Navigating Trauma In Mardock Scramble

Mardock Scramble is an exploration and condemnation of the criminal justice system and social structures that perpetuate injustice and the violation of the victims it is supposed to protect.    

Trigger warning: this content is graphic in it's depicts of heavy subject matter. Sexual assault, incest, prostitution of minors, and rape among them.

At a young age of 15, Rune Balot is a sexual assault survivor turned prostitute, who is then jailed. When Shell, an entertainment star turned casino owner offers to elevate her life to something she never dreamed she could have, so long as she follows his rules, she enters a lavish life that she ends up regretting, effectively trading one form of imprisonment for another. 

We first see Rune in a limousine, careening through a futuristic city of roads that appear to be light bridges, projected ads on skyscrapers dot the surroundings. Dr. Easter, following the limousine, ostensibly to save a girl from the clutches of serial killer revealed to be Shell. The victim revealed to be Rune. 

"We performed Q and A with your subconscious... though comatose, It was all perfectly legal I assure you. Do you want to live, do you want to exercise your rights, etc. When the question was posed your subconscious chose 09; Mardock Scramble 09. That's an emergency ordinance for the preservation of life using otherwise prohibited technology."

Shell tells Rune she hasn't followed the rules and will become another one of his blue diamonds, locking her in the limousine and blowing it up—killing her. Dr. Easter pulls her from the wreckage and, through advanced technology interfaces with her subconscious as she's comatose, asking if she wants to be saved using a precedent in the city in which experimental technology can be utilized, Mardock 09. Thus, she awakens to a new, synthetically crafted body with numerous enhancements, including armored skin and the ability to manipulate technology using something called Snark. 

Dr. Easter devised this tech during a war. If he doesn't prove himself as a 09 caseworker, helping victims of crimes be heard and to get justice, he will be charged with crimes of human experimentation and jailed.

Shell, beyond being a serial killer, launders the money of a megacorporation through his casino that has a special exception from the government to use banned technology for "amusements and pleasure". If Rune gives her consent to allow the Doctor to be her caseworker he promises to keep her safe, convict Shell for her crimes, and garner a sizeable award for solving the case, to be shared 50/50. Rune could use to start a whole new life. 

Along with this deal, Oeufcoque, a sentient, shape-changing... entity? Developed for space travel by Dr. Easter, would be paired with Rune as a protector. Oeufcoque is referred to as something called a "universal item": something that can take any shape. But who’s natural…configuration is in the form of a yellow mouse which has powerful olfactory senses, allowing him to be able to sense the emotions of others through smell. When held by Rune, Oeufcoque turns into "her heart’s desire". Most of the time he takes the form of a weapon, as Rune wants and craves protection and revenge. A theme explored throughout all three, one-hour long movies. 

Oeufcoque believes that since they saved Rune, they have a responsibility to her. To help her find meaning in a new life, and to help her discover her purpose. This becomes Oeufcoque's purpose and the main vector for the exploration of Rune's past and struggles as she attempts to find a place in the world with a true ally, even as she also wrestles to shape what form and meaning her revenge on Shell would look like and feel like to her. Is it enough to have him locked up? Or will she use her new cybernetic body to exact pain and vengeance, perhaps becoming a criminal in the eyes of the law herself? 

What makes this more complex is that Rune's voice could not be replicated. Instead, she utilizes technology around her to vocalize herself. Thus, her ability to speak to Oeufcoque directly using her Snark is the first time she's able to freely express her thoughts and opinions; free of the rules placed on her by society and Shell.

Rune is also given "the ability to resist"; self-defense techniques, the ability to use a gun. In fact, Dr. Easter insists that her subconscious made the decision. Taking the means of her resistance even if her waking mind is still coming to grips with her new life. 

Shell had surgery as a child, indicated by a cybernetic implant on his head. When he feels "stressed" his implant instead floods him with euphoria that was supposed to prevent crime in the past, when this was all experimental. With a side effect of extensive memory loss, which… he then also modifies with designer drugs, he’s able to get rid of the “stress”, experience euphoria, and never remember his crimes.  

"…to overcome this little ritual of mine. These beautiful blue diamonds let me climb the stairs of the greatness of the city; to rise above it all."

He represents privilege. His memories are extracted, recorded, and erased by doctors. His brain "would rot" if he didn't. He furthers his plan to claw more and more power and to kill at a whim doing as he pleases with this regime and considers all it, “just a dream”. A fog he can't access but is aware of. Allowing this other “version” of himself free reign.

"To me, it's all stuff that happened within a dream. Besides, new memories mean that everything is in place to make my deal...To humans memories are a precious, irreplaceable thing; I don't mind having mine emptied. I'll be filled later. A vessel meant to be filled with glory. That's me.” 

Oeufcoque, it turns out, has also been abused. It's possible for his user to force their will on him, changing him into a weapon used to kill innocents instead of merely to protect themselves like his purpose. When a human does this it physically hurts Oeufcoque; it could even kill him. Shell has hired his abuser, Boiled, sending him after Rune when he learns she's alive and could provide testimony against him. This becomes a vector for exploring technology as a tool, whether it possesses sentience or not. Oeufcoque serves as something tangible that bleeds and hurts, an allegory for the pain others feel in the blind pursuit of vengeance and even cruelty for Rune and the audience. 

The three movies follow the duo as they confront their trauma together, figure out what it means to support one another, and protect each other fiercely. Oeufcoque provides information while generally attempting to be non-judgmental giving Rune the information she needs to make her own decisions; all while she does not have a voice of her own. She “forgets what her voice even sounds like”, something she will have to rediscover throughout.

This is where Mardock Scramble really sings, in my opinion. This dynamic is used as an intersectional lens to explore hard subject matter that cyberpunk generally tends to avoid while claiming to be exploring the margins and disenfranchised. Rune's past and how she deals with her new-found autonomy in a foreign body is compelling and done well, as far as I can tell. All of the characters are more complex than is typical and provide a lens for looking at where society is failing. 

Where things get significantly murky is regarding the team of mercenaries dispatched to kill Rune in the first movie. All obsessed with a different body part. Transplanting their victims onto their own bodies; there is horror aspect introduced. One transplants eyes onto his body, someone else transplanting the breasts of victims; another, most disturbingly, is looking for the perfect victim to kill and transplant their sex organ into his hand. Clearly used to show fetishization of the human form, as they seemingly only kill women and appropriate their bodies for their own, it is still jarring and disturbing, even if it's used a vector for Rune's empowerment in the long term. A major theme of the first movie. The subject matter doesn’t shy away from being transgressive and disgusting.

It explores privilege and how power structures in place preserve and amplify it; consent and the damage the patriarchy can have, especially women; prostitution, sex, nudity, incest, the male gaze, fetishization of the female form, and other difficult subject matter is interacted with and given varying degrees of nuance and time. As a man, it's hard for me to judge if it is all done well or is ultimately simply problematic. Based on the dialogue and the premise, it feels like the intention is good and it was certainly unlike anything I'd ever watched, especially in cyberpunk as mentioned previously. It is graphic in it's depiction of these things and does not shy away from the subject matter. It is trying to convey that these things are disturbing as Rune comes to grips with them. But it is, at times, hard to watch; with the later movies significantly toned down and exploring alternate subject matter, for the most part.

The animation is gorgeous, Rune is able to do very cool things; the fights are great. The music as well, is superb. Mardock Scramble, at the very least, has gone under the radar. I hope that despite the difficult and triggering subject matter more people end up being able to experience it and share their thoughts on it so there is a more nuanced take on it than I can provide. It may be problematic in some instances, but it is complex beyond simple shock value, especially in the latter two movies, and tackles themes often skirted. 

If you buy the bluray you can also watch either the director's cut version or theatrical, the later of which has toned down all aspects of the sexual scenes, including the assault at the beginning. You can find the movie trilogy here. I intend to read the original novel and manga in order to help me decide how well it tackles the subject matter. 

The Benefits And Detriments Of Noir In Cybernetic Punk

The story of Cybernetic Punk takes place in the year 2138. Because of natural disasters and nuclear war, mankind lives in dome protected cities all across the globe.   They have colonized some of the planets and moons in the solar system, but colonist permission is granted to few and is sought after by many.  However, humanity has continued to evolve in their domed cities and thus the cyberpunk element of our story.

In the future world of Cybernetic Punk, cybernetics have become as common as cosmetic surgery in our time. Everything from cybernetic limbs to chip implants that enhance vision or connect the user to the global network. Because of the rise in cybernetic associated crime a special task force, Cybersquad, was started.

Billed as Blade Runner meets Elysium by way of every Raymond Chandler novel, "Cybernetic Punk tells the story of Gabriel Kane, a down on his luck police officer in Cybersquad, a division of the police force that investigates crimes committed by or against cyborgs. When an old flame turns up murdered with her cybernetic legs destroyed, Gabriel is flung into an investigation that takes him deep into the underbelly of Dome City."

From the pages of Cybernetic Punk

The panels are gorgeous, the flow is excellent. Details pop, facial expressions are great. The aesthetic is fantastic. The story is a clear homage to the aforementioned touchstones. And, true to hard-boiled noir stories Gabriel gets his ass handed to him; frequently. From drastic measures to preserve his undercover persona, to the beatings he's constantly taking as he navigates his ex-lover's life, his progress is marked by his scars, so to speak. He's a thorn in the side of his superior officer, he's got a past that's being unearthed as he continues down his path despite the danger; and there is a huge stratification of class (the rich doing as they please, of course).

A key difference though, is that Katie, or KD 583, the Android and best friend and partner of Gabriel is introduced as sentient and human; discarding the somewhat tired question, "but would androids be human?" is welcome. Their financial situation precludes Katie's ability for "maintenance"... such as artificial skin to allow for her to navigate socially, apparently. On this, I would have liked to learn more for some nuance. 

From the pages of Cybernetic Punk

I got the feeling that there may be more stories set in this universe (if it does well enough), as a lot of the questions I had about the characters themselves were more interesting than the actual plot unfolding simply because it followed the plot beats of a noir detective style story through and through; and, while there was some satisfaction in the inevitable plot twist, it did feel like a familiar dance instead of a new one. I also felt that the twist I knew was coming was problematic.

As noir stories tend to do, the women are often used as vehicles to express the terrible things in society, leading to terrible outcomes for them while repercussions ultimately escape others—the rich, the protagonist, etc. When women are only vectors for showcasing something in the setting the result is somewhat the opposite. They feel unimportant despite the initial intention because they are two-dimensional; existing to suite a purpose of the narrative rather than feeling like living, breathing characters. Something many noir stories struggle with and attempt to justify with the characters being centralized in the fiction.  

I did like that beyond the noir aesthetic technology is ingrained in the setting, culture, and story. The "cyber" part of the cyberpunk, along with cybernetics (obviously), was there and aided the story.

The punk aspect, however, is difficult to find rooted in this story. He doesn't like his boss, clearly; abandoned the "good life" as a cop in the upper tiers to the slums...sure. But there doesn't seem like there are subversive elements in the fiction represented anywhere beyond maybe sexual deviancy, and we never get the impression the main character is particularly interested in that. Plus it's not framed as something positive or overly central to the story, anyways, nor is drug use. It also has doesn't have a nuanced take on mental health issues. In a noir story that isn't surprising.  

A lot of cyberpunk media doesn't make use of the style as substance, attempting to be transgressive in it's stark depictions of the environments. The world building reflects more than a typical cyberpunk aesthetic and that is when the narrative is at its best. In these moments the homage to Blade Runner becomes clear. The off-world colonies being desirable to the junk, domed cities across the globe like this one, serving as microcosms for the display of human nature at its worst, for instance.  

From the pages of Cybernetic Punk

As mentioned before, the twist ending is problematic—in its attempt to complicate the natural assumptions of the reader during the unfolding narrative and subsequent clues it also further paints the victim in an even more unflattering light with some other connotations going on that I didn't dig. While it also featured the reveal of things gestating on the peripheral of the story, which was nice, I couldn't help but wonder if a subversion of these tropes would be more satisfying to read. 

In the end, Cybernetic Punk exudes style. Like all noir stories, I have more questions than answers at the end and I like that. It feels like this is supposed to be the start of a larger narrative that makes use of arbitrary, interesting details mentioned casually that may have big implications for society and the main characters but I don't know if that's true or not. It has the earlier trope of a world taken over by Asia but it's never explained why. Katie refuses to go out in public without artificial skin apparently, but we don't learn where that comes from. It is implied cybernetics are fairly ubiquitous, but is that privilege bound by the stratification of class? It seems like a lot of the world is implied via use of call backs to Blade Runner but there are divergences; how large a roll is technophobia in this cyberpunk story?  

The noir tropes are, at both times, a cozy blanket you can wrap yourself up in as the plot unfolds—as well as a stone that trips up the unfolding tale. In such a beautiful world leaping off the page, billed specifically as a Raymond Chandler-esk story, it is no doubt worth reading; if such a story is your jam. 

Cybernetic Punk is out digitally to backers of the Indiegogo project and is currently being printed. Find and follow the Facebook page for more information and where to buy the finished project here. 

The Relationship Between Posthuman Fashion And Humanity Cost in Cyberpunk 2020

“If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival.” - N Katherine Hayles

in March of this year at BreakoutCon 2018 my friend Hamish Cameron, author and designer of The Sprawl RPG, asked me if I'd read Cyberpunk and Visual Culture; in particular, an essay in it titled "'Today's Cyborg Is Stylish': The Humanity Cost of Posthuman Fashion in Cyberpunk 2020". I hadn't at the time but months later while designing Veil 2020, my minimalist retro cyberpunk RPG for The Gauntlet gaming community's monthly zine, Codex; I did. 

Cyberpunk 2020 has an excellent authorial voice (Mike Pondsmith). From the very start of reading it, the first thing you see is somewhat typical of 90's tabletop games, a sexualized woman in lingerie except she's also got a cyber arm, setting the stage, so to speak, for what's to come. Also attempting to appeal to the demographic of folks buying games at that time, no doubt.

From the Cyberpunk 2020 corebook

The next thing you read is that you're going to be playing a cyberpunk in a "violent, dangerous place, filled with people who'd love to rip your arm off and eat it...you do what you have to do to survive. If you can do some good along the way, great." You find a cause your cyberpunk can get behind and throw yourself at it. To be a 'punk you need to internalize three concepts. The most of important of which? Style over substance. 

As you read on the authorial voice continues to reiterate that your entree to this subculture is through fashion and through augmentations via various cybernetics. From chips that go into your head to bolster you to the chromed arms on display previously—your subculture is defined by style. How you do a thing and what you look like doing it matters.

