Review of The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

Something of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, John Brunner is one of the more intriguing though lesser recognized figures in science fiction history.  Much the same as Robert Silverberg, he cut a path for himself in genre writing what is essentially pulp sci-fi but later began introducing novels of significantly greater depth to his oeuvre.  Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, and The Jagged Orbit are some of the most important novels the field has produced.  Drastically elevating the form above common genre trappings, a fourth novel is generally added to this list of socially and politically motivated works from Brunner: 1975’s The Shockwave Rider.  Though technically a forerunner to the plethora of cyberpunk texts that would emerge soon thereafter, the novel, in fact, bears more in common with the socially conscious, atypically structured, politicized novels of the New Wave.  Regardless of taxonomy, it remains a prescient look at the power of information control and the fragmentation of society and identity.

The Shockwave Rider is the story of Nickie Haflinger.  Raised at a hidden government school at a cost of three million tax payer dollars per year, the secrets of the system he slowly learns are enough to turn him off, and eventually away.  Escaping into the world as a young adult, he uses near autistic savant capabilities to re-program the network to assume a new identity each time he is discovered by the government.  By turns a televangelist and rich playboy (among other professions), he lives aimlessly, and only to avoid detection as he tries to sort out his own place in the world.  But called out by the daughter of a major corporate CEO, the façade he’s created for himself slowly begins to peel away.  Trouble is, exposing himself leads government searches all the closer. 

Review of When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger

It was Brian Atterbery who introduced the idea of ‘fuzzy sets’ in reference to works of fiction which do not fit comfortably within a genre, rather at the margins, perhaps even touching upon or existing mostly within other genres.  By default, the implication is that a center exists—an effable something that can be pointed at in representation.  Reading George Alec Effinger’s When Gravity Fails (1987), first novel of the Budayeen series, it’s striking how stereotypically cyberpunk the novel is.  Featuring computer chips directly inserted into the brain that modify personality, body modifications between the genders, and a noir crime storyline, a mainstream chassis has been stripped down and fitted out with Neuromancer parts.  It’s a novel at the core of cyberpunk, nothing fuzzy about it.

When Gravity Fails is the story Marid Audran.  A private eye for hire living in a seedy disrict called Budayeen (an obvious analog to Effinger’s own French Quarter of New Orleans), his life of winning and losing a buck here and there and breaking up and getting back together with his transsexual-stripper girlfriend Yasmin has a charm he can live with as long as he can have his independence.  While others around move to the lull and sway of implants and mods in the bustling Arabian city, Audran chooses to go unaltered.  But the freedom he holds dear begins to disintegrate when a trio of friends (hookers working in a brothel near his favorite bar) are murdered, one by one.  Seeking out the local police and mafia for answers, events escalate to the point Audran finds himself standing before the local Bey and facing a choice that is, in fact, not a choice.  Budayeen getting even bloodier and messier as colleagues and enemies are dragged into the mayhem, Audran must fight with all he’s got to preserve not only his friends who are still alive, but himself.

Review of "Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology" Edited by Bruce Sterling

There are a handful of people who have/had their finger on the pulse of cyberpunk.  Love him or hate him, Bruce Sterling has perhaps two.  In 1986 he decided to pull together a collection of stories he felt were representative of the sub-genre.  Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology the result, it is both broad in scope yet delimits the idea of what cyberpunk, or at least can be.  Sterling’s agenda his own, some stories will be immediately recognizable for their mood and voice, while others will require more thought toward determining just how they fit into the sub-genre, if at all.  The following is a brief introduction to each.

 

"The Gernsback Continuum" by William Gibson – A connoisseur’s piece, this story requires an understanding of the evolution of science fiction to fully appreciate.  Commentary on modernism’s influence, this is Gibson’s first published work.  It is also perhaps his most overtly ideological work, the result an iconoclast opening salvo.

"Snake-Eyes" by Tom Maddox - George Jordan, a soldier who has been cybernetically altered to fight a war that never happened, is now looking for employment.  Where he finds it may take advantage of George’s alterations in ways he never wanted. 

Review of "Pump Six and Other Stories" by Paolo Bacigalupi

Pump Six and Other Stories is a selection of short stories written between 1999 and 2008 from the up and coming Paolo Bacigalupi.  Published before the overwhelming success of his first novel, 2009’s The Windup Girl, the collection features a variety of mostly original bio- and cyberpunk stories, a handful nominated for awards.  Lacking the polished technique of many of these sub-genre’s great stylists and too often depending on shock value, the following is a brief rundown of the ten stories in the collection.

“Pocketful of Dharma” (1999) – This is the story of beggar boy Wang Jun in near-future Chengdu, China.  After a run in with a gang of thugs, Wang comes into the possession of an object that could make him rich or kill him in the offing.  Highly reminiscent of a Gibson novel (without the style), this story is a solid, but unspectacular opener to the collection.

“The Fluted Girl” (2003) – A girl named Lydia attempts to remain hidden in the castle of her patron, Baleri, who has biologically modified her and her twin sister.  A creepy story of the potential for bioengineering with a macabre, Gothic twist (reminiscent of Jeff Vandermeer’s Veniss Underground), it gets a bit sensationalist toward the end, but is overall a well-developed story.  Tim Burton would love it.

Review of "Schismatrix" by Bruce Sterling

The current generation of sci-fi fans will undoubtedly be familiar with Alastair Reynolds’ Conjoiners and Ultras. Two groups of post-humans inhabiting his universe, the former have augmented consciousness toward intra-communities, while the latter have undergone major biomechanical reconstructive work to enhance capabilities.  Original ideas, yes?  Unfortunately, no.  Acknowledging the debt in his outro to Galactic North, Reynolds admits if it weren’t for Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix Shaper/Mechanist universe, Revelation Space’s trans-humanism may have never taken shape.  A work of truly unique imagination, Sterling deserves far more exposure than acknowledged homage or footnotes to cyberpunk he has been given in the three decades since this novel’s publishing.

Schismatrix opens with one of the most bizarrely sublime assassination attempts ever depicted in literature—the possibilities of sci-fi used to full effect.  The main character, Abelard Lindsay, escapes but is subsequently exiled to a lunar colony where he must rebuild the social and political network cut off by his would-be assassins.  Though born a Mechanist (people who alter their bodies with software and biomechanics), he trains as a Shaper (genetically modified people with special mental capabilities), and is thus an asset to both, a fact he attempts to spin for his own benefit in exile.  As the decades and centuries pass, the political situation evolves, and reverts back on itself time and again, bringing Lindsay to face a final decision that transcends the cracked, post-human world he is immersed in.

Schismatrix more a pastiche of novellas than linear storytelling, tension builds in the setting rather than over the course of the narrative.  The events and circumstances of Lindsay’s life find him in a handful of locales and situations, each more imaginative and peculiar than the next.  Arthur C. Clarke nowhere to be seen, Sterling never paints these scenes in beautiful colors.  The colony Lindsay is exiled to suffers from severe atmosphere problems, while a pirate ship he later finds himself on clanks and clutters its way across the universe, the crew never quite predictable in their twitchy addictions and edgy compulsions.  

Given the extreme lack of similarity between Shapers/Mechanists and humanity today, Sterling’s narrative appropriately keeps the reader at a distance from the characters.  Lindsay is not a hero to exalt or cheer for, but is a man whose life is for observation in comparison to our own, for better and worse.  After all, how can one properly empathize with a person who has been alive for centuries and no longer exists in the body they were born with?   Soldiers returning from war often alienating themselves due to their experience of being so far removed from normal life, Sterling is correct to detach readers from Lindsay.  What results is both an interesting read and social statement. 

More politically overt than Gibson’s brand of cyberpunk, Schismatrix focuses on the interaction of various factions throughout his created universe.  Shapers and Mechanists have their agendas, as do a variety of other groups, including aliens calling themselves the Investors.  Groups within each of these associations likewise have goals that don’t always agree with their peers’.  This makes for some occasionally confusing shifts in plot, but shifts that well reflect background realpolitik.  Attentive readers will not have a problem with these transitions, while those accustomed to Lois McMaster-Bujold, John Scalzi, or Vernor Vinge’s brand of sci-fi may feel lost upon occasion.

