From the author of the Finlandia Award-winning novel Troll: A Love
Story, The Core of the Sun further cements Johanna Sinisalo's
reputation as a master of literary speculative fiction and of her
country's unique take on it, dubbed "Finnish weird." Set in an
alternative historical present, in a "eusistocracy"--an extreme welfare
state--that holds public health and social stability above all else, it
follows a young woman whose growing addiction to illegal chili peppers
leads her on an adventure into a world where love, sex, and free will
are all controlled by the state.
The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has bred a new human subspecies of
receptive, submissive women, called eloi, for sex and procreation while
intelligent, independent women are relegated to menial labor and
sterilized so that they do not carry on their "defective" line. Vanna,
raised as an eloi but secretly intelligent, needs money to help her
doll-like sister, who has disappeared. Vanna forms a friendship with a
man named Jare, and they become involved in buying and selling a
stimulant known to the Health Authority to be extremely dangerous: chili
peppers. Then Jare comes across a strange religious cult in possession
of the Core of the Sun, a chili so hot that it is rumored to cause
hallucinations. Does this chili have effects that justify its
prohibition? How did Finland turn into the North Korea of Europe? And
will Vanna succeed in her quest to find her sister, or will her growing
need to satisfy her chili addiction destroy her? Johanna Sinisalo's
tautly told story of fight and flight is also a feisty,
between-the-lines social polemic--a witty, inventive, and fiendishly
engaging listen.
