science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
and
literary fiction
Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction or serious fiction is a label that, in the book trade, refers to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refers to novels that are ch ...
novel by English writer
Nina Allan
Nina Allan (born 27 May 1966) is a British writer of speculative fiction. She has published four collections of short stories, a novella and two novels. Her stories have appeared in the magazines '' Interzone'', ''Black Static'' and ''Crimewave ...
. It is her
debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...
and was first published in August 2014 in the United Kingdom by NewCon Press. A second edition of the book, in which an appendix was added, was published by
Titan Books
Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of Titan Entertainment Group, which was established in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cinema reference books; and graphic novels and co ...
in July 2016. This new edition is the first book of a two-book deal Allan signed with Titan in 2015; the second book is '' The Rift'', published in 2017.
The novel consists of four loosely connected
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
s. The second edition of the book includes a fifth novella, referred to as an appendix. Allan described ''The Race'' as "A
Mobius strip
Moebius, Möbius or Mobius may refer to:
People
* August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868), German mathematician and astronomer
* Theodor Möbius (1821–1890), German philologist
* Karl Möbius (1825–1908), German zoologist and ecologist
* Paul ...
of actual and imagined realities, featuring telepathic dogs, giant whales, and the search for alien life." Two of the sections take place in "our world", whereas the other two, plus the second edition appendix, are set in an "alternate near-future".
''The Race'' was generally well received by critics. It was nominated for three awards, the 2015 British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel, the 2015 Red Tentacle Award for Best Novel, and the 2015
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, or Campbell Memorial Award, is an annual award presented by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to the author of the best science fiction no ...
. ''The Race'' was translated into French by Bernard Sigaud as ''La Course'' and published by Tristram in 2017. The book was also translated into Spanish by Carmen Torres and Laura Naranjo as ''La carrera'' and published by Nevsky in 2017.
Development
Prior to ''The Race'', Allan had written a novella, ''Spin'' (2013), and published several story collections, including ''The Silver Wind'' (2011) and ''Stardust: The Ruby Castle Stories'' (2013). In ''Silver Wind'' and ''Stardust'', the stories are tenuously linked to each other, an approach that Allan followed in the loosely connected novellas in ''The Race''.
Allan said ''The Race'' turned out to be very different from its initial drafts. It began as a story about a
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
soldier suffering from
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
who becomes a serial killer. The soldier was to have been Derek in the novel, but Allan found herself "disliking him so much" she focused instead on his sister, Christy. Allan said Christy's character came naturally to her because "her voice is closest to my own". The original character of Derek the soldier later became Dennis Beaumont in Allan's 2015 novella, ''The Harlequin''.
Inspiration for the smartdogs came from
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu (; American Spanish: ; credited since 2016 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker and screenwriter. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the hum ...
's Mexican film ''
Amores perros
''Amores perros'' is a 2000 Mexican psychological drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (in his feature directorial debut) and written by Guillermo Arriaga, based on a story by them both. ''Amores perros'' is the first installmen ...
'' (2000) about underground dog fighting in Mexico City. Allan explained that while she disliked the "inherent cruelty" of dog fighting, she turned it into underground dog racing with telepathic
greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgenc ...
s, drawing on an idea she had previously had about telepathic dogs on a remote planet.
Plot summary
*Section 1 – Jenna: Jenna Hoolman and her brother, Del live in Sapphire, a former gas town in southeast England. The draining of the nearby
Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about . The Marsh has been in use for centuries, though its inhabitants commonly suffered from malaria until th ...
through
fracking
Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frac ...
and the recent war has left the town destitute. Smartdog racing has become its only source of income. Smartdogs are
greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgenc ...
s enhanced with human DNA to connect "telepathically" to human "runners" with
neural implant
Brain implants, often referred to as neural implants, are technological devices that connect directly to a biological subject's brain – usually placed on the surface of the brain, or attached to the brain's cortex. A common purpose of modern brai ...
s. Del is actively involved in racing and has his own smartdog, Limlasker, but Jenna is frightened of her brother's drug-running and violent outbursts. He has a daughter, Luz Maree (Lumey) who, at three, starts to show signs of being an empath. Empaths are able to communicate with smartdogs without an implant. Lumey is kidnapped, ostensibly to force Del to settle his drug debts. He enters Limlasker in a race the dog is not ready for, hoping for a win to secure his daughter's release, but the dog is assassinated.
*Section 2 – Christy: Christy Peller lives in present-day
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
in south England and is a writer. Some of her stories are set in the future in a fictional town called Sapphire where smartdog racing takes place. Christy lives in fear of her brother Derek, who once raped her. When Linda, his girlfriend, disappears after he discovered that she was planning to return to her previous boyfriend, Alex, Christy begins searching for her. She suspects that Derek may have murdered Linda.
*Section 3 – Alex: Alex Adeyemi grew up in Hastings, and twenty years after the events in Section 2, Christy invites him to come and visit her in Hastings to help her locate his former girlfriend, Linda. Alex discovers that Christy is a writer and begins reading her stories. He is particularly interested in ''At the Cedars Hotel'', a collection of stories that includes "Dogs", and "Brock Island", a sequel to "Dogs".
*Section 4 – Maree: Maree is a young woman who lives in a secret government facility in Crimond She has no memories of her childhood, except those of a smartdog, Limlasher. She later learns that Derek Hoolman was her father and that she was kidnapped because she is an empath. She is sent to Thalia across the Atlantic Ocean by ship to a research facility called Kontessa. During the journey Maree learns of the real reason she is needed in Kontessa is to assist in translating extraterrestrial messages a
SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...
programme has intercepted.