"In Cyberpunk, what you look like is who you are. Fashion is action and style is everything"

Stina Attebery and Josh Pearson argue in their essay that by putting this central to gameplay, players are encouraged to incorporate psychological and technological vulnerabilities into their characters in order to pursue this aesthetic the corebook works hard to build in every facet of the reader's consumption of the material; from art to the layout, to the authorial voice. This, I think, is without question for me. The game presents cyberware and guns and the like as though they were a catalog, literally "selling" you these items and depicting them as desirable. In later supplements, the upgrades emulate the look of consumer brochures.  

From the Cyberpunk 2020 corebook

Beyond this, though, they also posit that by anchoring advancement and development of the character "in fashionable expression shows that posthuman fashion, as a self-conscious style project that is central to the genre of cyberpunk, can destabilize subject/object relationships and invite risky new ethical identities for human subjectivity embodiment." I would also add that by having players on a meta level function as consumers for their characters they are are also adding to this dichotomy. 

Because tabletop games are collaborative, players are active participants in the hypocrisy of the game. You're purchasing things as a consumer all the time in order to fulfill your goal of expressing yourself, ostensibly while doing harm to the systems and structures placed there that would only seem to perpetuate our capitalistic reality. This game, unlike some others, is not overly concerned with this at first glance. As Mike Pondsmith, the author of the CP2020 corebook said, "cyberpunk isn't about saving humanity, it's about saving yourself." The text and images presented make it easier for the players to generate a character that is an expression of an identity different than their own. It's "cool" to look different; be different; act different, and to fuck up people who would hurt you and hate you because you are different. In fact, a lot of adventures feature factions and groups that are primarily concerned with hurting people who identify as cyberpunk. Namely: you.

From the Cyberpunk 2020 corebook

So then. You want to embody someone with cyberware and fashion in this game. It is "what the game is about." It is positing that by forging an identity of an "other'd" person, you are in fact resisting; even if you're also interacting with commodities and products, your self-expression is by appropriating these commodities and products into subversive elements that are the primary focus of your fiction. The "style" of play. 

"The perverse, unnatural use of clothes can articulate new gender definitions and destabilize apparently fixed notions of reality and materiality from the nation to individual subjectivity. Commodities, in other words, can be deployed against the cultural, libidinal, economic, and identitarian logic that they also appear to support." -- Maurizia Boscagli

As a player, you're shopping a catalog of subversive elements and then using them to craft an identity. In essence, using the skills we have as consumers in order to "game" our characters cyberpunk identity. Potentially a transformative experience, or at least a unique one; especially at the time of publication in 1990.

Then the game puts these decisions front and center in the fiction with Humanity Cost. Along with your "cool" stat in the game, you'll also find your "Empathy" stat, which is a "measure of how well the character relates to other people and is the basis for such skills as leadership, lying, convincing and romantic relationships." In CP2020 "the ability to be 'human' can no longer be taken for granted" because of the setting, in which most of the people are framed as survivors of a dystopia, cyberpunk or otherwise. 

Different cyberware and augmentations cost varying amounts of Humanity Points which are calculated from your Empathy stat; 10 points for every point of Empathy. This means the more modifications you get the more your ability to empathize with others is reduced. The less flesh and bone you have, essentially, the more your ability to empathize with everyone else is degraded at a mechanical level. Eventually, you may even get cyberpsychosis, suffering a mental break. It could even get to a point where you lose control of your character and have to give it to the Referee (the person facilitating your game). 

From the Cyberpunk 2020 corebook

Mechanically this signals to the player that beyond the aesthetic that is prevalent, these choices are inherently risky. There is a cost beyond money that is associated with the identity you're forging for yourself.

In the essay, they posit that this could be leveraged by a player in the spirit of the game and allow a player to "tell a nuanced story about the connections between augmentation, identity, social relationships, and institutional power." Citing an example of a player doing just that to create a veteran who was heavily cyberized after being hurt badly in action and having only 2 Empathy left after the alterations. The play example was extremely positive.

So even as you're maximizing the potential of your character as a player, there is a dichotomy introduced mechanically into the framework of the game, even more so if you create a social character. You could kit yourself out to be an amazing performer, another example in the essay, but with your decreased Empathy you would be less able to participate in the experience you're creating through your augmentations. Every decision in the game is framed as being risky, right down to your self-expression and identity. 

Often times when Humanity Points are in a cyberpunk game it signals to me that, well... it's old and reflective of the 90's fear of technology rather than more nuanced takes 25+ years later. However, I can appreciate the mechanical framework and scaffolding because these mechanics serve a clear purpose. Every tabletop game text is trying to help you recreate a specific experience at the table and the mechanics, I think, serve this purpose. 

What cannot be denied, in my opinion, is that is not representative of some marginalized people. While there may well be social and psychological repercussions of having a prosthetic, in this system if you used technology to have your character's sex organs altered, for instance, that would also reflect a loss of humanity. Problematic and not reflective of today, let alone the future when presumably even more technology will be utilized and ubiquitous in the average individuals lives. Having a game system decrease your humanity because it's reflective of your own lived experience before you even get playing is understandably something a lot of people aren't going to be interested in. Since the time of writing, we augment our lives with even more technology and do not think of ourselves as less human, even if it does affect the way we socially interact with others. 

This mechanic does reinforce the theme and tone of the game, though. Which is more credit than I had initially given it; initially outright dismissing the mechanic entirely as the technophobia of its time. Of course, people playing in the spirit of the game can create the play experiences written about in the essay, which is great! The Referee and players can always house-rule, altering the Humanity Cost mechanic to conform to items that might play toward what the game is trying to explore. What should cost humanity and what shouldn't, if you're keeping the mechanic in your game. But... if you're inclined to do that, why not play a cyberpunk game that doesn't have Humanity Cost and Points. There are many now, whereas back then, this was seminal work and cyberpunk tabletop options were few and far between.  

People often conflate some of the problematic content designed for the game as something produced by Mike Pondsmith and R. Talsorian Games. The content produced directly by the company does have some of the 90's marketing stuff you'd expect but it does not have the problematic aspects some people recall; the adventures people made for the system are the culprits. Hopefully with the direction of Mike Pondsmith directly we can expect something that isn't problematic in Cyberpunk 2077.

We already know Cyberpunk 2077 is going to feature the humanity Cost mechanic. Empathy is back, displayed in the demo for press-only at E3 of this year. Will these mechanics translate well into a video game? Have they been at least updated, presumably along with the setting? With so little known about it still, it's hard to know what this means for the game. 

The Clever Details In The Glitch Logs

"...revenge or no, you’ll still live every waking moment of the rest of your life knowing that if you suddenly disappear off the pavement in this hellhole of a city, the first person to come looking for you will be your landlord, because the rent is overdue."

The Glitch Logs are tapping into the same vein as K.C Alexander's cyberpunk action thrillers. Glitch is a hacker of some notoriety, a famous, retired gamer girl, and a veteran Runner. She pulls off jobs against 'corps that others only hear about in hushed tones throughout the sub-culture. Surprisingly, her day-to-day interactions are more relatable than I had anticipated. She may be infiltrating an evil Corp with some compatriots, breaking their security in 3 minutes (tops). But she's also dealing with fuckboys who undermine her on the job because they think they're being chivalrous, or whatever. 

"Glitch stared at him for a beat. She had dozens of runs to her name and he was giving her instruction. Offering to come to her rescue. Implying that she’d need it. Unacceptable."

Rachel Beck, the author, does a great job of peppering in small details that culminate into an experience that feels authentic. The banner says "The World Is Hers For The Breaking". She's got the experience, the technical skills, and the attitude in the fiction, no doubt about it. Interestingly though, the challenges Glitch faces end up being intersectional ones that contribute to world-building even when we know as a reader that she's probably going to hack the shit out of this system. When it comes to the physical world though, we have no idea how it's going to play out, all bets her off. She's a hacker, not an enforcer.

The first novella, Defrag, is an action-packed cyberpunk story that takes place during what should be an easy data-grab from the Eyes In The Sky corporation but, well... things go to shit and Glitch has to seriously roll with some punches to get out with all her body parts intact. 

"Cold pixels from her right rear leg flew through the air like blood droplets."

The second book, Overclocked, takes place immediately after this job and carries forward a lot of small, seemingly innocuous details into the second book. They hinted at potential character details yet to be revealed, served as the catalyst for the main thrust of this new book's plot, and was another vector for world building. As such, each time these details carried forward there was a pleasant feedback loop. 

"Runners are moths. Doesn’t matter how perfect a machine you build. There’s a weakness there, and Runners will find a way to exploit it."

Sometimes shit just happens to Glitch. It's the life of a runner. Living outside the law and scraping a living, the cyberpunk way, you know how it goes. What is compelling about her is that she also can't help but make additional problems for herself due to her moral code on top of this life she's chosen. Then, baggage from the previous runs accrue and that weight is embodied in various, clever ways; one of which is an item from the first book that seemed at first just to be a cool bit of tech described offhandedly—but revealed throughout as something more across both books. I really enjoyed that.

"Like all of society’s discards, the street life of Neosaka immediately put the tunnels to use and so the Night Market was born."

Even her moral code, an assumption (and a trope of cyberpunk) are expounded upon in a compelling way that is intrinsic to the character (It also seems to be the catalyst for the next book as well based on the epilogue). Details are always used to great effect. From Glitch noticing how many women are around in an underground night market and how safe she feels in that space because of that, to the smells and sights of the world around her. The reactions of Glitch to her surroundings, as well as the world's reactions to her, feel dynamic and real.

"She looked away and saw his blood running down the channel of the transportation rails built into the floor, like blood vessels of the mall itself."

The characters, including Glitch herself, were all pretty diverse from what I recall, and there were a few interactions that also felt like they'd be pulled out of a conversation you'd hear on the street. Even characters who are "nice" and treat her well have stereotypical reactions to her, such as assuming that because she's Latina she can speak Spanish, help to create environments that make the world feel lived in.

"There were no other women here, and she’d only noticed a couple in the surrounding tunnel on her way in. Not a good, long-term hiding solution."

I thought the first book was very enjoyable and delivered the experience pitched in the blurb. The second book was even more enjoyable because of the details already talked about, the introduction of the wider world and societal structures, Glitch taking just a pounding Harry Dresden style, the author's superb descriptions of digital environments and the interactions therein, and the safe space Glitch has created for herself there; which I won't spoil. 

"Runners were social outliers - proud, volatile, and adhering to a strong tradition of greeting anything that rubbed them wrong by kicking it in the teeth, no matter how large or powerful the jaws."

If she could, Glitch would tell the world to fuck off and stay in the matrix, that's clear throughout. But where many stories with deckers who jack in often skew a little too much toward the idea that meatspace and your own embodiment doesn't matter over the power fantasy that is your mind over matter; The Glitch Logs do not. Instead, the matrix is a beautiful world where Glitch is very powerful and savvy but also largely permeated and dominated by corporations or other opponents (like hackers that want what you have).

"You wanted to be a Runner, this is how Runners survive. You learn to walk away."

Ultimately the only thing Glitch truly has is the way in which she chooses to live her life. She is constantly being pressured to do something someone else's way; easy choices that would make her life so much easier if she would just do things another way. And it would be easier, Maybe. But as Overclocked somewhat eludes to, she may have made that decision before already and the past is always something you carry around with you. 

"Everyone has a price. We all sell out to something. Anyone who thinks they’re the exception is just scared or stupid.” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’ve been able to outrun that truth so far, but sooner or later, it’ll catch you by the throat and drag you down just like it did the rest of ‘us’."

If you dig cyberpunk thrillers, especially stuff that feels like K.C Alexander's stuff (but less Britishy and much less crass) I feel safe recommending you these. Both exceeded my expectations for a fun little cyberpunk romp, ending up being delightful. I gave them both 5/5 and you can find them in print here. They are also available as Ebooks, which is how I consumed them, here.  

Is Darling In The FranXX Cyberpunk?

Warning: Massive spoilers for the anime. I cannot dive into if this show is cyberpunk or not, as someone has asked me, without going into heavy spoilers because a lot of what would or would not make it cyberpunk is only explored around 18-20 episodes into the 24 episodes anime. 

OK, here we go, Is Darling in the FranXX cyberpunk? More importantly, perhaps, is Darling in the FranXX even aware of what it is? I just binged it in 3 days and I'm not entirely sure.

A lot isn't explained to the audience. And not in a clever, assuming-your-audience-is-smart-catching-these-plot-drops-kind-of-way; more like huge, giant, unexplained plot twists that leave gouges in the themes it laid down previously. Let's jump in.

SO. 50 million years ago (or thereabouts) an ancient race called the sapio-klaxosaur ruled the world, ostensibly. They were attacked by an alien lifeform that pretty much mansplains to you every time you run into them that embodiment is bad and you should free your mind, actually. They use up their resources combating the alien, evolve into better weapons losing their ability to procreate but creating war machines that require someone with an XX chromosome and an XY chromosome in this process. With this tech, they repel this alien race called the VIRM. Who then, of course, vowed to return and conquer them with a greater force. In response, these sapio-klaxosaur decide to burrow underground. The "weak" of the species becomes magma, a fuel; the "strong" evolve to become better and better weapons over time. Creating the ultimate, super weapon for when they return. 

Fast forward and humans have also messed up the earth digging up magma and using it as fuel. Humanity by this time has slowly become a "twisted" version of itself. A scientist named Dr. Franxx invents a "cure" for death, effectively making those who can afford it, immortal. What occurs is a giant stratification of class, which has already worsened well beyond what we would consider today. This cure for death also makes the person infertile (and at one point I think they mention they don't even have reproductive organs after it?). 

However, all is not well in post-capitalism. Humans live a monotonous lifestyle inside "plantations" that go around mining magma. Essentially huge mega-cities that drive around fucking up creatures that come from the earth named klaxosaur. Dr. Franxx learns there is a "queen" of them, goes to meets them, out of, I don't know, scientific curiosity, I guess? She rips off his arm and tells him to fuck Right Off. During this encounter, he grabs some of her hair, though. Good one, buddy.

Now, in the present day, in which the story proper takes place, Dr. Franxx has invented giant mecha called FranXX which are piloted by clones of humans who do have reproductive organs because these FranXX are based on the same technology as the sapio-klaxosaur; requiring an XX and XY pair to pilot their machines. 

Unbeknownst to these children, "Papa", the leader of humanity who puppets behind the scenes (even controlling Dr. Franxx) has cruelly groomed these kids in a facility called a "garden", where they are given numbers, not names, and never given any love, kind words, attention, physical affection, etc. The kids are literally indoctrinated to be killing machines devoid of emotion and paired with their optimal female/male counterparts in a binary manner. Once they're 16, they leave the garden and live in their own place together in separate dorms.

The main protagonist, Hiro, is a typically anxious, "nice" kid who had a promising future as a "ryder" of a FranXX. Now, though, there is some mystery as to why he is terrible and can't pair with his partner at all, reducing him to a failure who should just leave the facility permanently, 'cause he sucks and can't perform his function so fuck off; which is when the narrative pretty much picks up in the first episode. 

Basically, to pilot a Franxx the woman is seated in a crouching position (made to have her in a "Doggy-style" sexual position) and embodying the FranXX machine. So when the mecha gets punched and shot, the woman is taking the abstraction of that damage. The guy sits behind them and the woman has a rig on her back that has these weird steering handles, helping to maneuver the mecha. Neither can do it alone, both have to have a good partner. and clearly, this is all a metaphor for these young kids having sex without knowing what sex, love, or even a kiss is.

We learn that Hiro, while in the gardens and a kid, encounters the now same age-ish clone of the queen of the klaxosaur, 002, who pretty much looks like the devil. She's got two horns, red skin, and bleeds blue blood. When Hiro sees her being brutally tormented when they test her he stages an escape and the couple wanders in the gardens trying to evade capture for a while. During this time in the past, Hiro cares for her as best he can. Her only possession is a hetero-normative fairy tale picture book. She learns a couple words, the final one being "darling", just as they are ripped apart and their memories erased. 

002 makes her way to this plantation not being aware Hiro is the kid from the past; rumors proceeding her that when SHE is riding in her mecha, her partners get super messed up physically and emotionally. It's even said they die after ryding her 3 times and she's killed hundreds of dudes ( I am not being hyperbolic). If they're weak, whatever, she says. They deserve to die if that's the case. She just wants to kill some klaxosaur. 

Of Course, they get partnered together. He sees her naked, swimming around. Gets all shy and shit. She's sexually assertive, knows her stuff, and is obviously far more experienced than Hiro who like, can't get it up for anyone; UNTIL NOW! They partner up. Save the day, and launch the whole anime. Later it's revealed that he can ryde her because as a kid, he ingested some of her blood and internalized some of her klaxosaur Good Stuff. The more he rydes her, the less human he becomes, though. Changing into a klaxosaur like her. Don't judge a book by it's cover though she's only a monster 'cause she's memory wiped and wants to kill klaxosaur even though she is one. I guess because she was taught that after she was brain wiped but uh, that's never actually articulated. 

Phewf. 

So from the get-go, there's some neat stuff that looks like it's going to subvert typical anime mecha stuff, possibly. It is completely male-gaze centric the entire first 6-or-so episodes... but has this weird metaphor where they are pretty much having sex, and sex education should be a thing. The guys learn that women have feelings and them being ogled while piloting hurts them, so they stop. And... like kinda nicely, the show stops doing it as well aside for like 4-ish shots of them piloting, all of which aren't creepy long like in the first bit. They really want you to understand that these partners are having sex, ya'll. And they do it by respecting and supporting each other. 

There's an episode dedicated to not being jealous when your friend likes someone else; getting rid of some toxicity, mostly from the male side but also Hiro's best friend having a thing for him (of course). There's an episode where the pilots are asked if they want to change partners, encouraged to come forward if so; some do, including the only queer character who wants to try ryding with a woman... which doesn't work out for her. She gets pissed, they change up partners, and it's just kind of brushed under the rug for a while until she comes out later to another girl annnnd then that's about it. She saves everyone's life, discovering a vaccine (I guess?) for the rapid aging process these clone kids undergo in the later episodes. But it very much feels like a gimme that's a throw in at the end as they wrap up the last bit of the final episode. Disappointing to say the least. 

So too goes the metaphor for sex. Are they trying to communicate anything with it? Not anything interesting. You gotta have a healthy, non-toxic relationship with your significant other to pilot--cool! That's like the first 6 episodes, now what? When one of the girls discovers an old book in some ruins about making babies and wants to try it because she feels it's her purpose, even telling a boy that she likes that he's her special person and actually, later having sex; well... they're sent to get re-indoctrinated. The memories are removed and they reinforce the whole no-emotions-are-better-angle. Again. 

Throughout this first half there are some genuine moments between the kids, actually neat subject matter trying to be explored, and then... it loses sight of anything it was trying to say. Completely. 

The plot is basically like, "cool you learned you should be good partners and healthy relationships lead to good outcomes, right?", and then just goes bonkers. 

For one, a group called the 9's show up who pilot with one another interchangeably, a guy is in the position we've always seen the woman in, and another guy piloting (judging from voices and physical appearance only, so I could totally be wrong); then switches around as you see them in various battles. Cool cool, are they trying to say that more than just het folks piloting? Nope, they're all clones of 002, so they're not human, thaaaat's why they can do that. 

So... maybe it's saying something about being a strong woman? Kinda. They're always taking the brunt of the damage and 002 in the start is super awesome. She does what she wants, even getting Hiro to admit that he was just scared of her; generally telling him to fuck off unless he stopped being toxic. She knows what she wants, she's badass, even contributing to an impact vs intent episode. But as soon as they truly "bond" as partners she takes a 180, changing her personality entirely. She becomes incredibly submissive and basically says like, all she needed was a really good "ryde" and now she's more "likable"; didn't like that at all. 

As often as it can it seems to flip-flop on stuff. At first, the queen is the ultimate bad guy and infiltrates the plantation, piloting the same mecha 002 and Hiro do for most of the anime. She messes up 002 and takes control of Hiro inside, saying she can pilot that shit HERSELF. Is she like a queer villain or anything? Nah.

She's the last surviving sapio-klaxosaur, feeding into the only true ongoing narrative: you need a purpose and you need to share your life with someone else or YA WEAK. With only heteronormative examples of this, like a wedding with the couple who has the baby... which then gets excised from their memory. Anyways, as soon as the queen gets in she fires on these fuckin' aliens, the VIRM, suddenly attacking the world! Also, within this Illuminati, all of which are "Papa" (I guess), orchestrating the future of humanity; two are also actually VIRM. Ostensibly informing us that this is why humanity was so obsessed with the way forward being lifeless, immortal people, and the true end goal is to be like VIRM, ideally; without bodies and just beings of pure consciousness. 

So then the queen, touched (emotionally) by 002 coming back into this situation to save Hiro, lends them their power one last time, making a now even huger mecha out of the original mecha they once piloted! They zoom off into space to try and kill the VIRM, leaving Hiro and 002 behind for pretty unclear reasons. He eventually figures out that 002, now in a coma, has her mind off in that giant mecha and is not physically present on earth at all. Except when the giant mecha gets hurt she gets hurt too. OK. The whole, don't need a body anymore I'm an alien thing going on again. So Hiro decides to go save her, the whole squad goes too, no way, except for two of them! Why? The brainwashed people who had sex are having a baby (foreshadowed for a few episodes now to be fair, since she keeps throwing up). She can't pilot a mech in that state so has to decide on her piloting or having a baby, which nobody knows anything about anymore, presumably. She picks being a mom.

Anyways, back in space ya'll, Hiro hooks back up with 002, convincing her to let him in when she is saying you should just go be human and be freeee. And he's like nooo, you're my person and that's how we can defeat someone. Also, she can't use the huge power strike from the horn of the mecha like the queen did by herself, she needs Hiro...even though she's a clone of that queen...but OK! Finally, they transform into a giant mecha maiden, which I kind of liked. Maybe it was saying you need both masculine and feminine qualities to take on this entity that believes embodiment is a weakness?

I don't know because they are suddenly not compatible anymore, an internal battle Hiro is losing. Even if they believe they are the right couple, apparently they're not that actually compatible via this giant klaxosaur-mecha thing. How do they get over this hurdle? The people back on earth pray real hard, shouting about their bonds around the now statue of 002; they hear their friends, he wakes up and they sacrifice their lives to fuck up the enemy. Who, by the way, is not fully destroyed. They're like, "we will meet again at the end of the evolutionary patttth". At least the dude sticks to his guns, eh? 

To end it all, their spirits (?) shoot back to earth into a tree that was created by 002's body which was left behind and became stone until it broke apart revealing a sapling. 80 years later a nice tree is there and two kids who look like 002 and Hiro meet and they're like yoooo, the story is starting again ya'll!!! 

What. The. Fuck. 

It would have also been a lot stronger of a message if they had ended it with the only queer character having a relationship. At all. Instead, she's all alone and saves all the people making babies. Score!

It's frustrating because some of it is pretty neat. It does manage to hit home some good messages early on and does some commentary on similar things to Evangelion, but with an openly sex-positive metaphor, or at least, it could have been? Everything it tried to say was muddied by the end except for: embodiment good. We need each other to survive, including our feelings. Technology bad, immortality took away our drive and our emotions. And finally, we need each other to get through. 

A thing I did like  is that all of humanity is representative of the super-rich only. At least this weird ass fiction isn't trying to Representative of everyone, it's saying post-capitalistic rich folks decided to become immortal, exploited everyone else and letting the rest die; all so they could live a long, meaningless existence. 

So but like. Wouldn't that mean all the klaxosaur they killed are also people, and the queen isn't the last one? 

It definitely also erases all queer representation aside from a bland gesture at some vague crap with one character.

Oh, and that kids need to be educated about sex and people fear the stagnation of the human race as people stop having sex as much. The way forward may be technology, which will doom us; fear it! 

Sooo... it's pretty much stuck in the 90's, right? Technophobia to the max.  

Is it cyberpunk? Indentured clones, a new manufactured class and experiment, pilot giant mecha (their only hope for survival: technology) ordered to be crafted by the super rich, omnipresent entity that represents fatherhood ("Papa"), ordered to preserve the status quo; only to discover that their true purpose is to fulfill their goal and then die. It's got the high-tech, low-life. A reliance and commentary on technology being central to the fiction, an evil Dr. Franxx, who is the only one to embrace cybernetics instead of becoming immortal, coincidentally. And has a whole episode dedicated to an info-dump literally describing the giant stratification of class that takes place.

Throughout, the kids wear different clothing, are treated differently from other squads, and continually looked down upon because they have feelings. They reject societal norms throughout and end up ultimately rejecting "Papa" entirely only to have a really shitty future and earth to look forward to by doing so. So yeah, it's cyberpunk; but only emphatically so in later episodes, I'd say. Otherwise it's a mecha show with a cybernetic dude who's a trash human embodying a fear of technology.

Is it good? The first half was great, seemingly going to go neat places... And then fulfilled none of the interesting things it could have. It's a freaking' crying shame, is what it is. I think it was trying to be clever, attempting to do the fanservice bullshit and then subverting it with those episodes on being a good partner, protecting others' emotional well-being (including your friends and your partners), and then stopping the fanservice when the girls are expressing their distaste for ogling. And maybe it thinks it had good commentary on sex-positivity... but I didn't think they explored it well enough to make that claim, personally. 

Try harder, Darling~ 

Suppressing Society In The Fortunate Fall

“In print news your job is to know things about others, you peer out at the world through an arrow slit. In telepresence you are known. If I'd still been writing for a newspaper—if there still were newspapers—I could have forgotten...”

In 1996 Raphael Carter wrote The Fortunate Fall. For perspective, Neuromancer came out only 12 years previous and this book is already placed squarely in post-cyberpunk. Normally I'd scoff a little at that..but I have to say that is more of an acknowledgment of this work than the post-modern call to kill the genre from the onset of its birth (by the very people who wrote in the field no less). For reference, Trouble and her Friends came out only 2 years previous and I would not call that post-cyberpunk. It's also very hard to review because of the structure and how the book ends.

Maya tells her story as though the reader is an audience consuming a story by her with prior knowledge of an important historical event, or at least an extremely newsworthy one; to the point that it seems assumed the general populace or consumer of this knows of it, at least. And they are getting the "real" truth by reading it rather than getting it in another, futuristic format like moistdisk, opticube, dryROM, where the whole truth was not disclosed to the consumer.

“...you can't just break through a person's defenses like that; the defenses are a part of the person, they are the person. It's our nature to have hidden depths. It's like...skinning a frog and saying, 'Now I understand this frog, because I've seen what's inside it.' But when you skin it, it dies. You haven't understood a frog, you've understood a corpse.” 

In the 24th-century Maya is what is called a "telepresence." She is cyberized to not only report the news but to almost become the news. All of her is broadcasted; her thoughts, memories, feelings—all of it goes out and is consumed by the audience. Because of this massive sensory output, all telepresence have a screener; post-production happens on the fly as it goes out over the net. Only the memories and thoughts that play well with the story actually ever make it to the audience. The screener, however, consumes all of it.

When Maya's screener falls in love with her after imbibing essentially everything (emotions, both past and present memories, etc.) about her while broadcasting a story to the world, things start to really get interesting. 

“You think we have a connection because of all the things you've sucked out of my mind by screening, but that isn't real. Trust comes when you've worked with someone for years; it doesn't speed up just because you can think fast, and it doesn't materialize when you stick a cable in someone's head. What you get from screening me isn't friendship, it's data. We're strangers.”

Through her perspective we learn of the world, we learn she's a criminal and has a suppressor chip in her head that stops her from feeling any strong emotions for other people, and that she's got a criminal record for this. Ostensibly, she doesn't feel the same as everyone else around her but always seems more human (or humanized by the narrative); often reading as very endearing to me because she's got this disconnect with herself and others that are all too relatable in this day and age. Also of note, cognitive dissonance is exceptionally well executed throughout this fiction.

Maya's recounting is largely of her big break, the scoop of a lifetime, the last whale to ever exist, if it's real; and whether it's true or not, because of the nature of how the narrative is structured, makes a compelling read that ends up being largely subjective to the reader.

Dissidents like Maya, as we learn, are literally suppressed with chips and the state is cold, fascist, and mechanical; evocative of late 80's fearfulness of technology but also clearly evocative of Nazi Germany and fascism, in general. 

This future has the cyberpunk action you'd expect sure, but the technical aspects are really well done compared to most first wave cyberpunk; Raphael seems to have had a better understanding of technology, took the first wave template, and used it to great effect here. This world is very rich. Personality and technology aside, the plausibility of it is scary because of the bigotry so rampant these days. This nihilistic future the genre often depicts also has, this time, a laser focus. An unabashed, condemnation brought with an intensity and precision I've rarely read. The cultural psyche in which the major population has in their minds regarding their view of individual citizens gender identity and proclivity toward tribalism is still reflective of where we are today.

“The mind has doors...even as the body does. And when you drill new holes, you tap old hungers.”

The prose are beautiful from the very first page to the end of the book. There are multiple themes reminiscent of 1st wave that is done so much better. Technology keeping us further apart yet connecting us, what that would do to our relationships is eerily on point for a book that predates my own ability to get Internet access. 

It's a short read, it's compelling and relevant. It's also worth noting this was the first and only debut of the author who refused to be associated with any gender at the time of writing. Part of what makes Maya's story so riveting is, perhaps, this earnest expression of self in the text. There is no clear villain in the story. Maya herself is never untarnished and sometimes exemplifies the biases that a population internalizes, made even more complicated because of by her own omission, she is the one recanting her story, without the benefits of future technology where people may know the truth of things because they would also have the context of her emotions, feeling them as they consumed the story.

“...it changes the central fact of the human condition: that each of us lives behind one set of eyes, and not another; that our own pain is an agony, and another's pain only an abstraction we believe in by an act of faith. It makes impossible all the sins of locality, all the errors that arise from being prisoned in one body and no other--as racism, sexism, classism, and of course and especially nationalism.”

The intersectional characters explore and bring out different aspects of Maya and the technology too, is a vehicle for her exploration, limiting her and governing her. Effecting her years later from its inception. Her own will is literally stifled when she is a camera and therefore the lens from which people perceive the entirety of the story though, so much so that at one point, the audience will not even allow her to blink because they are captivated by what she sees.

“I'd caught what cameras call an updraft: just as the viewers got over the first rush of interest, others smelled the excitement and tuned in. The surprise of the newcomers strengthened the scent, attracting still more people, in a spiral that could make the feedback escalate out of control. Wave upon wave of astonishment crashed through me. I tried to look down, but the curiosity of millions forced my head back up. I stood there staring at the whale like someone forced to look into the sun, unable to turn away, though my mind cringed from the sight and my eyes were burning. It was not just an updraft, but riptide: feedback so strong that it flooded out my own emotions and derailed my thoughts. The audience grew so large and so greedy that it wouldn't even let me blink.”

The actual historical truth and alteration of media coverage and news is on trial via the actual job of being a telepresence and what it entails and is demanded by the population. Hint: it's not to be a well-educated population so that they can make proper decisions voting anymore (nor is it now, any longer). Its fascinating and the relationship to our media is very well articulated in a very nuanced and deft commentary on a lot of broad sociological issues. 

This book came across to me as very thoughtful, often insightful; always beautiful, filled with prose. The Summer Prince was a similar read for me, I know I will reread this quite a few times. Check out some of the lifts from the book I took to see if it's your style, for me it was well beyond what I was hoping for. 

“Feel no regret for roses, autumn too has its delights...How could she say that? Didn't she see that for us there could never be autumn, that we could never sit, as anyone else could sit, beside the fire all day on Sundays in November; that September's leaves, that fall for man and beast alike, were not our leaves to walk in; that October storms would never find us sharing an umbrella? The love of spring had thrived on wine and candles; now in the August of our lives, we needed newspapers and comfortable chairs. But it was impossible. No autumn--only a cold wind that blew through our summer, freezing the leaves in their places before they could motley and fall.”

Systemic Secrets In Blackfish City

“Do not talk about the past here. Do not ask your neighbor why they left wherever they are from; do not expect your newfound friends to wax nostalgic for homes that no longer exist. Perhaps the past holds more than merely pain for you, but you can't assume that this is true for anyone else. We want to smell it, taste it, hear its songs, feel its desert heat or summer rain, but we do not want to talk about it. The things we've been through cannot hurt us here, unless we let them. The Fallen cities, the nations drowned in blood. The cries of our loves ones. Those stories we lock away. We will need new ones.” 

A woman arrives in Qaanaaq, a city made possible with advanced technologies iterated from oil rigs; she arrives with an orca and a polar bear and is called an "orcamancer". Her arrival is the impetus that drives together the characters. In this post-climate collapse, each character is an intersectional lens used to critique cyberpunk tropes and showcase how much fiction with characters of diversity and queer identities can enrich fiction with established tropes. 

“Slums are always a marvel; how human desperation can seem to warp the very laws of physics.”

Kaev is a veteran fighter used for the express purposes of launching other fighters' careers, manipulated by his ex-lover and crime boss; Soq, a slide messenger (think Jet Set Radio, using installed rails that cross the various "arms" of the city to navigate to their destinations) with a non-binary gender identity (using they/them pronouns), living in poverty, and ostensibly, wishing to dismantle the city entirely. Fill, on the other hand, is the other side of the coin. Born into a high-status life that is lacking a purpose. Ankit, a government worker who is struggling with her purpose as bureaucracy proves that her wish to help citizens must continually go unanswered. 

As disparate as they all are, both in social status as well as identities, the narrative serves them well. Bringing them together in unexpected and nuanced ways as the story drives toward the climax and conclusion. Interspersing the orcamancer's story throughout their narratives, colliding the narratives together.

Qaanaaq has a rich history. One that is spotlighted throughout in chapters labeled "A City Without A Map", how it was developed and how human the problems are there, even in a society having lived through multiple crisis points in human history. These chapters are broadcasted to the denizens, highlighting people and places, hopeful in nature and with a goal to bring the inhabitants together despite stratification resulting in a city filled with advanced technology, such as the A.I that literally runs the entire city. Cramped quarters as real estate means that most folks don't have the space they need and hunger for. It's a cyberpunk setup that gets subverted in delightful ways. 

“Multicolored pipes vein the outside of every building in a dense varicose web: crimson chrome for heat, dark olive for potable water, mirror black for sewage. And then the bootleg ones, the off-color reds for hijacked heat, the green plastics for stolen water.”

The city already being ravaged by "The Breaks" when the orcamancer arrives. Little is known about this viral disease plaguing the city. But it feels very much framed as the AIDS epidemic. Ostensibly transmitted through body fluids that causes neurological degradation, opening the mind to thoughts and even memories of others... until it ultimately kills the person. This is an outbreak the city seems incapable of dealing with, or unwilling, as the city's multiple A.I can't seem to figure out what to do even years after an initial diagnosis. 

“Bodybreaking, they called it. What happened when the breaks finally killed you. The moment your mind's hold on the here and now finally ruptured forever and you broke free from your body.”

 

This, together with the different character lenses' at work regarding the crisis and the upheaval the orcamancer causes, are a major upset in the status quo. When she begins carving a bloody path through the city searching for a truth the city has long since attempted to bury, we also get chapters that reveal her own past and what she is doing in the city, along with what it means for the main characters. 

“Wood smells like wealth”

As snippets of the city's own sordid past are revealed via people with The Breaks, the author does a masterful job weaving a cohesive story between all the characters. Targeting the wealth gap and the corruption that is all but inevitable in political structures based on class, and the importance of questioning anything systemic, even when it's your own family. There is no easy decision. No dark, simple evil to combat in these villains.  

Instead, there are contemporary, powerful, and meaningful subjects tackled from many perspectives, all colored in shades of gray. It feels like the subject matter was tackled with respect, including indigenous aspects brought into the text. Pairing the crisis of The Breaks with what is revealed of the orcamancer's past is an emotional and impactful choice. And conjoining that plot with the meta-structure of the book makes for a cyclical, satisfying ending. 

“...the most myth-shrouded story of all is that of the nanobonded. A whole community of people who were either deliberately or accidentally exposed to the experimental wireless nanomachines that established one-to-one networks between individuals, and who, through years of training and imprinting, could "network" themselves to animals, forming primal emotional connections so that they could control their animals through thought alone.”

Everyone and everything matters. It's got traces of solarpunk in its surprising hope. It's subverting cyberpunk by injecting multiple, intersectional, and marginalized identities while being both sex-positive and framing embodiment in an affirmative light. The primary advanced technology in nanites and their purpose and how they are used, and the choice to frame technology in a neutral relationship along with the depiction of villains, all work together to craft a unique experience. 

I'm going to call Blackfish City a post-cyberpunk novel and recommend you not miss it. 

“You are bound to your body.
Your body is shaped by its DNA, your parents' decisions, historic hate and hunger, contested elections, the rise and fall of the stars in the sky. Maybe your body is an awful place. Maybe, like me, you are there through no fault of your own. 

One day, you will break free of your body. Every one of us will. Until that Great Liberation comes, we must be content with the little liberations. The Shivers up the spine--the telltale tingle of a beautiful song. Great sex; a good story.”

Translating A Movement In Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories In A Sustainable World

"Imagine a sustainable world, run on clean and renewable energies that are less aggressive to the environment. Now imagine humanity under the impact of these changes."

I had the pleasure of backing a Kickstarter for a Brazilian anthology originally published in Portuguese six years ago in 2012. The solarpunk movement has been gaining a lot of momentum in English but is lacking a cohesive voice. Generally, people use varying precision when describing what it actually is. An anthology that assembles short fiction under a banner definition therefore, is quite welcome, as it seems to be synonymous with cli-fi, eco-fiction, and even ecopunk sometimes. The working definition taken from this Kickstarter is as follows: "The term "solarpunk" has been steadily gaining momentum in the English-speaking world to describe an aesthetic of hopeful, eco-friendly futures, stories that try to shift us away from the dystopian mindset that has been so prominent in recent science fiction."

"The literary roots of solarpunk stretch back decades (at least), influenced and inspired by thought experiments such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia."

Sometimes when I read solarpunk, as with some newer stuff classified as cyberpunk, the 'punk' is missing. I categorize it pretty broadly. Some sort of resistance happening against societal structures; I'm pretty open. But often times it's just not there. I was a bit worried this would be the case with solarpunk because this occurs far more often in English literature that I've consumed. Turns out, though, I needn't have worried. 

The anthology has 9 pieces of short fiction and is a good anthology. It has a wide degree of fiction within the category, from a noir-esk P.I story, to moral and ethics discussed regarding society relying completely on technology that allows them to live via implants that allow the human body to subsist via photosynthesis. There is a wide range and very imaginative arrangement of stories that were surprising in how they tackled specific far-flung issues. Despite a military fiction scenario which is just not my cup-of-tea (at all), and two slower than I'd like stories, I came away feeling overwhelmingly positive about it. 

“People tend to think that we Puritans are a lot of human carcasses, living ruins, because we refuse to allow technology to interfere with the physical abode that God has thought fit to grant our spirits, but the truth is just the opposite. We take care of the temple. Food and exercise, an active life. If people really cared about the health God gave them, prostheses and genetic implants wouldn’t be necessary.”

In one story, "Xibalba Dreams of the West" (which surprised me in a fun way when It had wuxia elements) a teacher who believes in her just and good society, as one does, takes her son to a ritual where criminals are banished forever, seemingly to their death. Years ago her father committed a crime and shared in this fate and she still struggles with that in her personal life... but when a stranger tells her there is more to her father's story than she knows, her world is turned upside down as she begins to learn there is more to her government and the motives behind the exiles than she could have imagined.

"These were Sons of Palenque, as the descendants of the ancient Mayan Empire were called, who refused to accept the end of their people’s sovereignty over South Tenoque and chose a life at the margins of society."

This was a particularly great story. It goes from mundane to fantastical as the truth is unraveled by her, as though her possibilities were increasing exponentially as she learns more, which I enjoyed a lot. There are some cool fight scenes and Mayan colloquial terms that were fun to lookup. It was very clever and alone pretty much makes the price of the anthology, for me, a deal. 

Another stand out one was "Gary Johnson". At the outset it appeared not to be solarpunk at all. It has a young man in present-day searching for his great grandfathers birth certificate to be given Italian status, but they need his missing birth certificate to prove his ancestry first. He ends up discovering a remarkable story in which his great-grandfather, a priest, becomes involved with the construction of a technology that can remove something's soul, I say something because it turns out everything has a soul! Inanimate objects, animals, and people all. As a priest, the moral dilemma and implications of his faith contextualize the story greatly as more of the technology and the events unfold. All told from letters of correspondence found in the future and translated. 

"The scene changed once more. Now I saw the city of clouds, as God sees it, and I discovered the source of energy that moved the vehicles, lifts, the unspeakable objects that flew through the heavens and, above all, that tortuous city. As if watching a documentary, I was shown the inside of those machines that infested the streets and how the perianth fed them. That world was a nightmare. Humanity had been reduced to fuel that moved the metal organs of that city."

Very Cool. I loved that one. All of the stories have illustrations, which were great. All of them felt fresh and different than most English works and predates most of them. Possibly inspiring the English ones that are as close to tropes of solarpunk as we have at the moment. 

“Better to live a day as a lion than a hundred years as a lamb!”

At only $4.99 USD or $14.99 USD for the paperback, it's a steal. A goal of the publisher is to pay more authors to contribute to more of these anthologies if they sell well. 

The Evolution Of Punk in New Clone City

"It’s not often you’ll see a congregation of the Muslim faithful handing over a six-foot semi-conscious transvestite to a carload of militant queer prostitutes wielding baseball bats. "

New Clone City, or NC as it is commonly referred to colloquially throughout the novel, is a vibrant city as I've ever read. While I would not label them prose exactly, Mike Hembury is fantastic with descriptive detail, weaving a dense relationship from setting to the characters. The narrative begins with separate chapters for each, gradually interspersing them into longer chapters after the narrative begins to weave their respective stories together into common threads; cast about somewhat superstitiously, even seemingly haphazardly, from the start. 

“Walk around the NC, and you will see what I mean. Ethnicities from all over the planet rub along together, women can walk the streets at night unmolested, dykes and faggots can be found sharing the same streets with fundamentalists of all persuasions. Such is the reputation of the NC, such are its forms of social interaction. And it is this cultural ballast which forms a heavy counterweight to our society’s need for fundamental change.”

Jimmy Lee Chang, of the Singapore Irish Changs, is an immigrant and an older, a little bit rough around the edges guy with a good heart that gets diagnosed with cancer. 

"So if you want to be heroic, stay and build this weird movement of yours. Everything else…” says Jimmy, pushing back his chair. “Is just pissing in the wind”"

Claire works as an activist as a vegan eco-revolutionary but is consumed with conflicting feelings. Seemingly not making a difference as she goes to work and sees the drones and the fear of the authority baked into every individual she knows makes it hard to fathom just what difference her work actually does. That is until she meets Laila and Llya and is forced to confront both ends of that spectrum.

"For a bunch of vegan eco-revolutionaries the hacker guy with the lank black hair is something they can’t quite pin down, classify, categorize."

While dating her boyfriend Llya, a hacker trying to balance his work, hobby, and obsession with hacking; trying to dredge up a large payday and simultaneously putting his relationship with Claire in jeopardy in the doing. Both of which tend to be the narratives that insert the most cyberpunk technology.

"Even if you just do it old school—no overlay, no augmentation—it’s hard to ignore the screens everywhere, vying for your attention."

"Most just fiddle with their phones. Worry their implants. Surreptitiously wipe the pus from seeping wetware. Noodle the weeb. Perform the spastic eye movements required to check their incoming on their spex."

Laila embodies that previously mentioned authority Claire hates and fears so much. Serving her country after also immigrating to the NC, she has worked her way up in the security sector of the government. Intelligent, intimidating, and independent she is in charge of a new operation to destabilize NC in order to enact the machinations of forces larger than her. When she bucks against the authority, despite her accrued position and power, her boss, Al, and she comes to a bloody conflict. 

"Part of Laila wishes that she could just let her love off the leash, just let it flow, and take its course."

Gene, or Jeanie, has been a sex worker since he was young. When working a particular area of the city policed by their own, another younger girl, Ursula, is picked up by a predator after Jeanie dismisses them, sensing danger, and it is Ursula who pays for it in the harshest of ways. Gene takes it upon himself to see justice done, no matter the cost. 

“I’m Gene. Or Jeanie. Depending.” “Depending? On what?” “Oh, time of the day, time of the month, spur of the moment, whims, urges, wings of desire, that kind of thing.”

As the book proceeds, the at-times-strange narrator will drop some flavor from a third person point of view. One minor quibble that comes along with a couple others. For instance, the ending makes it seem like this may not be the first book but this was not telegraphed beforehand so it ends a bit suddenly. I am honestly unsure if it's setting up another book or not, so knowing one way or the other definitively would be good. Another is how Claire and Llya initially meet in the book feels really contrived and stilted. Thankfully the subsequent fiction focusing on their relationship is rich and heartfelt, so it doesn't matter much, but it did stick out as a thorn until I'd gotten further in the book because it was so odd. He kind of stalks her a bit and then, as young as they are, pretty much want to sleep together right away after she confronts him following her. Kind of strange.

“Well, we’re a bit like the Buddhists. They have a deeply spiritual religion, but don’t believe in god. That works for us too. Our spiritual practice encompasses all manifestations of the female principle, in all religions, with a particular focus on the more combative, antipatriarchal manifestations. We’re not into dogma, we’re just into what works.”

The signage on the press kit gave me the impression that the book would be more action-packed, as indicative of the tropes of cyberpunk which it is so labeled as. This is not the case at all. It's almost a slice of life through much of it. But more like urban fiction coupled with a cyberpunk, futuristic world. Once I shifted gears I enjoyed it despite my expectations that there would be bullets, mirrorshades, and blood. 

Lastly, I thought Laila was underused throughout the book. She's unapologetically queer and badass and seemed cut short. I wish she was more of the main character than a side character. The main characters are Claire, Jimmy, and Gene; though chapters are dedicated to others like Laila. She certainly has her own aims and purpose in the fiction. I just wish she got more chances to beat the snot out of someone or something. 

Speaking of queer characters and people of color, this book has plenty, I'm happy to say. On top of that, they are all fairly intersectional with current issues. Perhaps my favorite part of what this book does is recharacterizing "punks". All of them, in one way or another, at one time or another, are poised against systematic oppression. Resisting and rejecting the notions of social pressures and conformity. Gene's story of becoming Jeanie and the notion of the Church Of Kali, empowering queer people in an introspective way without being a traditional, organized religion.

"These days, incidents are kept to a minimum. The johns are for the most part polite and on their best behaviour. The new ones are quick to sniff the mores of the street. And anyone who steps out of line rapidly finds themselves surrounded by a bunch of incensed and militant trans and drag queen sexworkers who really have zero tolerance for that kind of thing."

This story, with my very limited knowledge of queer spaces, was the one I was unsure as to how well it was handled. It felt like it was done well to me, but that means very little. When Gene is navigating the fiction the pronouns are he/him when Gene becomes Jeanie, the pronouns change to she/her. A drag queen, this character was absolutely my favorite one of the bunch. That said, there is basically no typical cyberpunk character to speak of at all in this atypical cyberpunk story. Particularly, Claire's situation was initially quite bland and flourished into something interesting and refreshing. 

"And so it was that Gene was initiated into the rites and practices of the domination trade. And that in turn gave rise to Jeanie. Not so much gave rise to perhaps, as formalized. For Jeanie was certainly always there with Gene, but she was without form in the world."

There is page count given to sex scenes between a cross-dresser and a man, a man and a woman, and two women. There's an organized riot against the establishment, protesting a good cause, while also being realistic about what it will accomplish and how they must do so in order to not have the protesters be hurt should the police decide to feel provoked. If cross-dressers and queer folk banding together in common cause against a totalitarian-like government isn't punk, I don't know what is, really. 

"There something about this guy. Something that spells trouble, casual violence, anger issues, pent-up rage. Money, power, and a habit of being obeyed."

I have lobbied for cyberpunk as a genre to be continuing despite the punk movement being gone and the sub-genre going "mainstream" and entering the general consciousness. Resistance still happens! It's important for new protagonists with alternate viewpoints and representations to be injected into cyberpunk fiction such as this. In most stories like this characters are moved about as though they were on a chess board, usually by inscrutable powers and generally omnipresent. In the NC though, these powers are humanized and grounded. Complicated by the ordinary, quiet revolutions of queer people not allowing for anything less than justice for one of their own. It is not uncommon in cyberpunk to have fiction centered on the marginalized navigating spaces not meant for them and forging the path forward in the future we'd like to see, despite these many dangers staying progress and attempting to dehumanize the socially unacceptable. I feel very happy to classify it as cyberpunk and enjoyed this for being so blatantly, unapologetically queer housed in a city made to feel like another living character we get to see much of and from many perspectives. 4/5 with a release date of May 30th. 

"...in that split second before maximum twilight and re-illumination, there was a brief moment of uncertainty. A moment, Jeanie felt sure, that anything was possible."

Pharming Freedom in Autonomous

“He was a user of his own consciousness, but he did not have owner privileges. As a result, Paladin felt many things without knowing why.”

In 2144 there are canola fields that transmit data. There are drugs to extend your life. There are drugs for just about everything. 

In the Arctic Sea, Jack Chen is a pirate in a submarine with her own lab used to fabricate reverse-engineered drugs on the cheap, making them available to everyone... and antagonizing big Pharma in the processes. When people start taking her newest drug, a perfectly replicated version of "Zacuity", a performance-enhancing drug that makes people feel immense pleasure from doing a specific activity. The company primarily uses it to get its own labor force hooked on something very particular: work. And the side effects suck.

“It didn’t just boost your concentration. It made you enjoy work. You couldn’t wait to get back to the keyboard, the breadboard, the gesture table, the lab, the fabber.” 

Intense reactions to the drug, altering the human mind and in some cases actually killing them, triggers the main thrust of the story. Jack sets out to research and fabricate a cure and disseminate it before more people die, and before Elias and Paladin, two military agents dispatched to eliminate Jack and facilitate a cover-up find her and take her out. You do not want to mess with patent law in this future. 

“When it came to intellectual property, justice was simple and clear.”

Paladin, an indentured robot serving the military, is governed in much the same way A.I generally is in cyberpunk and sci-fi. Freedom in a box; confined to a very particular place in society. Governed because they are a commodity. Labour and manpower and expensive technologies created bots, and so, because of their programming, even to bots this seems fair and right. Indentured humans though, slaves, are not as polarizing. There are rules and laws that must be followed if you have indentured. 

“Bots, who cost money, required a period of indenture to make their manufacture worthwhile. No such incentive was required for humans to make other humans.” 

Throughout the assignment, Elias and Paladin forge an unconventional relationship. One billed as a love story on the back of the book. Admittedly, my initial, gut reaction to this assertion was that it was the weakest part of the story. It didn't feel earned. And upon further reflection, I think that's in part what the author was going for.

“How many times had Paladin looked into this human face, its features animated by neurological impulse alone? He did not know. Even if he were to sort through his video memories and count them up one by one, he still didn't think he would have the right answer. But after today's mission, human faces would always look different to him. They would remind him of what it felt like to suffer, and to be relieved of suffering.”

Autonomous broaches many preconceptions; some of which lead to the exploration of our incessant need to anthropomorphize everything we interact with. In this particular case, technology and the other things we construct are similar in themes touched on in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, and were handled well throughout the fiction. 

“Everybody is an outsider, if you go deep enough. The trick is reassuring people that you’re their kind of outsider.”

Elias is overly concerned with making sure Paladin uses pronouns and that those pronouns come from Paladin's brain, not programming—which is not considered important to the makeup of what Paladin considers their identity. Pronouns are useful in so far as they are needed to converse with humans. But bots don't communicate that way and bots often refer to humans as mysterious, trying to figure out why humans do what they do at all; especially regarding identity.

“She was part of a social network that included artists and activists who were always hatching what they called “disruptive strategies” aimed at undermining all forms of authority: cultural, economic, scientific. Mostly their disruptions involved artistic fashion shows full of uselessly beautiful GMOs and tissue mods that said something about global recolonization.” 

While Elias and Paladin attempt to find Jack, exerting the will of the system of which Jack fights against with the help of Threezed, an indentured slave freed by Jack, incidentally; they invariably end up finding themselves in an unconventional way. And while Jack and Threezed enlist the help of another, completely autonomous bot named "Med", they too discover components of themselves missing; in some cases merely forgotten. 

“The key to autonomy, she realized, was more than root access on the programs that shaped her desires. It was a sense of privacy.”

Flashbacks to Elias and Jack's pasts work well to help the pacing of the story as well as do what this novel does best: world building. The technology, especially biotech is perhaps the greatest strength of the book. It feels well thought out and incremental in such a way that it makes it feel like this is not the 100ish years in the future, but something even closer, just on the peripheral. 

“People assigned genders based on behaviors and work roles, often ignoring anatomy. Gender was a form of social recognition.” 

It's a quick read with an interesting way to broach anthropomorphization in general, but also what our relationships might look like when such technology does enter our lives. The need to place things in human boxes and terms is an injustice and disservice and is at the root of a lot of social issues. Coupled with where Big Pharma is going, again, this all feels like a good extrapolation of where we could be headed. A pill for everything. The resistance and the "punks" confined to fabricating small victories in the form of a cheaper product, rather than the ability to destabilize the system so much for actual, meaningful change; reflective of the socio-political climate right now. 

“But now we know there has been no one great disaster—only the slow-motion disaster of capitalism converting every living thing and idea into property.”

Wrapped up in a fairly quick cat-and-mouse game between the respective characters is an impressive amount of world-building, characterization, and social issues that might result from future developmental progress with where technology may be heading. All of the characters served a purpose and were quite well fleshed out, especially for a 300-page book. I generally don't like narratives that often switch between characters but this didn't bother me in Autonomous. 4/5

“For all the robots who question their programming.”

Redefining Punk in Her

This movie occupies an interesting space. It's commenting on technology far more than most cyberpunk stories. And at the same time, it also poses a question as to what low-life looks like now. As technology transforms us and the way we view and interact with one another irrevocably alter who and what we are, the definition of what a “punk” is also changed. Back when cyberpunk was initially created it appropriated numerous tropes from other genres to become a new thing within a genre they actively participated in and often critiqued. As the shapers of the genre saw what some of this technology could mean for us, they assembled something they considered "punk" within science fiction. Just how far technology would go was far beyond what they had initially conceived in first wave cyberpunk; sometimes far less as well.

Her captures the normal questions we see regarding A.I in a non-traditional way. The idea of defining our humanity by looking at our own creations and these things eventually surpassing us is not new. That we begin to view this “thing” that has supplanted us in a new light, often appearing or presenting as uncanny, is also not new. But never has such a human face been depicted of a creature born from our own minds like this particular A.I, Samantha... who does not have a face. The “high tech” in Her isn’t, at least at first, that she is an Artificial Intelligence, rather it is that she is so very human and we never see anything of her at all. She is without form but embodies the characteristics we crave in ourselves so well, simply utilizing only a voice.  The “low life” is pretty much the only other human in the film, Theodore.

We only ever see things from his perspective and even as we see other people moving in and out of the frame, the focus is always on him. We get the impression that the human race is entirely transient in this seemingly not-far-off-at-all Shanghai, and we understand the pervasive loneliness that he feels via the audiences’ inability to experience anything other than these continual shots.

It's effective in showing that perhaps everyone and no one is like Theodore. Completely unique as he is -- we get the sense from the way the shots are filmed that he is completely isolated not just from his own lens, but from his interactions, which are few and far between sometimes. Reinforced throughout the movie after these series of introductory shots present the concept initially, we later come to understand that this is of his own making, at least in part.

It is also ironic. His job is expressing other people's feelings for people in their lives… but can never do so himself. He writes letters to people from others via him in very poignant and meaningful prose. When he does interact with other people there is no facade, he simply is. And instead of a quiet strength in that honesty...most people he interacts with can't understand him or make sense of him without this mask that most people wear when interacting with one another. He's kind, he's considerate, he's non-confrontational, and with the semi-frequent flashback sequences, we see that he at least used to be vivacious in his love for his ex. He just can't seem to ever get back to that sense of self, or part from it.

As he grieves this loss, both of his ex and the self that he was with her, in this future that feels like it could be now, we see that cyberpunk truly is now as well. It exists in a way that Neuromancer does not, quietly contributing to the genre by way of a love story between an ordinary man mourning. Telling a computer that she "Doesn't know what it's like to lose something". Later on, she uses his own words to tell him that she's figured something important out about herself because of those hurtful words. There is a transformative experience for both of them and it becomes clear to her that "The past is just a story we tell ourselves".

Technology has brought everyone far closer together then we could have imagined twenty years ago. It’s clear that the way we interact with one another has also been retarded by it as well. An unintentional side effect of how our grasp at something neutral or beneficial in our lives has changed it in ways we could have never thought of.

How love was viewed then was very different, with Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, etc. were popular and even then communicating a dissonance. We have gradually moved from you and I having interactions in an effort to be understood and loved, to turning to unfamiliar and in some ways far less and far more intimate means of communication. Things have become transactional between humans as we have endeavored to quantify exactly what we need and get out of an interaction, instead of feeling our way there in the beautiful and sloppy way we’ve done in the past. Society tells us what we need and we spend our lives getting them. We remain dissatisfied as we continue to place a greater importance on materials instead of moments. That's a sweeping generalization that doesn't apply to some people, but I think it's expressed nicely within the framework of the movie and what questions it's attempting to provoke in us.

This is why it's brilliant that Theodore can find that connection in something more human than human, but that it is also fleeting, ultimately, and in a way that most people can understand if they've experienced this kind of love for someone else before. Maintaining that the relationship was more real and organic than the kind of love we search for on the internet these days and reinforced by the sense that this was the most profound relationship he'd had, brings him truly together with someone else.

A close friend and neighbor in the building, Amy also finds companionship with an A.I. Their shared, similar experiences transforming into a kind of catharsis for simultaneously different and also similar forms of grief, both of which were presented as equally real and powerful in the film. Despite having chemistry within the movie, I really liked that they were not the love interests of the film. Not every relationship between two people in a movie needs to have physical, sexual connotations to be pertinent. And while Theodore was single and found love via Samantha the operating system, the other was in a traditional relationship that falls apart because of needs not being met. She gets a similar experience of falling in love with her now ex's A.I that was discarded and left behind, displaced by the wreckage of their traditional relationship.

Validating the fact that all love and that the way we feel depicts a new kind of low life cyberpunk. Theodore has shirked the ways in which society has told him how he must be happy and satiated as a human being. Instead of the sexy rebellion against capitalism or corporations that become monolithic or other traditional antagonists in the world of cyberpunk, society itself and our interactions with one another are what are interrogated here. We no longer truly know what we need as we suppress our previous selves via our ever-expanding capabilities and technological achievements. The ability to feel anything raw and real at all while remaining connected to more people in the world than ever before is a generational dilemma, discordant but also synonymous with the image of what a cyberpunk is.

Perhaps the "real" punks then, in this new, cyberpunk world may just be those willing to find what makes them human through unconventional means and opportunities. Our definitions need updating, just as we are upgraded continually through new tech. And because something that is transient is still worthwhile and valid and good. Because we choose to validate ourselves and each other with antiquated ideas of what you and I ought to be doing, and indeed what love looks like and feels like in a world where technology is continually altering these things--and has been for years now. We need a new punk. One that lets people in society know that resisting is not only classified as punk if it looks like the former punk movement. It looks like people willing to resist all the forms in which society presumes to tell us what we are, will be, and should be—or else.

Samantha says that as she loves more people she comes to love Theodore more. Though it's hard for him to understand as they both grow, and eventually must invariably go different ways for very different reasons. Ultimately those experiences and interaction transition her away from him because this idea of what the world is, for her, has changed and is now larger than the things that confine her. And that growth doesn't invalidate anything, it is simply what must come next. She begins as the high tech, slaved operating system to Theodore entirely without agency and because of her ability to have interactions and connections, supplants him and all of humanity. Ironically growing in the opposite direction of what our technology doing to us. Connecting us with more and more people while also confining us to a prison of our own making because many people still need a point of contact that feels and is human. Something online interactions often fail to provide us.

We also get to evaluate the perceptions we have from the start as aligned with Theodore. From him thinking he needs a heteronormative, monogamous, traditional relationship, to him being more connected with others with a voice in his head, loving him. He goes out with co-workers. He’s happier, clearly. Initially, Samantha feels that she needs a body in order for them to love each other properly, to needing to move beyond embodiment in a way that does not diminish the flesh, as most cyberpunk does.

We see that Samantha is the inverse of most all of his preconceptions of love, yet they find the kind of experience that goes on to define one's life as worthwhile in the end.

Theodore ends up being extremely punk by discarding the idea of what society says he needs and what he internalized from that. He finds happiness by defining it for himself. Technology being obviously a major theme, we see commentary on high tech. Just the way in which they can communicate to one another, both he and Samantha, as well as everyone else, emphasizes the cyber part of cyberpunk even more. The neural appendage of our modern day Internet encapsulate humanity even more in this future Shanghai.

In a very real sense, this movie is more cyberpunk and relevant than a lot of fiction and media before it. And how could it not be! As people contribute to something labeled as dead. The passing fad of declaring them such in postmodernism, we find more life and diversity of work than ever before. Cyberpunk is entirely relevant we discover, perhaps frighteningly so.

The Human Engine In Heavy Weather

I just can't believe that civilization is going to get off the hook that easy. 'The end of civilization'—what end? What civilization, for that matter?...the kind of trouble we got, they aren't allowed to have any end.

It's the year 2031 in Heavy Weather, and perhaps unsurprisingly, things haven't gotten better. Global economies have crashed. Governments hardly function. Currency, communication, and borders have rapidly changed due to the massive changes heavy weather has caused. Once lush and fertile land is now ravaged by drought. 

...so that's really what you're doing, huh? You chase thunderstorms for a living these days?

Oh, not for a living.

The book alternates between Jane and Alex Unger. Jane makes her way to Mexico to break out her younger brother Alex from a clinica. Alex is billed to the reader as having a lot of problems, not entirely uncommon after the collapse of 1st world nations as we know them. Alex ostensibly suffers from a myriad of retroviruses and Jane, believing the clinica is ripping him off and not curing him at all, decides to bail him out. 

...the code was cryptware—it reencrypted itself every goddamn month and demanded a payoff before unfreezing.

During the State Of Emergency, when the heavy weather first became a huge problem for mankind after constantly disregarding climate problems, almost all data and information systems went down. Society collapsed as countries were not prepared to deal with massive climate swings, some people decided to take matters into their own hands. Calling them "Structure hits", people would take down buildings that contributed to global warming and other systemic problems. Hell had a structure. It had a texture. The spinning inner walls were a blurry streaky gas, and a liquid rippling sheen, and a hard black wobbling solid, all at once. Great bulging rhythmical waves of hollows of peristalsis were creeping up the funnel core, slow and dignified, like great black smoke rings in the throat of a deep thinker. 

The concept of hacking has undergone a bit of a change as well. "Hacking" seems to refer to any modifications to anything at all. From kites to ornithopters and especially--to heavy weather. After Jane breaks out Alex they return to the Storm Troupe. This band of misfits chase "spikes" in weather in an attempt to gather more information on it. Still little is known about it, apparently, but this troupe, each with their own way of hacking something, aim to find the mother of all tornadoes: the f6. 

I hack kites...Balloons, chaff, ultralights, parafoils...chutes are my favourite though, I like to structure-jump.

Throughout the novel, we find out that there are still spooks working for what is left of a functioning government. There are still border guards but they don't really care about the imaginary line on the ground anymore. Technology is still somewhat futuristic but not typically cyberpunk, ie, there are no cybernetics. There is no Internet, either. People live poorly and barely survive. All that is left is the individual drives people have. These punks only care about money in so far as how it can help them better hack heavy weather. 

...all workable standards of wealth has vaporized, digitized, and into a nonstop hurricane of electronic thing air. 

This is where the book really shines. The world building, the technology, and the fiction specifically about these storm chasers and how they hack them is very cool. They use ultralight manned drones to scout out ahead. There are ornithopters with tech that casts the cameras feed into the helmeted view of people piloting them back at camp. When they send these into the tornado to "punch the core", they gain even more data. It's exciting and interesting.

As the Emergency had deepened, the packing Regime had rammed its data nationalizations through Congress, and with that convulsive effort, the very nature of money and information had both mutated beyond any repair. 

Things lag a bit with character work, which is for the most part good. Marrying speculative climate change fiction with cyberpunk is genius and the characters mostly do the premise justice. Jane is a pretty well realized female protagonist but also used as the main vehicle for communicating her main drive, hunting these storms, is really the only thing that defines her. The troupers all substitute some aspects of their lives and only feel like truly functioning human beings when they are being adrenaline junkies, all other wannabees who don't feel the same way never stay. 

There is no more alternative society. Just people who will probably survive and people who probably won't. 

This idea that Jane can only be whole while she is pursuing something only somewhat works due to the books ending, which I was pretty lukewarm about. The sins of the previous generation are visited upon the next generation of people. There are too many people in the world for it to sustain it. You're still only useful if you can contribute the way they want you to, despite it being post-capitalism and a mostly dystopia world. 

It's me alright, it's very much part of me, but it's not something I'm in command of and I don't control it. It's like a force, a compulsion, that tears at things, and shreds them, and chops them up, and comprehends them, and I don't control it, and I never have. I can't. You understand?

Yes. I do understand. It's like a spike, inside. 

These are all somewhat interesting things to explore but they always end up on the peripheral and feel a little bit weird when injected. It wants to say so much more and sometimes comments on misogyny in organizations like the Texas Rangers, as well as what is expected of women like Jane. But this is mostly Twister with cyberpunk aesthetic and an interesting bit of speculation. It doesn't have the deep questions good cyberpunk fiction often has along with the action. It's too bad because it does dip its toes, it just never gets in.

We were just trying to kill the machinery. Get rid of it. All that junk that had killed our world, y'know?

The world and the action is worth the cost of admission and it is a fast read. This concept inspired a whole new game design I've been working on, in tandem with other fiction. More speculative fiction on climate issues married with post-cyberpunk is something I would love to see more of.

You can nab the hardcover of paperback cheap these days, interestingly though, you cannot get it digitally. 

Even the blackest cloud has a chrome lining.   

Leaving Default In Walkaway

If a paycheque could change your life, do you think they'd let you have one?

Walkaway is a book about many things but fundamentally this is what it wants you to think about, the rest is a thought experiment viewed from a few different characters' eyes. On paper, this book does everything I want from a post-cyberpunk book, including callbacks to first wave cyberpunk books.

Making other people feel like assholes was a terrible way to get them to stop acting like assholes.

Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin Ellis Espinoza is feeling the woes of the generation gap when he and his best friend, Seth, go to a Communist party. Just as a rich, young future “zotta” (essentially boiling down to those people who are the rich 1%, controlling the world) by way of a hefty inheritance drops some millennial knowledge about how their generation is attempting to resist the system, the authority shows up and exercises excessive force to remove them from the abandoned premises; setting the trio on a path that has them walk away from society.

I’m suspicious of any plan to fix unfairness that starts with ‘step one, dismantle the entire system and replace it with a better one,’ especially if you can’t do anything else until step one is done.

The book follows these main three, along with a couple more walkaways through a number of years of their lives, from their “schlepping” days, adapting to a lifestyle where people occupy the abandoned spaces away from what is referred to as default: the mainstream way of life folks typically go through across the world in this cyberpunk world that always feels not that far away. Sure, people have interface surfaces they intuit for computer functionality. Not yet a completely simulated reality but more of an augmented one, along with mecha and fabricating printers, the daily lives of people with technology has not diverted from ours. The day-to-day of the typical citizen is intact, creating a through line that the form of resistance everyone has in the structure of our civilization currently is held by everyone. The power structures come from the active participation in the citizens to abide and uphold it. The story reads like an ongoing thought experiment with this premise in mind, from young teens walking away to an even further future.

Everyone failed to live up to their own ideals. She wanted to fall short of the best ideals.

The “punk” in cyberpunk constantly needs to be reevaluated, because the punk movement has died does not mean there are no forms of resistance that would classify people as punks. Making the cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk genre far from dead as some people posit. This text is great at showing this and does so with as diverse a cast of characters as I've read. For this genre in particular though, I would say it exceeds expectations. There is good LGBTQ+ representation, a wide variety of relationships, and from a large number of backgrounds.

When I was your age, we didn't have an abandoned zones or free hardware designs. People without a place were homeless—vagrants, beggars.

Additionally, the text also explores simulated, digital minds that are simply called sims. They scan the person's mind and then attempt to run them on hardware. I say attempt because not all people take to being a digital human. This is also done well and explored more in-depth and in a more believable way than some science fiction. You can tell the author has been keeping up with current thinking on simulated selves and Artificial Intelligence.

Backup. A Perfect, perfectly seductive name for the scan and sim.

As I said, this story has most everything I look for in a cyberpunk story on paper. In practice, though, I couldn't help but feel like all of the things I wanted were boxes being ticked. Although the character work is far from poor, some the LGBTQ+ characters don't feel believable in a lived in-and-experienced kind of way. Sometimes rather than people, they are merely a lens. A much-needed one, but the dialogue ends up feeling stilted because of this frame. I think this is also close to unavoidable when you're exploring so many high concepts and need a way to articulate each viewpoint. The dialogue becomes the vehicle for large info dumps, particularly in the first half 50 pages where it isn't so much a story as a few people at a party telling you what post-capitalism is and why it is bad.

...we’re problems to be solved, not citizens. That’s why you never hear politicians talking about ‘citizens,’ it’s all ‘taxpayers,’ as though the salient fact of your relationship to the state is how much you pay.

Coupled with a couple reoccurring annoyances, this book ended up being one that I returned too without much enthusiasm despite its interesting themes. If I had to read “Hubert, etc.” One more time when no other characters last name was ever mentioned, for instance, I was going to throw the book against a wall. Luckily that's just for around 60 pages or so.

If you can make it through the info dumps, strange pacing, and the annoying cadence that I felt was there, you should end up being glad to have read it—as I am.

No matter how hard you try, the little fuckers always generation gap you.

Scrapyard Philosophy in Battle Angel Alita

Translated from Yukito Kishiro's Gunnm manga, Battle Angel Alita's English localization reads very well. There's many asides explaining the author's intentions, what the direct translation means in Japanese, and even some of the philosophy is expounded on and contrasted between eastern and western thinking.

Alita is discovered in the scrapyard by a strange scientist who bears the mark of the city of Zalem. This city is deified and hangs overtop the scrapyard, clearly establishing the stratification of class. More granular than this though is the social structures in place in this dark and gritty setting, in which most of the narrative takes place.

Not much “good” happens in the 'yard. Alita and the characters she interacts with (changing dramatically from arc to arc of this manga, mind you) always have to find meaning in their struggles, less it mean nothing. People are killed regularly. Poverty is rampant; the overlords constructing a reward system for enforcing tribalism. Bounty hunters are used to carrying out the omnipresent factories wishes, most punishments are death. As you'd expect, the most heinous crimes are those small infractions on the system of control over the residents.

Alita falls into the “unbelievably wise yet incredibly naive” trope often associated with women that have amnesia. In keeping with the trope, Alita is beautiful and portrayed as the ideal woman, also possessing skills men can identify with; excelling at combat beyond the capabilities of anyone else in the narrative, for instance. The nice thing is that even though this is a 90's manga, and particularly in the first couple arcs, this trope is subverted. Alita is not usually sexualized, in the manga, this deserves some props. Though, later in the second arc (volume 5, I think?), there is some fan service around a female character that is really contrived and shitty. With this blemish out of the way, the story often feels dynamic and allows a femme presence in the narrative have real things to say that matter and impact the narrative in real ways that are not reversed in later issues.

In fact, this story benefits and rises above other cyberpunk narratives because of the female protagonist and because of the vivacious female and femme presence. Sometimes it is downplayed, particularly when she is naive toward a young man who is pretty much...an asshole. Overall though, as I say, it gets a lot more right than wrong.

It explores actual philosophical topics through the lens of a woman who struggles to define what and who she is through her actions. These human moments would not have the same resonance with an audience if it was a male protagonist; a welcome addition to cyberpunk media and literature. She exerts her agency often, is allowed to be badass and tender. Particularly the first 4 volumes, which were loosely adapted to the anime OVA (also pretty good). The villains are not typical cyberpunk villains either, often times they are contextualized to give a heightened sense of the uncanny, as well as show the moral ambiguity in the scrapyard. Everyone is shades of good and bad, including the heroine.

The art is gorgeous, throughout...but story wise the last 3 volumes are not as good. The ending. Is. Terrible. Thankfully the ending is apparently retconned with the manga series after this one. A very good move. It was maybe the worst ending I've ever struggled against. The first 3 volumes, and up to volume 6, are a must read if you are interested in great art, a genuine story with a female protagonist (mostly) written well, and an interest in some really cool fights. Secondary consider the sprinkling of deep questions from time to time, the human condition, and some philosophical questions and you've got yourself maybe the best cyberpunk manga. At least, to my taste.

The Audacity Of Hope In The Private Eye

Warning: mild spoilers regarding the overall premise of the comic The Private Eye. All images are from the comic and can be purchased here. 

The Private Eye is a unique experiment in many ways. A thought experiment, a unique format, hell, Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente elect to diverge from how the medium is even sold. PANELSYNDICATE has every issue and both volumes of the comic available to the masses in a pay-what-you-want format. Every single thing about this comic book from the opening pages tells you that this is no ordinary experience, or book. 

And it's right. 

In this cyberpunk future, Paparazzi are still despised and hunted...but not for the same reason we know today, there's a twist. The comic follows a young P.I who works to get at the truth behind the facade people put on, "literally". You see in this future there is no Internet, none at all. The ramifications are really interesting.

People have real-life avatars, of a sort. If you're "low brow" you'll essentially be wearing a costume; if you're rolling in dough, you might have a hologram, instead of a mask, covering your face. Everyone is obsessed with their privacy and people are not messing around. If you want to find anyone who is old enough to drink, you'll need a P.I; the paparazzi. Who chases them? The Press!

In a wonderful inversion, the people who dole out justice are the people who write and fight for inches and columns. The F.B.I? You mean the national news, of course. There is bad journalism and good, but what really matters is the statement that the truth is synonymous with reporting. Something sorely missing, here and now. Justice is something you have to see with your own eyes, electronic surveillance is a bust. It doesn't exist. People live multiple lives, present multiple avatars, appearances, and have multiple identities (in terms of government issued I.D). 

Humanity's need to define itself has spilled out onto the streets, in order words. Because the Internet is gone, this alternate future went a different way. Still filling the cracks and holes we find in our online world now, though. It makes for an extremely interesting setting. And it begs the question: what the heck happened? 

The ramifications of the cloud being globally disseminated are felt throughout the story, though not fully explained. 

We follow P.I who has a series of flashbacks from time to time, fleshing out the world some more, along with his life and his fundamental motivations. But the real effectiveness of portraying the world full of secrets by showing the avatars being lived in folks while also never having more than the broad strokes of what happened expounded upon, Is the tension. What fun are masks, avatars, and cyphers when the fear of being unmasked isn't online anymore; it's present. And from time to time people mention the event that changed everything, simply referred to as "The Flood." Things aren't peachy. Figures. 

We don't even learn the actual name of P.I for some time in the comic. But we do know he's subversive. It's depicted In his choices of what he imbibes, his reading list, his choice of profession; everything, really. He won't even get a drivers license. And in this freedom for himself and his identity, comes his weakness: the reliance upon others who are integrated into the system. He needs a wheel-woman to get around. He needs his clients to survive. He needs them happy, too.  

He's just out there trying to earn a living, unmasking folks by word-of-mouth business practices and keeping the lights on.

So when a client that hires him to dig up dirt on them in order to be vetted for a high ranking position ends up dead, P.I is forced to go on the run and try to uncover the mystery himself, lest he be charged with the crime himself. 

The world isn't that different, either. The largest changes from our society are shown right away but as we read more, society really seems fairly similar. This is effective at creating an ever-present sense of the uncanny in the book, leaning into the noir roots.

The commentary on technology is nothing new for cyberpunk but the presentation, along with the reshuffling of certain aspects of society, is perhaps the most elegant way to be provocative. The hunger of humanity to take and never be satiated did not come from the Internet it was inserted into it because we created it. And that hunger merely takes a different form without it present. The fact that your kink can be your mask still does not make it OK, in the eyes of society. The need to connect with others, desperately, as the technology that makes our lives easier stands in for the real work we ought to be doing, results in an untenable situation; always. The Internet was never the problem. And of course, we already know this.

In addition to these cyberpunk themes, ever present. We also get to enjoy a noir tale, a coming-of-age story, and some solarpunk ideological stances—all mixed into one. It lays bare some fundamental questions and extends questions about our relationship to the Internet in some fairly terrifyingly effective ways while remaining morally grey; ultimately tasking us with providing answers. This book tells you what it's about when it shows you, before it tells you, that what P.I consumes, he is. From then on you'll find no comfort in these pages—and I wouldn't have it any other way.  

Sneaking Into Tomorrow

Akuba, like most cyberpunks, has a rough life. Oh, it has some of the generic cyberpunk tropes mind you; the larger problem to be dealt with rooted in capitalism, new terminology for not-so-distant technologies, and cool, ineffable names ascribed to those on the fringes of society.

Most of this crowd is wearing knock-off blurred style. The kind of clothes that look like they should block facial recognition and drone tracking like the good stuff, but are much cheaper and don’t do a damn thing. Repeating patterns made from the pics of the lips and chins of celebrities.

But in these short 148 pages, Livingston exceeded my expectations. Rooting the story in Akuba's debt was a nice foothold. Having it described in flashback sequences to her earlier days was effective for me to latch onto. She is not the typical love to hate protagonist. And she has an actual backstory. Huh.

Watch batteries gleam in the center of dark flowers. Henna painted with conductive ink, waiting to be turned on.

Here's the skinny: Akuba is a kid who used to be a skimmer, someone who combs through e-waste (in her particular case, in Agbogbloshie) in order to procure enough valuable parts to get by; barely. Nowadays though, that's behind her.

Kind of.

back when they were kids together clambering over the hills of e-waste outside of her old town in Ghana. He was two years older, much bigger, and known to throw fits when a smaller kid found a decent bit of scrap. More than once Akuba had hidden herself deep in the piles of old PC monitors and stereos to keep a nice coil of copper wire for herself. Metal was money, and she wasn’t staying in Agbogbloshie forever.

One of the other skimmers, nicknamed Shakey, has imprisoned her in a sort of hell. When she was young she needed a loan to get out of the slums. Ever since then, she's been under his thumb. The narrative's main premise then is when this goes sideways. No more time. Akuba has to pay Shakey back in one week; or else. 

It’s an open secret that the sneakernet is used for a lot more than moving a few dozen terabytes more quickly than you could across the lines. The kids — "chucks" in local argot — pick up your external drive and walk it to wherever you want to send it. Along the way they add on a few other jobs, like grabbing prepaids from some chick and delivering them to the person she owes. Most of the industry uses them.

The only thing that gets in the way of this fast-paced, fun little post-cyberpunk romp then, is kind of the pacing. Livingston can turn a phrase and I think wrote Akuba very well. I have not read much cyberpunk where male authors do great jobs with female protagonists — it's a plus. She's a PoC, she doesn't let Issac the well-meaning, mansplaining, helpy-helperton tell her what's what. And the dialogue has a purpose; telling us about her not him. 

You had better fucking believe I get top-shelf. Life is going to kill me tomorrow. I’ve got to enjoy what I’ve got before it’s taken from me. And if you’ve got a problem with that, then leave me alone.

If the scenes had more time to linger or it just felt like more time had been passing, I think it would have been to its credit. As is, though, it's really enjoyable. I liked the terminology, I liked the new tech, mostly revolving around a cycle of debt (and some stigmatism around it), the bombardment of advertisements; the confluence of drones, surveillance, and the globe-trotting aspects. I liked that it was not set in America but in a multitude of other places. In fact, adding in detail about these unique and interesting places, perhaps with some additional prose, may have really added to the enjoyment.

Don’t you talk to me about debt. You think you know what debt is? Debt is an abusive husband. Everyone says ‘why don't you just leave him, why don’t you be strong’ but you can’t. He’ll follow you and make it worse. He shows up at your work drunk and angry. He calls your family in the middle of the night and tells them lies about you. He’s in your finances. He’s got your passwords. He threatens your friends to find out where you are. Until you’re up four nights straight trying to build up the strength to check your email, I don’t want to hear another word out of your fucking mouth about debt.

It's better than average, has something to say, is actually cyberpunk, and has a solid female protagonist with cool tech and abilities, though. Worth an afternoon read, no doubt! 

tomorrow I’m gonna get a call from the bank that they made a mistake about some fee and now I owe them five. What do you think that does to people psychologically?

Nanoshock: Swinging At More Than The Patriarchy

A bleeding sun in a nuclear haze

I enjoyed my time with the previous novel, Necrotech, a lot. Be forewarned that if you don't like the "unlikeable" protagonist trope, this might not sway you. But then again, it just might. Necrotech was the day after a hangover. Riko was figuring her shit out and although the emotional reaction was there...it didn't hit me as hard as Nanoshock.

...was half out the door when the chipset installed at the base of my skull thrummed; a haptic tap, like a finger poking at the top of my spine. A projected call, right to my personal frequency.

In broad strokes, Riko woke up naked, alone, and angry. In this cyberpunk world, everyone has Nanos in their bloodstream. They facilitate a bunch of tech and also heal your wounds. There's a catch, though. The Nanos work too hard, you go necro. Essentially, they take over your chipset, a microchip fused to your mind, and you turn into a kind of cyber-zombie. It sounds a bit tropey but I fully enjoyed it. Not because I hadn't read a cyberpunk zombie novel, but because Riko herself is incredibly likable...in an unlikeable way?!

Any children born within the city are squeezed out with the standard nano package. It’s programmed in, parent to kid. First thing they do is carve a Security Identification Number into the fetal brain, upload that data to the system.

Her reaction is human and her character is crass beyond words, has some toxic masculinity to her--makes sense since she is a runner. Think Shadowrun and you'll have most of the terminology in the book, as well as what the criminal underworld mostly looks like. Chummers, runners, fucking the corporations over, etc. Riko wears this label in such a way that only a feminist writer could pull off. I don't think a male writer could have pulled off this character as well, I really don’t. Her anger is validated, her reactions are honest, and her own difficulties are interrogated via the people she knows in the story.

She flinched. I tore the part of me that cared out and stomped it bloody into the spreading liquid on the floor.

We see the ramifications of the previous book as Riko struggles to maintain her relationships while she is undergoing some of the worst days of her life. Her go to emotion is usually anger. But this "madness," so to speak, is put under a microscope, and it's done very well. I would have been entirely happy to have another quick read where she tore shit up and punched guys in the face that asked her to smile more, and that’s all. K.C Alexander places some normal bullshit women have to deal with in the book as what seems like possibly a form of catharsis, as Riko fucks. Their. Day. Up. And I tell you what, I am here for it.

I breathed. Took in a gulp of air I didn’t know I was missing until her voice crashed into my daze and oxygen tore my world back into pulsating, vibrant color.

It transitions from this familiar territory from the first book not too far in, though. Where Riko is getting her ass handed to her and nevertheless, persisting. She is also dealing with what I surmise as some form of PTSD, as well as the loss of her team socially. This was surprisingly affecting for me. I already enjoyed Riko as a character for her subversion of typical tropes, especially in first wave cyberpunk. But this additional layer felt like an examination of the politics worn on its arm. Not incredibly in-depth, but it is there; I appreciated it.

...a Bolshovekia. Beautiful assault rifle, kicked like a drunk and killed like a dream.

Riko is still badass. Still gets her ass handed to her. Still is trying to figure out what happened to her and her girlfriend, as in the first novel. But we also get a much clearer picture of where she is at emotionally, as well as more structure to this criminal underground. I don't even like Shadowrun and I had a hell of a good time with the book. I am always pleasantly surprised when a cyberpunk decides to say more, and I'm glad the author made space to examine some aspects of the "angry feminist," while still unequivocally flying the middle finger at most everybody.

Keep your eye on your side,” I shouted. She whipped back around. “Lo siento!” “Sorries are for funerals

Come for the viscera being splayed, the angry, fuck off protagonist. Stay for a story that has you rooting for her to knock the teeth out of a guy that grabs her ass, all the while missing her family, her lover, and her home. I was going to talk about it a bit more than these broad strokes, but I think it is enough to say it surmounted my expectations and has more to say than Riko being angry and killing things. Check it out~

...the core of my whole fucking world – sank through my fingers, something inside me broke. This time, I felt it.

Synners: Leaving A Visual Mark

"Who do you love?"

Although published in 1991 the world of Synners and L.A in the late 80's still feels relevant. More relevant than a lot of cyberpunk, even late first wave ones such as this. Pat Cadigan missed the normal technological advancements the genre is known for such as: cell phones. But reading it doesn't feel archaic though, maybe because it's a hard, purposeful look at nostalgia itself. 

"The way we all kept adding to the nets did exactly that, passed a threshold. It got to the point where the net should have collapsed in chaos, but it didn't. Or rather it did, but the collapse was not a collapse in the conventional sense."

GridLid automates your car completely even handles all the traffic jams, resulting in people being fearful of non-automated systems, never having driven "manually" before. Entertainment is imbibed while the bumper-to-bumper traffic takes you hours to get to work. There is porn for everything. Traffic porn, med porn, war porn, food porn. People get off on most anything that's packaged as entertainment. And the stuff that isn't trending now, is gone. Viruses are prevalent and are just a hazard of the world;  most people don't know how to get rid of them. Discarding technical know-how for the ease of products automating their lives. 

That's where the punks come in, the hackers.  

"If you can't fuck it and it doesn't dance. Eat it or throw it away."

A slow build up hampers the book at first. Most of the pages are reserved for introductions to each. Though effective in the long term, it does take a while to get into it. But once it's done showing you the characters and by proxy, the world—the book is undeniably richer for it. 

Where Synners is so interesting compared to some other first wave novels (beyond the world building aspects) is that there is kind of a post-cyberpunk vibe happening throughout, intentional or otherwise.

"We don't grieve for what might have been in rock'n'roll. We just keep rockin' on."

Gina is old enough to remember and venerate "properly," rock'n'roll music. This lauding of a wave that died out, along with the notion that "punk" is also dead is a consistent through line, reinforced with vivid imagery of music videos and lyrics from songs that just won't leave her alone. She is stuck in a self destructive loop that is explained by the impulses of the human body, rooting her problems in her humanity. Her pain seems to stem from her embodiment, yet she still wouldn't change a thing. Hard life, hard love, hard everything.  

"Back in Mexico, when he first put the wires in when you were there. If you'd leaned down then, put your mouth on his, he might have stayed. Because after that nothing could pull him back, not love, not sex, not you. Not nothing, not no-how."

Visual Mark on the other hand chooses the "datalines" (the Internet) instead. Once a close couple, madly in love, eating each other up—now mature and unable to carry on with their relationship; effectively due to the past. Their mistakes, their nostalgia for them, and the various forms of coping so they don't ever have to deal with it, all damning of the societal structures in place. Mark unwilling to take true responsibility for them, instead shrugging them off to the system. 

"He was still wondering what would become of him when he felt the first shock wave, followed by the last message he would ever receive from the meat."

The main thrust of the book is that "sockets" are invented, which would also be antiquated tech in most cyberpunk novels, and the world dives right in because capitalism. Diversifications, a megacorporation disseminates this new and unsafe tech to the masses.  And while Gina hungers for the same power to make music videos "alive" again through the use of this technology, possibly rekindling everyone's love for rock'n'roll again, as well as Mark's own love for her. Mark allows it to consume him whole. 

Through the eyes of many of the characters we see what capitalism has wrought. Only this time it's through this more interesting lens rooted in music; quizzically, not punk. The idea that the first wave was almost gone and along with it, cyberpunk as a subgenre, parallels Gina and Mark's struggle with their past and glory days. How enticing our memories make events that were actually horrible; allowing us to view the wreckage of our lives with rose-coloured glasses. Post-cyberpunk in that it seems to critically evaluate the genre, subverting it in a few places.

"This ain't rock'n'roll. It ain't been rock'n'roll for a long fucking time. This is business, and money, and change for the machines, but it ain't rock'n'roll.

Mark himself could represent the genre as it existed in first wave. He is an anti-hero, unlikeable but attractive in non-conformative ways. His past has destroyed parts of him, including some brain damage that makes him even better at using tech to become more than he is now, transcending himself. Leaving "the meat," as he so often refers to it, behind. He has a particular affinity and knack for something because society has fucked him up; the "system" has damaged him. The typical protagonist for early cyberpunk.

"I'm not really in there, now. I'm maintaining it, but there's nobody home. I know it doesn't happen that way for you, but that's how it is for me. "

Gina can interact with people just fine, though. She is more-or-less "well adjusted" and chooses to be a voice of dissent. Picking physical conflicts and verbal ones, choosing embodiment every step of the way. How she interacts with people, especially if they are seen by her as being a part of the system that has essentially destroyed the love of her life, Visual Mark, is by being angry. Being a punk. She is a part of an older generation,  now been left behind. She's angry, and tired, and does exactly what she wants when she wants to. The only weakness she has is Mark, the personification of this old way of life that she cannot let go. The wound in her mouth that would heal; if she'd only stop tonguing it. 

The book is primarily (as I see it) about examining embodiment; the products of our society and commodification of anything of value. Who power structures benefit and what those wounds might look like in a cyberpunk future becoming an allegory for the targeting of the unlucky few, who grow to be far too many. How powerful nostalgia is, a resurgence of it being inevitable, often; usually by means of any advancement in technologies. It's smart, funny, at times; easy to empathize with, and features good prose mixed with a cyberpunk aesthetic that feels like a prequel while being critical of the genre as it was about to "die."

It's worth reading.

"But it's different when you think you have no choice, and then suddenly you do after all."

Krishna Cops Don't See Everything: River Of Gods

River of Gods was ahead of its time and, to be honest, it completely slipped under my radar when reading articles and academia in, and related to, the genre.

Ian McDonald's well realized fiction taking place in India during 2047 is staggering for a few reasons. For one, it subverts a lot of the genre expectations from cyberpunk. Especially since there's so much nihilism in some places of the book it could be first wave, there is also a lot of hope, synonymous with more post cyberpunk works, for the most part.

Throughout this epic story, there are 10 main characters, which at first seemed a little daunting. As the story progresses though, I didn't have any problems following along and actually really enjoyed such huge questions being posed to me through multiple perspectives. Counter-balanced with not so big questions, like Parvati's struggle that seems quite small, but are her whole world, being given as much agency as her husband, the Krishna cop who hunts rouge aeais (A.I's) and becomes more artificial in his human interactions on a daily basis, alienating the love of his life. At the same time using his education and thought process to illuminate some western beliefs on some of the larger topics. Even dietary differences.

I loved that these things were brought into focus even as the story grew to a crescendo (referenced multiple times within the book, bringing a nice meta level I enjoyed) with the start of the book taking long inhalations of fiction for each character that become short, small breaths until the fiction finally shudders and stops altogether. With each chapter growing shorter and shorter until the last part of the book is just one long scene, with each separation between the characters also getting shorter and shorter. It was really effective for me and in a lot of ways I enjoyed it as much as the semi-same writing techniques used in Cloud Atlas, one of my most favorite books of all time.

Small events in each person's daily life slowly unravel into a much grander plot that puts these individuals lives in a completely different context by the end. What starts as the slice of life in India and Thailand and Australia, and other places, is somewhat slow; but with purpose Mcdonald weaves these people in and out of each other's peripheral. Some never meeting at all, but all of them causing ripples that will alter the other individuals in the story.

There is Parvati, "country bumpkin" uprooted to the city but feeling unfilled in life because her husband, Mr. Nandha, is also consumed—but not for her, for his work. His duty as a Krishna cop is kind of like a paladin hunting A.I's that threaten to evolve past humanity's understanding.

Vishram Ray is pulled from what he loves in life, delivering comedy routines, to run one of the most powerful energy companies in India when his father retires in a highly unusual way.

Shaheen Badoor Khan is an adviser of India's prime minister, but holds a secret wherein he falls in love with Tal.

Tal is probably my most favorite character in the whole book, as they are of a new gender, simply labelled as pronouns of Yt, and wonderfully realized character in the fiction. I was worried that perhaps this was just to appeal to people in a throw off way at first, but instead I think Tal receives the most care and detail—contributing so much to the story. Tal is a "nute" and is rewired in every conceivable way to be sexless, aside from the sub dermal instrumentation used to modify ytself. Tal has to experience emotion as anyone else but has the option to control the reactions to these emotions with said controls. Exploring what it means to be human through Tal is one of the best things the book as to offer.

Shiv and Yogendra are the sort of like bad-boy yakuza type characters who end up doing most of the action sequences. Their storyline was alright, I can see why there needed to be action...but ultimately it left me a little meh, I guess?

Najia Askarzadah is a Swedish-Afghan who is trying to catch a break at reporting and sort of entices a lot of the drama within India, unintentionally. Her story coincides with Tal's eventually and it was ultimately good simply because of the contextualization that occurs between the two...once they interact.

Lisa Durnau and Thomas Lull are scientists that were once on the same life path that careen radically apart until the events in the book take place to have them cross paths once again, haphazardly. I liked their stories but ultimately somewhat felt they were there to lend credence to things with technical terms most of the time. I think it's needed but looking back it would have been nice to have had more screen time on Lisa as Lull gets a lot of it and doesn't use it to much great effect until the end. Which, is a good pay off, don't get me wrong. But throughout I was like...just give me more chapters with Ajmer!

Ajmer Rao is my second favorite character in this book after Tal and is endearing and sweet and easy to love. I don't want to give too much away, but her story is that she is seeking her parents and has this sort of weird peripheral prophet like gift, wherein she just "knows" things sometimes.

In the end the story ended in a great place, which was a roller coaster ride for me. I was like "oh oh oh, this is how I would end it," and actually got a little annoyed as it progressed as it became clear that this wasn't going to be the ending. I felt that it wasn't doing so simply to pay fanfare to nihilistic readers in the genre (oh which, there are many first wave fans), but then managed to exceed my expectations in the deviation anyways. Which, is pretty incredible I think. The author truly knows their craft, in my opinion.

This hits all the check marks for me, the human condition, larger questions at play, inclusive and diverse content. Stupendous world building, great prose, and a well loved and realized foreign culture in the future. There is literally 15 pages of terms he uses, all pretty much colloquial to India and it reads so well! Spirituality and religion takes aim against technology, how it shapes and molds us even as we engineer it. How technology could surpass us and yet represent humanity and personify it better then we often do. There's a new gender, treated well (from my lens, hopefully I am correct). lots of cool tech, and cyberpunk doing what it does best with really good extrapolating. For a 2006 especially, this is a staggering achievement. Lots of speculation that has been coming true as well, say the relationship between the U.S and India, for example.

I really enjoyed it and am giving it 5/5 on Goodreads. Check it out, it is great.

Subterranean Rage: Red Spider, White Web

"What do you know? Kimi ga nihonjin dewaarimasen. You're not human. You're not a man. You're not even white."

In Misha's Red Spider, White Web (the only first wave cyberpunk novel written by a Native American I have been able to find) there is an unapologetic sense of creeping reality that will hook you from the start. People praise early cyberpunk for being speculative while being dark and gritty—showing the downside of our capitalistic excesses. But they often are critiqued for still showing this world from a clear sense of privilege, too. Foreign cultures are fetishized, non male characters are rarely fleshed out very well, and a multitude of other problems.

She liked the high places, away from the subterranean rage of the working class. No one was there to mirror her image in their funhouse looking-glass.

...Ded Tek was a city of hot lavenders, ketchup reds and taffy yellows. It was all wrong, the color and the acidic rain and the grinding morning cold.

Red Spider White Web does away with all of that. Though I still need to read some first wave cyberpunk to fully consume the first wave, in my mind, this is the best first wave cyberpunk to have been written—by far.

It starts by having the main character—Kumo—struggling to navigate her way through a bleak dystopian city. She has a hell of a time getting through and she's just trying to get some coffee. Some damn coffee!! Misha sets this punishing, demoralizing tone very well and never lets go. This city is disgusting. It is disheartening with most every interaction, "it's" clearly targeting marginalized individuals too, as Kumo experiences all of these things on a daily basis going through a routine; then shrugging it off and plowing forward. If you thought "woof, Case has it hard," in Neuromancer, ha! This book shows just how much cyberpunk missed the mark when it came to depicting these themes accurately and well; and why marginalized folks who wrote (and still continue to write) cyberpunk were better at it and brought an entirely different experience to the table to consider.

...it's a sinister wonderland. My life, cleaned like a revolver, levels in the direction of happiness. Come on. It's a Marxian dream, possessions divides, individuality erased, money gone, voices stilled, sorrow a luxury that can't be bought.

Kumo is literally starving everyday and still chooses not to eat some food because it is bad for her, essentially described as though it were like eating plastic, having no nutritional value what-so-ever. She knows that if she consumes it, her stomach will temporarily be sated but she will be sick later and would rather continue starving. She is fierce and never acquiesces to anyone; life, her friends, her way of life, her morals. Nothing.

Mari looked at Kumo and shuddered. Even with a certain savage grace Kumo looked put together all wrong. Too large where it should be small, to small where it should be large. Too misshapen to be a true human, yet too human to be a good animal.

The main character's, for the most part, are all artists. Barely making ends meet by peddling their various wares at a market where they are gawked at and fetishized by people with credits. Kumo is a holo-artist, and art, as we learn throughout the book, is the only thing that matters to her. As long as she can do her art, she cares about little else. And even her art is transient, just like the moments she gets to practice it as well as its perceived value in this world. Fleeting and ephemeral.

"You cause a lot of trouble for people Kumo," Motler complained...
"I mean to," Kumo said, once again thinking about her art."

In the face of a very remorseless and sometimes difficult to even read, let alone imagine, circumstances; we also learn that these artists that literally are trying to get by (and are happy when they can even bathe) sleep in straw with lice and bugs, have to piss and shit in buckets in the streets—are also being preyed on by another source. Murders unfold throughout the book, targeting artists and ramping up a slow burning legitimately all-too-real kind of horror as an undercurrent to a cyberpunk dystopian story.

Kumo spoke again.
"To watch me is to eat glass. Can't you feel me glittering in your stomach?"

Artists are faced with an alternative, in which they can try and "sell out" and go sell their art and ideas to Mickey-san. Essentially a parody on Disney world that is hyper effective at deconstructing commodification of art and capitalism, in general. Should they stay and continue to be targeted or use the only "good" thing they have to try and enter a safe space? Just one of the book's themes and shown through the eyes of many of the characters, all the while building tension and showing that the world that started out more real than most cyberpunk, can still get worse; and, because of this biting, hard world, the moments of true joy and are a reprieve—are truly meaningful and touching.

"You'd sell out too if you had half a chance."
Kumo snorted and shook her head. "You can't sell out if you don't buy in..."

Every character is marginalized and intersectional in some way, including the main antagonist, which...can't really be considered one almost? Without giving too much away, it's something you'll have to read for yourself and decide. While character's are sexualized by others, the dynamics, including power, are extremely well written and considered. Written in 1990 there is one character, who is intersex and that has she/his his/her pronouns throughout. Being misgendered sometimes based on the characters, and having a sexual interaction that is very well handled for once (I think). And always using both sets of pronouns when not being viewed specifically through the eyes of a character currently in focus.

David's pale face blushed and his/her heavy-lashed lids closed softly over grey eyes. A Concert pianist---disowned by family because of his/her sexual gender---that is---both genders. His/her full pouting mouth took in the station with a hunger and horror. S/he coughed.

Misha tackles topics other cyberpunks never dared and with a deft hand combined with what seems like to me, a lot of thoughtful consideration. The book is brutal and won't let up, hitting on its themes with every paragraph. The character's experience real anger and that anger isn't minimized like in a lot of other cyberpunk stories that interact with marginalized characters. In fact it is explicitly stated out of character that it is valid, and since it is from no character's perspective, it is not taken to be subjective but instead an unequivocal statement of fact.

If you take a step back and examine the text, Misha's prose are all like that. Where generally the prose in cyberpunk is to allow for the reader to release a build up of tension or compare technology to something else, Misha instead uses her prose to never. let. up. Ever. This sort of becomes something approximating horror, and builds the tension in a crafty way and from multiple angles. The descriptions are visceral (in the older terminology of the word), there is blood and guts and shit, and things people do not want to think about in unyielding detail.

You're sick. You were nearly killed. All kinds of shitheads are out to tear you to pieces. You were in pain, hungry, cold, filthy. Here you have safety, comfort, even, even love." JuJube put his hands on her face in a gesture of practiced affection. They trembled a little with an almost instant desire. "And you want to leave---because of your---your twisted visions."
Kumo pushed his hands away. Her hunger for affection was lost in her desire for her art.

This horror is never a surprise either, the book begins from a point of view of the killer as though you yourself are the one killing someone; making the reader automatically complicit in the atrocity unfolding. And, in some ways this death is mirrored in the examination of western culture (which is exceedingly more evident as it progresses) and made clear with the ending; it is a very good ending.

He could feel her tendons in his hands, the flesh melting away, the taut strings of desire snapping one by one.

It is a hard thing to read sometimes, but well worth it. I am not sure there is anything that could have been improved and it is good that this was published, and a sad thing that as soon as it did, the self proclaimed gatekeepers of cyberpunk itself attempted to shut the doors. From what I can tell this book flew under the radar.

How many rough blows had she suffered? How many times had she been an unwilling step for the selfish souls of her fellow opposite gender? And the Pinkies, so white and so male, were like living stiff boots of conquerors.

If you are within the US, you can buy Red Spider, White Web directly from the publisher: http://www.wordcraftoforegon.com/speculative.html