The Postman by David Brin
Hello, Stranger.
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Fail (Slim chance that there's a technical pass, but... I don't think so.)
Technobabble: Minimal to moderate.
Review: I am a sucker for a good grifter, and Gordon Krantz is one of the best. He's one of the few "full" characters here - but I was rooting for him the whole time. The natural evolution of his role is believable; it keeps the story moving. His interpersonal interactions are also good - and the few other characters who are more developed are nicely done. The Postman stumbles when it tries to expand this small-scale story of a survivor to a broader world - pacing, plot, and character all suffer in the home stretch. Can be preachy about American Exceptionalism...
The Medium of It
It hardly mattered anymore what had done it-a giant meteorite, a huge volcano, or a nuclear war.
Good! We're accepting that things have fallen apart, and we're movin' on with life! Just kidding. Chapter 3 (of ~40) decides that we need to just pile all the apocalypses together into a layer cake of end times.
Radiation had been one of his main reasons for going ever westward, since leaving the Dakotas. He had grown tired of walking everywhere a slave to his precious counter, always afraid it would be stolen or would break down. Rumor had it that the West Coast had been spared the worst of the fallout, suffering more, instead, from plagues wind-borne from Asia.
That had been the way with that strange war. Inconsistent, chaotic, it had stopped far short of the spasm everyone had predicted. Instead it was more like a shotgun blast of one midscale catastrophe after another. By itself, any one of the disasters might have been survivable.
The initial “techno-war” at sea and in space might not have been so terrible had it remained contained, and not spilled over onto the continents.
The diseases weren’t as bad as in the Eastern Hemisphere, where the Enemy’s weapons went out of control in his own populace. They probably wouldn’t have killed so many in America, had the fallout zones not pushed crowds of refugees together, and ruined the delicate network of medical services.
And the starvation might not have been so awful had terrified communities not blocked rails and roads to keep out the germs.
As for the long-dreaded atom, only a tiny fraction of the world’s nuclear arsenals were used before the Slavic Resurgence collapsed from within and unexpected victory was declared.
This then points to the real death of society - Survivalists - who are basically heavily armed, misogynistic, militant cult monsters.
We step back from all of these big issues for a while, with a sigh of relief, and focus on Gordon's journey. This is the strength of the book, and what makes it, for much of its run, a delight to read.
“And when you’re all full and you’re ready to talk again, I think we’d all like to hear, one more time, how you got to be a mailman.”
Gordon looked up at the eager faces above him. He hurriedly took a swig of beer to chase down the too-hot potatoes,
“I’m just a traveler,” he said around a half-full mouth while lifting a turkey drumstick. “It’s not much of a story how I got the bag and clothes.”
He didn’t care whether they stared, or touched, or talked at him, so long as they let him eat!
Mrs. Howlett watched him for a few moments. Then, unable to hold back, she started in again. “You know, when I was a little girl we used to give milk and cookies to the mailman. And my father always left a little glass of whiskey on the fence for him the day before New Year’s. Dad used to tell us that poem, you know, ‘Through sleet, through mud, through war, through blight, through bandits and through darkest night…’”
Gordon choked on a sudden, wayward swallow. He coughed and looked up to see if she was in earnest. A glimmer in his forebrain wanted to dance over the old woman’s accidentally magnificent misremembrance. It was rich.
The glimmer faded quickly, though, as he bit into the delicious roast fowl. He hadn’t the will to try to figure out what the old woman was driving at.
“Our mailman used to sing to us!”
After having his stuff stolen, Gordon stumbles upon the body of a mail carrier and takes his clothes. He slowly realizes that this is a great ticket for getting into and out of the few settlements that have come together, reforming after everything fell apart. And to maintain the scam, he needs to actually take the letters people give him. And if he's already traveling to another town... might as well deliver it. It's a well done build - and one that leaves him, despite his planning, as an actual Post-Apocalypse Post-Worker. It's cool!
At the same time, people see him as a reminder of (and, through some of his scams) representative of the US. Whatever is left, and reforming. He becomes a symbol. This is also done - for the most part - well. The excerpt above is one that I appreciated - he does not need to spell out what it is that people are looking for, simply that seeing a person with a letter bag is sufficient to remind people of better times.
...except.
Brin does not believe that we can understand things. He believes that if you lead a horse to water, and it does not drink, you shove a hose into its mouth, just in case.
It was as if the seeds of civilization needed more than goodwill and the dreams of aging high school graduates to water them. Gordon often wondered if the right symbol might do the trick-the right idea. But he knew his little dramas, however well received, weren’t the key. They might trigger a beginning, once in a great while, but local enthusiasm always failed soon after. He was no traveling messiah. The legends he offered weren’t the kind of sustenance needed in order to overcome the inertia of a dark age.
Subtle.
I don't even want to touch the issues with women in this. Let's just say that there's a whole bunch of rape and torture, and it's unclear whether or not the choices made by Brin on how they fight back make them active characters - and thus if it's a positive development - or if it's just messed up.
My feeling on the end of this - although I have no evidence of this - is that Brin decided that the stakes were too low. A survivor making his way, slowly recreating society as a positive externality of his schemes was just not too much. So we need action and violence! And enemy military! A physical punch up! Enhanced soldiers beating each other to pulp!
Does this feel like the Uplift Trilogy? Sure does. Clever world, good small scale conflicts as a glance at the bigger universe... and then just people punching one another in the face to resolve it. Editor's Note on First Draft: "Conceptually interesting, but in your next draft, we need to take complex issues and settle them with a fist fight."
Again, I sound more down on this that I intended to. I was happy to have read it and voraciously consumed much of it.
Let's settle some problems with words, Stranger.
And don't forget to read a book!
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