[Publisher Note: Valencies was first published in 1983 by the University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia and appears here in an updated version revised by Damien Broderick especially for Fictionwise.] [Authors' note: This revised edition was launched here in November 2002 under its original working title, Against the Empire. We quickly found this change misled some readers into expecting a rousing space opera in the tradition of 'Doc' Smith or Star Wars, so now we have reinstated the published title. A word of caution, therefore: this book is not a military adventure yarn nor a romance in deep space.] What is it, then? Australian critic Van Ikin comments: "... utopia is an elusive grail with a different meaning in every age, and contemporary [Australian] writers of speculative fiction ... examine the dangers and pitfalls of utopian fervour. The most notable of these works are Beloved Son (1978) and Vaneglory (1981) by George Turner, and Valencies (1983) by Rory Barnes and Damien Broderick." (The Penguin New Literary History of Australia, 1988). Critics Ikin, McMullen and Blackford, in Strange Constellations (1999), also point out that "in its structure, although not its thematic concern with individual freedom and universal human dignity, the book is atypical of Broderick's fiction, quite different from his novels of time travel and altered realities..."
If all this sounds a little downbeat, take heart! Brian W. Aldiss, in Trillion Year Spree (1986), praised Valencies as "one of the more playful SF novels of recent years" and quoted it at some length. Ikin, McMullen and Blackford say: "Some of the book's set pieces ... are glorious pieces of comic writing." So, yes, it is a literary dystopia, but we hope it's a lot of fun as well. In Hyperdreams, Russell Blackford describes the novel thus: "A far-future parable about political and cultural imperialism. Barnes and Broderick propose that by 4004 AD the Universe has been filled with human beings, thanks to the teleportational network (the "Aorist Discontinuity") and countless terraformed planets left behind by a von Danikenesque alien race known as "the Charioteers." Humanity is organised into a bleak and clinically brutal Empire. The novel focuses on a frustrated group of libertarian anarchists who live on the planet Victoria. By the end, their politically futile activities elicit from the reader a mixed emotional response. There is a sense of pathos, since all the moves in the game are foreknown and controlled by the rulers of the Empire, as becomes apparent in the final chapter, while the book's revolutionaries cannot even understand each other, let alone overthrow an omnipotently entrenched system. At the same time, there is a strong sense of dignity and courage, and this is magnified rather than diminished by the depictions of human weakness. Valencies, then, represents a struggle against Empire, a struggle that can never amount to more than futile gestures. The narrative is dominated by the characters' pranks, games, and parodies, and the complexities of their love lives. The incomprehension between person and person is suggested not only by the book's focus upon the difficulties between spirited Anla and dispirited Ben, and those between vulnerable Theri and gentle Kael, but also by the cunning juxtaposition of narrative viewpoints, which enables Barnes and Broderick to weave for the reader a delicate web of understanding of the characters' misunderstandings."