CRADLE OF SPLENDOR

Cover art by Mark Smollin

What the hell just happened in Brazil? Officers of U.S intelligence agencies, and their counterparts around the world, begin asking that question early in this novel.

It seems the Brazilian government, in partnership with German industrial firms, has just launched a rocket in a public display of progress. Skeptical visitors, notably Dr. Roger Lintenberg of NASA, are morbidly gratified when the rocket's engines turn off prematurely. Going on momentum, it coasts into a cloud. The hushed crowd waits for it to fall back into sight — but it never does! Later, much later than the laws of physics allow, the rocket emerges from the cloud and can be seen ascending, no flame at its tail. Soon, it is confirmed that it has indeed succeeded in putting a payload in orbit. That payload turns out to be a nuclear weapon.

Amid the tense confrontation that ensues, the novel's central characters play out their personal dramas. None of them is what he or she seems to be or professes to be. Nor, in most cases, are they what they wish to be. Tortured by regret, insecurity or fear, desperately holding onto friendships, ideals, even sanity, they stumble along trying to do the right thing.

Much like Ireland in Fred Hoyle's Ossian's Ride, the Brazil of this novel has come up with one ground-breaking technology after another. First was room-temperature superconductivity, then practical fusion, which made it the richest nation in Latin America. Now, it apparently has antigravity in its rockets. But Brazil has a problem: the U.S. threatens to bomb it back to the Stone Age if it doesn't allow international inspection of its Cabeceiras military space launch complex. So far, President Ana Maria Bonfim has refused.

Meanwhile, Dr. Lintenberg, NASA nerd and wannabe CIA spy, is hiding out in the home of Dolores, an American painter he met at the launch. Dolores is or was a friend of President Bonfim — who now refuses to see her. She is, or was, or may have been, a real CIA agent, and may once have killed a man, possibly Ana's husband who used to beat her. Or maybe that was just a car wreck. Around these two swirl the forces of the contending countries, a coterie of spooks of varying degrees of skill. After Dolores is arrested by the Brazilian secret police, Ana Bonfim's daughter Jaje runs away to seek the help of her Aunt Dee (Dolores) and runs into Roger in the house. Roger, instantly smitten by her Girl-from-Ipanema body, resolves to get her out of the country. He takes Dee's gun and car and sets out, but is captured by real CIA agents. Jaje jumps from their speeding car and is apparently killed. They can't go back to check; there are soldiers on every street corner.

Then there are the spirits. They come from a place called the Valley, where rainbow-hued UFOs are also seen nightly. A fat old peasant woman named Xuli channels them to aid a Japanese diplomat who is out of favor with his superiors. But it turns out Xuli is in the employ of the KGB, and she programs him to kill the CIA contingent.

The hour of the U.S. ultimatum arrives, and the skies over Brasilia fill with reconnaissance flights. Brazil is supposed to have devastating alien weapons, but in the event all she can muster is those colored lights from the Valley. (It is mentioned that the UFOs have enough mass to give radar returns, and at one point a U.S. fighter shoots one down. It proves to be a modified Cessna two-seater, and another NASA scientist tells Dr. Lintenberg that its targeting system failed. This one modified prop plane is the closest Anthony comes to describing her putative alien weapons.)

At this point, it's fair to ask where Brazil's new technology came from. Early on, the book establishes that, out at Cabeceiras, there is something called the Door. It supposedly leads to another universe. Through the Door came — something — with the knowledge of antigravity and the other advances. It took up residence in someone named Freitas and turned him into a villain who makes Hannibal Lector look like a pipsqueak. Not only is Freitas, chief advisor to President Bonfim, himself totally depraved, but he can instantly degrade anyone he touches. (He only touches men.)

Or the thing within him can. Its nature is never explained. Ultimately, Freitas is caught flagrante delicto and shot down like a dog. Later, it's reported that the thing was sent back through the Door. Given the powers ascribed to it, that must have been quite a trick; but Anthony devotes only one sentence to the event. Nor is any further mention made of some 200 people whom Freitas is said to have imprisoned in the other universe. But maybe that didn't really happen.

Which points up the main defect of this novel: its ambiguity. All these stupendous events: antigravity, practical fusion, spirits, UFOs, war between Brazil and America over a nuclear weapon in orbit, even the Door to another universe — are merely background against which the central characters, themselves riddled with ambiguity, play out their personal struggles. Indeed, Anthony seems to care so little about the events of the plot that she cannot be bothered with convincing the reader that they even took place. So the story simply stops with Brazil occupied, Brazilia destroyed, and Bonfim dead by her own hand. The nuke (if there ever was one) is still in orbit. There's no resolution, only survivors who may or may not be able to put their lives back together.

Of the characters in general I can safely say this: the men are despicable in one way or another, and the women are beleaguered and betrayed by them in one way or another. (All except for gentle General Machado, who kills Freitas and prevents a bloodbath by ordering his troops to put down their weapons and surrender as the invading Americans approach.) I conclude that the author is a feminist with little or no grasp of science. And that made this dark tale and its affecting characters less than satisfying1 in the end.

I don't read much fiction these days. But I got this book for 60¢ at a Crown Books outlet during the bankruptcy sale, and Patricia Anthony wrote the well-regarded Brother Termite, so I took a chance. Win some, lose some.

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This page was last modified on 11 June 2014.