*Appendix – Brock Island (Christy's story from ''At the Cedars Hotel'': After working at Kontessa for several years and not making much headway on the alien messages, Maree retires to Brock Island off the coast of Thalia. There she learns that an enigmatic artist Laura Christy has disappeared. Laura maintained that she has a twin sister, Sidonie who communicates with her in her dreams. While there is no record of the twin, Laura insisted that Sidonie is real and resides in a parallel world. Laura wrote that Sidonie told her they are reflections of one another, and that Sidonie and others in her world have been trying to communicate with their counterparts here for centuries. Maree finds some portraits Laura had painted of Sidonie, and in one of them, her twin is holding an
abacus
The abacus (''plural'' abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool which has been used since ancient times. It was used in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the Hin ...
. Maree copies the bead pattern on the abacus, and later compares it with the patterns she had been working on in the alien transmissions. The bead pattern on the abacus matches the patterns in the alien transmissions.
Critical reception
In a review of ''The Race'' in ''
Locus
Locus (plural loci) is Latin for "place". It may refer to:
Entertainment
* Locus (comics), a Marvel Comics mutant villainess, a member of the Mutant Liberation Front
* ''Locus'' (magazine), science fiction and fantasy magazine
** ''Locus Award' ...
'' magazine, Gary K. Wolfe wrote that despite the fragmented structure of the book, with its multiple narratives and narrators, and stories embedded within stories, it feels "oddly unified" and produces "a kind of psychic landscape". Wolfe stated that the world Allan has created here "is thoroughly seductive and ominously credible, and a degree of narrative sophistication as impressive as anything I've seen in recent SF". Niall Alexander described ''The Race'' as a blend of David Mitchell's ''
Cloud Atlas
A cloud atlas is a pictorial key (or an atlas) to the nomenclature of clouds. Early cloud atlases were an important element in the training of meteorologists and in weather forecasting, and the author of a 1923 atlas stated that "increasing use ...
'' and
Jo Walton
Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh and Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel ''Among Others'', which won the Hugo Award, Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and ''Tooth and Claw (novel), Tooth ...
's ''
Among Others
''Among Others'' is a 2011 fantasy novel written by Welsh-Canadian writer Jo Walton, published originally by Tor Books. It is published in the UK by Corsair (Constable & Robinson). It won the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Hugo Award for ...
''. Reviewing the book at
Tor.com
''Tor.com'' is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction.
From 20 ...
Alexander called Allan's novel "a wonderfully understated work of words, worthy of all the awards twas nominated for". He said it shows how "the lives of ordinary people can become unfastened from reality". A review at ''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
'' described ''The Race'' as an "enticingly mysterious episodic debut novel". The narrative switches between fictional and actual settings: "real countries take on or remove altered fictional guises". The reviewer stated that " rong writing and the layering of realities gives the book a mental hook akin to the best alternative history fiction".
Reviewing ''The Race'' in the ''
LA Review of Books
The ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB'' is a literary review magazine covering the national and international book scenes. A preview version launched on Tumblr in April 2011, and the official website followed one year later in April 2012. ...
'', Helen Marshall called Allan's novel "a story of split identities". The histories of people are reworked and merged and "the borders between fact and fiction dissolve". Outwardly this does not make sense until it becomes clear that Derek mirrors Del and Jenna is Christy's double. Marshall said the thread linking the sections of Allan's novel is "a secret language of memory". The characters bear the burden of their own memories, but also an inherited
racial memory
In psychology, genetic memory is a theorized phenomenon in which certain kinds of memories could be inherited, being present at birth in the absence of any associated sensory experience, and that such memories could be incorporated into the geno ...
. Marshall noted that ''The Race'' is more than science fiction, it can also be seen as a ghost story reminiscent of the likes of
M. John Harrison
Michael John Harrison (born 26 July 1945), known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic.Kelley, George. "Harrison, M(ichael) John" in Jay P. Pederson (.ed) ''St. James guide to sci ...
and
Robert Aickman
Robert Fordyce Aickman (27 June 1914 – 26 February 1981) was an English writer and conservationist. As a conservationist, he co-founded the Inland Waterways Association, a group which has preserved from destruction and restored England's inl ...
. She said Allan "makes the familiar unsettling", but also "shows how prosaic, how livable a horrible situation can become over time." Marshall described the book as " tensely readable and intellectually sophisticated", adding: "Like the very best works of literary fiction, ''The Race'' establishes its own rules for play, its own grammar: it is a world unto itself".
Stuart Conover at ScienceFiction.com had mixed feelings about ''The Race''. He liked the first section and the dystopian England it portrayed, but found it "a little more difficult to experience the magic again" when the narrative returned to that world in the fourth section, knowing that it was a story within a story. Conover felt that while the quality of Allan's writing is good, and it is "a well put together piece", it is "not a perfect piece of science fiction". ''
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...
'' also had a mixed reaction to the book. The reviewer said that the first novella "creates a brilliantly weird world that's utterly riveting", but felt that the next one is "flabby and inert" instead of "fraught", and in the third one, the story "gets bogged down by details". While the fourth novella returns to the "dystopian future" of the first, "readers will likely find it difficult to work up enthusiasm for this now doubly fictional world". The reviewer found the book's second edition appendix "baffling", and added that it "read like writing exercises that were never meant to see the light of day".
Titan Books
Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of Titan Entertainment Group, which was established in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cinema reference books; and graphic novels and co ...