Not Dead but Livid
Venetia Welby, Dreamtime
Salt, 254pp, £12.00, ISBN 9781784632410
reviewed by Devin Welch
Speculative fiction is a literature of ideas. Fahrenheit 451 pondered a tyranny of censorship, Neuromancer considered the lines between consciousness and computer, and The Handmaid’s Tale simulated an extraction of human rights. Speculative fiction is timely; a window with slight reflection. The genre blends what is and what could be by asking, what if? Venetia Welby’s second novel, Dreamtime, is a Zoom call to the not-so-distant future. One where the lack of human reconciliation for the problems of today — such as the recent events in Afghanistan and the hurricane in Louisiana — has allowed history to repeat itself. But what role does speculative fiction serve in an age where reality stupefies more than a plot twist? Where the themes of The Handmaid’s Tale seemingly play out in Texas? Can portraits of an unguaranteed future still affect the urgency of a topic as substantial as climate change? In Dreamtime, readers find speculative fiction not only alive and well, but ready for all 12 rounds.
Welby supplements the story with another ambitious theme that readers of her first novel, Mother of Darkness, will be familiar with: addiction. Sol, nearing 30 and fresh out of an affluent Tucson-rehabilitation centre, journeys to Japan in search of a father she has never known. She is joined on her quest by her best friend Kit, who struggles with his own codependencies and unrequited feelings for his childhood friend. As they arrive in Tokyo they’re greeted with sex, drugs, cultural dissonance, ecological threat, disease, and military occupation. Meanwhile a looming aviation ban sets the clock for a race against time in returning to Arizona. Across plastic-riddled oceans and futuristic islands, readers are introduced to the titular apocalypse-bound cult where Sol and Kit grew up. ‘They tried to fight their individual flesh casings through communality,’ Welby writes, ‘through sex [. . .] and through the acid and peyote they ate to access the shared unconscious.’ The cult functions as an informative, yet cryptic, backstory for Sol and Kit as they encounter a cast of suspicious minor characters. Cognitive estrangement comes in the way of not only substance abuse and violent landscape, but the disorienting results of travel as well.
From neon-littered dystopias to rural Japan, characters question whether they are alive or dead, blurring the lines between posthumanism and folklore. Surprises come in the shape of terrifying dreams, and animals acting in fantastically morbid ways. Or as Welby writes, ‘Nature is not dead but livid’. Though the story remains human-centric, Welby demonstrates the ability to craft from the smallest scale to the largest. Habitual themes create a metaspace to crumble around character and reader alike. A world where everything is to be questioned, including the intentions of the U.S. military’s presence in post-World War ll Japan. Though Dreamtime marks the next stage for Welby’s writing, it must be asked: does it mark anything new for the genre?
Contemporary ecological fiction eschews the subtler interrogations of utopian and dystopian fiction in favour of a simple, urgent question: will the human species survive? The novel asks the same question of Earth by surveying the planet’s immune system, and humanity’s role in it. ‘Habitable land has been shrinking year by year, you hear it on the news — oceans advance, nations recede. But here he can feel it; the growing strength of the water and what creatures now claim it.’ Patiently, western characters are dropped in the centre of the climate crises, highlighting a detachment between the two, even if seemingly on the nose at moments. Environmental and political commentary begin as mild setting markers before crescendoing into a full consumption of the senses. With it comes a conscious distress posing new questions. From the early pages, readers are asked to critique capitalism’s role in the themes of Dreamtime. The story predicts the limits of those capitalistic aspirations, and what it will take for change to be implemented, even after the irreversible damage is done.
Reading Dreamtime as news unfolded in Kabul and New Orleans tossed an eerie cloak over my experience with the novel. As if its world was jumping right out of the pages, slightly altered, speaking to its authenticity. Dreamtime’s language is concise; its present-tense feels calculated, giving the novel the immediacy of climate change itself. The dialogue reflects a future where language has globalised through the use of Virreas, handheld devices which have become ‘so much a part of people’s lives, sometimes indistinguishable from reality’.
The writing keeps a fast pace, leaving further development of the cult and its arcane leader, Phoenix, to be desired. Main characters are wrung out to be credible, flawed, and frustratingly relatable in a wash of exciting and dynamic scenes. ‘Sol watches the inmates swarm to the call. One by one they swoop in to pick up their fun-size plastic pot of drugs. Once upon a time I was like you, she thinks — but now her sad little pill pot contains only probiotics.’ Their desires are as clear as their arcs, while several supporting characters remain inscrutable. Welby addends this by instilling functional mystery to keep pages turning and readers guessing. Symbols such as light and sun fleck the pages, alluding to an essence of hope in the subtext that will be enjoyed by fans of Jeff Vandermeer, Jen Petro-Roy, or Kazuo Ishiguro.