In the end, Schismatrix is an underrated work deserving of wider acclaim.  More than the realist tone of its politics, the book is filled with original ideas, from setting to technology.  Not a novel in the standard sense, the book is more a collection of vignettes welded together by Sterling’s fertile imagination.  A great examination of post-humanism, readers of William Gibson, Ian McDonald, John Brunner and cyberpunk in general will want to check it out.  If interested, buyers may want to seek out Schismatrix Plus, a book containing not only the novel but also all the short stories from the Shaper/Mechanist universe.  Sterling a better writer of short fiction, these stories cap what is a great book in itself.

The Uncertainty of Reality: William Gibson’s Sprawl Series

William Gibson’s Sprawl series stands as a landmark event, not only in science fiction, but in literature as a whole.  Rather than rehashing the thematic staples of realist literature: cultural relativism, post-colonialism, feminism, etc., he moves discussion to the next logical step. Humanity envisioned through the glass of technological saturation, trans/post-humanism takes center stage, instead.  His fictional technology seeing beyond the 90’s tech boom, advances in online virtual gaming, second-life applications, plastic surgery, designer drugs, web interfacing, simulated neuro stimuli, etc. have only moved society closer to rather than farther from his vision in the time since the four books were published, 1984-1989.  As humanity transitions, melding with its chemical, mechanical, and biological creations, the definitions of psychology, sociology, and existence itself have acquired previously unrealized levels of ambivalence.  This uncertainty is the nail at which Gibson aims his literary hammer.  With the free market paradigm integrating society and technology, what does it mean to be human?  This essay hopes to examine this question.

“Sprawl” is a term used by planners, developers, and engineers to describe the long-term, unorganized creep of buildings, infrastructure, and humanity across the landscape.  A recurring backdrop to Neuromancer (1984), Burning Chrome (1986), Count Zero (1987), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1989), such is the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Area (BAMA).  Though never explicitly stated, the urban enclaves of these two cities, along with those located between (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc.), have spread outward until the suburbs and industrial zones, housing and commercial centers of each have conmingled with one another, creating a single massive urban zone that stretches the length of the American east coast.  Gibson using less than utopian terms, he describes BAMA as a mix of cookie-cutter streets filled with planned suburban housing, post-modern skyscrapers full of tech and money, block after block of urban tenements slowly crumbling alongside those freshly painted, and factories and warehouses in various states of decomposition - a haze lingering over all.  In other words, Gibson has portrayed the modular dimensions of present-day humanity evolving to a logical point in the future: new development is erected, the old remains, and all is subject to entropy. 

Like Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, setting the scene in this fashion draws strong parallels to Spengler’s ideas concerning humanity’s cultural decline, rather than Golden Age modernist notions of a glorious, healthy future for the planet.  Gibson at no time portrays a world peace, shiny-happy-people, everybody-loves-their-neighbor state of existence.  Social Darwinism persists, each person eking out their existence.  Accordingly, commodities in the Sprawl prey upon individual’s desires and self-destructive habits rather than any collective perception of a sustained, cross-cultural aspiration to improve global living standards.  Environmental problems persist, crime continues to pervade, newer and trendier drugs ensnare and addict, and money and power--or lack thereof--remain the most common carrots luring individuals.  If it weren’t for the open hand with which Gibson offers the imagery, one might consider nihilism the theme of the series.

If the basic economic structure motivating societal effort has not evolved in the Sprawl, then what has?  The answer is technology.  The virtual world Case explores, the variety of pharmaceuticals and chemicals available to Mona, the holographic dreams of Riviera, the advanced biotech that nearly kills Bobby, the motivations of the AI constructs Wintermute and 3Jane, the ready availability of plastic surgery and physical enhancements to Angie, and the “free islands” in orbit around the earth all add dimensions to life available currently only to the imagination. 

