Chris reviewed The Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons
None
4 stars
The versatile Simmons, author of Hyperion and Carrion Comfort, is in full horror mode in his latest novel. Byron Trumbo, American millionnaire and full-time degenerate, has built an expensive resort between the volcanoes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa on Hawaii. One or the other of these volcanoes is generally active at any given time; but not since 1868, we are informed solemnly, have they both blown. So, as you might expect, they do. There is, however, a lot more to it than that. For the Mauna Pele resort is built on the site of ancient Hawaiian fishponds and a petroglyph (rock-carving) field, a place sacred to the volcano goddess Pele. It is, as one of the characters points out, the old hotel-built-on-an-Indian-burial ground story. By the time the story opens, six people have vanished mysteriously, body parts turn up on the golf course, and the guests are staying away …
The versatile Simmons, author of Hyperion and Carrion Comfort, is in full horror mode in his latest novel. Byron Trumbo, American millionnaire and full-time degenerate, has built an expensive resort between the volcanoes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa on Hawaii. One or the other of these volcanoes is generally active at any given time; but not since 1868, we are informed solemnly, have they both blown. So, as you might expect, they do. There is, however, a lot more to it than that. For the Mauna Pele resort is built on the site of ancient Hawaiian fishponds and a petroglyph (rock-carving) field, a place sacred to the volcano goddess Pele. It is, as one of the characters points out, the old hotel-built-on-an-Indian-burial ground story. By the time the story opens, six people have vanished mysteriously, body parts turn up on the golf course, and the guests are staying away in droves. To this island come two travellers, both American women. The first is Eleanor Perry, a history teacher who is following the trail of her Aunt who in the previous century travelled to Hawaii in the company of Samuel Langhorne Clements, better known as Mark Twain. Aunt Kidder�s diary is Eleanor�s guide. The second is Cordie Stumpf, who won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Mauna Pele and doesn�t see why a few disappearances and the owner�s general obnoxiousness should put her off her holiday.
The disappearances build up. A man vanishes from his office through a blood-spattered crack in the wall. A giant dog with human teeth appears on the petroglyph field with a human hand in its mouth. A weird figure, half-shark, half-man, attacks a child in the sea. The gods and demons of ancestral Hawaiki are awake, and are they pissed off. Woken from their slumber, Pele the volcano goddess and Kamapua�a the hog-god resume their ancient fight, though since Kamapua�a raped Pele centuries before, the fight is no longer in balance. Kamapua�a has a control over Hawaii which is aided by the rapacity of the *haole*s (foreigners) to obliterate the old ways. "You and I are alike, Byron," he tells Trumbo. "We were born to dominate. Born to subdue." So it is hardly surprising that the hog-god (who appears as a gigantic pig with sharp teeth and eight eyes) offers to do a deal with Trumbo; and almost surprising when the billionnaire contemptuously refuses.
Sometimes the research tends to overwhelm the narrative. Simmons never wastes research and will probably get a few more stories out of his Hawaiian studies ("once having found such a rich vein, had no intention of not mining it to death", as he has Clemens say), but the vast amount of Hawaiian vocabulary, names of gods and spirits, quotes from ancestral chants, and on the other hand, the long descriptions of the mechanisms of volcanic action, do tend to pump up the word count. I did feel that we don�t need to know the temperature of lava or the commonly-repeated factoid that Mauna Loa is actually the highest mountain on Earth (32,000 feet, but most of it is under water). The cultural references however are another matter. Because it is a society which is both real and very little known in the West, a lot of explanation and description does seem necessary, though perhaps not quite as much as we get: we are told the difference between the levels of supernatural creatures (gods, demons, elementals, ghosts, and spirits) that the Hawaiians believed in, but this information is never really relevant to the story. Paul Kukali, curator of Trumbo�s personal collection of Polynesian artefacts, spends a lot of time conveniently describing Hawaiian history and culture to the two haole women. He doesn�t even get to save the day in the end (as the incautious reader might expect).
