What do deception, love, redemption, mutation and perhaps a bit of science fiction have in common?
It’s either Coheed and Cambria’s Year of the Black Rainbow or Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Children, or both. What if evolution breeds xenophobia, and subsequently fear and hate? What if evolution is forced, and therefore somewhat dangerous, grounding the fear?
Fave author Cory Doctorow writes that science fiction is merely writing about the short-term future ; his work has been called the stories of the future present. I’ve thought about both Bear and Doctorow’s writing as I’ve listened (repeatedly) to YOTBR over the last few weeks. It’s an uncomfortable recording; it’s full of dark images and based on a dark story. But that’s also the hallmark of good art – it makes us a bit squeamish, and forces us to think about how we do, or would, react to the context set by the work’s creator.
Then again, maybe you just want to rock out.