The number of options and facets to life these advancements expose is myriad.  If one can afford it, earthly desires become heavenly in the hyper-Las Vegas style of luxury promoted on the Freeside orbital.  By jacking into cyberspace, a person can escape the exigencies of life and “fly” in another dimension.  Like Huxley’s ‘feelies’ in Brave New World, theater and cinema have been brought to the sensual level, simstim granting people the vicarious experience of being a supermodel or rock star--virtual realities available to match any fetish or desire.  And not only individually, these experiences can be combined, as Case does by consuming stimulants and jacking in for days at a time. Our current capitalist paradigm in full effect, if you’ve got money, then technology can supply your dreams. 

With the exception of Marley from Count Zero, the middle class is not represented in the Sprawl.  Gibson instead selects the opposite ends of the life quality spectrum as focal points for the narratives.  Occupying the upper echelons of power and wealth are characters like Virek, the Tessier-Ashpoles, and Kumiko and her yakuza family.  These, however, pale in number to what Gibson presents as the futuristic version of the common man.  Case is arguably criminal and poor, his acquaintances whores, drug dealers, pimps, bartenders, criminals and other “low” forms of existence.  Bobby’s life is detailed as being one which is far from certain financially.  His mother ignores the family, soothing her soul on soap operas in a dilapidated tenement, his father nowhere to be found.  Slick, Little Bird, Gentry, and Cherry are a group scraping by, their day to day life lived at an abandoned landfill, opportunities more than limited.  And lastly, Mona is an American teenager from a broken home, no money or family to care for her.  Raised by an indifferent uncle, she does what she can to get by, including prostituting herself and taking drugs to escape hardships.  Mona’s existence at the bottom of the barrel is one none envy.  The circumstances of these characters serve to highlight the disparity of life quality which Gibson envisions as being the natural result if the current shape of state market economy continues.  Money, via commercializing legal and illegal technology, is access to a higher quality of life, and vice versa.  Thus, based on the character viewpoints Gibson selects, it would seem the majority do not have access, and are sliding from middle class toward poverty, and the choices that accompany the mode. 

One such provision of technology through money is physical modification.  From those superficial in appearance to deeper, structural alterations, a full menu of reconstructions and remodels are available to humanity in the Sprawl.  People with money or financial backing no longer have to bemoan the crudity of morality.  Molly walks the streets with digital cues registering constantly in the spectacles mounted to her skull.  She also knows her surgically enhanced reflexes not only give her an advantage in defending herself from the criminals around her, but also make her a dangerous human weapon on the offense.  The slap-in-the-face opening paragraphs of Count Zero inform the reader in direct terms of the complete stripping and biological refurbishing Turner undergoes to return to stellar physical form after suffering horrible injury.  Mona is pressured and succumbs to having facial re-sculpturing to look like a famous superstar--an act which a person can easily imagine other young people in the Sprawl wanting to perform should they also have the means.

Beyond alterations of a person’s genealogical visage, however, mind modification, temporary and permanent, must also be taken into consideration when neurological advancements are available.  The zillionaire Virek spends part of his fortune keeping the deteriorated shell of his body alive in a vat while he pursues cyber-immortality in the matrix.   Along with drugs, Case is able to extend his conscious awareness beyond the physical and into virtual, cyber, and other dream-like realities merely by attaching electrodes to his body and plugging into a digital system with wires.  Angie in particular is representative of the mind-body changes possible.  A middle point between being pure human and being pure technology, she is the nexus of unaltered homo sapien sapien and AI.  Her brain hard wired with bio-filament, she can access cyberspace and communicate with AI constructs without the need to jack in, yet still need to eat, sleep, and perform the other necessary functions of a mortal.

The bio-physical enhancements such as Angie’s brain or Case’s built in hardware jack move the discussion from the physical to the psychological.  In other words, from physical, objective reality to the subjective manner in which reality is perceived.  And it is precisely at this turn that Gibson makes his point.

Time has yet to prove whether the human psyche is its greatest advantage or disadvantage.  Perception faulty, the brain depends largely on empirical evidence to support its suppositions. By establishing patterns and relationships, it paints pictures as to what general reality is or might be.  This reality can be foreboding (the imminence of death) and it can be effervescent (seeing a child born or a walk in nature), in turn requiring escape or immersion.  Through atypical experiences of reality, people garner respite from the stress, doldrums, ennui, and day-to-day activity that form the lion’s share of our existence.  In today’s society, this is accomplished in a variety of fashions, including travel, socializing, literature, media distraction, and, as Gibson directly asserts, drugs and alcohol.

