Failed Fusion of SciFi and Romance: "Archetype," M. D. Waters

Archetype - M. D. Waters

A couple of generations ago the concept of “fusion” was pretty much reserved for hydrogen bombs and hopes for cheap, clean electric power. Then came “fusion cuisine,” sometimes interesting but too often hapless mashups of different cooking styles in a single dish. And finally somewhere along the line fusion struck the world of literature. Once upon a time librarians and bookstore clerks only had to look at the cover art to know where to shelve a new release, but genre fusion has made that dicey. Think cozy murder mysteries (Perri O’Shaughnessy, for instance) or VampRom and almost anything Mercedes Lackey ever wrote. Well, the next step in fusion is here, and it’s an uneasy marriage of bodice-ripper and speculative fiction: Archetype, from the pen of M. D. Waters.

Emma awakens in a sterile room, weak as a newborn colt and suffering a curious version of aphasia. She’s been in an accident, the medicos attending to her tell her, which is why she remembers nothing and is so puny. Fortunately, she has a hunky brunette husband who also seems to be filthy rich, so everything will be all right. Or it would be all right if it weren’t for her recurring dreams of another life and the voice inside her head that tells her that the gorgeous Declan, with whom she’s madly in love/lust, isn’t her real husband. Talk about being conflicted…

Emma’s recovery doesn’t make her any less conflicted, especially when she meets security expert Noah, the hunky blond man in her dreams. Noah seems to want to kill her, so why is she so powerfully drawn to this strange man? More to the point, how does a woman whose pastimes have been limited to painting and jogging suddenly become a martial arts expert?

Apparently there’s more to Emma Burke than meets the eye…

First-time novelist M. D. Waters claims to have been raised on a diet of scifi by her father. Though she doesn’t allude to Mom in the acknowledgments, it’s pretty obvious that someone in the family was equally obsessed with the likes of Fabio. There can’t be any other explanation for such a genre combination.

Archetype is frequently compared to Margaret Atwood’s seminal spec-fic novel The Handmaid’s Tale. That’s an easy call, since it’s clear that Waters riffs on Atwood’s future world beset by a fertility plague. The difference is that Atwood’s vision is secondary to the development of Offred, her protagonist. In Archetype, Waters’ fumbles the futuristic aspects in much the same way that cozy mystery writers fumble the details of their novels (case in point, carpenters who don’t know how to use a nail gun). Emma may be able to shoot a plasma gun and perform surprising feats of self-defense, but at heart she's one of those unfortunate femmy characters whose identity is defined by the hottest male nearby.

The “science-y” bits of Archetype are clearly secondary to the romantic aspects. Sure, the tropes of futuristic fiction are all firmly set in place – cloning and teleporters, at least – but any technology is merely a set piece, like those fancy display panels on the bridge of starship Enterprise. The romance, on the other hand, is lovingly crafted and infused with plenty of lust and more than a little hot monkey sex. Waters does nothing to explain the supposed fertility plague beyond a vague reference to Mother Nature, global warming and overpopulation, and does nothing whatsoever to explain the schism between East and West. The plot has many glaring holes that will keep more thoughtful readers wondering “How?” and “Why?” too often.
     
For this reader, at least, the fusion was a failure. While better-written than many self-published works, Archetype is still the sort of novel you’ll find on the remainder shelves in a couple of years, never to be heard from again. I suspect that also goes for the sequel, Prototype, due out this summer.

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