Mirabile by Janet Kagan

The trouble with writing about a book some considerable time after reading it is that the details and fresh impressions have inevitably started to fade, and so this essay is more about what has stayed with me about Mirabile by Janet Kagan, rather than what struck me while reading it, or what my impressions were immediately after finishing.

mirabile-janet-kagan

Mirabile is one of the first books I finished in 2016, but I am only just now, five months later, sitting down to write about it. (Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is also waiting to be written about, but that will probably also entail writing about the musical, which has moved me and stayed with me as few other artistic works have, so I will likely have a lot to say but have not yet ordered my thoughts. Ancillary Mercy and Radiant State are great books that I read last year, which have so far defied my efforts to set down what I think makes them so great. I may re-read and try again, or I may just cry “Uncle.”)

Janet Kagan only published three books in her lifetime: Uhura’s Song, a Star Trek novel that is something of a landmark in that field; Hellspark, a novel of first contact within an interstellar civilization; and Mirabile, a collection of related stories set during the early years of colonizing the eponymous planet.

The colonists arrived via generation ship, but something went wrong shortly after arrival, and large swathes of knowledge and technology have been lost to the colonists. That’s a necessary part of the setup. Star-spannng tech would easily solve most of the problems that arise in Mirabile, but there has to be some way to get the characters onto an alien planet in the first place. Kagan has kept the background about the ship and the accident vague, which works just fine because the stories that she wants to tell lie elsewhere. Here are things that have stuck with me about Mirabile:

I remember the puns. With titles such as “The Loch Moose Monster” and “The Flowering Inferno” it’s clear that both author and characters will be going in for wordplay. They are never strained, but they’re definitely part of the narrative approach.

I remember the inventiveness of the wildlife. The colonists have brought flora and fauna with them from earth, but they obviously could not bring the whole biome. So what they did was to lodge DNA for some species inside others. I don’t think it works, scientifically, but it certainly works for the narratives that Kagan builds. Some species are crossed; others change dramatically from one generation to the next. Most of the stories center on some sort of biological mystery. Either the colonists are trying to work out something that has gone wrong with life forms that they brought with them, or they are trying to avert some kind of mishap in interactions with the local flora and fauna.

I remember that violence was not the solution to any of the conflicts in the stories. There is certainly tension, and violence is present or latent as it is in many settler societies, but the solutions to the problems in the stories is not to beat up or kill an opponent. A friend with whom I shared these thoughts adds that people who behave badly in one context—for example, some settlers are ready to convict a person of setting fires without much in the way of evidence—act more positively in a different one—fighting the same fires collectively later on in the story. People on Mirabile, as elsewhere, are complex, and Kagan shows them that way.

I remember a strong sense of families in the various small settlements depicted in most of the stories. They were not nuclear families, but more dispersed, and adapted to the needs of a new planet, but they were significant to the characters in a way that felt very true to lived experience.

And of course I remember liking the book.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/06/06/mirabile-by-janet-kagan/

1 ping

  1. […] Mirabile by Janet Kagan Through the Shadowlands by Brian Sibley The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow Sculptor’s Daughter by Tove Jansson The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra Mussolini’s Italy by R.J.B. Bosworth The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Einstein by Walter Isaacson Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett The Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart Dshamilja by Tschingis Aitmatow Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman Sandman: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin The Balkans by Mark Mazower The Collapse by Mary Elise Sarotte The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman Europe at Midnight by Dave Hutchinson The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton The Georgian Feast by Darra Goldstein Soul Music by Terry Pratchett Eight Skilled Gentlemen by Barry Hughart Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross Authoritarian Russia by Vladimir Gelman Blackout by Connie Willis All Clear by Connie Willis Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton Moscow in Movement by Samuel A. Greene Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett Maskerade by Terry Pratchett Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan Maus by Art Spiegelman The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith When All the World Was Young by Ferrol Sams Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik Catch-22 by Joseph Heller League of Dragons by Naomi Novik Die Räuber by Friedrich Schiller The Vanquished by Robert Gerwarth Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski Necessity by Jo Walton Hogfather by Terry Pratchett Judenstaat by Simone Zeltlich The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson Making Book by Teresa Nielsen Hayden Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle Moonshadow by John M. DeMatteis and Jon J. Muth Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold Shadowlands by William Nicholson […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.