David R. PalmerRecensioni

somewhat overblown child genius as new race after bio warfare holocaust

I don't usually write reviews but this was such a confusing book that I needed to explain, if only to myself, how I arrived at 3 1/2 stars. The book was such a mixture of bad things, (the impossible earthquake in California and the utterly yucky relationship of Candy and Rollo and a good many more) and good things (the joyful madness that is Terry Dactyl Foster, the very clever way he makes us believe in both the genius and childish limitations of Candidia and a good many more). By the way, I don't think Palmer was making fun of Robert A. Heinlein in the character of Rollo but giving a serious, plausible interpretation of his public and authorial persona and what might lie behind it. Anyway for the bad parts, 2 stars and for the good parts, 5 stars. Average them and you get 3 1/2.

Am I aware that this barely makes any sense? Yes, yes I am.

After I wrote the above, I read the other reviews and thought that I would note that it is back in print through Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press. I bought it through Amazon (and the type is very readable).½

What a blast. A sci-fi novel loaded with action, but that doesn't even begin to describe it. If they made a movie of it—and they should, I suppose—it would look like a mix of Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Karate Kid, The Road, and Gravity. It's narrated by an 11-year old girl. It's written in shorthand.

Sadly, 'Emergence' is out of print, hard to find, and Palmer hasn't written much since. This is the funnest book I've read in a long while.

An eleven year old girl survives nuclear war in a fallout shelter. Candy writes her story for posterity, in shorthand in a series of journals. Extraneous words like pronouns and conjunctions are mostly left out. I had no issues with the style, because that is pretty much how I read anyway, and it perfectly matches Candy's personality. There is just the right amount of humour, and the plot gains momentum until I found myself reading at 1:30am, squinting as the letters got blurrier and blurrier. Despite Candy's age, the book is aimed at an adult audience. There were a couple of plot points that I had issues with, but enjoyed the rest of the book immensely. I'll buy a copy if it ever comes out for Kindle, but I won't buy a 1984 paperback version because the font is too hard on my eyes.

Had not heard of this little gem before and am very glad to have experienced a difficult-to-get copy via ILL. Returned to library today. Sorry to see it go.

Pros:
- Fast-paced
- Very distinctive writing style
- Interesting protagonist
- Journal-based narrative allows limited head-hopping
- Plot takes unexpected turns resulting in expanded view of world, (moves from extremely limited environment to fully expanded viewpoints).

Cons, (not many but...):
-Aforementioned head-hopping. Handled reasonably well but remained mild irritant when deployed.
-Several semi-squicky scenes sexualizing 11-year old girl as relates to middle-aged men. Hard to tell if this is simple wish-fulfillment by author or sly poke at Heinlein, et al. Thankfully, scenes are short and not overtly dwelled upon.

Deducted half a star from my rating for the 'squicky' aspect as it was the one element that keeps this book from attaining a spot on my all-time-faves list. Likely I might buy a copy for my own library at some point if...

#1) Comes back into print or...
#2) Used-copy prices revert to reasonable levels.

If you can find this book, it's well worth reading as it deserves a wider audience. There is apparently a sequel but it is even more difficult to acquire since it was only released in serial form via Analog Magazine. Off to do some googling...½

With international relations rapidly deteriorating, Candy's father, publicly a small-town pathologist but secretly a government biowarfare expert, is called to Washington. Candy remains at home.

The following day a worldwide attack, featuring a bionuclear plague, wipes out virtually all of humanity (i.e., Homo sapiens). With her pet bird Terry, she survives the attack in the shelter beneath their house. Emerging three months later, she learns of her genetic heritage and sets off to search for others of her kind."

Terribly disappointing after having read Emergence. This book is a one-trick pony, and that trick gets old after about page 30.

every bit of the sex stuff was creepy as hell. so creepy. sooooooooo creeeeeeeepy. I'm going to have to reread Have Spacesuit Will Travel after this and if it doesn't hold up, I'm going to hate you SO MUCH.½

Wow, that is the craziest masterpiece I have ever read. About 90 percent of the book is written in 1st person, past, crazy shorthand style. I was OK with the abbreviated style of writing, but I could imagine some readers would hate it and give up.

The book is Science Fiction of the old school variety.

