A struggling science fiction writer makes contact with the telepathic aliens from her latest book. Did she invent the aliens--or did they invent her? Margaret Wander Bonanno is the author of several bestselling Star Trek novels.
Preternatural
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Preternatural, a remarkably ambitious and complicated tale, is a complex and multi-layered work. The book is at once concerned with aliens, identity, and mind control, while at the same time, it explores the conventions and practices of the science fiction genre itself. The protagonist is Karen, a woman writing a science fiction book called Preternatural (this is just the beginning of the double-helix world Bonanno has created) about an alien presence known as the Common Mind. But as Karen creates her story, she begins to suspect that the voices that prompt her story may in fact belong to the Common Mind, and it is humankind who is actually being inscribed by the aliens she thought she had invented. Karen finds others who share her experience: individuals who think they have been contacted by the Common Mind and are left uncertain about their own identity. A strikingly large number of these contactees are in show business, where the roles they have created in the fantasy world of Hollywood have become intertwined with their sense of self. Bonanno's book is amusing and deliciously puzzling. The trip she provides is well worth taking.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Karen Rohmer Guerreri is recently divorced, middle-aged, alienated from her children and unhappy with her writing career. Worse still, the telepathic aliens in her new novel, Preternatural, are apparently trying to contact her?unless, of course, she's going insane, which seems likely. If the aliens aren't real, though, why are other people seeing them too? In Guerreri, Bonanno (most recently, coauthor of Saturn's Child and author of several Star Trek novels) has created a protagonist whose life seems to be, at least by implication, uncomfortably close to her own. This novel, in fact, is something of a roman a clef, with a number of thinly disguised actors, two of them from Star Trek, appearing in major roles. The aliens, part of a group mind (assuming they're real), have no sense of time and only the vaguest feeling for individual identity; they also believe that they've created Karen and our world. Their interaction with humanity, however, is slowly destroying them, with unknown consequences for us. Guerreri, whose career has involved writing novels based on a defunct TV series, SpaceSeekers, hopes that her new, more serious book will be a success, but is disappointed when PW dismisses it in a single-sentence review. Bonanno's novel, however, clearly deserves more serious attention. It is a complex, occasionally painful book that will amply reward readers of serious SF.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
I guess it's true that there's no accounting for taste. Some people apparently liked this book a lot, but I found it a confusing, boring mish-mash of ideas that failed to jell (or jellyfish) for me.
The multiple points-of-view, timeline-manipulation and fourth-wall-breaking can work, but not in this book. In fact, I have the distinct impression that the author got her hands on a copy of Diderot's "Jacques the Fatalist" and decided to reprocess some of her half-baked ideas into a similar work. If so, it pales into transparency compared to Diderot brilliant work.
The author's love-hate relationship with her characters (and readers, I think) pushed and pulled me from paragraph to paragraph, and left me cold.
Format:Paperback
Karen Rohmer Guerreri is writing an SF novel -- working title,
"Preternatural" -- by taking dictation from telepathic ET jellyfish in
her head. "Talking jellyfish!" sneers her soon-to-be ex-husband
Ray. "You'll never sell this!"
"Preternatural" -- by taking dictation from telepathic ET jellyfish in
her head. "Talking jellyfish!" sneers her soon-to-be ex-husband
Ray. "You'll never sell this!"
Ray's a jerk, but he's understandably upset -- he's been seeing
jellyfish too. As have most of the characters in the book. It's not
the sort of thing you, um, share with family & friends...
More plot summary than this really isn't going to help --
think "Wine of the Dreamers" meets Phillip K Dick, with all
*kinds* of genre, literary and TV/cinematic references
and in-jokes (I'm pretty dense about picking these up --
you'll likely catch more than I did). In the world of Academic
Lit. this is "self-referential deconstruction" and a Big Deal --
-- but in plain language it's an astonishing juggling act. Round and
round, up & down they go: autobiography, the writer's craft, how
your kids grew up while you weren't looking, Trekkie fangirl turns
pro, midlist writer goes to SF conventions, Hollywood business
deals ("trust me"), exposition by transposing characters to alternate
timelines(!), crystal healing, bilingual puns (the aliens' Linnean
name is S. oteri: sound it out & groan...), a Capt. Kirkish actor who
can't get it up & blames the jellyfish...
"If PRETERNATURAL has a flaw, it is that the reader must be
willing to keep so many balls in the air, trusting that the author
will eventually reveal how each fits into the pattern. Let me
assure you that Ms. Bonanno is worthy of your trust. She makes good
on all her promises, wrestling her puzzle to a satisfying draw..."
-- Gerald Jonas, NY Times, whose excellent review prompted me to
read this book. You should read it too:
www[dot]nytimes.com/books/specials/sci-fi.html
(registration required and worthwhile).
The jellyfish are a bit much at times (whine of the dreamers?)
and the ending may be oversweet (though perfectly-fitted
to the cinematic subplot). Hey, nobody's perfect -- but Preternatural
comes pretty darn close.
Ms. Bonanno is the most prolific SF author I'd never heard of -- in
the past 20 years, she's written 2 Star Trek novels, 7 other novels
(some SF/F), and a biography of Angela Lansbury. I'd welcome steers
to other worthwhile MWB books: <tillman@usa.net>
I have no idea why PRETERNATURAL has attracted so little
attention. This is a remarkable book, an "audacious act of
imagination that goes far beyond the merely clever. The puzzle that
she poses has to do with the nature of language. Why, in reading
fiction, do we suspend disbelief so totally as to care about the
fate of characters whom we encounter only as sequences of words
on paper? Why do we laugh or cry when the writer manipulates her
word-puppets into a simulacrum of personal growth?"
(G. Jonas, op. cit.)
Don't miss it. Trust me...
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
It's clear that the author of this book was attempting to be clever with her allusions to various Star Trek-like actors. Unfortunately, it comes off as painfully precious. I have a hard time even describing how much I disliked this book. It is, hands down, the worst book I have read in years...boring, boring, boring.
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