were a nuisance. All the underworld’s billions were fed and housed: under the stern loving care of VENTUR’s great machine systems. No one could deny the benefits of VENTURan organisation, VENTURan welfare. Of all the cultures, only the Subs refused to be grateful and humble.
ALIC was an innocent tourist, a retired games conceiver; drawn to the Subcontinent in the hope of a little old-fashioned excitement. Then she met Millie Mohun, who invited her to play a game that would beat any other she had ever tried…
And then ALIC fell into the depths, into the churning people void… her whole existence became a desperate attempt to escape, while around her a great ancient culture was surging towards violent revolution.
This powerful futuristic novel is the new book by the author of the critically acclaimed DIVINE ENDURANCE. It is the chilling and convincing portrait of a world ruled by all-embracing technology and an arrogant oligarchy, a world in need of hopes and dreams.’
Blurb from the Orion 1986 paperback edition
Aeleysi, or ALIC, is in a future India taking a vacation from her off-world habitat home. Humans on Earth have become not only segregated from an Earth healing from its rape by Humanity, but tagged and controlled by omnipotent computer systems. ALIC becomes attached to a young jockey called Millie, one of the Subs (i.e. inhabitants of the subcontinent) and in a misguided attempt to help her out of what ALIC imagines is a bad situation, becomes embroiled in a revolution against the computer technocracy.
Millie, it turns out, may or may not be an immortal – possibly alien – Messianic figure, tales of whom are becoming gospel as the novel progresses,
It is by no means an easy read. Jones is a stylist who is at the opposite extreme to those writers who infodump ad nauseum in order to acquaint the reader with the back story, added to which is Jones’ decision to write this as first person narrative from a character who speaks a variation of English peppered with acronyms and invented vernacular. To attempt to capture the flavour of an evolved language is not a new thing, since Hoban’s ‘Riddley Walker’ and Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’ successfully established a dialect within the text with which the reader gradually comes to terms. There was, however, a certain beauty and poetry in these books which is lacking here.
The rather daunting blocks of CAPITALISED words which pepper the pages restrict the flow of the eye and one would have thought that the language would have evolved (as languages do) to shorten the acronyms into more acceptable sounding words, or at the very least would lost the capitals. One feels as if one is being intermittently shouted at while reading.
In Jones’ defence, it has to be said that this is a brave and relatively successful attempt to construct a narrative as it would have been written in ALIC’s time. Jones does not condescend to explain the situations to her readers. The clues are there, and it is up to us, the readers, to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
I have never been fond of novels which need a glossary of terms as an appendix, unless they contain additional information not immediately pertinent to the novel. In this case however, despite the fact that glossary is vital to one’s understanding of the text, some of the definitions are vague and incoherent and leave one more perplexed than ever.
ALIC is, one might say, the naïve middle-class tourist who has never seriously thought about how the other half live, although the message would have been more powerful were it not for the ponderous style and the seemingly inflexible feminist ethic which allows only one – quite insignificant – male character in the entire novel. Historically, SF has served female readers, writers and characters badly. This is a sad fact which most authors now accept and explore and, in most cases, have sought to change. If Jones were writing a novel in which the absence of male characters could be justified it would not be an issue, but it seems as if this is an intentional device to prove some unspecified point. It only succeeds in further lessening whatever point the novel is attempting to make, which itself is obfuscated by the obscurity of the text.
Indeed, one is left with the idea that society is not safe left in the hands of a Femocracy.
ALIC was an innocent tourist, a retired games conceiver; drawn to the Subcontinent in the hope of a little old-fashioned excitement. Then she met Millie Mohun, who invited her to play a game that would beat any other she had ever tried…
And then ALIC fell into the depths, into the churning people void… her whole existence became a desperate attempt to escape, while around her a great ancient culture was surging towards violent revolution.
This powerful futuristic novel is the new book by the author of the critically acclaimed DIVINE ENDURANCE. It is the chilling and convincing portrait of a world ruled by all-embracing technology and an arrogant oligarchy, a world in need of hopes and dreams.’
Blurb from the Orion 1986 paperback edition
Aeleysi, or ALIC, is in a future India taking a vacation from her off-world habitat home. Humans on Earth have become not only segregated from an Earth healing from its rape by Humanity, but tagged and controlled by omnipotent computer systems. ALIC becomes attached to a young jockey called Millie, one of the Subs (i.e. inhabitants of the subcontinent) and in a misguided attempt to help her out of what ALIC imagines is a bad situation, becomes embroiled in a revolution against the computer technocracy.
