Hal Lacroix - Here and Beyond

To escape a world ravaged by environmental crisis, biodiversity loss and economic collapse a billionaire builds a generation ship to travel to another planet. 600 people join a voyage that will last almost 400 years, far longer than anyone will hope to survive. Their children's children's children might make it. Here and Beyond is the story of what happens to the generations who live on shipworld.

Science-fiction novels that deal with generation ships are not uncommon, but the best of them allow the author and reader to play with concepts that are elusive in other environments. Communities trapped in deteriorating conditions, or limited space, is one common theme. Others play with the thoughts and frustrations of people trapped in conditions that they would not have asked for. Hal Lacroix's book looks at both of these, and interestingly the bulk of his novel doesn't concern those who arrive at HD-40307G, the exo-planet that is their destination. What concerns Lacroix is the relationships of the generations that are shipbound.

These go through various phases - there are those that remember Earth, including those that were on Earth. Then there are those that that have a connection to Earth through their parents, but as those die out the community begins to develop its own culture, theories and ways of coping. Here one of the fascinating aspects to Lacroix's book is the cultural limits imposed by the billionaire who built it. There are only 100 recordings of music that he liked, and only books from his personal library (which means our intrepid explorers have a strange collection of business books to cope with - though library is eventually recycled). Readers might see in this a metaphor for how the super-rich see themselves and what they consider of value. Its notable that one of the items on the ship is a Olmec head, stolen no doubt and placed there by the billionaire. Another is a painting that has symbolic meaning for the recipient, and is interpreted differently by its subsequent owners.

Readers looking for a scientific account of the 42 light-year trip will be disappointed. Lacroix very much focuses on the people and their relationships, and how they cope, survive and experience the various crises on route. There's some interesting commentary - youngsters go through a phase where they doubt the reality of their mission, believing they are an experiment and have to be shown the outside. Others wonder what clouds are like or what deviled eggs are. Some people rebel against the constraints of the ship. Sometimes they win. The billionaires carefully constructed eco-system quickly breaks down - when doesn't it? Birds die and spices are short. 

This is very much a novel to provoke thinking. Lacroix doesn't dwell on some of the experiences - the reader can never understand, like his characters, what happens with one strange encounter. Nor is there a great deal of information on what happens after landing. That's perhaps the beauty of this work. Its not to be read for science, but to provoke you to think what it's liked to be trapped in a failing ecosystem created by the billionaires. Now there's a metaphor.

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