Willful Child is the latest novel by Steven Erikson, an author famous for his fantasy epic, The Malazan Book of the Fallen. This novel, however, is about as far from that series as you can get: it’s comedic sci-fi that pokes fun at the genre. Specifically, it uses Star Trek: The Original Series as its source (victim?) of choice, with Hadrian Sawback clearly modelled on Captain James T Kirk, but turned up to the max, and then some more.
From the publisher:
These are the voyages of the starship, A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life life-forms, to boldly blow the…
And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback – think James T Kirk crossed with ‘American Dad’ – and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through ‘the infinite vastness of interstellar space’…
The bestselling author of the acclaimed Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence has taken a life-long passion for ‘Star Trek’ and transformed it into a hugely entertaining spoof on the whole mankind-exploring-space-for-the-good-of-all-species-but-trashing-stuff-with-a-lot-of-hi-tech-kit-along-the-way type over-blown science fiction adventure. The result is smart. inventive, occasionally OTT and often very funny – a novel that both deftly parodies the genre and pays fond homage to it.
I’m going to say this straight away: Willful Child is not a book that everyone will like. Hell, the first time I tried to read it I got a few chapters in and put it down. Why, you may ask? Well, the humour in the book plays heavily on Hadrian’s view of the universe, and very much on his view of women. Think Captain Kirk from Star Trek combined with Zapp Brannigan from Futurama, and you’re still going to be left aghast at some of the things that come out of his mouth. He’s sexist to the extreme, but isn’t entirely incompetent.
I also think that you have to be in the right frame of mind to even halfway enjoy Willful Child. If you go in expecting a parody you’re only half right – it spoofs the premise of Star Trek in excess, and the pop-culture references are there on every page. It’s an interesting combination, and one that isn’t that successful in execution, mainly due to the aforementioned sexist humour of the captain.
The plot, however, is relatively straight-forward and allows for plenty of interesting meetings and events. Quite simply, a rogue AI – Tammy – takes over the Willful Child and wants to find its makers. The reaction of the crew to this is mixed, but Sawback pretty much goes along with it despite having no control over where the ship goes. It’s a mish-mash of elements, and along the way pretty much anything and everything is thrown at the Willful Child. Some of the situations are genuinely funny, playing on pop-culture references to get the laughs, while others seem to push the boundaries of believability (yes, even in a parody novel such as this).
What I did like here was the clear parody of a TV show that I enjoy so much growing up. In this respect it’s more successful than Redshirts by John Scalzi, another recent Star Trek parody. It simply falls down at the characterisation and constant sexual innuendos and comments from Sawback. The supporting characters also leave me scratching my head in amazement – they just go along with everything. And the jokes can become rather repetitive after a while.
Still, Willful Child is enjoyable if you can take the humour it contains. Erikson clearly knows his source material well, but it’s far from perfect and will easily divide the opinion of its readers. But it has that something that made the pages turn – there is never a break in the action from the word go – and I ended up reading it despite my ongoing issues. I can’t even say whether it’s a book I’d recommend, simply because of how extremely offensive it gets at times. It’s a weird one, that’s for sure.
Publisher: http://www.transworldbooks.co.uk
Author: http://www.stevenerikson.com
November 2014, 352 Pages
Hardcover, ISBN: 9780593073070
Review copy received from the publisher
© 2015 Mark Chitty
I’m not entire sure, from the review, that I “get” the purpose of the book, nor why I would want to read it. Perhaps if I had it in front of me I’d skim it, and then possibly change my mind. But based on the review, probably not. I would however be most interested to read Mr. Erikson’s rebuttal to the review.
I wonder what the opposite of Hamlet’s ‘damned with faint praise’ would be herein… Praised with faint damnation?
I do sincerely hope that if Mr. Chitty should ever decide to review my own book, ‘Chromosome Quest’ he will find my humor more to his liking.