[Book review] The Human Blend by Alan Dean Foster

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Alan Dean Foster is one of the old standbys of science fiction.  His early novels have been read by scores of people, and I read a few of them myself as a teenager.  Going back to them now proves that his novels have stood the test of time, but a more pertinent question now is: has the author’s writing ability done the same?  Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think that the answer is “no”.

Whispr, so called because he’s been modified (or Melded) until he’s stick-thin, didn’t know what he was getting into when he and his partner robbed a random guy on the street.  But the tiny microthread that Whispr lifts from his pocket proves to be more deadly than it seems.  Within hours, Whispr’s partner is dead and Whispr himself is running for his life.

Dr. Ingrid Seastrom spends some of her spare time doing house calls, but nothing prepares her for what she finds in the neck of a teenager suffering from a Meld gone wrong. A tiny insert, it has nothing to do with any medical procedure.  Ingrid extracts it, but it vanishes when she tries to examine it.  And then Whispr turns up at her door in need of aid.

Someone wants that thread back very badly and is leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.  Whispr and Ingrid are thrown together by circumstance into a race to find answers before they’re killed. 

When I started working on this review, I realized that I was consistently making the same typing error with the book’s title: I kept coming up with The Human Bland.  Sad to say, that is an accurate description of my reaction to this book.  I view this as a novel of missed opportunities.

For example, Foster goes fairly deeply into the concept of Melding.  A person can decide that they want to change their appearance, and there are an infinite number of ways to do so.  Whispr’s partner modified his legs so that they were like a grasshopper.  Some people live underwater and modify their bodies with gills and fins.  Some go to extremes, like the character of the Gator Man, who looks just like the swamp-dwelling reptile walking on two legs.  Foster even includes a scene where someone undergoes a Meld so that readers can see just what it entails.

The missed opportunity here is that Foster never really explores the thought processes behind why someone might want to undergo a Meld (beyond the merely superficial), nor does he delve into the societal implications of widespread Melding.  The author could have said a lot about identity issues, or popular culture, but instead he used Melding as a mere plot device.  For something so pervasive, it occupies comparatively little plot space.  It made for some interesting mental images, but it really served no purpose to the tale.  And that’s too bad, because I found the whole idea to be pretty intriguing.

As for the mystery of the microthread, it failed to draw me in.  Foster throws out this massive question—the thread is for storage, so what’s stored on it?—but never even hints at the answer.  Over and over again, characters fail to figure out what it contains, and about all they can say about it is that it’s made of a material that shouldn’t be able to exist.  Perhaps this alone is enough to justify all the mayhem that happens, but the author keeps making a point of the whole storage concept.  Readers need more than just the promise of “This will be really cool, trust me!” to sustain them.  We don’t like to feel strung along this much.

My interest was somewhat piqued when the action started, and assassins were set on Whispr’s trail.  But it devolved into the same thing happening repeatedly: Whispr would approach someone for help, then he would leave, then that person would be assaulted and/or killed.  When Ingrid joins up with Whispr, it doesn’t change this pattern.  The only question was which assassin would get to someone first.

It’s entirely possible that my expectations for this book weren’t realistic.  The jacket copy made it sound like the thread was the main focus of the book—and indeed, in many ways it is—but the Melding and what it can do takes up a lot of page space.  I was led to believe, based on the first few chapters, that equal time would be given to both, or that they were somehow related.  But neither element really panned out.  A brief glance at reviews on places like Amazon.com and GoodReads has shown me that I’m not alone in my assessment of The Human Blend.

I’m disappointed with this latest effort of Foster’s.  There was so much he could have done with Melding, which I did find to be a fascinating concept, but he instead chose to simply use it to further his story in some superficial ways.  If you’re a fan of Foster’s, you may want to give this one a shot and see what you think.  If, however, you’ve never read one of his novels before, this isn’t the place to start.

This book was provided by the publisher.