The habitual usage of drugs by Case, Mona, Riviera, and others serves not only as a spotlight on their need to escape or better the reality they perceive, but also a parallel to the virtual realities in which they immerse their consciousnesses, for example, simstim or cyberspace.  As Neuromancer progresses, Case spends increasingly less time perceiving reality unhindered by drugs, such that by the time he arrives at 3Jane’s Straylight near the climax, the world seems more surreal than real - a point Gibson accentuates by adding the blind ninja, fish pool in space, and other esoteric elements of interior design.  Similarly, after Mona takes a hit and goes on a stroll around New York, she encounters people who seem not wholly human, and as a result her attitude toward them becomes equivocal under the influence of chemicals.  Friend or foe, she knows not what to make of them, and ends up lost, the deeper emotion of losing Eddie and not knowing what tomorrow will bring subconsciously motivating her desire to find something familiar and permanent.

Drugs being physical effectors, however, are only the first degree of separation from reality.  Add to this the variety of virtual realities available in the Sprawl and things become more than distracting.  Throughout Neuromancer Case switches between realities (objective reality, Molly’s simulated reality, cyberspace, and the simulated reality created by the AIs), and the fact he ends up inside an orbiting tube with irregular gravity--reality--only serves to confuse the senses further and stretch the mental line anchoring Case to objective, “earthly” reality.  Wholly a different view than in a mirror, the scene most exemplary of this stretching is when Case views himself through Molly’s eyes.  His slumped body and bloodshot eyes nearly unrecognizable, the sensations Case feels are not his own but yet are channeled through his own.  Further evidence is the loss of faith Case experiences regarding his memories when pondering the notion that the AI Wintermute may be manipulating him, making him see events and sequences which did not really happen, but nevertheless seem so lifelike and real. 

Though Case is able to pull through in the end and settle on which reality is real, Armitage is not.  Hallucinations, virtual realities, and simulated experiences serve to confuse him to the point he no longer knows what is and isn’t objective reality.  His mind snaps and Wintermute disposes of his psychologically torched husk as if it were rubbish.  It is through this extreme example that Gibson illustrates the potential danger of conflicting perceptions of realities.  Without clear distinctions between the memory of an objective experience and the memory of a virtual yet 100% realistic experience, a person’s psyche is left at odds with itself, and the baseline from which experiences are weighed loses clarity.

And what of the effect of this immersion in alternate realities on relationships?   It is interesting that not one of the Sprawl characters forms what would be considered a warm, loving relationship.  The alienation brought about by regular existence in alternate realities have broken characters’ trust not only in their own perceptions of reality, but distanced them from the web of social involvement.  Mona, searching for drugs with money gained by selling her body, uses people and is used by people, no attempt at making more emotional connections.  Distrustful of everyone, she never forms a significant partnership with anyone she meets, Eddy only a meal ticket.  Likewise, the relationship between Angie and Bobby, though surviving for seven years, is swallowed by the egoistic habits of each: Bobby a craving to dig into cyberspace as deep as the Finn and Angie to the media conglomerate of T-A as their superstar.  The mental games played on Case by Wintermute and 3Jane create a rift between his glowing memories of his former girlfriend Linda Lee and their depictions of her--for better and worse--in simulated reality.  Case walks away from Neuromancer unfit and unwilling to pursue any meaningful relationship.  And lastly, Gibson plays the stylistic game so well that Kimiko never knows if Thom, the little AI in her helper disk, is a conscious being or an extremely lifelike AI construct.  The ambivalence prevents her from forming a natural relationship with Thom, the disk serving her needs as those around Mona do hers.

