Counting Heads

Counting Heads (by David Marusek) is in some ways a throwback to classic science fiction. It's interested in two things: cool science and  realistic characters. The book has scenes written in the modern cinematic style but the priorities of the book are decidedly old school- hardish science mixed together with some interesting characters thrown in and then see what bubbles up.

The characters are the real gems of Counting Heads. They run a gamut of ages and types, races, creeds, backgrounds, and social status. Each one of the main point of view characters has something compelling about them and each one goes through a full character arc. By the end almost every character has learned something new about themselves and their world. And props need to be given to David Marusek for managing to write convincing first person passages from the point of view of not one, but two children as well as an extremely elderly character.

The plot basically is as follows: a supremely powerful CEO dies in a spaceship crash and her only heir is decapitated but survives due to a safety helmet. This head in a jar is a prize that many people want to kill or protect for a wide variety of reasons. The book follows the lives of men and women who are caught up in the conflict over the severed head of Ellie Starke. Characters that include, Ellie's elderly father, a ten year old boy, clones, robots, AIs, a defrocked Bishop, and a coffee table that transforms into a war-machine.  OK, that last one isn't a main character. While all this is playing out there are several plots running in the background. These include the future of colonizing other planets and the deactivation of the shields surrounding Chicago that keep nano-biological terror weapons out. These subplots never come to any sort of resolution despite a fair amount of time spent on them.

Kind of like this but not really at all.

That all probably sounded like a mess. And Counting Heads is a mess, plot-wise. There is a reason it was not released to grand fanfare and fame. The characters are great. The setting of the book is compelling. But Marusek keeps getting sidetracked. In fact, 'sidetracked' is too generous. The pacing of the plot, such that there is a plot, is a total mess. A main PoV character is rendered mute and irrelevant for the last third of the book. The book opens with a nice short story that is both relevant but also not too relevant to the main plot. Charcters arcs jump and jitter. Plot threads are picked up only to be left dangling. Things like killer coffee tables pop up, are dealt with, and are never explained. Vastly complicated ideas and technologies are introduced and never explored.

Perhaps the most mind boggling example of Counting Head's plot problems is found on the jacket cover. This is the summary of the plot from the jacket: "The year is 2134, and the Information Age has given rise to the Boutique Economy in which mass production and mass consumption are rendered obsolete. Life extension therapies have increased the human lifespan by centuries. Loyal mentars (artificial intelligence) and robots do most of society's work. The Boutique Economy has made redundant ninety-nine percent of the world's fifteen billion human inhabitants. The world would be a much better place if they all simply went away." Absolutely none of that information is ever mentioned or alluded to within the pages of the book. And it sounds pretty damn important to me. Probably the colonization subplot, the poor characters, and the Chicago shield deactivation subplot all tie back into that central premise but without reading the book jacket no one would ever know it.

Despite the abysmal plotting of the book, the characters and the innovative setting make for a good read. While Counting Heads may not convert any new readers to science fiction, fans of the genre will find a solid compelling story. Counting Heads receives seven out of ten severed heads.