An optimistic post-apocalyptic journey? Sounds unlikely, but that's what Emergence is. Candy Smith-Foster is an 11-year old genius, 6th degree karate black belt, and, at the beginning of the novel, the only known survivor of bio-nuclear global destruction. She will go on to discover that thanks to genetic mutations caused by the 1918 flu epidemic and passed down the generations, she and a minute percentage of the human race are actually the successor species to homo sapiens.

The book is comprised of the shorthand journal account of her search for others, which sets up an immediate difficulty for me: although I applaud Palmer's creativity in writing 95% of the book in shorthand, I have to say I tired of the device very quickly. Take that as a warning then: the narrative structure is not for everyone; those who can't hang with it will be hard pressed to push forward. My incentive was that a friend whose opinions I respect loaned the book to me. Without that source of motivation, I might have stopped after 50 pages or so.

As it was, I stuck with it, and am glad I did so because there are some elements of this quite original book that I liked quite a bit, for example the setting. His descriptions of the post-aftermath landscape seemed very realistic. The fact that plants and animals were left unscathed with only a loss of human life made for some interesting scenarios.

The cast of characters is very unique, with some more likeable than others, but in the end, even the ones I didn't appreciate in the beginning, I grew to respect, including Candy's 'retarded, adopted twin brother', a Hyacinthine macaw named Terry. His relationship with his human sibling makes for some welcome hilarity in the last quarter of the book, and, in fact, there is a lot of humor throughout the novel.

An often action-packed, travelogue-mystery hybrid, it was impossible to tell where it was going and many of the unexpected twists were thrilling just for the sheer fact that they were fantastical yet surprisingly plausible if you buy into the story in the first place. For those with a preference for hard science, it's in there too, with an amazing breadth of disciplines.

I suspect if I had read this book as a teenager I would have considered it a favorite, especially for the plucky heroine. 3.5 stars.½

Fun book, especially if you go into it with your tongue firmly in cheek. Not to be taken seriously, just a good romp. I've been waiting impatiently for the sequel, but it's been many years since the original publication.

This book came highly recommended so when I finally received it, it went right to the top of my reading list. While I wasn't blown away by it, it was still actually quite good. Post nuclear / biological world war, we follow the adventures of a young girl who survives the outbreak as she attempts to save the world. Some of the things this 11 year old accomplishes are quite unbelievable and quite far-fetched (just wait until you read the part about crossing the railroad bridge), yet I found the novel worked despite some of those scenes. In the end, I found myself rooting for her despite the flaws in the story telling and the ending was quite satisifying

When I first began composing this review I wished I could sit down and have a little chat with David R. Palmer. He wrote one of my all-time favorite novels, followed that up with a second effort that apparently fell short of the first one’s promise (although I didn’t think so), and then…faded into oblivion.

“Mr. Palmer,” I’d say, “I waited and waited and you let me down. I was a teen when I first read Emergence; a highly impressionable, intelligent girl of with a boundless imagination. You got into my head somehow with the character of Candy—so much so that I envisioned myself in her shoes. That’s some powerful stuff for you to be able to write like that. And then you stopped. Why?”

My assumption was that he’d simply moved on to other things. Just because I wouldn’t dream of quitting once I finally got my foot in the publishing door, doesn’t mean all writers feel that way. The author blurb at the back of my yellowed and battered copy of Emergence says that apart from lots of reading, Palmer has experienced quite a few adventures of his own: diving, motorcycling, sailing. I figured he’d done the award-winning novel thing, shrugged and moved on.

On a lark, I popped over to Amazon and -whoa! What a surprise I found. Under the reviews for Emergence appeared a special message written on April 4, 2008 by Palmer himself. He wanted to let his loyal fans know that after more than 25 years, the sequel to Emergence was published in three parts in Analog magazine. More, Palmer said, “A movie option has been sold for "Emergence"; a screenplay now exists. The efforts of anyone who wishes to join me in breath-holding and finger-crossing will be appreciated.”

It’s been two years since that message appeared and I haven’t heard the faintest whisper that an actual movie is in the works. I hope he didn’t hold his breath. The entertainment industry is fickle. I’ve heard of books being turned into screenplays and then never making it past the pre-production stage. That’s the way it is. We think we’ve won the lottery when an agent takes us on, but then we need to buy another ticket for the ‘editor’ draw. If we get past that hurdle, then it’s ‘will the publisher allocate enough marketing dollars to put my book in front of the right people?’ It goes on, and we get cramps in our fingers from crossing them so tightly and so often.

