Andrea Barrett has a new story collection (Natural History), as I discovered while browsing at Barnes and Noble recently. I wasn't in the mood that day to buy a hardcover, but I was inspired to return to the book that introduced me to Barrett. I discovered Servants of the Map while browsing at Powell's many years ago, and it was unlike anything I'd read before.
The protagonists in Barrett's stories are scientists, often women and often from the 19th century, experiencing intellectual awakenings interwoven with emotional ones. I'd call her work "science fiction" if that term weren't already claimed. In a manner that seems unique to her, Barrett shows how thinking and feeling are inextricable, with curiosity and attraction reinforcing each other. The stories leave me with an optimistic focus on the wonders of life.
I was hooked immediately by the title story, which is about a young British surveyor in the Himalaya in 1863. He writes to his wife about his adventures and his loneliness while slowly recognizing his calling as an explorer.
Barrett likes to link her stories through shared characters. For example, the narrator of "Theories of Rain" has a long-lost brother who turns up as a major character in "Two Rivers." While these connections are mostly subtle, they occasionally interfere with the unity of the story. The final story, "The Cure," brings together characters from several other Barrett stories (in this book and others) and seems designed to provide fan-service updates about the characters rather than working as a standalone story.
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