The Critics’ Corner
Michael J A Tyzuk and...
Danielle L. Parker’s “Galen The Deathless”
Well, it seems that I’ve been selected (as much as you can be selected when you volunteer) to help usher in the newest department here at Bewildering Stories, the Critics’ Corner. And the more I thought about it the more it just seemed fitting to review the latest work by my Partner In Crime, I mean colleague, Danielle Parker.
I have to say that overall I rather liked “Galen the Deathless,” although every now and again when I read it I found myself having flashbacks to the movie The Gladiator. Certainly there are similarities, although I find that Danielle’s story stands on its own quite well.
The idea of using clones to keep resurrecting slain gladiators is interesting. I don’t believe I’ve seen the technology used in quite that way before, and I applaud Danielle on her originality. I also found the images of Galen retreating to the bowels of the Coliseum to visit with his template to be quite touching. Certainly they served to give us some sense of the man behind the name, a man who, in ten years of service to the Imperator, had learned to worship a god of blood, despise the aristocrats, and generally grow weary of his lot in life. For a man like Galen, death is not something to be feared. It is instead a release.
I thought that the ending was extremely well crafted, if a bit abrupt. Galen comes to learn that his opponent is wielding a poisoned knife, and so he allows the knife to bite into his flesh and, as a last act of rebellion against an Imperator he despises, he hurls his sword at Ceasar. As much as I liked the idea of Galen’s internal struggle building to this one, final breaking point I found that I was somewhat disappointed that we weren’t given a clearer picture of what happened to Caesar. Did one of his circle of sycophants give his life that Caesar might live, or was Caesar felled by the hurled sword?
And here’s another question, too: There seems to have been a cloning template of everyone we have encountered in the story. Did Caesar have his own template as well? Was Caesar, therefore, essentially immortal? If so what effect would that have on the crowd at the arena, to see Caesar struck down and then miraculously resurrected?
And perhaps that’s the wrong tack to take. Let’s assume that Caesar was killed by the hurled sword. The aristocrats would therefore engage in a mad scramble for power, with the one who comes out on top appointing himself Caesar. Isn’t that a story in and of itself?
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that inasmuch as abrupt endings are a useful attribute of short fiction, I sometimes find myself cheated by them, and that’s what happened with “Galen the Deathless.” I think that Danielle has created a perfect set of recurring characters and environments, and I think that it would be a shame not to explore that.
Bottom line: “Galen the Deathless” is a wonderful story despite its resemblance to a movie with a similar theme. The story is well crafted by a person who obviously enjoys telling stories. However, the ending is a bit abrupt and left me feeling somewhat cheated. However, I am sufficiently impressed by Danielle that in any issue in which she appears I will happily read her story first above all others.
Copyright © 2005 by Michael J A Tyzuk
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