I doubt my little review here on Booksquawk will help much, but if you haven’t read Emergence, do. As Palmer exhorts in his message, “Tell two friends; ask them to tell two friends, etc. Repeat this to a depth of 20 conversations and you've alerted over a million friends.”

Emergence is a story about a post-apocalyptic society of one: highly intelligent Candy Smith-Foster thinks she’s the only person left alive on the earth after a bionuclear war. The novelty is that the book is written in first-person point of view in Palmer’s particular brand of shorthand; Candy is keeping a journal as she travels across what’s left of America searching for survivors, accompanied by her ‘retarded adoptive twin brother,’ a Hyacinthine Macaw named Terry. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long at all for the reader to become accustomed to the lack of pronouns, etc. in Candy’s shorthand narrative. Palmer’s day-job is as a court reporter, which explains this experimental, and in my opinion successful, writing form. (There are some who may find it off-putting at first, but within a short while you won’t even miss the left-out words. Our minds fill in the blanks automatically, knid of lkie wehn wrods are jmubeld aournd but we can sitll raed tehm.)

I’ve known a lot of smart people. They’re all over the place; sometimes where you least expect to find them. It’s entirely plausible to me that a court reporter from Florida wrote a book about a genius and pulled it off. Clearly, Palmer is smarter than the average bear. So why, if he’s so smart, didn’t he ride the wave of initial success from Emergence and become another (smarter) Stephen King? I’m guessing life got in the way, because intelligence doesn’t guarantee success (using the traditional definition of success—the ultimate triad: rich, famous and respected—happiness, the more difficult-to-measure definition of a successful life, has more to do with personality than intelligence…but I digress).

Emergence was written in the time before computers were commonplace, before DNA was a household acronym and before cell phones grew out of teenagers’ heads. The technological references within are dated and the 1980’s came and went without a nuclear war. For anyone who might avoid the book for these reasons, I say: So what? Imagine that the events unfold in an alternate timeline. And enjoy. Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll see it on the big screen someday soon…

(Review originally posted to Booksquawk)

Emergence is the story of young Candidia Smith-Foster, plucky girl adventurer of the Apocalypse, and it shouldn’t have worked. It’s written as a series of journal-entries, all Candy’s–except for a bit near the end, written by someone she met on her adventures–and she uses an idiomatic form of shorthand English with “superfluous” words (words assumed from context) removed. Opening lines:

Nothing to do? Nowhere to go? Time hangs heavy? Bored? Depressed? Also badly scared? Causal factors beyond control?

Unfortunate. Regrettable. Vicious cycle–snake swallowing own tail. Mind dwells on problems, problems fester, assume even greater importance for mind to dwell on. Etc. Bad enough were problems minor.

Mine aren’t.

Candy is writing this journal as therapy, to break out of the “vicious cycle” caused by her situation; she’s stuck in a private shelter (built by her sadly absent genius father), with only her idiot little brother Terry (really a very smart macaw) for company. And above-ground the world has ended in an orgy of Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s a fairly tidy one; the Cold War goes hot and Soviet Russia launches a biological attack that wipes out virtually all human life on the North American Continent, and presumably the rest of the world, in days. The US retaliates with an old-fashioned all-in nuclear strike that sterilizes large parts of northern Eurasia.

So the book begins with a downer and Candy gets to listen on the radio while shelter after shelter goes silent as the pre-planted supervirus kills even the most prepared. Since the triggered virus works fast, she keeps a pistol handy so she can shoot Terry if symptoms start presenting themselves (since they’re stuck underground, if she doesn’t do him that Final Favor he’ll starve to death). While waiting for the Last Cold Ever to set in, she begins the journal to clear her head and we get to learn her biography, leading up to her unexpected but fortuitous entombment.

So. End of world. Girl stuck in shelter, awaiting death, writing journal in shorthand English. Shouldn’t have worked. Did.

Why? Because Candidia Smith-Foster is one of the best characters ever written, the most clear-eyed, competent, child-genius protagonist ever to grace a story. Palmer’s skill at internal dialogue is enormous; by the end of the first chapter we know her, and are cheering for her all the way. And, far more than a Robinson Crusoe-type survival story, or even a post-Apocalypse road-trip, Emergence catches us again and again with surprises that come out of nowhere and yet are organically part of the plot. You see, it turns out there’s a reason why she survived the virus; Candidia Smith-Foster isn’t human. And there are others like her, if only she can find them…

One of my all-time favorites, I just rediscovered this book after about 20 years. Love it!

