re:mote voices: literature

Title: Freeware
Author: Rudy Rucker
Publisher: Avon

Rucker's inclusion in the classic anthology "Mirrorshades: A Cyberpunk Anthology" (Edited by Bruce Sterling) should mark him as one of the greats. At the least, it lends him a certain amount of credibility - enough to make me approach this book with interest.

Despite being the third book in this storyline, Freeware is the first Rucker book I have come across. Even then this one is an import - leading me to suspect that it is possible he is not printed in Britain. If this is the case, it may make his works difficult to find - though I'm sure your local comic/book store will have some kind of import section .

Set in the year 2053, Freeware deals with the interaction between humans and moldies; moldies being an intelligent technology-based "lifeform" evolved from technologies introduced in the previous books "Software" and "Wetware". I suspect that this book is easy enough to follow without having read the previous stories, but I feel that I may have been more comfortable reading this one after the others.

On the whole I found the book to be disappointing - never seeming to gain any compulsion or real interest on my part. The book was light and easily written making it accessible and humorous - the characters mostly easy going "stoners" and "surfers". However, I believe the retro fifties Californian Americana was one of the factors that I found to be grating.

As most good speculative fiction should be,Freeware is full of ideas giving it a tech edge that is valid and is interesting. From the use of jargon to references to hard math, there is a rich technology to this world. New smart plastic technologies allow direct interface with computers and communications without wires or jacks or other penetrative tech. Fast food - regenerating meats in cloning tanks - ranging from Beef to Wendy - Wendy being a brand name human flesh.

In the end this is a reasonable enough book, easy to read and reasonably enjoyable. But as I say not as engaging as I would have hoped, and certainly not as "great" as I had expected.

RVWR: PTR
July 1998

Title: Blood: A Southern Fantasy & Fantastic Harbours & The War Amongst the Angels
Author: Michael Moorcock
Publisher: Orion

Moorcock's latest trilogy is perhaps his best work to date - it is complex and confusing and yet strangely enlightening. Described as the "Second Ether Trilogy" it starts with "Blood: A Southern Fantasy". To begin with "Blood" is the story of two expert gamblers Karaquazian and Oakenhurst sailing up and down the Mississippi. The world is different, "the white races have fallen into decadence", and what had looked like a limitless power source has become the greatest sink. In the typical manner of mankind eager to exploit the source, they have turned it against themselves - sucking all the energy from the world. The feel is of dark days - of end days.

But it is also about love and devotion - Karaquazian's love for Colinda Dovero and Oakenhurst's for Rose Von Bek. With the introduction of the Rose we have a familiar character - having appeared in some of Moorcock's previous works, including the most recent Elric novel "The Revenge Of The Rose". The Rose is from another reality and wonders through the "worlds" - she offers the characters a chance to go to another reality where they can live without threat. This reality is reached via the Second Ether, where the "Game Of Time" is played between the forces of Chaos and Order.

"Blood" deals with the four gambler's stories as they go through their world on an inevitable course for the Second Ether. The story is interspersed with snippets of the "Game Of Time" which are recounted as pulp novels in the characters reality. These snippets are strange - they seem out of place, with the action recounted being at odds to the course of the narrative. As the book progresses, though, their purpose becomes clear in familiarising the reader with the roles and forces in the game. This of the three books is the most complex and confusing - the trilogy makes so much more sense read as a whole.

The second book in this sequence is "Fabulous Harbours" which features a collection of short stories. These flesh out the characters of "Blood" and the Begg/von Bek families, all of whom have greater parts to play in the third novel. Some of the characters featured include Sexton Begg, Prince Ulrich von Bek, and perhaps Moorcock's most well known character Elric. The stories range in topic from desert adventure to crime thriller, to pirate escapade. All the stories are good enough - though at this stage one does wonder why they are gathered here as part of this trilogy. Also curious is reading the Elric story, which I'd read before, in this context the supporting characters became the main characters, certainly giving a new perspective.

However the reasoning becomes clear as we move onto the third and final book in this series. "The War Amongst The Angels" is where Moorcock pulls his entire career into a clear and enlightening whole or alternatively loses the plot altogether. Perhaps he even does both with the revelation that Rose Von Bek was known as Margaret Rose Moorcock before her first marriage and has been using her Uncle Michael's name as a pen name for her literary career. This is the autobiography of Michael Moorcock AKA Rose Von Bek - at least it's possible this is the case in the reality a couple of steps from our own.

Having played the "Game Of Time" in the Second Ether, the characters from "Blood" have moved through to the existence promised them. Here the world is closer to our own existence, but not quite ours. As the book moves through the life story of Rose, the ultimate game, the final game is in preparation. From Rose's adventures as the highwayman Captain Hawkmoon (Hawkmoon being the Eternal Champion character from the "Runestaff" sequence of novels) with Dick Turpin to her affair with the albino Prince Ulrich Von Bek (compare to the Eternal Champion character that is the albino Prince Elric) a new perspective is given to the perception of what Moorcock's work has been about. Inclusion of characters like Turpin and Buffalo Bill in this story enliven the story further and seem to be Moorcock's sly tribute to his own pulp adventure beginnings.

