This novel is bold and evocative from a distance, but closer inspection reveals snags in the tapestry. Appleseed follows three men in three different timelines, but already from that first, most basic description of the book, I find a snag. Two of the three characters, Chapman and C-433, are fauns, while John is human. While the end of the book reveals something of an explanation for why John isn’t a faun, the question really is, why are two of the characters fauns at all, particularly Chapman? This is another of those moments that look bold and evocative from a distance; the faun as a chimeric and mythological creature presents space for conversations about autonomy, individualism, philosophical and theological divides between human and nature, and many other conversations relevant to the book’s core concerns with environment, ecology, and climate change. But none of those things really emerge. At moments, particularly at the end, some of those elements are taken into consideration, but for me, it was too little, too late. 

Chapman’s entire storyline is baffling to me, particularly in terms of its connection to the other two. I kept waiting the entire book for Chapman’s relevance to appear more concretely (as the connection between John and C-433 did), but that was never offered to the reader. I have a theory, based on some mid-book events, of how all three are linked together (beyond the fact, the stories mostly take place in the same geographic area), but this link is tenuous and based on extrapolation. This would be fine if the connections between John and C-433 were equally extrapolated. Chapman also introduces us to a strange melding of Greek and Christian myths. I’m not at all persuaded by how Bell tried to combine the Eden story and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The former I can understand; the apple motifs, the desire for natural perfection, etc. That all makes sense. But I sat with my knowledge of Orpheus and Eurydice and the information Bell presents in his novel, and I cannot come up with any good reason for how or why those two should be connected to a story about climate change. Eury’s speech explaining why she named her secret project Orpheus did not explain enough; the interaction between Chapman and the witches did not explain enough. 

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I kept asking myself why it was taking me so long to finish, why I found myself reaching for other books instead of this one. I believe my subconscious reasons were the disappointment of seeing a compelling idea executed weakly and growing annoyance at how central ideas seemed to be irrelevant or disconnected from each other. All that to say this isn’t a bad book; part of my issue, as I said, is that this is a compelling idea and Bell is obviously a skilled writer, but, ultimately, all of the elements he presented did not fit together as neatly as they needed to.