re:mote voices

Title:Black Milk
Author: Robert Reed
Publisher:Orbit

Black Milk is the third book by Robert Reed that I have read, and I suspect that it is the first that has not been based on a short story. Or at least, if it is, it is a sequence that I have not read. It is also the most contained, in a narrative sense – Sister Alice and Marrow spanning hundreds of years over the course of each book. While for the most part Black Milk is set over the period of a couple of months to a year.

Ryder is one of the first generation of children who have been genetically engineered. An experimental generation only just coming of age. His parents don’t know what to make of him, and some would like to take advantage of him. But he has a good group of friends and does his best not to get lost in his memory, an expansive ability to recall everything he has ever encountered in formidable detail.

Dr. Florida is particularly responsible for the changes that have come about. Setting up a community, Ryder and his friends all live in the same area as Florida, creating a kind of cultural support group in terms of schools and parents. Each year Florida has a kind of egg hunt to celebrate his work. Over the years what he has released for the children has escalated. Until now, the 50th year of this game, and he releases a genetically engineered snow dragon. At the media event for the release of the mother dragon, Ryder and his friends catch Florida’s eye.

Black Milk is kind of a strange novel. Narrated by Ryder, who is a child, but also comes across a little funny – one of his teacher’s suggestions that he is a little autistic perhaps accounting for that feel. The story reminds me considerably of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. With Ryder as Charlie, and his friends, and the different family relationships they have representing the other children. Which makes Dr. Florida Willy Wonka, with the released snow dragon and promised prizes taking the place of the golden ticket and the trip to the chocolate factory.

Of course for all that, there is more to Black Milk. The last third of the narrative turns the novel around entirely. Which is what I would tend to consider spoiler territory – though the description on the back of book goes some way into that range. Just as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory has sinister undertones, so does Black Milk – Dr. Florida cast as benevolent genius, loved by everyone, but also mad scientist.

For me, this was the tightest and most fun read of the novels I have read by Reed to date.