But for all of the metaphysical and social questions facing the characters, Gibson is able to take discussion regarding the definition of existence a step further.  The end of Neuromancer finds Finn inhabiting the matrix, his physical form no longer functioning in the real world.  Likewise, the climax of Mona Lisa Overdrive sees the characters Bobby and Angie dead in the real world but alive in an aleph.  An homage to Jose Louis Borges (who wrote a short story of the same title), an aleph is an object that can reveal the entire universe--a point that contains all other points, into infinity.  These two’s personalities still alive and interactive--as proved by Gentry and Slick when they jacked into the aleph to meet Bobby--serious questions are raised regarding the actuality of existence for Bobby, Angie and the Finn.  Lacking physical form, are they alive?  Their personalities interactive and for all practical purposes conscious, how to categorize personas lacking tangibility?  Do they fall under the same set of laws as typical humans?  What are their limits and possibilities for experience?  As long as the aleph maintains a power supply, are they effectively immortal?  The fear of death and the goal of immortality desirable for many in Western culture, to what lengths would humanity go to achieve a similar state as the three?  And the list could go on.

With Gibson’s future vision drawing closer by the year, these and other questions begin to occupy significant space aside the variety of social concerns society faces - and all due to changes in technology, not humanity.  By presenting the world as such, Gibson’s moral point of view is obvious.  Perhaps inescapable, humanity nevertheless needs to be aware of the physical, moral, and psychological effects of developing and applying technology.  Though undoubtedly black-listed by religious organizations and fundamentalists, the Sprawl series is not a grand glorification of sex, drugs, technology, and violence, but rather a presentation of these aspects as the natural outcome of the current state of capitalism’s application of scientific developments.  Perhaps mostly a thought experiment, the potential reality, like Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World, should make the reader think, and moreover, prepare.

The Sprawl trilogy covers a lot of ground.  The degree to which scientific advances are commoditized and dispersed and integrated with humanity day by day, as well as the aspects of human nature which tends toward self-destruction (drugs, ecocide, etc.) are some of the issues taking the stage.  The slow dissolution of character, from the innocently unaware to the hardened tech-head, and accordingly, it is also an examination of the meaning of life; if AIs and digitized consciousnesses have thought and intelligence, what fundamentally separates them from standard humanity?  Thus, at all levels does Gibson’s Sprawl plant its crosshairs squarely on the near-future of humanity and ask the metaphysical questions that need answering before existence evolves beyond the bounds of definition.

If looking for more information, below you will find my reviews of the books which comprise the Sprawl series:

Burning Chrome

Neuromancer

Count Zero

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Review of "Felaheen" by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

*July 8, 2013 - Dissatisfied with the original review, below is a re-posting with significant revisions.

The scene set and characters introduced in Pashazade and the broader picture of El Ishkandryia painted in Effendi, Felaheen (2003) is the closing chapter in the Arabesk trilogy.  Ashraf’s history the open issue, Jon Courtenay Grimwood puts his main character through the toughest ringer yet in discovering the answer—if it can be answered at all, history being the greased pig that it is.  As hinted at by the title (for those who have been paying attention in the series thus far), things will not turn out as the reader expects.  Style-wise, the novel is the best written of the three, making for a smart conclusion to a smart trilogy.  (Perhaps it goes without saying: do not attempt Felaheen—or this review—if you have not read the first two books.)

Remaining part alternate history, part mainstream fiction, part cyberpunk, and all detective noir, 2003 Felaheen is a conclusion fully consistent with Pashazade and Effendi.  Grimwood pulling no tricks on the reader, the setting, style, and characters are as reliable as ever.  What remains unreliable, however, is the plot.  Ashraf going to meet his alleged father, the Emir of Tunis, at the outset of the novel, his arrival portends an assassination attempt on Emir.  Unsure who would care to kill the crazed elderly man, Ashraf must investigate to clear his own name, and in the process protect himself from the Emir’s other son, one Kashif Pasha, who may or may not be vying to usurp Raf’s inheritance of Tunisia.  Forced underground, the secrets Raf uncovers may lead him to his heritage, and then again, it may lead to his death.

Filling out roughly half of Felaheen are flashbacks to the younger days of Raf’s mother, Sally Welham.  Bohemian ways making her a world traveler with a lot of frivolity, it is fleshing out her travels, through Thailand, Tunisia, and New York, that the details of Raf’s parentage begin to filter into place.  As with the previous books, Hani and Zara continue to play important roles, their interrelationship with Raf concluded—but not how readers may expect.