If Welby’s predictions do not come to pass, Dreamtime’s achievement will likely remain in the other work it does. Though literature can not change the immediate, for only human action can, the novel asks for observance, thought, and rethought. To question the usual not just while reading, but long after the book has been tucked into the shelf; to stand in new shoes, or pivot in those already tied in order to take action towards certain what ifs; to remain on guard against complacency.
Welby supplements the story with another ambitious theme that readers of her first novel, Mother of Darkness, will be familiar with: addiction. Sol, nearing 30 and fresh out of an affluent Tucson-rehabilitation centre, journeys to Japan in search of a father she has never known. She is joined on her quest by her best friend Kit, who struggles with his own codependencies and unrequited feelings for his childhood friend. As they arrive in Tokyo they’re greeted with sex, drugs, cultural dissonance, ecological threat, disease, and military occupation. Meanwhile a looming aviation ban sets the clock for a race against time in returning to Arizona. Across plastic-riddled oceans and futuristic islands, readers are introduced to the titular apocalypse-bound cult where Sol and Kit grew up. ‘They tried to fight their individual flesh casings through communality,’ Welby writes, ‘through sex [. . .] and through the acid and peyote they ate to access the shared unconscious.’ The cult functions as an informative, yet cryptic, backstory for Sol and Kit as they encounter a cast of suspicious minor characters. Cognitive estrangement comes in the way of not only substance abuse and violent landscape, but the disorienting results of travel as well.
From neon-littered dystopias to rural Japan, characters question whether they are alive or dead, blurring the lines between posthumanism and folklore. Surprises come in the shape of terrifying dreams, and animals acting in fantastically morbid ways. Or as Welby writes, ‘Nature is not dead but livid’. Though the story remains human-centric, Welby demonstrates the ability to craft from the smallest scale to the largest. Habitual themes create a metaspace to crumble around character and reader alike. A world where everything is to be questioned, including the intentions of the U.S. military’s presence in post-World War ll Japan. Though Dreamtime marks the next stage for Welby’s writing, it must be asked: does it mark anything new for the genre?
Contemporary ecological fiction eschews the subtler interrogations of utopian and dystopian fiction in favour of a simple, urgent question: will the human species survive? The novel asks the same question of Earth by surveying the planet’s immune system, and humanity’s role in it. ‘Habitable land has been shrinking year by year, you hear it on the news — oceans advance, nations recede. But here he can feel it; the growing strength of the water and what creatures now claim it.’ Patiently, western characters are dropped in the centre of the climate crises, highlighting a detachment between the two, even if seemingly on the nose at moments. Environmental and political commentary begin as mild setting markers before crescendoing into a full consumption of the senses. With it comes a conscious distress posing new questions. From the early pages, readers are asked to critique capitalism’s role in the themes of Dreamtime. The story predicts the limits of those capitalistic aspirations, and what it will take for change to be implemented, even after the irreversible damage is done.
Reading Dreamtime as news unfolded in Kabul and New Orleans tossed an eerie cloak over my experience with the novel. As if its world was jumping right out of the pages, slightly altered, speaking to its authenticity. Dreamtime’s language is concise; its present-tense feels calculated, giving the novel the immediacy of climate change itself. The dialogue reflects a future where language has globalised through the use of Virreas, handheld devices which have become ‘so much a part of people’s lives, sometimes indistinguishable from reality’.
The writing keeps a fast pace, leaving further development of the cult and its arcane leader, Phoenix, to be desired. Main characters are wrung out to be credible, flawed, and frustratingly relatable in a wash of exciting and dynamic scenes. ‘Sol watches the inmates swarm to the call. One by one they swoop in to pick up their fun-size plastic pot of drugs. Once upon a time I was like you, she thinks — but now her sad little pill pot contains only probiotics.’ Their desires are as clear as their arcs, while several supporting characters remain inscrutable. Welby addends this by instilling functional mystery to keep pages turning and readers guessing. Symbols such as light and sun fleck the pages, alluding to an essence of hope in the subtext that will be enjoyed by fans of Jeff Vandermeer, Jen Petro-Roy, or Kazuo Ishiguro.
If Welby’s predictions do not come to pass, Dreamtime’s achievement will likely remain in the other work it does. Though literature can not change the immediate, for only human action can, the novel asks for observance, thought, and rethought. To question the usual not just while reading, but long after the book has been tucked into the shelf; to stand in new shoes, or pivot in those already tied in order to take action towards certain what ifs; to remain on guard against complacency.