CHANGELINGS:

Corley’s SF debut finds humans from the future travelling back in time seeking DNA to correct a species-ending mutation.

Four hundred years have passed since nuclear fallout from the Resource Wars left Terra uninhabitable and reduced the human population from 16 billion to less than 20,000 souls—the survivors included astronauts, off-world colonists, and those few who could be rescued ships from settlements not on Terra from the onset of nuclear winter. In the ensuing four centuries, that number has grown to two million, a quarter of whom live on the capital planet Regulon and the rest in colonies that, while lying as distant as 120 light years from Regulon, remain within effective reach due to an interstellar transport system predicated on dark energy. Technologically and scientifically speaking, humanity has not only survived but thrived. Geneticists can synthesize and manipulate any sequence of DNA to treat disorders and remove imperfections. Yet, for all these advancements another crisis looms: Humanity is falling increasingly prey to an irreversible “changeling” mutation that causes physical deformity and, with succeeding generations, mental degradation. The ruling Commission has mandated both sterilization and banishment in an attempt to purge humanity of the mutation. The situation grows so desperate that a team of four outcasts is sent back into Earth’s history via an experimental time machine to collect untainted DNA material. Will their mission succeed? Even if it does, can they prevent the Machiavellian Central Analysis AI and warmongering factions of the ruling council from committing genocide?

Corley relates events by way of an omniscient past-tense narrative, switching between points of view and employing straightforward prose to both establish the protagonists’ particulars and detail a complex futuristic scenario. Necessary information is worked unobtrusively into the text. The speculative element, while underpinning the action, never overwhelms the human component; characterization is a particularly strong aspect of Corley’s storytelling. The four mis-matched time-travelers (soldier Tauran, scientist Mitta, historian Sororis, and engineer Caedis) all have strengths and weaknesses, along with moral shadings that inevitably bring them into conflict with each other. While SF stories have often been used to explore the question What is human?,the author declines to interrogate the personhood of the changelings; he instead takes theirhumanity for granted while exploring unafflicted people’s reactionto them. The introduction of AIs—one subversive, one supportive, both shaped by humanity’s attitudes—adds an additional layer to the question. There is a sense that Corley has packed too much into one book. An excess of ambition can be detected in the narrative’s interpolation of biblical events into the time-travel mission—while the expedition as a whole is a cleverly worked-out MacGuffin leading to satisfying action—the encounters with the “ultraphysicalist” Yehoshua (“Yehoshua spoke softly, and the boy responded with a shy nod. The rebbe took the boy’s withered hand and massaged it gently, working from the drawn tendons in the hand down to the atrophied muscles of his forearm. The boy’s trusting smile grew, and his eyes closed in pleasure and relief”) feel both unlikely and unnecessary. These qualms aside, the novel succeeds admirably in establishing its premise and investing readers in the outcome. While not fast-moving, it gains pace and will carry readers along toward the denouement.

An intricate, compelling exploration of humanity and its core flaws and values.