Bruce Boston has been acclaimed as one of the greatest SF poets of all time, winning at least a half dozen Rhysling Awards from the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and Bram Stoker and Pushcart Prize.
He has been publishing poetry and short stories since 1964, but The Guardener’s Tale is only his second novel. That he has now retired and is able to turn his attention to full length works is good news for his considerable body of aficionados.
The Guardener’s Tale has been published by the small press Sam’s Dot publishers, which says a lot about this dark, thoughtful novel; at a time when the bottom line rules at corporate publishers, Boston’s work is too risky for the suits.
The Guardener’s Tale feels at times old-fashioned in it’s use of ‘sectors’ rather than place names, it’s evocation of the wastelands reminiscent of Logan’s Run, and it’s Stalinist-Moscow exhortations to the workers to produce more, and lead better lives, and the rigid stratification that classifies people by work levels. The clue is given in Boston’s careful use of words like ‘gay’ in it’s pre-1970s meaning, to mean carefree; as an award-winning poet, he is far too careful with his choice of words for it to be accidental. This is a deliberate revisionism, mirroring the 'heroine' Josie’s affection for archaic books, music and stimulants, and passing scathing judgement on our own modern lives, where everything is plastic and disposable.
The retro feel to the setting, with its feel of sanitized suburbia and sterility, contrasts with the act of shocking brutality with which Boston emotionally climaxes the novel: the darkness at the Guardener’s heart. That there is an aftermath that allows the reader to draw some hope from the despair running through the narrative does not lessen the impact of the revelation, but instead highlights the rotting core at the heart of the sterility that allows the populace to live with the illusion that it is instead, utopia.
The Guardener’s Tale is not an easy read, but it is powerful, and at a time when many SF novels are becoming increasingly similar in setting and style, it's worth persevering with, and despite -- or perhaps because of -- the fact that it is such a challenge, it's one of the most memorable books of the year.