Aunt Kidder�s diary is instrumental in finding a solution to the events racking the island, but also the story of Aunt Kidder and Sam Clements provides an almost light relief from the main story, a glimpse into an apparently gentler time when the Pacific was practically devoid of foreign exploitation, though far from an unmitigated paradise: in Hawaii, as elsewhere in Oceania, there was a heavily stratified society where despotic kings ruled with the assistance of secret societies sworn to the worship of one or other of the many gods. The missionaries had already started their crusade to wipe out the old ways, some of which were barbaric, while others were better than anything that replaced them. This is partly a fable of male dominance over the world, and partly of its corollary, the unremitting Americanisation of Hawaii. At first the deaths and disappearances are attributed to Hawaiian separatists, whose representative, the giant Jimmy Kalekili, makes a convenient suspect. The Hawaiian separatists are no figment of Simmons�s imagination; they see no reason why their country, which is nowhere near the United States, should be part of the USA.
The supernatural aspects are, however, unambiguous. There are ancient spirits awake and ravaging the land; Pele and Kamapua�a are about to resume their battle for the control of Hawai�i. The kahuna who raised the ancient spirits have restarted the war in the underworld of Milu, the shadowy place where the souls of the dead are kept. Fires of Eden is about interference: with nature, with the gods (whatever they may represent), and with native cultures. And about, in the end, redemption.
The disappearances build up. A man vanishes from his office through a blood-spattered crack in the wall. A giant dog with human teeth appears on the petroglyph field with a human hand in its mouth. A weird figure, half-shark, half-man, attacks a child in the sea. The gods and demons of ancestral Hawaiki are awake, and are they pissed off. Woken from their slumber, Pele the volcano goddess and Kamapua�a the hog-god resume their ancient fight, though since Kamapua�a raped Pele centuries before, the fight is no longer in balance. Kamapua�a has a control over Hawaii which is aided by the rapacity of the *haole*s (foreigners) to obliterate the old ways. "You and I are alike, Byron," he tells Trumbo. "We were born to dominate. Born to subdue." So it is hardly surprising that the hog-god (who appears as a gigantic pig with sharp teeth and eight eyes) offers to do a deal with Trumbo; and almost surprising when the billionnaire contemptuously refuses.
Sometimes the research tends to overwhelm the narrative. Simmons never wastes research and will probably get a few more stories out of his Hawaiian studies ("once having found such a rich vein, had no intention of not mining it to death", as he has Clemens say), but the vast amount of Hawaiian vocabulary, names of gods and spirits, quotes from ancestral chants, and on the other hand, the long descriptions of the mechanisms of volcanic action, do tend to pump up the word count. I did feel that we don�t need to know the temperature of lava or the commonly-repeated factoid that Mauna Loa is actually the highest mountain on Earth (32,000 feet, but most of it is under water). The cultural references however are another matter. Because it is a society which is both real and very little known in the West, a lot of explanation and description does seem necessary, though perhaps not quite as much as we get: we are told the difference between the levels of supernatural creatures (gods, demons, elementals, ghosts, and spirits) that the Hawaiians believed in, but this information is never really relevant to the story. Paul Kukali, curator of Trumbo�s personal collection of Polynesian artefacts, spends a lot of time conveniently describing Hawaiian history and culture to the two haole women. He doesn�t even get to save the day in the end (as the incautious reader might expect).
Aunt Kidder�s diary is instrumental in finding a solution to the events racking the island, but also the story of Aunt Kidder and Sam Clements provides an almost light relief from the main story, a glimpse into an apparently gentler time when the Pacific was practically devoid of foreign exploitation, though far from an unmitigated paradise: in Hawaii, as elsewhere in Oceania, there was a heavily stratified society where despotic kings ruled with the assistance of secret societies sworn to the worship of one or other of the many gods. The missionaries had already started their crusade to wipe out the old ways, some of which were barbaric, while others were better than anything that replaced them. This is partly a fable of male dominance over the world, and partly of its corollary, the unremitting Americanisation of Hawaii. At first the deaths and disappearances are attributed to Hawaiian separatists, whose representative, the giant Jimmy Kalekili, makes a convenient suspect. The Hawaiian separatists are no figment of Simmons�s imagination; they see no reason why their country, which is nowhere near the United States, should be part of the USA.
The supernatural aspects are, however, unambiguous. There are ancient spirits awake and ravaging the land; Pele and Kamapua�a are about to resume their battle for the control of Hawai�i. The kahuna who raised the ancient spirits have restarted the war in the underworld of Milu, the shadowy place where the souls of the dead are kept. Fires of Eden is about interference: with nature, with the gods (whatever they may represent), and with native cultures. And about, in the end, redemption.
