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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: [Publisher Note: Valencies was first published in 1983 by the University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia and appears here in an updated version revised by Damien Broderick especially for Fictionwise.] [Authors' note: This revised edition was launched here in November 2002 under its original working title, Against the Empire. We quickly found this change misled some readers into expecting a rousing space opera in the tradition of 'Doc' Smith or Star Wars, so now we have reinstated the published title. A word of caution, therefore: this book is not a military adventure yarn nor a romance in deep space.] What is it, then? Australian critic Van Ikin comments: "... utopia is an elusive grail with a different meaning in every age, and contemporary [Australian] writers of speculative fiction ... examine the dangers and pitfalls of utopian fervour. The most notable of these works are Beloved Son (1978) and Vaneglory (1981) by George Turner, and Valencies (1983) by Rory Barnes and Damien Broderick." (The Penguin New Literary History of Australia, 1988). Critics Ikin, McMullen and Blackford, in Strange Constellations (1999), also point out that "in its structure, although not its thematic concern with individual freedom and universal human dignity, the book is atypical of Broderick's fiction, quite different from his novels of time travel and altered realities..." If all this sounds a little downbeat, take heart! Brian W. Aldiss, in Trillion Year Spree (1986), praised Valencies as "one of the more playful SF novels of recent years" and quoted it at some length. Ikin, McMullen and Blackford say: "Some of the book's set pieces ... are glorious pieces of comic writing." So, yes, it is a literary dystopia, but we hope it's a lot of fun as well. In Hyperdreams, Russell Blackford describes the novel thus: "A far-future parable about political and cultural imperialism. Barnes and Broderick propose that by 4004 AD the Universe has been filled with human beings, thanks to the teleportational network (the "Aorist Discontinuity") and countless terraformed planets left behind by a von Danikenesque alien race known as "the Charioteers." Humanity is organised into a bleak and clinically brutal Empire. The novel focuses on a frustrated group of libertarian anarchists who live on the planet Victoria. By the end, their politically futile activities elicit from the reader a mixed emotional response. There is a sense of pathos, since all the moves in the game are foreknown and controlled by the rulers of the Empire, as becomes apparent in the final chapter, while the book's revolutionaries cannot even understand each other, let alone overthrow an omnipotently entrenched system. At the same time, there is a strong sense of dignity and courage, and this is magnified rather than diminished by the depictions of human weakness. Valencies, then, represents a struggle against Empire, a struggle that can never amount to more than futile gestures. The narrative is dominated by the characters' pranks, games, and parodies, and the complexities of their love lives. The incomprehension between person and person is suggested not only by the book's focus upon the difficulties between spirited Anla and dispirited Ben, and those between vulnerable Theri and gentle Kael, but also by the cunning juxtaposition of narrative viewpoints, which enables Barnes and Broderick to weave for the reader a delicate web of understanding of the characters' misunderstandings."

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 1983
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2002

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [212 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [160 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [188 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [637 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [213 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [164 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [257 KB] , hiebook (KML) [467 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [274 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [175 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [218 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [246 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [288 KB]
Words: 59649
Reading time: 170-238 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Microsoft Reader ISBN: 1590624416

He was two thousand years from home, lonely as only the ancient can be lonely, sick at heart.

"Matey," he called to the lout murdering the guitar at the next table, "lend us your axe for a mo?"

The fellow gave him a contemptuous glance, smacked his fingers clumsily against the strings. Catsize leaned forward on his timber table-top, expectant, undeterred. One of the young women at the other table glanced back over her shoulder.

"You play?"

"Bit." He shrugged. "You know."

"My gran made this with his own bare hands," the lout said resentfully. He placed the guitar on the table in front of him. Red and green glistened from the veneer, caught the scratches in its polish.

"It's a beauty," Catsize agreed. He left his arms folded. "You play it real good, zinger."

The fellow's lips twisted. "Yeah, well, it's a hobby of mine. The fuckin' imperials don't like it, see?"

Catsize was impressed, widening his eyes in the dim light of the swig bar. "You know any ... seditious songs?"

Now all of them were looking at him, hard and suspicious. He gazed from one to the other, mild, slightly dopey, and saw them relax.

"Give him a go, Scums."

"Bit of a laugh, anyway."

The big fellow hesitated, then abruptly shrugged and thrust the instrument across the gap between them. "Treat it with respect, zotter. My gran--"

"Made it, yeah." Catsize hefted it. Not too bad, balance was okay. He tightened the strings, twanging. Clear notes rang like ice.

"Sing us one of those songs. You know," the interested woman said.

"Well, okay." With a last quaff from his jar, Catsize sounded a run of notes that turned every head in the bar. "This is a real old one, I'm told. From some place so far away you need to take a hundred Aorist trips to get here." He sang, then, in his cracked, angelic voice:

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
"Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
"All mimsy were the borogoves--"

When he came up for air, exultant and flushed with the joy of it, they clicked their fingers, and someone on the far side of the bar hooted in approval.

"Cool, man." The lout was impressed. "Was that about..." Scums lowered his voice, looked around furtively. "Kurd?"

Catsize gave him a knowing look.

"What's it mean, man?" the woman asked. She left her bench at the other table, came to sit beside him.

"It's Creole," he told her. "Man probably shouldn't, you know..."

"No," she said, nodding, then shook her head. "No."

"Sing us something else, zinger."

"Aw."

"Go on."

"My throat's dry."

"Get the guy a drink, Marty."

Catsize leaned back, the large bulk of the antique instrument fitting against his body like a lover.

"This is a dude from Old Earth. Yeats." He closed his eyes and sang:

Under the passing stars
Foam of the sky
Lives on this lonely face--

As he drew to the end of the ancient ballad, tears leaked from his meshed lashes.

Finally he handed back the guitar, head ringing, fingers numb. He went to the lavatory out back, under the white fragrance of some mutant vegetable from earth, the scent of salt and kelp, listening to the sound of the ocean beyond the pub's high walls, and when he came out into the night the woman was waiting for him. She took his arm and drew him into deeper shadow. Voices played like mantras within the bar, enriched with bursts of laughter. He allowed himself to follow her into shadow. She kissed him, deeply, like a besotted girl, placing his right hand on her full breast. For the first time in years he felt aroused. She pulled away, then.

"They want you back, Commander."

He sighed. She was beautiful, but they were all beautiful now.

"We've been looking for you for a very long time."

He found a waist-high garbage container, hopped up on it, the painted metal chilly under his buttocks, and pulled the woman close to him. Into her ear he said, "Chomsky is closed."

"Yes. Interdicted. But we won't stay closed forever, Commander."

"Open the gates again and the Imperials will be all over us like swarming rats."

"Not if those of us on the outside do our jobs."

"The Revolution, ah yes." Catsize sighed. A perfumed Newstralian wind blew across the buzz garden, and the sea hushed and retreated. The woman leaned back against him, solid, alive, yes, still somehow alive.

"You are sardonic, sir." Her voice came crisp through the haze of her long hair. She turned her face sideways, to him, allowing any spy who chanced to be watching them to assume a kiss. "But yes, the revolution. We need you back with us."

Two thousand years blew through his small body like stale incinerator smoke.

"I find it cold out here, my dear. My poor old bones, you know." Catsize kept his hands on her for balance and for the memory of it, pushed himself down off the trash container. His feet crunched in sand. She was a good head taller, her hair in his lips. "I'm expecting some friends. It was pleasant to meet you."

"Sir--"

"Tell them I fought the good fight. Tell them I'm retired." In the half light, Catsize rubbed his aching eyes with the heels of his hands, then smiled up at her. "No, nobody would believe that. Tell them I have my own way of doing things."

The woman's mouth twisted. "Commander, I'm disappointed. We've been searching for you for more than century. Am I supposed to report that you've become nothing better than an ... adventurist?"

"Tell them that I wish them well, as always." He reached up, drew her down in an embrace, kissed her lowered forehead as one might kiss a child's head, a child one loves, a child one must leave now. "Tell them--Well, you could tell them that the mome rath outgrabe."

"The--Sir, what the fuck does that mean?"

He beamed at her, delighted. "There, I knew you were an anarchist at heart. 'Sir', indeed. Good grief." He bowed. "Good evening, and farewell," and took himself back to the thick fuggy air of the swig. Kael and Theri had arrived. They waved, beckoned him to a table. Through the heavy timber doors from the dropspace out front, Ben and Anla entered, arguing ferociously. Catsize beamed. His children. His wonderful innocents.

"Drinks!" he cried to them, capering. "Buzz! Poetry and song!"

Everyone smiled.