Apocalyptic Technocratic Dystopia: William S Burroughs Meets Biological Mutation

Reviewing the past history of science fiction cult classics in the context of a variety of steampunk, cyberpunk, information science fiction et al, I realized after awhile that I was pining for the olden days of truly new weird writing, along the lines of the first reading of William S Burroughs Nova Express or The Ticket that Exploded, Thomas Pynchons Gravitys Rainbow, or heck, even Franz Kafkas The Castle. Not exactly pulp science fiction, but a kind of extended pulp sci fi that hinges on dementia. Jonathan Lethem worked it a little bit in Amnesia Moon, but its hard to find that kind of technocratic analytic order-in-disorder writing around.. it seems what with all the chaos and stress of real life (tm), its become a world of Heinlein, Ayn Rand, and Hard SF. Rudy Rucker might be a little chaotic, but not so much textually. William Burroughs is a good writer! Dag. The Strugatsky Brothers old Russian Science Fiction might have been amongst the last to visit the "Interzone" of textual/philosophical complexity that whatever this genre Im trying to name for myself is.. economic genre fiction? textual arcology? Weird matrix-like graphic novels like the Invisibles or The Watchman are pretty close. Either way, a weird, cultish, illustrated, dystopic science fiction book The Solid Confessor recently took me back to the good old days. Apocalyptic like Naked Lunch and Nova Express, confusing and twisted as Thomas Pynchon, but crazy over analytic up front. Kind of like cyberpunk, steampunk, science fiction, artificial intelligence hyper reality filtered thru Kafka. Another good book I recently re-read was Ubik, by Philip K. Dick. A lot of the writing today is just way too polished. Thank the (FSM) someone out there is avoiding the machine production mentality and putting out some hard core rough stuff. Otherwise all us biological mutations will be out of a job, grist for the mill.

Palmer Eldritch: The Three Stigmata of Philip K Dick

After ubik-like decay hit our move to blogger, a reader requested another review of The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by, yez, Philip K Dick. Well, what can one say about one of the best books ever written? Even though Im much more a fan of quasi-weird-fantasy and psychological density, this one book by PKD has more psychology in it then most of his other stuff, though I have to admit I havent read but a few others. A little too male for me. It still has a lot of the evil-woman-sado-maso thing oing on but its a very realistic laydown. And the plot is just too weird. Palmer Eldritch is a person or thing, something, that went away to visit unknown spaces and returned somehow changed. Or at least something returned. The UN does battle with the private market global-industrial complex. The little people fight the ability of the super-rich to evolve themselves technologically. Everyone has to fight something God-like from the unknown.. shades of Lovecraft? And the Entertainment Industrial Fashion complex has to fight a takeover by a space drug, Chew-Z, that nullifies the drug the Industry uses, Can-D, to addict soviet-gulag style existential farmers on Mars to their Fashion-istas type Entertainment feed. The writing is excellent and labyrinthine. The future and past get involved but they may not be the future or the past. Another book of his Ive read, A Maze of Death, has similar quasi-religio-philosophical stuff about the Ultimate Nature of Reality, but instead of a drug its a book written by A.J. Specktowsky, "How I Rose from the Dead in my Spare Time and So Can You". Anyway, if you have seen any of the movies based on short stories by this author, like screamers or minority report or bladerunner or a scanner darkly, you should read this one. Its like the movies x 10 x 10^10^10.

Naomi Novik Return to Dragons? Historical Science Fiction sez, Return to Napolean

After slogging through many dragonnista diatribes, Ive come to the conclusion that the thing about dragon literature is thusly: it aint about the dragons. And while in the realm of fantasy and fiction its nearly a tautology that "It aint about the X, or the Y", I mean, its the story, right? Myths and all that. But beyond that, its about history. History for the most part might as well be about the future, for all that its lost to us present-time dwellers, outside of a few scattered records or burnt shreds of paper rescued from anaerobic bottles in some Spanish Galleon or other. So when I finished Naomi Noviks Temeraire series, a lot of the complexity suddenly clarified as the complexity of the era... specifically, the Napoleanic Wars. Which, being male, I am a sucker for. But Novik is a pretty qualified writer and the series, His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War all have character development and plot pacing at least as complex as the era theyre set in.

Un Lun Dun : China Mieville and New Weird?

After sucking down Un Lun Dun by China Mieville last night, I remembered why Young Adult fiction was so cool. A lot of YA sci fi lit just doesnt go far enough... i recall books by British authors that had kids trapping and eating rabbits in evil totalitarian science fiction states, and another about a horrible blood disease that decimates the world. Which is why Un Lun Dun was so excellent, plus pics were nice, though I prefer my reads unillustrated. Even though theres a lot of controversy over the New Weird label, its a pointless arguement. The book is what it is, Mievilles flowery baroque language in a complicated plot with demented characters. Not a big fan of such dandyist stylization, I think the YA format actually helped Mieville narrow and strip the language down a bit, which made it one of my favorite of his so far.

Reviews Temporarily Down

Please bear with us as we attempt to update all the past reviews to our new site!

- The Staff

Jonathan Lethem and Pirates Open Sores

Jonathan Lethem attempts in his latest foray into Harpers World to lay soothing hands upon furrowed brow, at least as it relates to Pirates. Arrgghh! The Yeasty Ferment attacks! Master of the halfway-measure, Jonathan Lethem dawdles into the sub-internecine world of second use derivees by offering the right to do what one will with his writing for the price of an agreement and a buck. But wethinks it a pitiful rest-stop on the bandit highway for certain. Like putting a car for sale sign on a neighbors car. Marshall McLuhan, medium is the message anyone? This results in an economy based on writers experimenting with ways of pimping value by seeming open to economic models of openness. And thats just a start of the meta-meta available on the topic. Renown Pirate Wolf Larsen, of Sea-Wolf fame, is still available to steal the lives out from under these halfway measures. The question is, will literary intellectual Humphrey van Weyden escape his island and win the womyn again?

Mathematicians In Love. Sweet!

I love it. Fast moving dementia. Its like reading multidimensional surf stories from the 50s. Also, Rucker finally gets some of the cone stuff in there, in novel form. I love the cone stuff. There was a collection of his short stories from years and years ago where someone played a cone on a record player and twisted up all the planetary dimensions. Thats what I like to see... continuity and development. Throws a pan rag in the face of those who discount the ability to combine extremely disparate seeming ontological elements into a unifying structure.. mostly because they cant see a structure outside of their very strict linear definitions of order. Heil Heinlein! Surfer math pulp rules, dog. Although, Heinlein lived in santa cruz. And his books rule. I hope he wont take it the wrong way. Hey, Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies!