Damn, but Remnant Population was a good book. It’s a book about colonization of other planets crossed with a first contact novel. The speculative elements aren’t groundbreaking, but the story is engrossing and the main character is particularly first-rate. Ofelia Falfurrias is one of the few women of a certain age
who star in science fiction, and Moon proves that such characters can be done well in such a setting.
Older, somewhere in her 70s or 80s, and a little bit dotty and cranky, Ofelia lives on a colony planet about the be evacuated after only 40 or 50 years of existence. Her son and daughter-in-law are her last remaining relatives. The rest have died along with many other colonists in the not exactly thriving outpost. The holder of the colony franchise is pulling out, and all the settlers must go. Ofelia is old and tired. She doesn’t like her son. She’s not particularly fond of having people around in general; they dismiss her as old and less than useful. So when her time comes to board the evacuation ship, she hides out in the forest figuring that the authorities won’t bother tracking down one old woman who they think will probably die anyway. And she’s correct in that assumption.
And so Ofelia begins a solitary existence. Tending her garden. Keeping up the equipment in the town. While the colony was slowly failing, there’s plenty of stores and supplies for her to keep going by herself until her death. She doesn’t get looked down on. She doesn’t have to listen to what anyone else thinks of her. She can sleep in any house that she wants. She finds it pretty freeing, although it’s pretty clear her existence is fairly mind-numbing. She mostly lives by loose routine, just enjoying her own not so grand thoughts.
The wrench that gets thrown into the works happens when the next set of colonists attempt to land. Their company decides to land in a different location on the planet, thinking the tropical location where the previous company situated Ofelia’s town was the cause of the failure. Ofelia listens to them over the radio as they land and are promptly attacked by heretofore unknown natives who slaughter the landing party. Ofelia expects both that the humans will return and that the indigenous people will find her before long. She won’t get to live out her time in blissful seclusion. And she’s irritated by that.
Psychologically speaking, I think Ofelia is rather well done. The novel rides on how interesting her character is. She moves from being slightly dotty and resentful, to happily exploring her freedom, to fear (of a sort) of the unknown aliens, to irritation with them, to some understanding. She also moves from selfishness to selflessness.
The aliens are somewhat enigmatic as characters. Some of that’s acceptable since they are, after all, alien to us. But once Moon went down the road of giving individuals personalities, I think it would have been nice to complete them a little more.
The humans who appear epitomize the Ugly American archetype, but even there they get to be condescending in different ways. I have one quibble with the scripting of the officious team leader. He goes suddenly goes beyond throwing his weight around to something beyond the pale, and it rings false. A fair amount of the focus at the end on the interaction between the planetary residents and the humans who arrive is pretty heavy-handed.
What Remnant Population does so well is combine just a little bit of old school sensawunda with an exploration of how people might actually behave in new and strange circumstances.
A few other blogged reviews:
Title: Remnant Population
Author: Elizabeth Moon
Cover creator: David Stevenson (designer)
Imprint / publisher: Del Rey / Random House
Format: Paperback
Length: 325 p.
Publication date: September 2003 (originally 1996)
ISBN-10: 0-345-46219-X
I loved this book too! Thanks for the review and the new “word” (sensawunda).