The first two books in the Arabesk series nominated, Felaheen finally won Grimwood the BSFA award in 2003.  And it’s easy to see why.  His prose is crisp and polished, and the themes at work, including the value of identity, relativism of history, and the environment, not to mention the religious and cultural concerns of Islam and North Africa as they confront a globalizing world, are all issues poignant to not only literary minded science fiction, but society at large.  Like all good writers, Grimwood’s voice never proselytizes and is able to relate these concerns in a fashion that suits the story yet rises above to strike the reader as important beyond the covers.  Readers can argue which of the three novels of Arabesk is best, but given the consistency it’s good to see Grimwood finally rewarded for the effort.

The issue the same throughout the series, I have saved my sticking point until the closing novel.  The only point where the books fall short is creative expectation.  Having borrowed the alternate history idea at work in Dick’s Man in the High Castle, the biotech of Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, the noir moods of Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, and the mainstream plotting of most New York Times bestsellers, Grimwood adds little new to the genre except a solid, well conceived effort.  And while it certainly requires skill to combine these different elements into a single story, such books remain derivative rather than pace-setting.  It fills the gaps rather than creating them.  This is not to say that every author should aim to push the limits of sci-fi, but by merely riding the laurels of others, it’s difficult to say with certainty that the author has earned a place among the greats.   There is a place for Grimwood’s sci-fi, and he occupies it in style.  Suffice to say, Arabesk is recommended as quality reading, just not as cutting edge.

Review of "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan

Gouting action and mystery like a severed artery, Richard Morgan’s 2001 Altered Carbon holds no punches.  Its worldview cutting to the bone of human vice, the novel’s content is a combination of a variety of sources.  The storyline has the shape of a Raymond Chandler detective novel; the technological creativity has the intuition of Greg Egan’s sci-fi; and the world has the overall feel of Neuromancer.  More visceral than Gibson, however, Morgan combines these influences into a blood-soaked, tech-feast that will divide readers along a few different lines.

Altered Carbon is the story of Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-military convict brought out of storage to solve the mystery surrounding the suicide of a wealthy entrepreneur.  Human bodies like hardware and personalities like software, the USA of 500 years in the future features up- and downloadable personas.  Called ‘sleeving’, Kovacs wakes up to find himself occupying another man’s body, assassins and Meths (people who’ve sleeved for centuries to keep themselves alive) hot on his trail.  In typical noir fashion, a variety of busty dames and gutter girls arrive on the scene to provide valuable input - the sexual side of what is otherwise a very violent existence for Kovacs.  The gory details unabashed, Kovacs shoots, stabs, is tortured, and slowly blasts his way, one death at a time, to the heart of the mystery.

And many have noted the explicit nature of the novel.  Rightfully so; few chapters pass without a drop of blood or sweat.  Morgan’s philosophical view forms the foundation of the novel’s content: humanity will forever be subject to its vices, no matter the century or degree to which technology has integrated itself.  It is here that an interesting point can be made regarding the book’s nihilistic worldview.  While Gibson’s Neuromancer – a book Altered Carbon is often compared to – remains indifferent, leaving the door open for discussion regarding the fundamental nature of humanity, Morgan closes it, pushing the storyline of Altered Carbon steadily forward under the assumption humanity’s base desires for sex and violence will forever be its motivation.  Depending on the reader, this aspect will either amuse, disgust, or enthrall, no matter how justifiable the actions of Kovacs are.

Its thematic disposition aside, there are other criticisms of the novel.  As with most detective noir that attempts a complicated story, there are bound to be plot holes, and Altered Carbon is no exception.  In lieu of dropping spoilers, its perhaps best to simply say that while reading, the attentive reader will on several occasions shake their head and say something to effect “Well then, why didn’t Takeshi just…..” or “If that bit of tech is in place, shouldn’t they have been able to….”.  Those reading for fun will not notice; logicians will cringe.  The other missing aspect of the novel is mood.  While the scene at hand is sketched by Morgan in detail that nicely balances the flow of story, the feel for San Francisco 500 years in the future, however, is lacking.  There are no short passages scattered throughout which establish the tone of the story.  There are only pockets of setting based on where the action happens to be for the moment, the hotel, the whorehouse, the mansion, etc., nothing more to build the world.

