Some reviewers have recommended that this trilogy be used in classrooms alongside The Giver, and I completely agree. Stahler's skeptical take on utopian societies closely - and happily - resembles Lowry's.
AR Grade Level: 5.0 - 6.0
Suggested Age Range: 9+
Plot Synopses:
Truesight:
Thirteen-year-old Jacob Manford has lived on the colony world of Nova Campi his entire life -- and he, like everyone else in the Harmony settlement, is blind. He has never questioned the ideology - Truesight - upon which Harmony and the other settlements established by the Foundation have been based; he doesn't find it horrifying in the least that the Foundation's colonists are blind because they have been genetically engineered to be that way. He takes it as a matter of course that "Seers" are irredeemably corrupt, distracted by surface appearances, and he doesn't understand his friend Delaney's longing to join them.
Then, just before Jacob learns what his adult vocation will be, he gains sight, and from that point on, his life drastically changes. With his new vision, he sees that the supposedly idyllic colony of Harmony is not so perfect after all - that it is, in fact, filled with fallen men and women just like any other village. Even worse, when the colony's leaders learn that Jacob can see, Jacob is forced to flee Harmony to avoid utter erasure.
The Seer:
After running away from Harmony, Jacob struggles across the trackless grasslands in search of Delaney, who disappeared some time before his own escape. Just before he succumbs to hunger and thirst, he meets Xander, an ex-mercenary for the Mixel Corporation. Xander reluctantly takes Jacob in when Jacob runs afoul of some bullies from the nearby city of Melville and over time grows very attached to the boy.
Then Jacob discovers that Xander has Delaney's sounder, and we learn that Xander also rescued Delaney from certain death and delivered her to Mixel's doorstep in the hopes that she would be cared for. When Xander and Jacob visit Delaney in Melville, however, they find that while Delaney has been fitted with a pair of bionic eyes and is being showered with every luxury, her handler from Mixel, LaPerle, really sees her as nothing more than the next big pop rock commodity. Realizing that Delaney is profoundly unhappy, Jacob and Xander rescue her from Mixel Tower and take her to Xander's home in the countryside, where they protect her from Mixel's men.
In the meantime, Jacob's gift of sight is turning out to be more complex that previously thought. Not only can he perceive things in the here and now, but he can also catch glimpses of possible futures. When Jacob falls ill with a dangerous fever, he is contacted telepathically by a boy in a purple robe who tells Jacob that there is a whole colony of former "Blinders" who are hiding from the Foundation in another part of the galaxy. Jacob doesn't know what to make of this information, so when Delaney begs to be taken back to Harmony, he decides to go with her to ask Harmony's master computer, the "ghostbox," where these former Blinders might be hiding. Back in Harmony, Jacob saves Delaney from the wrath of her father and gleans from the ghostbox a fateful name: Teiresias.
Otherspace:
Two years after the events in The Seer, Jacob, Xander, and Delaney are living together in relative comfort in the countryside of Nova Campi -- but their quiet life is suddenly disrupted when LaPerle once again shows his face. LaPerle has lost interest in Delaney; instead, he is here for Jacob, whom he wishes to take back to Mixel. Jacob decides then that he can no longer stay with his friends, and with Xander's help, he books passage to Teiresias on a smuggler's ship, the Odessa. Also along for the ride is a creepy gentleman by the name of Folgrin, who develops a disturbing interest in Jacob, particularly after Jacob discovers that he can endure the trip through "otherspace" without losing consciousness.
The journey to Teiresias is fraught with peril. For one thing, Jacob and the smugglers are attacked by pirates, and their ship crash-lands on the rundown world of Maker's Drift. Jacob and Captain Bennet manage to meet up again, however, and they grab a flight on a rickety old tramp freighter to a hub world, where they catch another flight - this time on a luxury liner - to Teiresias. Along the way, Jacob can't shake the crawling sense that he's being followed by dark forces unknown.
On Teiresias, Jacob finally joins the colony of former Blinders, who are hiding on the frigid night side of the planet. There, he finds Delaney's mother among their number and works to develop his telepathy and his future-sight. Through it all, Jacob senses a profound uneasiness within this hidden colony; the residents fear that they will soon be discovered by the Foundation and destroyed. Then Jacob is stunned to learn one thing more: that he might be the one destined to save them. The spiritual leader of the former Blinders, Caolas, believes that Jacob's newly revealed ability to read the stars and the wormholes between them will ultimately lead his people to a home out of reach of the Foundation's influence.
