Speed Of Dark: Winner of the Nebula Award (Tom Thorne Novels)

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This book is about Lou Arendale: a person who has been labelled ‘not-normal’, ‘aberrant’ or ‘defective’ based on the way he processes outside stimuli and the way he interacts socially with his peers. M. Vogelsberger, A. Helmi, V. Springel, S. D. M. White, J. Wang, C. S. Frenk, A, Jenkins, A. Ludlow, and J. F. Navarro, “Phase-Space Structure in the Local Dark Matter Distribution and its Signature in Direct Detection Experiments,” Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 395, 797 (2009). Autistic is different, not bad. It is not wrong to be different. Sometimes it is hard, but it is not wrong."

Military-SF novelist Moon ( Against the Odds, 2000, etc.) offers a touching account of an autistic man who struggles to cure his condition without changing his self.The protagonist, Lou, is described very well by the blurb and it was a genuine delight to follow his thought processes. This review is chokkas full of quotes from the book because you don't need to be autistic to relate to many of the introspective observations:

The main thing that bugged me is, what is normal in the first place? This book takes place in the future, how far it takes place, I don't know, but I would think that by the future we'd understand autism better and wouldn't just dismiss it as abnormal but would try to empathize with people with autism and to understand their point of view.The title The Speed of Dark has a very sci-fi ring to it, it is actually a phrase to contrast the speed of light. The idea is that there is always darkness before light, therefore darkness must somehow travel faster than light because it is always ahead. This is a metaphor the author is employing to represent knowledge illuminating ignorance, so it not some kind of crazy bad science.

That's a science achievement that I couldn't stop thinking about and it definitely helped to get a hold of the titular idea, one that Lou mentions in several contexts throughout the story: As he's learning about brain function he begins to realise that he's not actually broken at all. He reads the following in a neuroscience textbook: It is hard to drive safely in the hot afternoon, with the wrong music in my head. Light flashed off windshields, bumpers, trim; there are too many flashing lights. By the time I get home, my head hurts and I’m shaking. I take the pillows off my couch into the bedroom, closing all the shades tightly and then the door. I lie down, piling the pillow on top of me, then turn off the light. Lou Arrendale is a high functioning autistic main character in ‘The Speed of Dark’ by Elizabeth Moon. I was very interested in Lou as a main character; my grandson having Williams Syndrome may have something to do with that. Lou works in an office, has a car, and takes part in a fencing community. He has autistic co-workers but is very drawn to ‘normals.’ Being engaged with the Williams Syndrome community, I have learned to question the use of the word ‘normal.’ The word typical is used more frequently. In this novel nowever, normal seemed to do a better job of drawing contrasts between Lou and others, but increasingly I wonder what is normal and who gets to decide and why do they get to decide.

Use your lights correctly

All in all this is a highly recommendable, thoughtful exploration of some unintended consequences that we should try to foresee as we advance medical science. NASA. "How 'Fast' is the Speed of Light?" 2014. (Jan. 20, 2015) http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/how_fast_is_the_speed.htm