Miha Remec

MORE SEX THAN SCIENCE

At a time when Extinction Rebellion are demonstrating world wide Remec's little book feels more like a story from a future that awaits us, rather than some fantastical science fiction novel. It was originally published in 1986 in the now defunct Yugoslavia and The Barrens is the first of this Slovenian author's novels to be translated into English. It was released last year and is well translated by Peter Amalietti [[Rick Harsch]] is joint editor

The Barrens has only four characters and so the whole feel of the book is micro rather than macro, but then in this future imagined by Remec there are very few people left alive. Those that inhabit the earth try to scratch a living from a planet that is like one huge toxic waste dump. The cities have been depopulated some time in the past and their toxic levels have long since failed to support life. Job Harp and his daughter Gea live on a patch of land from which they try and extract uncontaminated vegetables in order to feed their stepdaughter Rhea who is fertile. The likely extinction of the human race had called for punitive measures to protect all fertile humans and although there is no evidence of any existing government, Job and his daughter who are both infertile have pledged themselves to keep Rhea safe. Rhea is a now a beautiful woman who has been waiting all her sexualy mature life for a fertile partner. Two things happen within a very short period of time which give hope to Job and his daughters. Job finds a cleaner patch of land (paradise, Garden of Eden?) while searching in his battery operated micro-light aircraft and the family are able to raise crops that produce seeds that are contamination free. His journey to register his seeds at the central seed bank results in a discovery of a fertile male.

The constant battle to produce food in a hostile world along with the struggle to procreate are the central themes of this novel, along with human sexual needs in a family where three people are living in close proximity to one another with no outside interference. Dystopian novels set on planet earth call for less scientific knowledge than most other categories in the science fiction genre and Remec is equally interested in intimacy and sexual relations. In his world where fecundity is everything it would be like having an elephant in the room not to describe sexual activity and Remec does not disappoint. I enjoyed this short sojourn into the lives of the Harp family and some of which, like in the best science fiction seemed all too believable. A prescient little book from from 1986 which provides a distracting mornings entertainment and deserves to see the light of day (that is translated into English) and so 3.5 stars.… (meer)