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Dark Rain by Conor Conderoy
01/04/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Macmillan New Writing. 242 page hardback. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-230-000010-X. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.macmillannewwriting.com
This is one of the first of MacMillan New Writing division books we've received. Looking up their protocol details, it'll be interesting to see how many submissions they're going to receive in the next few months.
Anyway, I digress. Let's focus on this book. 'Dark Rain' is set in the near future where the environment has broken down and in the western world it is not only wet but continually raining. If you're rich, then it's not a problem, you can live in one of those nice domes. If you're poor, you live off scraps and out in the soggy wet and be considered worthless to the affluent. An interesting concept that really should have been explored a lot more. Oh yes, and there's a little matter of an alien starship on its way with a promise to sort out the Earth's ecological problems.
Into this calamitous future, police inspector Liam O'Neil is investigating a ritual murder of a scientist Domer when he finds himself sacked and then employed by the deadman's wife to find out what happened. O'Neil is then sought by the opposition whom he isn't sure what they are about, a fifth columnist group and his own police force let alone who are friends and enemies let alone whose agenda he should trust. Throughout the story, O'Neil tries to stay one step ahead of everyone in getting the truth and even when he's told it, this is only from one group's perspective.
Written in first person, there are strong elements of 50s film noir involved and if you visualised the kind of place 'Blade Runner' looked like with more rain and fewer dry places, you wouldn't be far wrong. Judging by the names, it's supposed to be Britain but the place is so generic it could be anywhere. That much rain and I think the London area would be underwater not flooded. After all, where does all that water go?
The real problem comes from O'Neil. Writing in first person is one of the trickiest ways to write a story. Although this story could have gotten away back in the 1950s, there is a singular lack of emotional content. O'Neil is put through the wringer from being shot at to being tortured yet for all of his reaction, he might as well have been out on a Sunday school outing. This is really one of the hardest things to do right because there is a dependency on how you are conveying the information to the reader when in first tense - the real trick is in ignoring the fifth wall and just getting on with it - and share the emotional level with the reader so you are really there with the character. Writer Conderoy really should have been told to have upped the emotional stakes a bit because he wasn't that far off in getting it right and might well do so in a second book. Using the imagination is far more than creating the fantastic but in bringing it to the reader. He shows promise but needs a little more work before he develops a following.
GF Willmetts
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