Ex Libris: Against Conscience

Sometimes I find the most interesting things in the secondhand book-bins.

Some include out-of-print books like Avram Davidson's Peregrine: Primus or Howard Waldrop's The Texas-Israel War. Others include unknown authors and their books that eventually became clear favorites like P.C. Hodgell's God Stalk, the late Paul Zimmer's Dark Border series and Mark C. Perry's The Morigu. I suppose you could say the secondhand book-bins give me more options to consider than regular bookshops ever could-- if I could ever find them, of course.

One of the interesting gems I found while digging through piles and piles of books was Susan Matthews' first book in the Judiciary series, An Exchange of Hostages. Given the horrifying incidents happening at Abu Ghraib, this book was somehow apt despite my having read this several years before invading Iraq was even a wet dream in the Bushies' subconscious.

Lemme explain:

In the far future, Andrej Koscuisko is a doctor fresh out of medical school. Because of his deft skill and natural empathy, Koscuisko is destined to become a great doctor in his own right. Unfortunately, in Matthews' future, the universe is under the heavy hand of the Judiciary and Koscuisko's father has deemed that his son should have a military career.

Worst of all, Koscuisko has been sent to Fleet Orientation Station Medical where he will learn to become a Ship's Chief Surgeon. Despite their profession, these doctors are more known for their other names-- as Adjudicators or Inquisitors: highly skilled torturers with the power of Life and Death in their hands. Koscuisko must try to survive in the face of the unrelenting military bureaucracy, retain his sanity against the madness of his future occupation, and live by a moral code of conduct as he undergoes the most brutal training he's ever known: to cause pain to his fellow man.

And if he hadn't had enough problems, he also finds out that he's very good at torturing people-- and that he's starting to enjoy it...

Obviously, Matthews' takes advantage of speculative fiction's greatest asset: to imagine a time and place where torture is not only government-sanctioned but is a career where one can advance in life. Matthews relates a step-by-step process of how Koscuisko works in the face-- and is part-- of such monolithic evil, i.e. that of a dystopia of a Kafkaesque galaxy-wide goverment that supports physical torture and advocates slavery. Obviously, Matthews is opening a whole can of worms of issues here and as much as possible, she doesn't shirk in trying to answer each question raised by the book.

Reading the mixed reviews in Amazon, I'm not surprised that one will either love this emotionally- and ethically-challenging book or hate it deeply. Personally, I found this book quite harrowing while reading it. On one hand, the torture scenes in the story is no Hostel. There is no blood-and-guts gory mess though a whole lot of pain both physical and mental is incurred. On the other hand, Matthews knows quite well what dwells in the hearts of men; one can only cite the infamous Stanford experiment in 1971 as proof what good men can do.

Despite its setting of a far future, this is a grim look into the human soul. Read at your peril.

(Unfortunately, this book as well as the two succeeding novels are currently out-of-print. However, Susan Matthews has said that a publisher has come out with a reprint of the series. Good for her!)