Eventually, things come to a head. Folgrin and LaPerle arrive on Teiresias, and Jacob finds out that Bennet, desperate for money, has been helping them in their quest to destroy Caolas and the others on behalf of the Foundation. Jacob, Caolas, and the others hurriedly gather as many essentials as possible and head for Night's Head, a great mountain where Jacob saw a mysterious light. They are followed by LaPerle and Folgrin, who turns out to be a former member of Caolas' colony who went mad and fled back to the Foundation to be "cured". Folgrin - or Simon Volker, rather - sets off a micronuke, but on Jacob's direction, two young telekinetics fling the bomb into the mountain and another former Blinder, Nadia, uses her shielding ability to protect the others from the blast. When the dust settles, Jacob and the others can see the event horizon of a wormhole hovering overhead. At this point, Bennet, eager to redeem himself, arrives with a ship, and Jacob and the others make the trip to their new home. Once the new colony has been established, Jacob, who believes he is most at home among the stars, decides to head into space with Bennet to find other Blinders who have gained sight.
Characterization: 8.0
Stahler does a solid job of assembling an interesting collection of protagonists. Jacob reads as a believable early-adolescent boy; refreshingly, Stahler does not insert any age-inappropriate sexual longing in the characterization of his lead. Delaney's impulsiveness - unlike Jacob, she leaves Harmony because of an inchoate longing for something else - also strikes me as perfectly plausible; many teens do reject the values and mores of their elders out of pure rebelliousness rather than out of conscious reflection, and such choices often lead them into trouble. Perhaps most fascinating of all, though, are Xander and Bennet. Both are good men, but they are flawed, too - perfect illustrations of the author's view of original sin, which will be discussed further below.
The antagonists are a little less fleshed out, unfortunately. I wish, for example, that we could've learned more about Folgrin/Volker. As a symbol of evil, however, Corrow is pretty compelling. When he tells Jacob that lies must be told in the service of the greater good, he instantly - and eerily - calls to mind all the tyrannies of the last century.
Plot/Pacing: 8.0
Like a lot of series in this genre, the Truesight trilogy takes a little while to truly get off the ground; in the opening chapters of the first novel, Stahler's writing gets a tad bogged down with exposition. In the later novels, meanwhile, the author's recaps of earlier events are sometimes a little clumsy, like they were pasted in as an afterthought to ensure that each novel could "stand alone". Despite these few blips, though, the story Stahler tells is thoroughly engaging. The potential for thought-provoking classroom discussion is very great.
Concepts/Themes: 9.0
Of course, it's unrealistic that a teenager who has been blind since birth should adapt so quickly to sudden sight. On the other hand, Jacob's new vision is accompanied by other powers that can only be classified as miraculous, so perhaps we should count his rapid acclimatization as yet another miracle. In any case, sight turns out to be a good - if slightly obvious - metaphor for the process of growing up.
Two marvelous themes predominate in this trio of novels. First, Stahler emphasizes the importance of individual freedom and how it should take precedence over both communism and raw corporate commodification. The settlement of Harmony, like most supposedly utopian societies, is marked by all the errors of collectivism. Life is strictly regimented; no one is free to leave; homogeneity is achieved through deadly force; sins and shortages are busily concealed with deceptive propaganda. On the other hand, the suits in Mixel Tower are overly focused on the bottom line and thus lose sight of Delaney's essential human rights. To LaPerle, Delaney is simply a thing to be used in the service of avarice. Neither Harmony nor Mixel, the author implies, has it right; freedom, even with all its messiness, is preferable to anything else.
"So," Jacob began again, "what are you going to teach me?"
"Whatever you want to learn," Caolas said. "I suppose that's your first lesson, Jacob. You're in charge of your own learning, in charge of your own destiny. This place, this family is about freedom and responsibility. The two go hand in hand. You're free to choose whatever path you wish, but you're responsible for it at the same time."
"So if I wanted to leave...?"
"Then you leave. Everyone here - those old enough to make that kind of choice - understand that they can leave at any time. A few have. We only ask that those who part ways from us keep our existence secret."
"But how do you know they won't betray you? People lie. People do all kinds of horrible things to each other. Doesn't it put you in danger?"
"Yes. But that's a risk we're willing to take. We think freedom is worth the price..."
Secondly, Stahler points out that original sin is universal and inescapable. When Jacob's eyes are opened for the first time, he discovers both that his father and his ailing neighbor are secret food thieves and that his mother is an adulterer. The Foundation's cult of blindness has done nothing to erase human depravity; it has merely hidden it so that its members can rest easy in the illusion that they are somehow better than the "Seers" outside. As Jacob says to Delaney when Delaney expresses her wish to return to the false morality of Harmony after her ordeal in Mixel Tower:
"I know you haven't had an easy time, Delaney... but that's how the world is. If there's anything I've learned from seeing, that's it. Things were bad for you in Melville, but they're no better in Harmony. Our teachers always told us that Truesight allowed people to avoid the evils of the world, but you can't escape them. They're everywhere; our people just don't want to see them.
"I remember when I was brought before the council and they told me that Truesight was about embracing hardship, about being strengthened by adversity - but that's not life in Harmony. If anything, it's easier to hide behind blindness and simply pretend that because you can't see something, it doesn't exist..."
The message here is clear: if you seek a heaven on earth, you will find nothing but disappointment. And as for those who claim they can establish such a heaven? Like the high councilor of Harmony, they are highly likely to be nothing more than lovers of power and control.
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