re:mote voices

Title: White Devils
Author: Paul McAuley
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

White Devils is the latest novel by Paul McAuley, which combines the straighter style with a more thriller inclination of his more recent work (Whole Wide World, Secret Of Life) with the elements of bio-tech/SF that were particularly present in the Invisible Country short stories and the Fairyland novel. The titular white devils being something of a thematic parallel to the gengineered “fairies” of his earlier work, especially in the conception of using them for arena combat. Along with that, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see the recurrence of the character Darlajane B – who has appeared as a secondary character in many of McAuley’s novels over the years.

Through an almost arbitrary series of steps, Nicholas Hyde has ended up in Green Congo, working for Witness – an organisation of international volunteers that try to give a voice to the dead that have resulted from war and other atrocities. Despite the fact that Green Congo is owned outright by the “eco-corporation” Obligate, there is still violence – especially from the Democratic Republic of Congo territories and the “Dead Zone”, which resulted from the Black Flu and the chaos that rose in it’s wake. The Black Flu was deemed to be a bio-terrorist agent let loose from one of the genetic labs working under the Congo’s lax laws. So even though it turned out to be natural, America had declared war on bio-terrorism and bombed the Congo.

When Hyde is taken from one of the graves dating from that period to check out a fresh kill site, things quickly get out of control. The team is attacked by a pack of vicious gengineered ape like creatures – who become dubbed “white devils”. Hyde is one of only two survivors of the attack, and is keen to speak out about what happened. But he finds that Obligate seem willing to go to any length to cover up the existence of the white devils – as murders, disappearances, and napalm bombing will testify. Hyde goes underground and it isn’t long before he has a tentative alliance with a pilot called Teddy who also survived an attack and the daughter of a prominent genetic scientist called Elspeth – her father having been murdered, and looking like some of his research might be similar to that used in the white devils.

White Devils is another novel which works against a backdrop of genocide and unidentified bodies, something which seems to crop up repeatedly in contemporary fiction. With that there are the power struggles of those who are left and have now taken charge. Obviously the ideas of bio-terrorism and the reaction to is have a relevance to current events, as does the fact that the flu turned out to be natural and had world wide effects. With that McAuley creates a great adventure story – an adventurer in Africa searching for vicious white apes – mixed in with enough science fiction elements to give it that contemporary sense. Though in some ways it does feel as though it takes a little bit to get going, the first half of the novel establishing characters and the situation. Before the second half sees the trio meet up, and that is where things really start to roll on – with the presence of Darlajane being something of a turning point for me.