Temper

Temper

By Nicky Drayden

 

 

The (a) story follows Auben Mtuze, a teenager living in South Africa in an alternate reality where a person’s vices are displayed on their arm for all to see. Here, most of the population is made up of twins, and each twin’s life is dictated by the brands they are born with. For Auben, being born with six out of seven vices means he is destined for a lifetime of hardship while his twin, Kasim, will forever be considered his superior. However, Auben refuses to let his vices hold him back. Moreover, he refuses to let the gap between vices and virtues weaken his relationship with his beloved brother. But when Auben begins to hear a voice, one that tempts him deeper into his personal depravities, the already unstable bond between siblings threatens to break forever.

The (A) story often speaks to a person’s identity, and the trials and tribulations that can be carried within it. Much of this can be seen in the crisis Auben deals with throughout most of the book: who, or what, is he, and what can he do to change it? And even once he comes to terms with who he is, there is still the issue of being accepted for it.

Such trials can also be observed through the kigen characters—siblings whose genetic makeup became so mixed together within the womb that neither was born fully male or female (designated by the neo-pronouns ey/em/eir). This is epitomized through one particular character who was born a masculine kigen, yet identifies and carries herself as female. These two struggles of identity come full circle once Auben is encouraged to settle into his own skin, and once the companion he’d just outed as a kigen tells him outright: “I am a girl.”

But the trials and tribulations our characters witness are more fully expressed through the recurring themes of discrimination and privilege. The most obvious example of this is shown through the divide between vices and virtues. As there are seven vices in total, no pair of twins is evenly balanced: one always has more than the other. Therefore, twins become separated into categories of “lesser” and “greater,” with the greater being considered superior. Despite their levels of ambition or work ethic, greater twins are given a free pass at life while lesser twins are expected to fail.

For Auben, this perception leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy that only drags him deeper into his personal darkness; for others, it only adds to their determination. This is demonstrated the most clearly through Chimwe, Auben and Kasim’s cousin and lesser twin. In Chimwe’s words: “I need to be twice as good as my sib to earn half the respect,” which seems horribly unfair once it becomes clear that Chimwe’s procrastinating sibling Chiso is guaranteed to run eir father’s business purely because of eir virtues while Chimwe is clearly the more qualified and hard-working of the two.

This discrimination against lesser twins is all the more put into perspective by the fact that the twins in this world are physically unable to stray too far from each other. A certain amount of distance leads to a “proximity pain,” which could result in a kind of insanity once proximity is fully broken. This guarantees that lesser twins are constantly walking within the shadow of their siblings, as is shown once Auben and Kasim begin attending their new school. One quickly becomes the star student; the other becomes overlooked and underestimated, further driving a wedge between them.

But the underlying moral of this story also has a lot to say about sibling relationships. More specifically, the undying love between them. While each pair of twins lives in a society that seems determined to tear them apart, the universe clearly wants them to be together. This is verified with the proximity pains, but it is also shown through the chimeral stripes decorating each twin; like the kigens splitting genetic makeup within the womb, the chimeral stripes represent a piece of one twin that forever belongs with the other.

Finally, the story told through Temper also plays with levels of moral ambiguity. Though one sibling is labeled “lesser” by society, and is doomed to fail, the greater twins in this world are not unfamiliar with falling prey to their own flaws and temptations. Many times throughout the book, Kasim gives in to his lust for a fellow student nearly as often as Auben, the true owner of the “lust” vice. This ambiguity is also demonstrated through the stories of Grace and Icy Blue, two celestial brothers perfectly split between vices and virtues—yet while one feeds on blood to live, the other destroys entire cities in his wrath. So which, we must question, is truly the more wicked of the two?

Within Temper, I can clearly see our modern society being reflected through Drayden’s eyes. While this story may take place in an alternate universe, the concepts of discrimination and prejudice remain all-too real and familiar. Drayden paints an elaborate and often complex picture that portrays a world in which so much, yet so little, has changed.

Unfortunately, the plot sometimes verges on the convoluted. While it is by no means a bad story, it was hard for me to grasp at what messages the author truly wanted to convey the most. On top of the themes of privilege and identity, sibling relationships and moral ambiguity, there were also hints toward religious vs. secular philosophies that seemed to get lost beneath the others.

Drayden creates a beautiful mythos within Temper that could almost be considered an origin story for modern racial divides, yet once the science fiction and the fantasy begin to mix, there is not enough emphasis put on the implications behind this mixture. Auben and Kasim’s strictly secular mother holds a level of contempt for her sons once they fall further into a realm of the spiritual, yet this contempt never seems to be resolved or explained. Toward the end of the book, motivations for our secular antagonists are either confused or lost, leading to a “climax” that seems unnecessary.

Speaking of “climax,” the ending of this book could have been reworked. As I read, I felt that the real climax and conclusion of the story took place almost one hundred pages earlier than it did. For the rest of that time, it read like needless fluff, or a possible sequel that tried to compress itself to fit within the first one.

All in all, Temper has some structural issues, but the world is imaginative, and the characters and situations are colorful and diverse, though not always charming. If you enjoy books that blend fantasy and science fiction, hold a spotlight to harsh realities, and take a lot of complex twists and turns, then you will enjoy Temper. It might not have made it to my “read over and over until the spine starts cracking” list this time around, but I will be curious to pick it up again in a few years’ time, once I’ve grown a little older and wiser—and hopefully experienced a little more of the world—and see if I notice anything new.