Myths as Mitochondria

By Jacqueline SteigerMarch 8, 2016

Archangel by Marguerite Reed

ARCHANGEL — the debut science fiction novel by Marguerite Reed — powerfully invokes the wonder of myth: Reed draws on fairy tales, legends, holy works, and prayer to create the speech and personality of her protagonist. It’s often difficult for a sci-fi novel to create a myth that resonates with readers, for an alien world’s truths to echo our own. Even more difficult is the task of weaving our own myths into a world similar to ours in a way that feels fresh. Stunningly, Reed accomplishes both. Women’s roles in the novel, in particular, are archetypal: lover, maiden, fertility goddess, seductress, avenging angel. After reading, it is no surprise that both Gaia and Kali pulse at the heart of this story.

Archangel is a remarkable first novel. The backstory begins with our annihilation of Earth’s resources and our subsequent reach for the stars (followed by colonization, life in orbiting space stations, and the quest to find new homes). Archangel begins in the middle of the Third Wave of the colonization of Ubastis, a resource-rich world without human life that nonetheless contains its own complex ecosystem. Scientists and soldiers have driven back the wildlife, and a small number of settler-citizens guard carefully against the overreaching interests of big corporations eager to add more people and industry to Ubastis without consideration for long-term damage to the planet’s ecosystem.

Humanity itself has changed. The citizens of this solar system are not averse to playing with genetics; humans are bred to eat a vegetarian diet, as well as for mood stabilization, strength, and speed. Artificially incubated offspring can carry as many enhancements as their parents want, and unenhanced “natch” humans are viewed as volatile, unpredictable, and unsafe. The society of Ubastis is a curious one. Composed mostly of scientists and soldiers, the few civilians and diplomats are more reserved than the desperate inhabitants of Earth or the flamboyant space station dwellers. The culture is vegetarian, the official religion Islam, the dress conservative, and the loyalty to Ubastis fierce. The incorporation of Islamic beliefs and dress within the setting is seamless, and this is particularly striking given America’s current Islamophobic climate. The proper garment is the salwar kameez, greetings all have the word Allah in them, and Reed slyly invites readers to conceptualize these customs as norms. Although the protagonist herself is not Muslim, she embraces Islamic culture much in the same way that secular Americans celebrate Christmas and Easter.

Ubastis’s most fierce defender is the soldier, scientist, and wildlife expert Dr. Vashti Loren. A “natch” who served in the Second Wave of colonization and fell in love with her superior officer, Loren is now a widow living a barren life. Her joys are her daughter and her hunts; she balances the ferocity of motherhood with the mercy of killing. Her pulse beats in readers’ ears and her prejudices color our experience of the narrative. The story is told from Dr. Loren’s perspective as she finds herself torn between her duty to further human expansion and the primal protective force she feels toward the planet itself.

And what a planet! Described with the detail and reverence befitting a true scientist, Reed — and Dr. Loren — make us love Ubastis almost before our first encounter with its endless savannah, “The Big Tawny.” The ecosystem is fully conceptualized, and the social structure is rich, complex, and realistic. This is master-class world-building. The balance between imagery and plot, however — between setting the scene and allowing the action to take place — can sometimes leave the reader vacillating between boredom and terror.

Tension is nurtured between the “natch” doctor and her GMO countrymen, between the new taboos against killing and the old primal force necessary for survival, between science and mercy, and between tiny Ubastis and the full force of needy human society. The question of advancement versus stewardship — so prevalent in our own lives — is here writ large on the scale of galaxies. In Dr. Loren’s own words,

I cannot influence any party. I can only say that I, personally, opposed the overturn of the hundred-year ban on immigration. This ban was not put into place to spitefully or maliciously deny the human race a chance to colonize a new planet, but to protect both planet and people until the dangers and resources have been studied exhaustively.


Where should science draw the line? What is the higher cause? Dr. Loren’s opponent protests, saying, “This is not Eden … You are not Uriel.” The response? “No. I am Michael.” Seamlessly weaving together myths and philosophies, Archangel may span galaxies, but it is committed to its themes.