A great find -- I found an old copy of this is a used book store -- too bad it's out of print! Wonderfully fun young and brilliant female protagonist in a post apocalyptic USA. The writing style took a few minutes to get used to but was a real kick. Highly recommended to sci-fi fans.

An incredibly gifted 11-year-old, Candy Smith-Foster, is left home alone when her adoptive-dad is called to Washington, and just happens to be investigating the enormous library in their newly revealed emergency shelter when a bio-nuclear war breaks out. Fortunately, dad was exceedingly well-connected (and financed!) and has fitted it out with all imaginable conveniences, and our plucky little heroine rides out the holocaust in safety and relative comfort - along with her "retarded, adoptive twin brother", Terry (a macaw) who was luckily with her at the time. She decides to keep a journal, for Posterity's sake, using Pittman shorthand (longhand being tedious & too time-consuming) - which accounts for the quirky narrative style of the book - and eventually emerges from her shelter into a world of devastation, and sets out on a quest for other survivors....

Obviously, this is no ordinary little girl - as is soon revealed as her fantastic adventures unfold - for Candy turns out to be a member of an advanced group of humans... A new stage in human evolution: Homo post hominem.

Although the stream-of-consciousness writing style may seem daunting at first, it's easy to get used to and contributes much towards the fast-paced and vivid story-telling. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

This post-apocalyptic tale was published in 1985. Sadly, it is now out of print and both hard and expensive to find. However, Palmer has a "sequel" currently being published over three issues of Analog magazine. Having loved the book when I read it at the behest of a friend a number of years ago (thank you Alison!), as soon as I heard this I rushed off to Fictionwise and bought the first Analog issue. Before starting reading (something I still haven't done as I'm tossing up between reading part 1 soon or waiting to have all three parts before beginning) I decided to reread Emergence.

I'm so glad I did as I loved it all over again. All the same, it's a slightly odd book and any reader should go into it ready for something a little different. Emergence is written as a journal kept by 11 year old Candy Foster-Smith. As it begins, the reader slowly discovers that she has begun writing while in a bomb shelter, waiting for the immediate effects of a bio-plague to pass so she can go outside again. She is highly intelligent and later discovers she is one of a new species of human being - tougher and smarter than old homo sapiens, who have apparently all been wiped out anyway.

She is trying to be as efficient in her writing as possible, supposedly using Pitman shorthand and a terse, almost choppy style that leaves out any extraneous and unnecessary words. It takes a few pages to get used to, but it generally easy to read all the same.

Candy eventually emerges from the shelter, finds everyone in her small town has died and goes looking for other post-human survivors. She continues to write everything down for History (with a capital H), in a chatty, informal style that quickly makes the reader feel like she is a familiar friend.

Palmer has clearly put a lot of thought into the "what ifs" required for his story. He's considered the implications of his apocalypse and the situations and conditions Candy faces generally feel realistic and plausible (although the power did seem to stay on a lot longer than I would have expected without anyone to run the power stations). Candy's solutions to her dilemmas are well worked out to be consistent with a highly developed mind but the body and physical resources of an 11 year-old. She's a precocious 11 though (especially with regard to the eventual need to repopulate the planet) and I often found myself thinking of her as being 13 and finding myself surprised when her real age was mentioned.

As I said, I loved reading this book all over again and I highly recommend it to anyone. I'm sorry it is so hard to find, as that means lots of people are missing out on an excellent read. Do check your library catalogue in case they have a copy. And/or try to next story in Analog.

Emergence
David R. Palmer
10/10

Pretty good storyline, interesting twists. Annoying in that the premise is the story written as a journal, translated from shorthand. So tons of words are eliminated from sentences. Also annoying in that a macaw is a main character, and pet birds piss me off.

I really liked this story! Good pacing and interesting language structure...

This has got to be one of the best books I've ever read. Palmer's got a gift for story-telling that's just amazing. I've now owned 3 copies of this book, because I keep wanting to share it with people, and they like it so much they don't give it back!Emergence and Palmer's other book, Threshold, hold places of honour in my bookshelf....I only wish he would finish the trilogy that Threshold was the first of, and give us a follow-up to Emergence. or ANYTHING...