Light on theme, but dripping, breathing, bleeding heavy with action, Altered Carbon is a plot driven novel to the core.  In fact, its plot structure could be the carbon copy of a 50’s pulp detective novel if it weren’t that Morgan dresses the story up with the mouth watering-devices of sci-fi - a techy/who-dunnit arising in the mix.  Thus, for action junkies looking for a rollercoaster, (knife) twisting, both barrels blazing, ride of a mystery in the 24th century, by all means have a go.  But for those who enjoy having their ingenious futuristic devices fleshed out for their relevance to the human condition or moral imposition, perhaps you should look elsewhere.  Those who can handle both will at least say the novel was interesting, but perhaps never read it again.

Review of "Neuromancer" by William Gibson

There are specific moments in literary history that define future generations.  Neuromancer is one. As The Lord of the Rings was a watershed event that shaped the decades of epic fantasy to come, so too has William Gibson’s novel of a console cowboy riding through cyberspace shaped and influenced a myriad of science fiction since the 80s.  Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovac's novels, Ian McDonald’s River of Gods, the Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Masumune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, Iain Banks’ Culture novels – just to name a few - all owe varying degrees of recognition to the seminal influence that is Neuromancer.

An underground success when it was released in 1984, building to a huge readership in the years that followed, Neuromancer is no worse for the wear.  Gibson’s vision remains as penetrating into technology and society then as today.  In direct opposition to the squeaky clean laboratory visions of the future presented by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Gene Rodenberry, the novel is set in a bleak, grittier version of a future earth.  Corporations rule and the consumption of commodities – legal and illegal - have overtaken quotidian life.  A virtual world of data superimposes and permeates the fabric of society.  In fact, the saturation of technology and commercialism so replete, few hints of nature remain.  Life is instead channeled through electrodes, simulators, and designer drugs – existence carried on in rundown urban conglomerations and jacked into the matrix.  In true Philip K. Dick style, this line between reality and virtual reality blurs to the point the reader themselves at times does not trust their senses.

The novel’s plot centers on the cyber cowboy Case and his struggles in his chosen profession of data thief.  An outright drug addict, Case lives with one eye over his shoulder, the other looking to stay ahead of the dangers that trail his under-the-table, high risk dealings.  Encountering an offer to sweet to turn down, the uncertainties fade in the neon hope of achieving a long-dreamed of escape from life on the run.  But the deal isn’t what he expected.  Case’s advanced cyberspace skills take him places out of the atmosphere and deep into his dreams.  And his nightmares.  Bombarded with holograms, fake memories, and constant switches between realities – virtual, simulated, and otherwise - he begins losing touch.  But when AIs enter the picture, the game is taken to another plane.  Based on the psychological, sociological, and technological dimensions Gibson stretches the story across, literature has never had such equivocal view of life.  

Though the latter two books in the Sprawl series, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, offer tighter, more polished prose, Neuromancer is no slouch.  Gibson’s first novel is a mature offering and better than the majority of sci-fi published by established writers today.  It offers a powerful, highly-unique style, lingual innovation the neon burning through the light.  A simple look at the terms coined - “jacked in”, “matrix”, “cyberpunk”, etc. – indicate the integral role the text has played not only amongst sci-fi geeks, but everyday society and the language it uses to describe techno reality.  Few today in the Western world are unaware of the term “cyberspace”, yet most probably do not know of its root in Neuromancer.  

In the end, nobody calling themselves a fan of science fiction in the 21st century can go without reading this novel.  A quick look at the titles it has influenced in the opening paragraph (no slouches, themselves) and the book’s significance becomes readily apparent.  Picking up the mantle PKD left with his untimely death in 1982, Gibson, though less prolific, has evolved the genre for a new generation - it’s stimuli possessing the same innovative bite but in higher literary form.  Beyond entertainment, Neuromancer is an artistic statement with vision into the reality of technology’s integration with humanity.  It is a book that will endure for generations.

(If you have read the whole Sprawl trilogy and are interested in reading more, you may like to read my essay entitled The Uncertainty of Reality: William Gibson's Sprawl Series.)