One of the most refreshing things about Reed’s world is that it offers true speculative fiction: instead of carrying prejudice over from the past, Reed rewrites our future. Science fiction and fantasy novels often create settings where — although they may be in other solar systems — white skin is prized or heterosexual monogamy is the norm. In Archangel, Reed examines these biases, questioning the basic tenets of human nature. Do humans have to eat meat to feel connected to nature? Can a truly multi-religious and multi-cultural society function and thrive? What might gender equity in the military look like? When the novel explores the revulsion that most Ubastans feel at the idea of eating meat, the reader is thrown into a loop of self-evaluation: Are my own reactions natural? What are things that I take for granted that might not be true? Instead of projecting Roman-style conquest over multiple planets, or drawing upon the same tired European wellsprings of myth, Archangel presents speculative fiction that is truly and thoughtfully speculative.

Perhaps Archangel’s ease at playing with assumptions and its eagerness to delve into the heart of dichotomies are the inevitable byproducts of a feminist novel. After all, such tendencies are often encountered both in feminist and LGBT literature and theory. Women, people of color, LGBT folk, and religious minorities are all familiar with the dynamics of Othering and the cognitive dissonance required to function in a society in which they have been Othered. These same minorities are accustomed to the dichotomies they regularly encounter: a black woman will often be exoticized and prized for her sexuality while at the same time punished for it; a lesbian will often be sought after if she is too feminine but rejected and subject to violence if she is too masculine. Living and thriving in the liminal spaces of society are what Others do: this is their power. Is Archangel a feminist novel because of its broad brush with these issues, or does it excel in these devices because it is a gorgeous feminist piece? I hesitate to pigeonhole Archangel as feminist literature (potentially truncating its audience), yet at the same time the novel inclines the reviewer to trumpet a victory for women authors everywhere.

The prose of Archangel is lush to a fault. Amid the technical dissection of animals, weaponry, and corporations lies religious ecstasy and clarion poetry that tumbles off the page in jewel-bright stream-of-consciousness bursts:

After Bibi, everything cut me; broke me, sliced me open, cleft my soul. I was Bibi’s mother; I was also mother to the toddler five houses to the west, to the newborn I had seen strapped to her father’s back as he trudged off to the nearest hangar for restock … More painfully, to all of Ubastis. Mother I was to the animals I killed for men. Everything that crept and swam and ran and flew was mine … Out in the bush the image struck me from time to time, of sinking my hands into the teeming dirt and rubbing it into my skin, plastering myself with it. Of suckling the soft-billed monotremes at my breast.


While this writing is often effective in provoking an emotional response, it is also sometimes a bit jarring and can disconcert the reader. Reed’s prose evokes myth and liminal spaces rather than conforming to the expectations of the hard sci-fi skeleton that encases it. Where one might expect dry or matter-of-fact recounting of events, Dr. Loren sometimes lapses into poetic thought patterns that make it difficult to parse the actual plot. The intent might have been to give the reader greater insight into Dr. Loren’s emotional landscape, but instead these passages distract from the plot and further distance the reader from the heart of the story.

For readers looking for highly complex technical analysis, Archangel might fall short, but for readers who thrill to the deep questions for which humanity has always wanted answers, Dr. Loren and her dilemmas will pose as a lightning rod, a catalyst for re-examination. Upon attempting to classify species of Ubastis, Dr. Loren muses, “Kingdom phylum genus family species, we wrote, cocooning the galaxy with our glittering myths. Dead gods spun in the void. I began to realize the myths and legends we humans carried with us were not a carapace or the dead skin to be sloughed, but were mitochondria.” The words of our protagonist crystallize the dichotomous themes of Reed’s novel — the cold logic of science and the animal emotion that drives behind it. For Dr. Loren, only by embracing both parts of herself, the scientist and the mother, by weaving seamlessly her mercy and ruthlessness, can she shepherd her planet into its next era. This reviewer hopes that Reed continues to perfect her craft and that in the further adventures of Dr. Loren, the poetic prose is woven seamlessly into the narrative for a richer experience.

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Jacqueline Steiger is an actor, filmmaker, linguist, and writer who very deliberately put an Oxford comma there.

LARB Contributor

Jacqueline Steiger is an actor, filmmaker, linguist, and writer who very deliberately put an Oxford comma there. She cares immensely about nerd culture and activism. She will read anything but is happiest with sci-fi, and will eat absolutely anything with melted cheese on it.

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