Millie, it turns out, may or may not be an immortal – possibly alien – Messianic figure, tales of whom are becoming gospel as the novel progresses,
It is by no means an easy read. Jones is a stylist who is at the opposite extreme to those writers who infodump ad nauseum in order to acquaint the reader with the back story, added to which is Jones’ decision to write this as first person narrative from a character who speaks a variation of English peppered with acronyms and invented vernacular. To attempt to capture the flavour of an evolved language is not a new thing, since Hoban’s ‘Riddley Walker’ and Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’ successfully established a dialect within the text with which the reader gradually comes to terms. There was, however, a certain beauty and poetry in these books which is lacking here.
The rather daunting blocks of CAPITALISED words which pepper the pages restrict the flow of the eye and one would have thought that the language would have evolved (as languages do) to shorten the acronyms into more acceptable sounding words, or at the very least would lost the capitals. One feels as if one is being intermittently shouted at while reading.
In Jones’ defence, it has to be said that this is a brave and relatively successful attempt to construct a narrative as it would have been written in ALIC’s time. Jones does not condescend to explain the situations to her readers. The clues are there, and it is up to us, the readers, to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
I have never been fond of novels which need a glossary of terms as an appendix, unless they contain additional information not immediately pertinent to the novel. In this case however, despite the fact that glossary is vital to one’s understanding of the text, some of the definitions are vague and incoherent and leave one more perplexed than ever.
ALIC is, one might say, the naïve middle-class tourist who has never seriously thought about how the other half live, although the message would have been more powerful were it not for the ponderous style and the seemingly inflexible feminist ethic which allows only one – quite insignificant – male character in the entire novel. Historically, SF has served female readers, writers and characters badly. This is a sad fact which most authors now accept and explore and, in most cases, have sought to change. If Jones were writing a novel in which the absence of male characters could be justified it would not be an issue, but it seems as if this is an intentional device to prove some unspecified point. It only succeeds in further lessening whatever point the novel is attempting to make, which itself is obfuscated by the obscurity of the text.
Indeed, one is left with the idea that society is not safe left in the hands of a Femocracy.
April 11, 2012
[3 and 1/2 stars] Intelligent, provocative and hard-edged (as everything Gwyneth Jones writes seems to be). I can't say that I enjoyed it, but I do have to praise her ability to challenger her readers, and immerse them in her characters' bizarre (and unpleasant) world and ways of thinking. So: a difficult but ultimately worthwhile read.
October 20, 2018
VENTURans are an ex-colonising space-dwelling society that at some point stopped looking towards the stars and came back home to save earth's population from its own destruction (overpopulation and ecological). Now the "numbers" are packed underground and there's a sort of zoo of animals and a few wild people left on the surface.
ALIC (pronounced Aeleysi) is a VENTURan tourist who gets tangled up with the lives of the underground folk. In "saving" them the trade-off is an incredible surveillance system that monitors everyone physically and directs their work. Remind anyone of Amazon? Our current corporations feel about as pervasive as the system here in the novel (at times at least!) but distributed through a few rather than being one controlling body. I love the fact that this sci-fi novel from 1986 talks about wrist faxes, but they don't feel substantially different to the tech we have these days in purpose and execution...
Once you get over the surroundings the plot bounces over various ideas and themes around trying to make sense of this world and what escape plans might look like here. It's not always the easiest thing to follow but I really enjoyed the whole experience of this world. Gwyneth Jones is always a fascinating read.
ALIC (pronounced Aeleysi) is a VENTURan tourist who gets tangled up with the lives of the underground folk. In "saving" them the trade-off is an incredible surveillance system that monitors everyone physically and directs their work. Remind anyone of Amazon? Our current corporations feel about as pervasive as the system here in the novel (at times at least!) but distributed through a few rather than being one controlling body. I love the fact that this sci-fi novel from 1986 talks about wrist faxes, but they don't feel substantially different to the tech we have these days in purpose and execution...
Once you get over the surroundings the plot bounces over various ideas and themes around trying to make sense of this world and what escape plans might look like here. It's not always the easiest thing to follow but I really enjoyed the whole experience of this world. Gwyneth Jones is always a fascinating read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews