Review of "Necroville (UK)/Terminal Cafe (US)" by Ian McDonald

“’Am I a ghost in a meat machine, am I God’s little seed stored in heaven for all eternity and glued one day on to a blastocyst in Mama Columbar’s womb; has this me been recycled through countless previous bodies, previous worlds, universes?’ He pressed his finger between Trinidad’s eyes… ‘This is the final frontier.  Here.  This curve of bone is the edge of the universe.’”

Existentialism is a main theme of Ian Mcdonald’s brilliant 1994 Necroville (published in the US as Terminal Café).  Pyrotechnic poetry blasting from the pages, the possibilities of nanotechnology have never been related in such vivid profundity.  The scene lower California of 2063, the dead live again in this flames-and-leather cyberpunk exploration of the meaning of life and death in a world gone mad with possibility.

In line with McDonald’s penchant for multiple viewpoints, Necroville’s story is told through the eyes of five friends who meet every year at Terminal Café on the Mexican Day of Dead.  Santiago (the man quoted above), a drug artist, has experienced life in every way possible and seeks something more, possibly death.  Camaguey is terminally ill and must decide what to do with the hours remaining.  Touissant is an aguilar, an eagle-man, trying to fly away from his family’s legacy.  Trinidad is a dinosaur hunter who hammers bodies “to the crucifix of fear she drags across her life”.  And Yoyo, an independent lawyer, must solve the mystery of why the massive nanotech corporation TeeTee wants her dead.  But it’s the place they meet that comes most alive.  The streets and alleyways of the barrios—the necrovilles—they wander to meet at the café are much more than the neon, whores, and black leather that glitter on the surface.

Competing with theme for strongest point of the novel, readers who enjoy vibrant, dense prose are in for a treat; McDonald’s visuals are strong yet abstract.  The characters’ stories are unraveled in a fashion that keeps Necroville’s pedal to the metal the length of the novel.  Rather than buoyed gently along by breathless treacle, McDonald’s prose burns like an ethanol engine, each sentence firing off a chain of pyrotechnic visuals.  Motorcycle gangs, smog swallowed enclaves, drug trips, death hunts, and every other aspect of the characters’ futuristic lives is described in vivid, poetic detail that flies in the face of the paint-by-the-numbers sci-fi available today.  (Like River of Gods, McDonald includes a fair number of words from the setting’s native tongue: Spanish.  The book easily read without any knowledge of the language, there remain some who might be bothered by it, so be warned.)

Space opera, big dumb object, and first contact maintaining their limits of sub-genre, nanotech novels have proven more variegated.  Stephenson’s Diamond Age, Stross’s Glasshouse, and Ian Mcdonald’s Necroville present three very different views on the possibilities for the concept.  The prologue short, McDonald’s take is obvious from the beginning: “Tesler’s Corollary: The first thing we get with nanotechnology is the resurrection of the dead.”  So while theme parks have gone bankrupt trying to contain the dinosaurs they accidentally unleashed and designer drugs are available on the market with narcotic qualities like never before, the main focus of nanotech in Necroville is the superhuman status humans achieve after death, mortality no longer a limitation.  Skeletal alteration, skin changes, even life in space are choices for the dead.  (They are a more realist take on Mieville’s “remade”).   The possibilities so appealing, in fact, numerous intentionally die to have the doors of opportunity open.  Like people today, McDonald posits those of the future will likewise yearn for more from life, want to push the limits, and in his context, envy the dead.

Potential problems with the novel are more a matter of taste than technical.  Some reviewers have complained that McDonald does not thoroughly explain the technical background of his nanotech, which is true.  However, worldbuilding was never the aim.  McDonald focuses instead on the personal and ethical aspects of technical achievement, the book needing to be approached as such.  Some readers have also complained about the “confusing style” and “lack of cohesion amongst the character viewpoints”.  Suffice to say, McDonald’s narrative is indeed allusive, most often describing matters indirectly.  Attentive readers who enjoy stories to cogitate upon as they read will love the book (e.g. William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Thomas Pynchon, etc.), while those who prefer linear narratives with overt info dumps and plot hand-holding will balk (e.g. Alastair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Arthur C. Clarke, etc.).  This is mature sci-fi (yes, even with dinosaurs), thus readers expecting an easily digested story will be disappointed.  

Combining original genre ideas with moral exploration, Necroville is a sci-fi tour de force.  From the visceral beauty of the prose to the variety of ways in which life and death are examined over the backdrop of the resurrection of humanity, McDonald has staked a claim for himself in the existential examination of nanotech.   Cyberpunk through and through, fans of Gibson, Brunner, Stephenson, and Sterling will want to check out this offering.  Having much, much in common with the style and presentation of his award-winning River of Gods, Brasyl and The Dervish House, Necroville proves McDonald’s earlier publishings highly underrated and worthy of attention. 

Review of "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson

The best metaphor that can be drawn of Neal Stephenson’s 1996 The Diamond Age is a shotgun blast.  Expectations high for the follow up to his highly successful Snow Crash, Stephenson upped the ante by wadding a larger number of ideas into his literary gun and firing away.  The pellets scattering across the target, some strike dead on, while others, particularly the ending, are off the mark.

At heart, The Diamond Age is a bildungsroman told only as the imagination of Stephenson can (read: a ninja must be in their somewhere).  Occupying the same future as Snow Crash, the setting this time around is Shangahai rather the American west coast.  Living in one of the lower class ‘claves is a little girl Nell, an illegitimate child everyone abuses save her older brother, Harv.  Nanotech having solved the world’s hunger problems, Nell and Harv survive easily on food produced in their apartment’s matter compiler.  Their mother working the streets, bringing home one loser boyfriend after another, the two still lack spiritual sustenance. This situation soon changes, however.

Nell’s life takes a permanent transition when Harv comes home one day with a nanotech-ed interactive book he and his gang lifted from a high-society engineer.  Called A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, the engineer, whose name is Hackworth, designed the book to educate and guide a girl from childhood into adulthood for a rich noble.  School subjects, social issues, and the realities of life are all taught in an interactive manner through voiceovers, pictures, and moving stories that adapt to the young girl’s life as she develops in the real world.  How Harv “acquired” this quickly places the siblings in the midst of a heated search for the precious copy of the primer.

Of all the pellets fired from Stephenson’s gun, the one striking closest to center is the nanotech.  Brilliantly described and wonderfully detailed like no author (I know of) has yet to do, the possibilities of nanotech engineering are delivered in big, beautiful packages.  From weapons to providing the most basic of needs (like food and clothing), whole ecosystems to blood cleansers, Stephenson excels displaying these nano concepts.  Descriptions are vivid and pseudo-science based, and while still wholly fantastic, are presented in fashion that allows the reader to willingly accept the reasoning.  The uses to which society puts the nanotech—good and evil—is likewise realistic in its understanding of humanity’s application of its discoveries.  The sub-titular A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer in particular is a wonderfully creative set piece derived from the nanotech and one of the most positive visions of how science could benefit society if applied correctly that sci-fi has ever seen.

The second pellet striking close to home, buoying the novel along and keeping it above water as other elements threaten to drag it down, is characterization.  Though some are wonderfully unearthed only to be quickly discarded, all the voices have a feel of their own.  Excluding the ending, the empathy one feels for Nell is palpable and a credit to a nerd’s ability to write.  Dr. X, Judge Fang, Bud, and Elizabeth likewise have fallen directly out of our society and landed in the novel.  That the characters receive non-uniform treatment from a plot perspective is, however, another issue.

Attempting to capture some of the Victorian age in a sci-fi novel, Hackworth and the noble, along with the other characters filling out the dramatis personae, appear with appropriate degrees of the era’s detail.  Top hats, overly-formal address, and the equine are all part of the throw-back fun.  Honing skills that would later reveal themselves in better light in the Baroque Cycle, dialogue is amusing for its stylish tone but lacking the fresh simile and wordplay of Cryptonomicon.  As a result, the dialogue and retro feel render the novel more steam- than cyberpunk.

Negative points, however, are an unfortunate must when discussing The Diamond Age.  Something like too much bread in the mouth, most readers will spend their time trying to gum through the wad of ideas Stephenson pushes upon the reader.  Such a plethora exists that the windows of possibility are thrown open to the extent the sky is the limit.  With anything seeming possible, a disconnection arises between the simple human story of Nell’s development and the vast technological and political canvas its spread across.  That strong elements of hallucinatory fantasy are added to “bolster” an otherwise brimming plot seems over much and creates a narrative that never truly identifies itself. 

If Stephenson left the windows open writing the plot, then the climax sees the shutters blown off and glass shattered on the floor.  Many readers have taken exception to The Diamond Age’s conclusion, and the uproar is apt.  The story trundling along at a steady pace, events suddenly take a sharp right turn that jumps the tracks with 50 pages to go.  Events straining plausibility, the storytelling necessary to build to such a point is not present in enough quality or quantity prior to convince the reader that things have suddenly gone from individual self-realization to outright societal revolution.  Though Stephenson’s intent is clear, the stepping stones to arrive there remain mostly submerged.

In the end, The Diamond Age is a novel with good ideas spoiled by its lack of cohesiveness.  Victim to an issue many sci-fi writers fall into, Stephenson’s range of concepts is too large for the simple story he is trying to tell.  Without giving away any of the plot, the methods and tech introduced would have been able to drastically alter the events in the climax, but for reasons of artistic license, do not--a disconnect appearing, as such.  This problem disguises itself for most of the novel as plot, characterization, and theme seem to develop cogently.  However, when the ending digresses to such an extreme point, the overall intent becomes confused—Kill Bill meets 1984.  While remaining an interesting read based on the strength of Stephenson’s ideas alone, those looking for a more cohesive, toned, and interdependent story in the vein of the author’s later work will be disappointed.  Those who loved Snow Crash, however, will probably also like The Diamond Age.  If you want better Victorian steampunk, read William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine.