Balance Is Elusive In Kingdom Of Cages

Kingdom of Cages by Sarah Zettel

Finding a balance can be one of life's most challenging tasks. This is true whether we are seeking balance on a personal level or on a more macro scale.

In Kingdom of Cages, science fiction and fantasy author Sarah Zettel explores the quest for balance and what happens to people and their environments when solutions fall to extremities rather than midpoints. And the book truly is an exploration, for Zettel does not feed us answers in pat, easy-to-digest TV dinners nor does she force an agenda upon us leading us to her views alone.

Three-Fold Tale

Kingdom of Cages interweaves diverse perspectives by telling three stories, three stories that are mutually dependent on each other, even when they are unaware of each other's existences and machinations.

Story One: The Pandorans: The citizens of Pandora-descendents of the people who colonized this Earth-like planet thousands of years ago-are being forced to come up with a solution to the so-called "Diversity Crisis" that is decimating every planet except theirs. They are the only ones left who have the resources to try to find a cure for the plagues that are slowly destroying the rest of the universe. Only, as their leader so eloquently put at the beginning of the novel, they don't think that the rest of the universe's crisis is their crisis. They have naught but disdain for the way the rest of the "Called" (short for colonized) have ravaged their planets rather than try to understand it and live in harmony with it. However, they are forced at what amounts to gunpoint to turn their resources to solving the problem.

The Pandorans, often called "the hothousers" because they live in a domed city, have Conscience implants that are monitored by an artificial intelligence that runs the city. These implants pick up on their body chemical changes and remind them of the importance of leaving their pristine planet undisturbed and being loyal to their "family."

Because the Pandorans are unwilling to help the rest of the universe change their planets, they determine that they must change the humans in order to stop the Diversity Crisis. Their "Eden Project" is working on just that when they find the woman with the perfect genetic makeup to take the project to its next stage. That woman is Helice Trust.

Story Two: The Trusts: Helice Trust immigrates to Pandora from the Athena space station with her two daughters, Chena and Teal. Their father has disappeared, saddling their mother with many bills. At the Athena Station, you run the risk of having the air turned off to your apartment if you don't keep up on the bills. So they came down to the planet they had heard rumors about, but never seen. The Pandorans ask Helice to join the Eden Project-which means conceiving a child and then handing it over to them once the child is born. She refuses and instead immigrates to one of the villages outside of the domed city.

The protagonist of this story is Chena, a 13-year-old girl who must make her way on this world that eschews the use of any machinery that would disturb nature, most electronics, and even most medicine. She is a smart, energetic girl who comes of age in this book and must make difficult choices to protect herself, her family, and the people she comes to care about.

Story Three: The Authority and the Called: We actually see very little of this storyline. They are the ones driving the events in the other two story lines. We see the pressure that the Called from all the different planets put on the Authority-the merchants who carry information and goods between the planets-and how the Authority in turn, puts pressure on the Pandorans.

Why Cages?

So what do these three stories have to do with a kingdom made up of cages?

On one level, the kingdom of cages refers to Pandora itself. Pandora is still primarily a wilderness, a wilderness untouched by human contact. Even the villages are surrounded by invisible fences, electric walls that deliver shocks to whomever touches them. The villagers can see the wilderness, but they cannot enter it. The Pandoran "hothousers" even have natural "spies" in the wilderness should something escape their boundaries. Even if the villagers were able to get by those, most don't because of the penalties: Anyone caught breaking laws can be put into the "involuntary" unit in the domed cities. There they have genetic experiments conducted on them.

Likewise, the hothousers live in domed cities where they can see waterfalls and natural beauty, but cannot actually enter it. All of the beauty that they attempt to preserve are all on the outside of their cages.

On another level, the book explores the cages that everyone is in-either because they've put themselves there or because someone else has put them there. Few people in this book have any concept of freedom or even responsibility.

Getting To Know You

As always, one of my favorite things about any Zettel novel are her characters. They are people that manage to spring off the pages and enter my living room-whether I like them or not. One of the strengths of these characters are that they all have flaws and they all have redeeming characteristics.

The books events take place over a 20-year period. Ten years passes from the prologue to chapter one and then another ten years passes between part one and part two. It is especially interesting to watch the emotional growth of Chena and Teal, two teenagers who become adults through particularly trying and frightening experiences.

Even the artificial intelligences are given distinct ways of communicating and expressing themselves. They are characters as fully developed as the humans.

Finding The Balance

In a society that scorns hypocrisy, we frequently find ourselves and our competing cultures on extremes of a spectrum. We're either for something or against it. We're pro or we're anti. In Kingdom of Cages, Zettel seems to be showing us that both of those extremes have far-reaching negative consequences. It isn't matter of protecting the environment OR meeting the needs of humanity. It's finding the balance between the two and making it work. It isn't the rights of the individual OR the rights of the group. It is finding a balance between the two of them.

Zettel also asks some challenging questions about Conscience and its role in our life. Is it ever a good thing to get to a place where we don't ask questions? Or that asking questions is accompanied by buckets of guilt? Does the stifling of "negative" or "harmful" thoughts do us any good? Or is it necessary to ask the negative questions because it may sometimes be necessary to do something that is "unconscionable" rather than let a horror rage unabated.

The difficulty with asking questions and finding a balance becomes this: when do we go too far? When do we not do enough? Perhaps the only answer is that we can never be content with a single answer, but must always probe, question, wonder, and test.

Telling A Good Story

Ultimately, I recommend Kingdom of Cages because of the questions it answers, questions which are worth pondering and are left open-ended. One of the reasons, though, that the questions continue to rattle about my brain is because the story is told so tightly. There is excellent characterization, a tightly moving plot, and plenty of suspense. There are even a fair number of moments where you are filled with horror as you learn how the Pandorans protect their planet and what some of the experiments and solutions are. Zettel is vivid in her descriptions while only occasionally getting weighted down in unnecessary detail.

Perhaps my biggest complaint with the novel is the book jacket. I found both the cover art and the blurb on the back cover to be misleading. Zettel does a fine job of building up tension, except that something the reader should discover in horror along with the characters toward the end of the novel is revealed on the back cover. Also, I kept expecting certain things to happen because of what the summary led me to believe. It was only after reading the entire book that I was sort of able to see what the summary meant, but it really was not an accurate description of the story line. The cover art simply confuses me. The art is nicely done, but I don't see its relation to the book.

Those are minor points, though, and don't really detract from the overall story. Simply avoid reading the back cover and dive right into the book itself. I recommend it as an entertaining book that challenges without overburdening.

--B. Redman