Mainspring by Jay Lake

Mainspring by Jay Lake

From Publisher’s Weekly:

Lake (Trial of Flowers) envisions the universe as an enormous clockwork, put in motion by God, complete with gears and a mainspring hidden at the Earth’s center, in his intriguing first trade hardcover novel, a fantasy set in the magic-tinged late 19th century. Archangel Gabriel charges clockmaker’s apprentice Hethor Jacques with a quest: he must find the lost Key Perilous so that the Mainspring of the World can be rewound. Hethor leaves New Haven, Conn., for Boston, where he boards Her Imperial Majesty’s Ship of the Air Bassett and travels south to the towering Equatorial Wall, along the top of which run the great gears that rotate the earth. Hethor soon discovers opponents who don’t want the mainspring rewound. He must deal with dark magicians, monstrous winged savages, mechanical men and other wonders during his epic journey, which takes him over the wall and into a land of wonders. The author of more than 200 short stories, Lake demonstrates his enormously fertile imagination in this unusual book, marred only by some sluggish pacing

I had not heard of Jay Lake at all.  Which isn’t to say that he isn’t a prolific writer of short works(he is, according to his bibliography which has close to 200 works) or a established novelist (he is with a few novels under his belt).  I am not a huge follower of science fiction, hence not knowing Jay Lake.  With my recent foray into steampunk I have sought out as much in the genre as I could find and Lake’s Mainspring caught my attention; mostly from the cover which has a wonderful looking airship aloft.

After taking some time to think about the book ( I finished it about a week ago) I was set to say that Lake was examining the conflict between faith and rationality without being explicit about it.  Where the protagonist, Hethor, was faithful to the idea of a God that built the world and that it was Hethor’s job to answer the call of an angel to help God rewind the mainspring of the world.  At the same time Lake labels the opposition (if you can call it opposition since he does not do a good job in rounding out their motivation) Rational Humanists that think that the mainspring should wind down to prove that the world was not made by God but fashioned by Clockmakers.  The rational part of Rational Humanist isn’t so rational as one might expect since the main proponent of that world view is William of Ghent, who we don’t know much about since Lake doesn’t take the time to examine the character.  We are left with what rumors Hethor has heard about him.  Which makes the reader have to distrust the narrator of the story because we can’t possibly take everything he says at face value.

But I have changed my mind about the overall theme that Lake was exploring.  I think that Lake was talking more about how those of faith will go forward, unwavering no matter what contradictions occur between their belief and reality, and that they close their ears and mind to any contradicting information.  Hethor shows this three quarters of the way through the book when he is dropped off at William of Ghent’s strong hold in the Southern Earth.  Ghent tries to present his case to Hethor to let the mainspring wind down.  Hethor does not even give William the opportunity to explain his reasoning before Hethor attacks and sends William down an abyss filled with clockwork gears. Essentially stifling any opposition viewpoint to his own faith.

Hethor then resumes his quest unerred and his faith unexamined.  He has become an automoton set with one goal and no free will.

On the opposite side, William does not to a good job in presenting his reasoned case as to why Hethor should let the spring wind down.  William falls back to just imploring Hethor to stop and not complete his quest.  William does not give us any clue that he knows that Hethor is single minded in his quest. However, William does not offer any evidence that letting the spring fail would bring about what he believes, without any evidence, that the clockmakers would return and free humanity from a god.  We don’t really know why humanity should be free from this god since we are unsure of what bad things have occurred.  The Rational Humanists do not give Hethor a better alternative.

I think this resonates to our dichotomy of faith versus rationality.  At times those of fatih close thier ears and mind to any contradicting evidence at the same time humanists and those that don’t have faith in the supernatural fail to provide well thought out and clear evidence to their opposition.  Lake takes each to the extreme in his novel.  Showing a single minded Hethor lash out against any opposition to his quest without thinking.

Mainspring is well worth reading despite some short comings.  Mainspring suffers from some plot holes that rely too much on coincidence or duex ex machina.  There is a nonsensical sex scene involving Hethor and one of the female traveling companions which I think Lake added to the story to show that Hethor has come to love this woman.  Which tends to weaken the story.  Authors need to trust their readers will understand that love can be very strong and not rely on explaining that through sex.  Lake also throws in magical powers in the last minute to help Hethor overcome his final trials to get to the mainspring to rewind it.  This sudden appearance of reality altering magic coming from out of nowhere cheapens the prior quest almost to the point of making the book a waste of time to read.  But Lake just pulls it off even though he falls into cliche by having Hethor return to earth because he wants to save the one he loves from death and return to her.

This also delves into the cognitive dissonance of faith and what heaven is.  Hethor knows that heaven is this wonderful place but he chooses to abandon it and deny it for the one he loves as well because of the selfishness of wanted to spend more time with her.  If heaven is that great and wonderful why deny the one you love of it as well as yourself?

We are left at the end of the story wondering if anything was really resolved other than the mainspring being reset and life moving along as it always did.  There is no resolution to the conflict between unexamined faith and arrogant rationalism.  Which might show us that like in realy life, fiction doesnt’ necessarily have to have a resolution to that conflict.  But, unlike real life, we sometimes expect our fiction not only to mirror the real world, but to somehow be a more perfect example of real life and find solutions, even if they be imperfect.