{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Hunter's Run
by Gardner Dozois, George R. R. Martin, and Daniel Abraham
by Karen S. Wiesner
Be aware that there are spoilers in this review.
Hunter's Run is a science fiction novel published in 2007 and written over the span of 30 years by "three young authors over time": Gardner Dozois (who's credited with the original concept), George R. R. Martin, and Daniel Abraham. I reviewed one of Martin and Dozois' co-edited anthology collections (Rogues) back on June 28, 2024. Martin is, of course, the famed author of A Song of Ice and Fire (HBO's Game of Thrones). Dozois was a science fiction author before he passed in 2018 as well as the founding editor of The Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies (from 1984 through 2018) and Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (1986–2004). Abraham is a novelist best known for his The Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series, and (with Ty Franck) as the co-author of The Expanse science fiction series under the joint pseudonym James S. A. Corey.
In 1976 Dozois conceived of the story of a man floating in darkness. A year later, he was invited to teach at a summer science fiction writing workshop by Martin, who found Dozois's story interesting. Dozois felt stalled in continuing it so, after three years in a drawer, he asked Martin to collaborate. Martin wanted to explore the alien world of São Paulo. In 1982, Martin couldn't get any further in completing the story either, so he passed it back to Dozois. Neither was able to find a way to progress, and the book went back into a drawer until 2002. Martin brought it to the attention of a young "Turk", author Abraham, who completed it as a novella. Martin called it "Shadow Twin". It was published in 2004. Later, Dozois reworked it into a 300-page-plus novel and renamed it Hunter's Run. Despite how disjointed the writing of this story undeniably was (the full account of the process is included in the back matter of the published novel), it surprisingly does come together in a seamless and cohesive way. At no point in time did I feel like someone (or some two or three) else had written certain aspects of the story. If for no other reason, that does make this "experiment" quite an achievement.
Before I proceed any further, I'll again warn that there's no way to review this book the way I want to without giving away key aspects of the plot. If you want to read the story without being told those pivotal points, go read the book and come back to this review later.
In this futuristic science fiction, humans have reached the stars but unfortunately alien species including the Silver Enye, Turu, Cian, and others have already claimed the choice worlds. However, these races allow human colonists (mostly the downtrodden, poor, and/or potential lawbreakers) to join in the world-building by crash-testing them on empty planets too dangerous to be colonized by the "worthy".
The main character Ramón is a thoroughly despicable creep who came to the planet to escape the poverty and hopelessness he faced on Earth. Unfortunately, the capital city on São Paulo is no better. The only law in this place is survival. A prospector, Ramón drinks away whatever money he makes or spends it on the woman he's with, though certainly doesn't love or particularly even like. He's an abusive jerk (though Elena can be described exactly the same way) who ends up killing someone important. On the run in the wilderness "wastelands", he tells himself if he can find a rich mineral strike somewhere, he can start his life all over. He stumbles upon an alien installation. Before he can do anything about it, he's kidnapped by the aliens.
When he comes to, he's told by the aliens that another man has discovered their location and they have to capture him before he reveals their existence to the human colonists back in São Paulo. Ramón is compelling to join that hunt. In the process, Ramón begins to bond with his captor Maneck. Eventually Ramón learns that the other human intruder was actually the original Ramón that the aliens have cloned to create him--he's the clone of the original Ramón. Despite this, Ramón begins to understand that these advanced aliens also landed on this hostile planet where they're just trying to survive. Cloning humans and trying to learn their behavior is simply a way for them to blend in and co-exist.
The clone-Ramón manages to escape this captor and meets up with the older, jaded and, frankly, out of shape version of himself, who doesn't recognize him. It doesn't take long for clone-Ramón to realize he really, really does not like the original Ramón. He begins to question his own existence, intentions, and purpose as a result. When the original Ramón discovers who he is, survival is again the only option. The clone kills the original (whoa!) and tries to take up his old life in the capital--which means consequences of the original's crimes and imprisonment. Soon the clone decides he has more in common with the aliens and more chance at a life of peace and purpose with them.
While all the authors who had hands in this project played with radically different ideas (told in the interviews in the back of the book) for Hunter's Run, at its heart, the theme is in the exploration of what it means to be human. Everything you've read thus far in this review are all the reasons I wanted to love this book. It sounds amazing, doesn't it? The subject matter, the setting, and the concept is utterly compelling to me as a person and a writer. I truly enjoyed the Enemy Mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Mine_(film) overtones that pervaded the interactions of clone-Ramón and the alien.
To me, the fatal flaw in Hunter's Run (and probably it's earlier version "Shadow Twin" as well) was that the authors jointly made the protagonist--and, by default, his clone--so unlikable and thoroughly despicable that I never got to the point of feeling like his/their story was captivating, nor were they worth rooting for. In his interview in the back of Hunter's Run, Dozois said, "There was an essay by Damon Knight complaining that almost all heroes in science fiction are middle-class white Americans whereas almost no one on Earth is… 'Where is the space hero who is Mexican?'…I made Ramón in the 1970s very stereotypical… We needed to move away from that." Given that glimpse of story creation, I found it highly ironic that the three authors, even working together, ultimately chose to make Ramón stereotypically violent and reprehensible, so much so that it was hard to feel sympathy for him on the basis of the fact that, wherever this man went, he constantly felt he had to fight from every side just to survive. Ramón as a person was portrayed as ruthless, selfish, and vicious. He made bad choices he couldn't blame anyone else for. Regardless of his merciless setting or the environment he was in, he was a man who would always be who and what he was…a creep. There's no sugar-coating that fact with philosophical, psychological, or cultural discourses.
As the majority of this story was told from the point of view of his clone, who does--to his credit--seem to be at least aware his original self was a jackass, I experienced disappointment that the clone didn't seem significantly changed even after he realized who he was in relation to the original Ramón and admitted to himself he didn't care for his "predecessor". As Jerry Seinfeld said, "adjacent to refuse is refuse". I guess ultimately I strongly need to feel a protagonist is a hero, or more accurately, has the potential to become one through the course of a story, not simply a degree above a villain, as this clone character was. I could in no way conceive that clone-Ramón might break free of any association with his original counterpart. His motives only felt slightly less egotistical and "survival of the fittest" than the original Ramón's. I kind of wish the authors had chosen to tell the story from Maneck's perspective, or at least partially so.
The end also bothered me because, again, it displayed so pointedly that clone-Ramón wasn't much better than the original. There was no clear resolution. Clone-Ramón escapes prison and heads back to the alien hideout, hoping to find a way to live with the aliens in peace--and the reason he does this is to escape the imprisonment he's facing and to better himself. We never learn whether the aliens are amicable to this. I hate endings that don't provide adequate resolutions. To me, this still feels like a story untold, as it certainly must have at the many stages the authors shelved the unfinished versions.
While there was a lot to be impressed by here in terms of the thematic explorations which make this tale well worth reading and the masterly world building of these three amazing writers, sadly I didn't actually enjoy it at any point. Still, it's certainly something any lover of science fiction action/adventure tales and fans of these three authors should consider picking up.
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Find out more about her books and see her art
here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor
Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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