Children of Hope

David Feintuch

New York: Ace, 2001. ISBN: 0-441-00922-0. Pp. 618

Sigh. Unfortunately, this will be the last ever entry in the Seafort Saga. Feintuch passed away in March this year (2006), and there is nobody to continue this remarkable series the way he has done it. Not that the story is not finished—with this novel Nick's exploits are essentially wrapped up in one nice package, with the one standing unresolved issue finally settled with his usual flair. Despite some rather uncomfortable similarities with the basic premise of Orson Scott Card's Ender in The Speaker for the Dead (namely his morose self-recrimination for the genocide of an incomprehensible alien species in a war of extermination with humanity), Feintuch delivers a fitting conclusion to the trials and tribulations of one Nicholas Seafort, the most unfortunate of the brave men to have ever captained a U.N. Naval vessel in space.

Unlike the previous novel, this one is not narrated from Nick's perspective but from Randolph's, Derek Carr's teen son. After the stunning Voices of Hope, I no longer harbored any doubts about Feintuch's ability to pull off this trick to my satisfaction. Even though Children... lacks the narrative complexity of the multi-POV other novel, and even though there's a mildly annoying tendency to reveal essential plot points by the narrator eavesdropping on others (to his credit, Feintuch managed to turn this into an endearing character flaw and dwell on it as such rather than lamely attempting to hide it and rely on "coincidence," the bane of bad writing), it is refreshing to see Nick from the perspective of someone who undergoes the complete journey from hating him to adoring him, and see Nick actually change along with him. We saw Jared Tenere in Voices... go through a somewhat similar transformation (although, as it turned out in Patriarch's Hope, it had to do with his homosexual love for P.T., Nick's son, rather than Seafort himself), but it was not as complete, as startling, and as well presented as this one.

For, you see, Randy starts out dreaming to bash Nick's skull. He hates the old man for causing Derek's death, and when the first opportunity unexpectedly presents itself, Randy erupts in violence and smashes a steel chair on the Captain's head. With Nick's life in the balance, Randy prepares to face his inevitable execution by hanging. He endures the wrath of officers and seamen alike, who (to his dismay) all hate him for what he has done. His confusion soon clears up and he comes to realize that he has made a terrible mistake. Being a Carr, he refuses to seek mercy and resolves to pay for his deeds. Naturally, when Nick recovers, the wayward adolescent is not only pardoned, but also adopted, at first somewhat unwillingly, into the Captain's family.

But the troubles with young Carr are just the tip of the iceberg for Hope Nation seethes in unrest. The Church plots with various factions to reassert Earth's dominance over its former colony, and in fact revoke its recognition of the young nation's independence. Since Carr's nephew, Anthony, is also the First Stadholder of the commonweal, the corrupt Church decides to use Randy as a lever to extract political advantage. They kidnap him, threaten him with death, and brutalize him, all under the unctuous and sanctimonious pretext of doing God's work and punishing a blasphemer. Naturally, Nick cannot allow to see his life's work being undone by a bunch of venal politicians even if they pretend to speak for Lord God. Even more naturally, he cannot allow Randy to be mistreated. And so Captain Seafort is back in the maelstrom: fighting a civil war, standing a sham trial, drowning in a flood caused by a dam sabotage, fainting in pain from his never-fully-recovered spinal injury, and... facing his old enemy, the one he had thought he had extinguished forever, the Fish.

Randy's story is absolutely fascinating. There's a lot of young Nick in him, especially when he resolves to do what he thinks is right and then bear the consequences in a dignified honorable way. Or when he repeatedly realizes his mistakes, corrects them, and then makes them over and over again. Randy is a stunning mixture of adult maturity and adolescent carelessness. The deepness of his thoughts is in stark contrast with his petulance and his childish reactions. I am not usually fond of overachievers, but Randy is not one of those impossibly competent (and truly annoying) children that sometimes inhabit lesser novels. He has occasional flashes of brilliance, but more often than not, his feats begin in utter stupidity (i.e., his shuttle escapade). And he is more lucky than one honestly can expect to be in life (e.g., his storming of the courthouse).

At this point, we are all familiar with children clinging to Seafort as if their lives depended on it (actually, they almost always do, and invariably, he manages to kill some of them). Nick is now a lot more weary and despite his imperious streak, a lot more mellow, a lot more cautious than he used to be. Fortunately, my favorite lieutenant, Edgar Tolliver, makes a glorious return and even though not nearly enough space is dedicated to his wry humor, he manages to enliven the often gloomy proceedings. Still, his is but a secondary role, sometimes made unbelievable by the need to contrast him with Nick. On one hand, Feintuch is smart not to set up straw man (like the despicable Bishop) for comparison with Nick: showing basic goodness in an incarnation very different from Seafort's, is a plus. On the other hand, Tolliver's differences express themselves in very dogmatic ways (especially his irrational inflexibility when it came to dealing with the Fish). As someone who courted death by touching his Captain in an emergency, he should be a lot more daring.

Anyway, in some ways the finale is anti-climactic as Feintuch reaches for that all-time favorite "explanation" for war: miscommunication (or inability to communicate). I have spent time pontificating on that before, so I am not going into my usual tirade. Suffice to say that Feintuch is at least a bit more sophisticated that the other authors in treating this war as a result of two domestic factions disagreeing over policy (both on the Fish and the human side there are those who would rather fight it out than deal with the enemy). Although it stretches credulity to see young Randy deal in abstract concepts better than his far more experienced superiors, I was willing to go along with ONE-ARMED FISH TALK NO-WAR.

The most remarkable transformation is probably that of Nick, finally excommunicated from the Church and forced to face the stunning idea that his corporeal life has probably been much more painful than any imaginable torture Satan can devise for him in Hell. Nick has stopped talking to his God, and even though he makes Randy memorize Bible verses, he seems to have decided that God is a remote, unapproachable, incomprehensible deity, whose purposes cannot be distinguished from the workings of evil men. (Nick has become a pessimistic Calvinist.) There is no salvation for him, and where before he had yearned to somehow earn it or, after forfeiting it forever, to somehow make his life less painful by living it as if he was not damned for eternity, he now abjures the deity almost completely. It is as if he's decided to live in spite of God. Or to spite God. And even now, this rage against the unseen and unkind power that guides the universe sees its best expression not in troubled Nick, but in Randy, so young and yet with such a burden to carry.

As the other novels in the series, this conclusion is a superb piece of writing. Even though Seafort's universe is not a future I would ever want to see, Nick himself is one damned... I mean blessed, fine man. And the more fragile he gets physically, the stronger he becomes mentally. Thanks, David, for giving us such a memorable hero. RIP.

June 12, 2006