A Half-Built Garden is a visit to the familiar trope of “the aliens come to fix things/rescue humanity.” About 80% of the time (a percentage I pulled out from under my reading stack) this set up has a twist. The aliens want to eat us. The aliens want to eat us (and steal our resources). The peaceful aliens want to use us as soldiers. The aliens want to be our baby daddies/mommies. (In one way or another.) And so on.
With A Half-Built Garden, the twist is that the aliens really, truly and earnestly want to rescue humanity from Earth. The Ringers believe that once a civilization reaches a certain point, they end up killing their world, and then themselves. Two previous rescue attempts led them to worlds that were already dead, so the Ringers are of course extremely excited they found Earth just in time!
Problem: Earth has reached a kind of armistice between a)”watershed networks” who protect water sources and the ecologies around them. (And assist with creating and adapting new crops, and preventing pollution.) b) Remnant nation-states and other political entities that have a slightly fraught relationship with the dandelion networks, and c) the corporates, the remnants of large corporations who have been exiled (or have fled) to remote “aillands” In and around Australia. These are three distinct cultures and at least two of them kind of hate each other! (That would be the watershed networks and the corporates.) At least two of these groups are extremely reluctant to get moved to another starsystem. One of the groups is a little too interested.
Thrust into this first contact is Judy Wallach-Stevens and her family. She goes to investigate reports of pollutants, and runs right into a first contact with aliens (who are polluters. Granted their ship needs repairs, but still. Polluters.) The aliens have learned English, have mistaken Judy for a Important Person who can Decide Things…because she brought her infant daughter, not realizing the reason for the pollutants in the water is aliens. (Key plot point: Ringer custom is to bring your babies/children to diplomatic meetings. The theory being you will be better able to keep in mind what’s Important.)
Things do not go well. Cytosine, the leader of the crew of the Solar Flare is extremely earnest and becomes extremely shaken that Judy doesn’t immediately sign on to leaving for distant alien habitats. (You’d really think that since she picked up English and probably other languages from radio transmissions, she would have seen all the various alien invasion movies, and the basic trope of ‘friendly aliens turn out to be malevolent.’ They pretty much openly admit they’ve been watching human TV and movies. On the other hand, Cytosine is really, really sure she’s rescuing humanity. She refuses to believe that it’s possible to repair the damage done by pollution and improper land/water management, and this causes Problems.)
This is an interesting book in that there are points where you’d think it would turn into a political thriller, but it never really does. Emrys focuses in on the idea of family and family relationships–between Judy’s family, and Cytosine and her crew, which is also a family. The closest the book comes to “political thriller” is when one of the three sides of the Earth detente decides to engage in some sabotage of the watershed networks’ ability to communicate, but it always circles back to the idea of “getting along with new family members,” and the kind of mediation that involves. Emrys writing style has a quiet and natural humor to it, and I enjoyed the worldbuilding involved, as we get hints about the events of the “dandelion revolution” and how the watershed networks interact with the other three groups, and what those groups are like. (I have some Thoughts about this that might turn into meta essays.)
All in all, this was an entertaining, thoughtful read.
Leave a comment