Hugo Nominations: The Plural of Helen of Troy, John C. Wright

[bibliogramma]

In his Hugo-nominated novella The Plural of Helen of Troy, John C. Wright layers time paradox on top of time paradox in every way possible, and comes up with something that feels as though it ought to be profound, but vanishes like cotton candy if examined closely.

The narrative is non-linear, beginning at the end and ending at the beginning. The setting is a city beyond time, Metachronopolis, populated by corrupt Time Wardens and the people they have plucked from multiple time lines to amuse them, or serve them, or just because they felt like it. Among these people is hard-boiled detective Jacob Quirinus Christoforo Frontino, and his occasional partner Queequeg.

The story may be about a man - a version of John F. Kennedy - hiring Jacob to avenge the rape of his Girl," a Helen of Troy who is also Marilyn Monroe. Or it may be about a JFK who wants to prevent himself from becoming that rapist. Or it may be about a JFK who wants to end a timeline in which Helen/Marilyn of his personal sex slave. Or it may not really be about JFK and Marilyn at all, but rather about another Jacob in another timeline where the Wardens aren't corrupt and Metachronopolis is a city of Emerald Towers (but without, it seems, the Good Witch Glenda) who wants to persuade this Jacob to bring down his timeline so the sparkly green one gets to exist instead.

Something that seems to be true in all of these stories, however, is the nature of Helen, who is Marilyn, who is Everywoman, and who is an eternal object of man's desire, never a person in her own right, who is used and deceived and betrayed and passed from man to man - "She had a certain something that made a man want to help her, protect her, devote his life to her. But the dark side of desire is that same something made other men want to take her, use her, possess her."

Whichever story it is - and that depends on which version of JFK you're listening to and how early (or is that late?) he appears - it's a convoluted mess. Not impressed.