THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE
Claire North
Orbit Books/Hachette
By CUSHLA McKINNEY
Claire North (the sci-fi nom-de-plume of children's author Catherine Webb) specialises in clever and edgy stories that play with the most primal of fears, the terror that lurks in the corner of the eye.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope is no exception. Its heroine, Hope Arden, is invisible, albeit in a psychological rather than a physical sense. Like Steven Moffat's Silence, people can see her but forget as soon as they turn away.
With limitless opportunities to create the perfect first impression and the ability to erase any indiscretion simply by walking away, she has a sort of freedom the rest of us sometimes dream of, but she is unable to engage in anything that requires any an ongoing relationship, including sustained medical attention or traditional employment.
But Hope is a resourceful young woman and, having decided she is constitutionally better suited to life as a thief than as an assassin or spy, embarks upon a largely successful life of crime. Then she steals a necklace from a woman whose family runs a multimillion-dollar company called Perfection, which produces an app that tracks every aspect of your life and provides advice on how to become personally and socially ideal, and draws the attention of a pair of potential buyers whose interests are more than merely transactional.
Mugurski71 has been hired by the company's CEO to track her down, and proves remarkably tenacious in his efforts to do so, while Byron14 wants her help to destroy Perfection.
Although Hope is deeply suspicious of Byron14, she is also tired of a life that is a constant stream of first encounters and one-night stands and longs to be able to form a deeper connection with somebody. So when she learns that the final step to Perfection, a biofeedback protocol offered to the select few who achieve all the program's other prescriptions, may also render her memorable, Hope agrees to assist Byron14 in exchange for treatment.
But the bargain has a high price, and she is eventually forced to choose between fulfilling her dream of re-entering the world and remaining true to the moral principles that she holds most dear.
It is hard to explain exactly what I find most compelling about North's novels. Part of it is the clever way in which they leave space for the imagination to play (I was not surprised to learn she is also a RADA-trained theatrical lighting designer), and there is the satisfaction of unravelling their intricate plot lines.
But I am also fascinated by the questions she poses about the relationship between physical and psychological aspects of personal identity and how people with the power to escape the consequences of their actions can (and need) to maintain an inner ethical code.
To paraphrase the message at the heart of this latest novel, even when we are not answerable to the ordinary strictures of society, there has to be a moment when even the most powerful must permit themselves to be defined by the world that surrounds them. Or, as Hope puts it, "I commit a crime, and only I remember my guilt . . . I look only at now, at this present tense, and ask myself what am I doing now? Who am I now? . . . Now I am the self that I wish to be, now I am a picture of who I have to be, now. Now. Now.''
Cushla McKinney is a Dunedin scientist.
