I was planning to write a bit about Lord of the Sands of Time but as engaging and imaginative as it is, the whole affair is a bit short so I can’t really think of much to say about it. It’s an interesting take on the time travel and alternate history concepts and doesn’t take long to read either, so I recommend you read it. I suspected that it wasn’t the best showcase for Ogawa’s writing though; The Next Continent proved my suspicions right.
The upbeat vs. downbeat divide in SF is quite stark to me: many of the former are warnings that depict us as a species on a path to self-destruction. In our environmentally-conscious and cynical times I guess it’s not surprising that this is currently holding sway over the optimistic ‘inspirational’ type that speculates about how we could make our outlook brighter; I personally prefer a mix of both, but The Next Continent thrives on the latter.
The chapter titles hint that it’s a very technical work that explores the concept of building a human settlement on the moon at a nuts-and-bolts level; I should point out then that yes, a significant proportion of the novel is devoted to political machinations, boardroom discussions, statistical number-crunching and engineering porn. It’s extremely detailed, thoroughly researched and utterly convincing: Ogawa has done his homework on the practical aspects, and it shows.
I can’t say much more about this side of the novel apart from emphasise how it does such a thorough job of getting the mechanics of the project nailed down, from the planning overview to the technical hurdles that are likely to crop up. If Ogawa stopped there I suppose it would’ve been good enough as a ‘how to’ account, as one Goodreads member put it (the ‘alien life’ subplot was foreshadowed well but to me felt a bit of a tagged-on afterthought; it would make for a great sequel or side-story though).
As well as the ‘how’ in terms of building a moon base, there’s also the ‘why’. The Next Continent makes a convincing case for an alternative background for such a grandiose project: Ogawa rightly points out that the first Moon landings were politically motivated thanks to the Cold War space race, and in all honesty I find the tales of humans conquering space out of conflict or necessity (be it environmental or as a result of alien invasion) a bit depressing when you’ve read a few of them. Perhaps humanity’s next Great Leap could, and perhaps should, be planned by the private sector.
A cursory glance at Virgin Galactic made me think “holy crap! It’s already happening!” We wouldn’t want to see the military up there so maybe the best candidate for this would be someone with not only the financial and political clout to see it through, but the shrewd judgement and desire to take risks…an entrepreneur with a grand vision, gumption and superficially more money than sense. Quite frankly the Sennosuke Toenjis and Richard Bransons of this world may be our best hope here.
The practicalities of such an undertaking also require people with a working knowledge of what needs to be done…hence the collaboration between Toenji the financial backer and the engineers of the Gotoba construction company. It’s at this point where we see a personal representation of this collaboration in the form of young Tae Toenji and Gotoba’s Sohya Aomine.
Their relationship is the novel’s narrative trump card, and I would personally have been happy to have seen the novel go even further in shifting its focus in that direction. Aomine is the lens we see most of the events through what with him being the up-and-coming Gotoba employee in placed in charge of the Moon base project but it turns out that Tae is the one at the centre of it all.
At the beginning of the story she’s a precocious teenager but the bond between her and Aomine becomes stronger as she becomes an adult…which means that their relationship doesn’t feel unnatural or inappropriate. It’s a bit convenient that she’s a prodigy who’s able to make all the right decisions as the project progresses, but I let that slide since it starts as a daydream of a teenage girl then takes the practical aspects into account meaning that, in many ways, the project grows up and matures with her.
The private enterprise angle might suggest that Tae is a spoilt little rich girl throwing her grandfather’s money around, but again Ogawa steers the narrative clear of this pitfall and makes a decent job of explaining her. She’s not going to the Moon purely because her family’s wealth allows her to or simply “because it’s there”, to quote George Leigh Mallory on his attempt at conquering Everest. Her aims are driven by her personal issues but she also has more altruistic and – I might as well say it now – romantic aims in mind.
If there’s one thing that sets this aside from similar novels of the genre, even the other members of the ‘upbeat SF’ group, it’s this. For all its thorough portrayal of humanity’s colonisation of the Moon from an engineer’s perspective, The Next Continent is also an unashamedly sentimental and most importantly human story. Again, it wouldn’t have hurt to rein in the technical details and give the characters even more room to breathe, but it still does more on the characterisation front than I’ve seen many do.
Whether it’s for the purposes of science or a private venture, it’s more rewarding to see this kind of project driven by the positive aspects of the human condition: curiosity, courage and a desire to make things better. The reasoning behind the Sixth Continent project is more pure and commendable than military strategy or cold, methodical research…and isn’t a downer sort like, say, Pale Cocoon or indeed the reasons behind the advances in Lord of the Sands of Time either.
As detached and enigmatic as her character often was, I must admit I was enchanted and enthralled by Tae and the way she pushed ahead with her dream. At first glance it’s the product of an idealistic kid whose lonely privileged lifestyle had made her look beyond her home planet, but one that came to fruition so convincingly and made a staggering amount of sense by the end. Her honesty and her reasons – it’s credit to Ogawa’s prose that we can sympathise with someone who seems to already have it all – made me genuinely want to see her and Aomine succeed…both on the professional and personal level.
The Next Continent deserves recognition for its vivid and true-to-life portrayal of our potential next step off Earth but also for stopping to recognise what makes science, whether it’s fact or fiction, relevant. It boils down to our humanity: our hopes, struggles, disappointments and dreams. Love and companionship might seem to be an overly sentimental reason to reach for the stars…but looking at the alternatives, what better reason is there?