Books That I Have: Charon's Ark
We're starting a new feature here at The Weekly Geek called Books That I Have. Every week we will profile a strange, funny, interesting or otherwise rare book that we have in our home libraries.
Geeks are a strange breed, and most, though not all, have had occasion to deal with one group or another of drooling mongoloids seemingly bent on doing nothing but making said geek's life miserable. Imagine now, that the tables have turned, and that the power is in the hands of the geek. Not 15 or 20 years later like we all know is likely, but now, armed only with the skill most adolescent geeks have on hand; a near encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction, video games, aliens, monsters, robots, dinosaurs, and everything else that loner kids with more imagination than inclination to socialize find interesting.
Charon's Ark features just such a geek; Charlie Freeman, who, when he and some schoolmates are kidnapped by aliens destined for the moon of Pluto, is finally able to put to use the hours spent absorbing fantastic tales of space aliens and starship travel. It's an adolescent geek's dream! Finally, the outcasts are running the show, and much like you'd imagine a beaten man to do when facing down his brutalizers, the show run is rife with petty revenge.
But that's the best thing about Charon's Ark; every character is believable, human, people you interact with, people some of you are. It's easy to see parts of ourselves in the characters author Rick Gauger expertly plays out across the pages of Charon's Ark, easier still to rejoice with their triumphs, feel the crush of their follies, and let the hair on the back of your neck stand in fear with their danger. We are the characters, and Rick reminds us that, regardless of the labels we apply to ourselves and have applied to us by others, none of us is all one thing or the other.
Yes, most of the characters are kids, teenagers even. Hell the book itself is often classified as "Young Adult", but don't allow yourself to be fooled. Much like the characters are all themselves realistic and human, they are all also realistically dealt with. The kids at times are near totally sociopathic monsters, as kids occasionally are, and Rick attempts no illusion regarding the horrible things that can happen in extreme situations with a gaggle of panicked, unruly kids about. The book is at times incredibly grim, unlike other SF aimed at adolescents which hopes to paint a picture of a world in which real bad things only happen to people over 18, and as such honest and straightforward with it's intended audience.
Sadly, I didn't discover Charon's Ark until much later in life, which while not hampering my enjoyment of it in the least did leave me wishing I had found this book when I was Charlie Freeman; young, awkward, and with a head full of aliens, monsters, robots and dinosaurs. My head is still full of robots and dinosaurs, but the visceral feeling of being the shunned embarrassment of my peers has long since passed (mostly). The geeks of the world thank you Rick, for the paperback arm around the shoulder in youth, the epic tale of spacenapped kids, but most importantly, for the reiteration that an imagination is the most important tool you will ever have. Every kid that has ever felt misunderstood, alone, weird, left out, alien or otherwise ostracized should own a copy of this book, and you should too.
