Theodora Goss: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter

Some characters take on a life of their own, and demand that other authors tell stories about them, or about the other characters that inhabit their universes, long after their original creators have stopped writing about them. Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Watson are among those characters, as are a number of other literary creations from the same time period.

Sometimes writers are tempted to bring together such characters from different literary universes. Imagine Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, Allan Quartermain, Dr. Jekyll and Hawley Griffin as a Victorian League of superheroes - as Alan Moore did.

In her debut novel The Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter! Theodora Goss has taken this one step further, in bringing together two groups of characters derived from 19th century literature - the mad scientists whose researches pushed multiple boundaries of human knowledge and experience, and the female monsters they created.

The story begins with Mary Jekyll, the daughter of long-deceased Doctor Jekyll. Left without any income after the death of her mother, Mary is looking for any legitimate way to make enough money to support herself and her loyal housekeeper and cook. After receiving a strange notification concerting her mother’s continuing support of “Hyde” she assumes this is a clue to the whereabouts of the long missing Mr. Hyde, believed to have been involved in an unsolved murder. Remembering that the famous detective Sherlock Holmes was also involved with the case, she goes to him to see if there is still a reward for the capture of Hyde. With Watson assisting her, she discovers not the man Hyde, but his daughter Diana, who claims to be her sister. No longer welcome at the Magdalen Society where she has been cared for, Diana becomes, in essence, Mary’s ward, as the two seek to unravel the mystery of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Their investigation dovetails with Holmes’ newest case, a consultation with the police over several deaths of prostitutes in the Whitechapel area, women whose bodies were found with body parts missing. (These seem to be purely fictional, although inspired by other cases of Victorian serial murders - the names of the victims do not correspond with the 11 names in the historical Whitechapel file, several of which are attributed to Jack the Ripper.) A seal used on some surviving correspondence received by Dr. Jekyll is identical with the design found on a watch fob clutched in the hand of one of the murder victims. With this, the game is afoot, and will eventually involve some of the most famous ‘mad scientists’ and other creatures of Victorian fiction - Moreau, Rappaccini, Renfield, Van Helsing - and the legacy of the first of the mad scientists, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Goss has chosen to tell the story in an interesting manner. Ostensibly being written by a woman identified as Catherine, the text incorporates comments by Mary, Diana, Mary’s housekeeper Mrs. Poole, the scullery maid Alice, and two other women not initially identified, Beatrice and Justine. From the nature of their comments, the reader is made aware that these women are friends and colleagues who have travelled and worked together on at least one venture, and that the narrative - mostly written by Catherine - is also a means of introducing each woman and allowing her to tell her story, and recast the reader’s knowledge of her through the lens of her father’s work.

Being a Holmes enthusiast, and fairly familiar with the Victorian literature of the fantastic that is referenced in this narrative, made the reading of it a particularly enjoyable experience. I found myself double checking the names of just about every character mentioned, whether they seemed to be involved in the mystery of the murdered women or not. (I was rather vexed not to find any obvious link between Mrs. Poole and Bertha Mason Rochester’s nurse Grace Poole.)

The frequent asides of the main characters make it clear that Goss plans more adventures for the women of her book, and I am most eager to find out what comes next.

Nancy Kress: Yesterday’s Kin

I read Nancy Kress’ novella Yesterday’s Kin because I wanted to know what seeds she started from in adapting that initial story to what is planned to be a trilogy of novels, the first if which, Tomorrow’s Kin, I anticipate reading.

Yesterday’s Kin is a combination first contact/approaching apocalypse/medical thriller story. Aliens arrive on Earth, only to announce two equally starting facts. First, they are in fact humans, somewhat altered by tens of thousands if years if evolution on an alien planet, where their ancestors had been settled, seeded by an unknown ancient race. Second, they have come to warn their distant cousins that the path of the solar system is about to pass through a cloud of alien spores, which has already killed the inhabitants of two of their colonies.

They offer assistance in helping to find a vaccine, or at least some form of treatment. They also seek members of their closest human kin, a rare and very old haplogroup that us almost extinct in Earth, but which all of their people are members of.

The story focuses on the family of scientist Marianne Jenner, the geneticist who discovered the existence of this rare haplogroup on Earth. The aliens ask her to take charge of finding other members of their haplogroup, and so she and her team join other researchers on the alien’s space ship, moored in the New York City harbour.

The science of the story is fascinating, as is the exploration of different responses to the presence of the aliens, the news they bring, and the actions they take. There are several not entirely unexpected plot twists - if you’re reading carefully you figure them out just a bit before they happen - and a lot of potential for the story to continue.

I’m very much looking forward to the expanded and extended story.

Nancy Kress: Tomorrow’s Kin

The first section of Nancy Kress’ novel Tomorrow’s Kin is essentially the same as the novella Yesterday’s Kin. A combination first contact/approaching apocalypse/medical thriller, it’s the story of aliens arriving on Earth, only to announce that they are humans, somewhat altered by tens of thousands of years of evolution on an alien planet, where their ancestors had been settled, seeded by an unknown ancient race, and that they have come to warn their distant cousins that the path of the solar system is about to pass through a deadly cloud of alien spores.

The story focuses on the family of scientist Marianne Jenner, a geneticist who has discovered the existence of a rare and very ancient human haplogroup - one which is almost extinct on earth, but from which all the aliens are descended.

This first section tells the story of the first contact between the humans of Earth and the humans of World - who have been incorrectly called Denebs from the part if space from which their spaceship approached earth. Offering to help a group of human scientists in a frantic search to develop a vaccine against the spores - which have already destroyed two Deneb colonies - the Denebs have not given the inhabitants of Earth one vital piece of information - that the Earth has already passed through the cloud once before, and all human in Earth are descended from the survivors, and hence immune. It is only the Denebs, taken from Earth before the first passage through the cloud, who are vulnerable. And the samples they have obtained from human tissues during the joint search for a vaccine will enable the scientifically advanced Denebs to save themselves before their planet enters the cloud.

Leaving Earth just before it enters the cloud, the Denebs reveal the truth of their mission on Earth, and in return fir the help of humans, they leave the secret of interstellar travel. With them are several Earth humans, all members of the rare haplogroup the Denebs represent, including Marianne Jenner’s adopted son Noah.

The rest of the novel deals with humanity’s reaction to this first encounter with their distant cousins.

Unfortunately, the Denebs had only been partially correct. Most humans were immune - but a mutation in Central Asia had left hundreds of thousands in that region without genetic protection, and their deaths had been horrifying. Several other mammalian species had also lacked protection, including most rodents, and their loss had initiated an ecological collapse. The world is in chaos, and many feel the Denebs were to blame. And they are angry.

Marianne Jenner is now working for Star Brotherhood, an organisation that is attempting to build support for building spaceships and going out among the stars to find their kin again, joining an advanced interstellar society begun by the Denebs, or Worlders as some are now calling them. But most of the people of Earth don’t want anything to do with the Worlders. And some want to go to World, only to destroy it. And Marianne and her family are, as they have been since the first meeting of Earth humans and Worlders, right in the middle of everything.

Like the novella, Tomorrow’s Kin is a compelling blend of first contact and science thriller narratives. There’s urgency - the planet is in ecological and economic collapse - and conflict, and scientific mysteries - children are being born, post spore exposure, with altered brains and vastly increased sensitivity to sounds at both higher and lower frequencies than normal humans. And plots within plots to influence, in one way or another, the future of relations between Earth and World.

Looking forward to volume two of the trilogy.