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Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A biologist is recruited to go back into “The Zone,” an inhospitable super rain forest, where her mentor disappeared 20 years ago.
About: This book was purchased by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes, which means it will be a Paramount movie. This is your monthly reminder that Paramount is the little kid on the block, at least for now (I don’t know what they’ll be when they get purchased by Skydance). The little kid on the block has to take risks, which, in Hollywood terms, means they have to purchase original material or “original-adjacent” material, such as today’s book (a tiny sci-fi story no one knew about until it was purchased). Therefore, they’re a great studio to target if you’ve got a spec script with a genre angle. Platinum Dunes (A Quiet Place), in particular, is aces in this category.
Writer: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Details: 95 pages
This is the second novella I’ve reviewed in two weeks. The other was Collision, by Don Winslow. I think this is the much better format for adapting movies. Short stories are glorified trailers. Whereas, with a novella, you can get into the meat of your story. And they’re probably about 20% longer than screenplays, which means you’ve got room to cut, rather than having to come up with a bunch of stuff to put in.
We’re at some point in the near future. Doctor Jasmine Marks, a biologist, has become a recluse over the years, after the trauma she endured in “The Zone” two decades ago. She was part of a team sent to an ultra-tropical region on the planet to figure out if it would be possible to tame it, possibly for farming purposes.
But her boss, Dr. Elaine Fell, walked deep into the jungle one day and never came back . Which was better than what happened to the rest of the team. Some didn’t even make it out alive.
Now, 20 years later, Marks works from home. One day, she’s approached by the assistant of a very rich man named Mr. Glasshower. Glasshower flies Marks out and says that someone went into The Zone and they’re putting together a team to find them. They need Marks’ scientific expertise to help.
A couple of days later, two dozen people are flying into The Zone, which is like a super-intense version of a rain forest. You can’t even walk there without a special suit because the unique conditions will cook your body from the inside out.
We find that out immediately when, the day after they get there, the tent that houses all the military people breaks and everyone in it dies. Glasshower is not giving up, though. He insists that they move on to find this missing person. Marks is incredulous but what is she going to do? She has no ability to call anyone herself. So, deeper into The Zone they go.
A day later, they see a strange looking green man and, in a bout of shock, shoot him. He dies and they inspect his body to find that he looks to have adapted to The Zone somehow. This is when Glasshower comes clean.
They were never going in here to find a wayward individual. Glasshower has information that suggests Dr. Elaine Fell went underground and has been breeding people who can live in The Zone. What that means is that they’re going to continue traveling into this hellhole, a la Apocalypse Now, until they find her… and then kill her.
You know, it’s too bad that Rian Johnson destroyed the word “subversion.” Because it’s actually an effective writing tool. One of my favorite things writers do is set you up for a journey you’re familiar with, only to pull the rug out from under you, leaving you dazed and confused.
Saturation Point is a total “Aliens” clone in its first act. I was struggling to stay invested due to the fact that everything about the setup was exactly like Aliens, down to the female specialist who had been there before and knew how to cope, and experienced a tragedy to boot. And then the military group that comes with them.
So, when we finally get to the Zone and go to sleep, preparing for our first day of work, you could call me shocked when the first words written the next day were, “They were all dead.” All the military dudes died because they didn’t airtight-clog their tent. As soon as that happened, I was in!
But no sooner had I pledged my undying loyalty to this book, than it began a committed campaign to make me change my mind.
One of the big issues in this story – and it’s an issue I see a lot – is that the main character isn’t active enough. Instead, she’s observant. She watches everyone do things from a distance instead of doing things herself.
I understand why this happens. It can be hard to inject your hero into the mix. It forces you to disturb the carefully processed story you’re trying to tell. There’s something nice and pleasant about sitting on the sidelines and allowing your hero to log every little moment that everyone else experiences, only occasionally popping in to give a brief opinion or, in more rare occasions, advice.
Also, it’s easy to convince yourself, as the writer, that later on in the story, your hero will be plenty active. Because they have to be! The shit’s going to hit the fan and they’ll have no choice but to get involved.
But that’s the trick. When a character has no choice but to get involved, they’re still not being active. They’re being reactive, which is a step down from activity. And it paints your hero as someone who’s not really a hero. They’re just trying to survive.
So the fact that Marks is so casual throughout the majority of this story is frustrating at best and infuriating at worst.
I suppose this is more common in books, where, sometimes, you use your main character as a narrator. That maybe works if you’re writing Love in the Time of Cholera. But when you’re writing a team of people going into the shit where some enemy is going to attack you, you probably want your hero to be active.
I’ve learned this the hard way. I was one of these people who, when I wrote a story, I would play up all the other characters while my hero was over here being the least interesting person of the bunch.
I don’t know why I rationalized this as okay because I’d read all of the advice on the internet about strong active protagonists. I think I felt that just being the center of the story was enough. Which is not true. We, the audience, don’t like someone just because they’re the most featured person in the story. You have to give us reasons to like them. And probably the best way to do that is to make them active – to have them carve their own path as opposed to being hitched on the trailer of your plot and dragged along for the ride.
Back to the story itself.
With these types of stories, the thing that has to work best is: WHAT’S IN THE JUNGLE? What, ultimately, are you going to find? Because if it’s too lightweight or esoteric, the audiences who like these movies are going to be disappointed. Saturation Point reminds me a lot of Anihilation in that sense. We go into this weird place where strange things happen. But there is no clear face to the threat. It’s not like Predator, where we understand what we’re up against. The audience needs that.
You could make the argument that the real antagonist here is nature and, like, global warming or something. But while that may fly in your college English 101 class, it’s likely to piss off the people who plunked down 20 bucks to see something cool.
I would go so far as to say the enemies they came up with for this story were the stupidest enemies they could’ve possibly come up with. They were basically little green people who shot arrows. LITTLE GREEN PEOPLE WHO SHOT ARROWS! Not exactly face-hugging aliens. Before they showed up, I would’ve given this book a “worth the read.” But the second they showed up, it was dunzoes.
We talk about creative choices on this site. And how important it is to come up with strong ones for the pillars of your story. I would go so far as to say this was the worst creative choice they could’ve possibly come up with for the enemy. It destroyed the book and it’s shocking to me that any author would believe it was a good choice.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: As writers, we are inherently voyeurs of life. We observe things around us so that we can write about them. Our biggest weakness is that we transfer that “observer” nature onto our main characters. We, essentially, turn them into de facto writers. Even if they don’t write for a living, they do something where they’re at a desk alone by themselves. Which is exactly the case with Marks. She’s reclusive. She works at home, at her desk. Much like… A WRITER. But, by doing this, you make your hero inactive. Which is boring. So, as much as it pains you due to the fact that making someone active makes them different from you, it’s better to have an active protagonist. Period.
