Hugos 2023: The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Of all of this year's Best Novel finalists, this is the one that I was the most curious about. I love H. G. Wells in general, of course, and The Island of Doctor Moreau is one of his most interesting novels; I've heard good things about Silvia Moreno-Garcia (particularly her Mexican Gothic), and I was curious to see what someone could do by mixing Doctor Moreau up with colonialism and empire in late nineteenth-century Mexico.

Originally published: 2022
Acquired: July 2023
Read: September 2023

In this version, Doctor Moreau is conducting his experiments at a hacienda in Mexico, given shelter by a local man of wealth; he gives Moreau resources so that Moreau can create him a workforce. Montgomery is an Englishman who ends up managing Moreau's estate when he runs out of other options. As the title indicates, Moreau has a daughter, one who has been raised in a sheltered existence alongside Moreau's creations. Montgomery is sexually attracted to her, but knows it cannot be. In the meantime, a Maya uprising is getting ever closer, and Moreau's patron is growing impatient with his progress.

There are the ingredients to do something incredibly interesting... unfortunately, the novel is considerably less interesting than the one it comments on. The original novel delved into concepts of humanity and animality, what our capacity to feel pain means, what religion means for our morality. It's sensational in the Victorian sense of the word.

Daughter takes this cocktail of ingredients, adds gender and imperialism, but they dilute the mix rather than enhance it. The book is languidly paced, the uprising and race play surprisingly little role in the story. There's a twist, but I saw it coming miles away, and the novel doesn't really do anything interesting with that twist. I expected more to be made of Moreau's constructs and their rationalization, of the way that science is used to extend and justify the vision of empire and colonization, of the way the male gaze resonates with the scientific one, but none of that happens. 

I guess that's not Moreno-Garcia's fault, in that maybe none of that was what she intended to do. But what she did do wasn't very interesting instead.

(Also why does a book with two strictly alternating third-person perspectives feel the need to put the name of the viewpoint character at the top of each chapter? I felt condescended to.)