Book Review: Playground by Richard Powers

 

Playground by Richard Powers

381 pages, Hardcover

Published, September, 2024 by W. W. Norton & Company

 

 

So, my dude Richard Powers won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in normal times, I would be writing a very intense, detailed review, like I did for his novel, The Overstory. For me this novel, Playground, highlights the difference between so-called literature and genre fiction that often is stuck in the ghetto, unable to be given that title. This is my second Richard Powers epic, a phrase I don’t use lightly. The Overstory was a multi-generational novel that I remember liking. Playground is also epic, but it is not as expansive. This is a good thing in my opinion.  (NOTE: he is not in fact my dude, that was a joke. That said, Richard, I am available for tea if you are in San Diego)

Several themes and ideas overlap with one of my favorite Science Fiction novels of the last decade, and that would be Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea. Both novels have different plots, while at the same time, both could be described as “Powerful stories about the power of the ocean and artificial intelligence.”  Playground has various characters who end up drawn to a small Pacific island that is at the center of a new movement to build floating cities in the ocean.

To call Playground anything but Science Fiction is pretty silly, and anyone who has read my reviews before knows I hate the concept of science fiction that is written by writers too high and mighty to admit that is what they wrote. Normally, that is the crime of publishers and marketers but this is an interesting case because of how similar this is to Nayler’s new classic of the genre. Both novels are stories about Oceans and AI, and have pretty much the same “Twist.” each is good but no one will be considering Ray Nayler for the Booker and Pultizer but for my money it is the better novel of the two. 

Let me point out  I have no problem with the two novels having similar ideas. It is just funny to me that one is considered high literature and the other “just” science fiction.  

 Evie Beaulieu is an interesting character, her back story tied to the history and invention of the Auqalung is fantastic character building. Combined with Rafi who is able to program serious AI based on friendship built on the game of Go, makes for a mythological vibe to their origin story. It is a part of what feels epic in the novel. The characters are given many pages to be developed, and if there is anything not SF here, it is the amount of time devoted to character before the core SF ideas are introduced. I refuse to accept that SF doesn’t have developed characters but is true your Asimovs or Clarke were not the best at making up human beings 

Playground is good storytelling, Powers is an excellent writer, and I feel he has important things to say.  For this reader, the fact that he comes close to SF ideas but doesn’t fully embrace them is where the novel feels weakest to me. The novel feels lacking, as if it is being held back from fully exploring the wonders of the ocean, from the dangers of AI. Those things are explored but in a very simplistic way that mainstream normie lit is limited to..  

 Sure Powers explores why AI is lacking…

“Without the ability to feel sad, a person could not be kind or thoughtful, because you wouldn't care or know how anybody else feels. Without sadness, you would never learn anything from history. Sadness is the key to loving what you love and to becoming better than you were. A person who never felt sad would be a monster.”

But I feel this was better explored as far back as the 60s in Sci-fi, as early as the 1952 PKD was writing about AI understanding how to calculate empathy without actually being able to experience it. Playground being written by a non-SF focused writer could ideally focus more on the human feelings, and yes of the two novels the characters are more forward in the story.

There is some disorientation early in the narrative until it starts to become clear how the stories will weave together.  This is well done, but requires some patience on the reader’s part. The stories start in Montreal and Chicago and it is many pages before they come together in the Pacific islands. The story on the French Polynesian Island Of Makatea is the best part of this tale. It is where the SF elements become real.  An island of less than a hundred struggling to keep it’s identity and survive Climate change is the most intriguing aspect of the novel.

The twist in the back half of the narrative might have been a cooler if it wasn’t the same one that A Mountain in the Sea used.  I hate to make that comparison again, but that was the problem.  Playground is a good, not great novel light on Sci-fi elements and that is actually the problem. I felt this was good literature, but great literature for me requires more than good structure it helps bring strong and weird ideas. I didn’t find anything here concept wise that expanded my thinking. The Overstory filled me with awe, Playground made me think how much better I liked A Mountain in the Sea.