Shya Scanlon’s Forecast creates tension in a way I’ve never read before. Though the story itself—one of love lost, tracked, found, and dismissed—deviates little, thematically, from established love narratives, the context in which Scanlon builds this story allows for a unique type of tension, one I might call meta-tension; emotion that has impact because of its story format, not because of the characters who carry the story. Let me explain.
First, Forecast is set in a year 2212 Steve Aylett-esque not-quite-dystopia, presenting the future not as a place of flying cars and jetpacks, but instead as a place where cars are powered by the negative energy runoff of deeply held grudges and dogs carry conversation better than people. Scanlon cleverly uses Stephen Graham Jones’ idea of “genre as mnemonic device,” but instead of playing into the conventions, the author dodges them just enough to keep the reader tense with broken expectations. A reader cannot be at ease when faced with the unexpected. Therefore: tension.
Second, and most intriguing, is the way this novel plays with narrative perspective. The bulk of the novel is told through a traditional third person narration, but gives a physical form to the voice behind that perspective. The voice, Maxwell Point, who works as a Citizen Surveillant keeping watch over Helen, the primary protagonist. This voyeuristic role allows an unobtrusiveness to Maxwell’s narration, but simultaneously colors the reader’s perception of the entire story. This is using the unreliable narrator as an omniscient narrator. Basically, the idea is that even God doesn’t know everything. Heightening the tension is Maxwell’s developing cross from passive viewer to interested love, seeing Helen not as a professional responsibility but as a potential partner.
This narrative perspective does have its downside, though, and allows for perhaps my only criticism of Forecast. Maxwell Point, at an indeterminable point in the novel, becomes the center of the story. The slow, imperceptible protagonist transition from Helen to Maxwell makes it difficult for the reader to decide who deserves his investment. The shift was emphasized for me late in the novel on page 195, with a Franz Kafta quote used to explain the role of the Citizen Surveillant, and by proxy, the reason the reader should begin to care about Maxwell:
“All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.”
This idea of meta-tension is stressed beautifully toward the end of the novel with a quick breaking of the fourth wall. Maxwell Point says: “She was no more part of me than I am of you” (pg 256). The “you” here is, of course, the reader. In a single sentence the reader becomes investing in the story in a way that had until this moment been obscured by the quick plot and great ironic humor.
The third spring of tension: the novel traces two separate timelines, one for Helen’s youth (when she went by the name Zara), and one during her adulthood. The implication that the nuances of her the youth will inform, and reveal, the present timeline are always looming. I found myself studying every detail of the past to help explain the often confusing plot of the present. I felt like Maxwell Point, actually, surveying our protagonist.
Though the bulk of the tension resides in meta-narrative maneuvering, Scanlon does allow some space for the plot-proper to stress the reader. Most notably, the negative energy-as-fuel concept, provides an interesting source of tension: negative energy fuels the economy, and is therefore encouraged, however when that encouragement is widely accepted, negative ultimately becomes positive. This twist is most apparent when exploring Helen’s domestic life early in the novel. Her husband keeps a mistress as a way to power Helen’s negativity, but the open acknowledgment of the mistress, and the understanding of her role as a contributor to the greater good, basically nullifies that negativity. Tense, right?
Forecast is every bit the strange ride one would expect from a book about Big Brother surveillance, talking dogs, and civil infrastructure powered by human emotion. The book itself depends on the reader’s constant confusion and open voyeurism to keep the plot afloat. Without the intellectual investment of the reader, Forecast’s 2212 economy and the surreal plot Scanlon creates to support it might more closely resemble an average 2011 economy, where negative emotion runs rampant, never harnessed.
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