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It's a Colony recap! Previous chapters. Wow, this one ended up looooong.

Chapter 8, in which David has some growing up to do.

Yay, this chapter's back on Island One! I am growing really really fond of Evelyn and David. Maybe it's just because I've seen more of them than a few pages of introduction, but I just... like them. I really enjoy their interaction in this chapter, too.

I don't remember if David's age is ever stated, but even if he's an adult, he's pretty much got the mind of a teenager, in my opinion. This is his puberty chapter.

It starts with them at the holo!ballet.

Yes, the holo!ballet. Because on Island One, they stream ballet performances from Moscow in hologram form, and then transmit the audience's reaction back for "emotional feedback". I bet the dancers and the Moscow audience really hate that: there's bound to be lag, and imagine the irritation of a bunch of disembodied clapping halfway through the next section.

Also, David is jealous of the dancers, because he's too self-conscious for dancing. He "decided that ballet was not for him, emotionally." See, he totally has weaknesses and everything, despite being a perfectly engineered test-tube human! Well, the self-consciousness, and the fact that he's really pretty thick.

Anyway, they go to a café (with robot waiters!) and Evelyn tells him about breaking in to Cylinder B and finding it empty except for rainforest. He tells her that she should be careful, as people have been thrown out of the colony for less, and she finally tells him that she's not planning to stay on Island One for any length of time, but actually just went there to write a story about him to sell back on Earth.

He is not very happy about that.

"Well, you got your story the first night. I hope you enjoyed it. Everything you always wanted to know about the manufactured man, including his sex life. Was I any good? Do you want me to pose for photos?"

N'aww, someone needs a hug.

Evelyn tells him that she isn't going to leave yet, because he's really hot she realised he was a real, feeling human being, and her conscience won out, so she's trying to find an even better story in Colony B. And David can help her find out what's going on!

"Now I understand. If I help you to unravel this mystery, then you'll have a story about Island One bigger than the test-tube baby story. Right?"

"I'm sure of it!" She nodded excitedly.

"And if I don't help you, you've still got my story. You can go back to Earth and sell my story to your bosses."

An unhappy frown creased her brow. "I don't want to do that, David."

"But you will if you have to."

"If I have to... I don't know what I'll do."

But I know, David said to himself.

Well, what's wrong with using your initiative and some implied blackmail to get a good story and keep the guy?

I love these kids.


~*CHANGE OF SCENE*~


The mysterious Board of Directors is having a meeting. Via holograms, again. (Sent by laser via privately-owned satellites, naturally.) Holograms are all the rage this chapter. Here's the members of The Board (cf. World Government):

T. Hunter Garrison: "[W]ispy white hair fringing a bald dome, narrow-eyed hawkish face with skin like badly wrinkled parchment, liver-spotted hands that would have been gnarled with arthritis if they didn't possess so much money and power." Lives on the top floor of his office-building in Houston and never leaves because the world comes to him.

Hideki Tanaka: Bluff industrialist with eyes "as cold as those of a professional killer". Lives somewhere with a view of Mt Fuji.

Wilbur St. George: Lives in Sydney, smokes a pipe, "beefy face" with a "no-nonsense scowl"

Kurt Morgenstern: Lives in Cologne, "wary-eyed [...], pasty-faced and flabby-looking", controls most of central Europe's industry.

And my second favourite character (Ev and Dave get joint first), the evil Sheik himself, al-Hashimi.

They discuss their funding of El Libertador! (he just feels like he should have an exclamation mark in his name) and how to stop him from causing too much trouble for them while destroying the World Government, and the ways they've been manipulating the weather to make things easier for him. Because it's important for the reader of a novel to always know the plans and objectives of every single character or group of characters, lest they strain their brains with speculation and uncertainty for more than a chapter or two.

Other points the book wants us to know about:

- Al-Hashimi has contacts with a member of the PRU who he gives money and advice to.
- Some of the Board members feel a bit guilty about killing people and/or endangering their profits, but their computer predictions show that the World Government will bankrupt them all if they don't do something. (Where "doing something" = fucking over most of the world's economy through disasters and wars. Go go gadget self-fulfilling prophecy?)
- They have a thing called Operation Proxy that will combine all the revolutionary movements around the world to cause a global civil war, and which somehow involves Island One
- Garrison controls Dr Cobb. He's very sure about this. He uses italics, and everything.

Oh, and St. George, the Australian member, owns the newspaper Evelyn works for, and is using her as a spy without her knowledge! Well, unless he has a different "snoop" who "[t]hinks she's digging up a scandal for the International News".

From now on, I'm imagining Evelyn with an Australian accent. Even if it is the International News.


~*TWO SCENE CHANGES IN ONE CHAPTER HOLY SHIT*~


Ok, exciting things: we finally get to meet Dr Cobb, head scientist of Island One, and David's father figure.

Aaaaaand now I have George Michael stuck in my head. :|

Anyway, Cobb has banned organised team sports from Colony One, because he doesn't approve of "vicarious violence" or competition of any kind, apparently. Good luck with that, doctor. He does have a 0g sports complex, so he can play ball games while having fatherly talks with his after-school projects, like we're suddenly in an American family movie.

So, there they are playing 0g-handball, which is apparently a very hazardous game and can cause a lot of injuries. This is hardcore handball, guys. Believe it.

David asks him about Cylinder B, and Cobb, who has the same exposition disease as everyone else, goes all "oh yes, she asked you about it, didn't she, I watched her break in the other day through the security cameras I SEE EVERYTHING." He reveals he threw David and Evelyn together when she first got there to give him an opportunity to learn how to deal with people from the real world. So, that went well.

He also reveal the plans for Cylinder B. (He's just looking out for us readers, really. Do you want to risk brain-strain?) The members of the Board has requested five mansions to be built in it.

"But why... what do they..."

Arching an eyebrow, the old man asked, "Do you see any statistical correlation between the fact that the Board has ordered five mansions and the fact that there are five—count them, five—members of the aforesaid Board of Directors of the island One Corporation, Limited?"

David blinked at him.

Are you sure you engineered this guy with a superior brain, Dr Cobb? I'm just asking, purely out of interest.

The Board want the mansions on the colony to retreat to once the Earth collapses into chaos and civil war, obviously:

"And they'll let the world collapse around them?"

"There's nothing they can do to prevent it, even if they wanted to."

"I don't believe that!"

"Well... there is one thing," Cobb said. "After the Board comes here to love, we can shoot anybody else out of the sky when they try to come up here and invade us!"

DUN DUN DUUUUUN.

And with that, we get to the end of Book One (of five). Pray to the gods of the five-act structure that now things will begin to happen. Prediction: David and Evelyn team up to save the world.


Sometimes reading books, you think about whether they would make good films or not. I think Colony would make a neat anime. I'm not sure why it makes me think of that rather than live-action, maybe it's the politics and the great silliness.

Also, I'm still hoping for a Colony Drop (TV Tropes, click at your own risk.).
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