With manifestations of encrusted armoured/scaled angels breaking through from the Second Ether it becomes clear that the War in Heaven is imminent. Throughout his work Moorcock has dealt with the war of chaos and order and the fine line between the two - all the while questioning perceptions of what is good and what is evil and hence what role gods have in our lives. There have always been these deep undertones and with this novel he is bringing it forward - revealing the "war" he has skirted past so many times before, giving the reader little glimpses. Though with this trilogy the "War" is revealed to be a game of strategy, where at the end of a round the people playing the roles return unharmed - however, it is a game with the biggest stakes, the outcome being in which direction the balance swings.

Here Moorcock manages to infer that all his characters have been parts, roles, pawns in the game and all the stories have been plays and strategies. This is clever and ironic - from the clear Hawkmoon reference to the subtler Corum reference - turning his Eternal Champion story-lines upon themselves in a self-depreciating manner. But with all this the characters achieve real strengths - they are emotional and confused, resilient in their depth. The context is rich and vivid - from the energy sucking fault and the Machinoix (ritual mechanical people) from "Blood" to the chaotic carapaces of the encrusted angels and legend steeped eternals of "The War Amongst The Angels". This is easily "Michael Moorcock's" most stunning and evocative work to date - I only wonder where he has left to go.

RVWR: PTR
July 1998

Title: Disco 2000
Editor: Sarah Champion
Publisher: Sceptre

This is the second in a series of anthologies - the first, "Disco Biscuits", was about club/drug culture, which I was not especially interested in. This volume, however, has a common theme of the millennium - each story dealing with different reactions, situations and, in some, a different calendar. While I find myself amused by the millennial tensions of the world and their reflection in fiction, the anthology has the added attraction of stories by Neal Stephenson, Martin Millar and Grant Morrison. In addition we have stories by Pat Cadigan and Paul Di Filippo, both of whom were featured in the highly influential "Mirrorshades: A Cyberpunk Anthology". The anthology features eighteen stories and a poem - all of which are enjoyable.

Particular stories which stand out are those by Pat Cadigan, Nicholas Blincoe, Grant Morrison, Charlie Hall, Steve Aylett, Bill Drummond, Tania Glyde, and Steve Beard. Cadigan's story "Witnessing The Millennium" is the first story in the collection, and it deals with the power of the media. People are disappearing - why? Is it a conspiracy? Or perhaps a publicity stunt for Microsoft ? Or maybe it's the media? A story about this world and what can happen when the media becomes the focus of our existence. When everything is witnessed by the camera how can you not be paranoid?

This is followed by the excellent "An English Astronaut" by Nicholas Blincoe - set in Israel with a background of cultural clashes. Western ravers pouring into places of Christian significance while the Jews and Palestinians form uneasy alliances to defend the places with equal importance to their religions, religions which do not agree with the western calendar. Through this we have the movements of individuals and their own warped interpretations of the millennium. In particular we follow a British man as he carries his vintage record player, an Elizabethan Astronaut, in search for the place to transcend into space, into heaven, in accordance with his studies of numerology. The punch line of this story is smart, and gives the story title its double meaning.

The third story is by Grant Morrison, particularly known for his work in comics - Animal Man, Invisibles, and the especially warped Batman story "Arkham Asylum". My impression of Morrison's work has always been that he is extremely cynical and it tends to show in his work. While sometimes it is too much and may bury redeeming qualities this piece balances well; which isn't to say that cynicism is a bad quality, just a hard one to balance. Similar to Cadigan's, story this one deals with the media - here in the form of advertising and the extreme it may progress to just to get attention. Biting and clever, the story is summed up by the following quote:

"You're all being duped by the capitalist media machine!...avidly consuming the latest meaningless fictions while your own devalued existences are condensed into minute long 'Video Nation' clips on BBC2!"

- shouted from a balcony by a gun wielding executive. Other nice touches include the dwarf "exactly like the one in 'Don't Look Now'" , the random channel surfing function on the TV and the negative sound technology which changes what is said into what you expect to hear.

With Charlie Hall's "Millennium Loop", you'll have seen the type of story before - very Twilight Zone or Future Shock (Strip in cult comic 2000AD). But what makes it interesting is not necessarily the looping time and inevitability of it all - rather it's the contemporary detail; the lifestyle of the nomadic DJ and their desire to retire with a final millennial rave. But even that is too simple a description of a story where all the millennial tensions of your life time are coming to a fretful peak. Philosophical, brooding inevitability - like a "dark spider".

In Steve Aylett's "Gigantic" we have a physicist who makes a startling discovery as to what the future holds. Of course, he is met with derision as he tries to warn the world, and treated like a freak, as summed by the following quote:

"The commentators deemed radical were those going only so far as to question what was being celebrated"

This is a story of all mankind's hurts and denial - all are atrocities to be revisited with the stroke of the millennium, as this tale would have it.

Bill Drummond, most widely known as member of the KLF, gives us a hypothetical excerpt from his diary. In particular the plans of K2 Plant Hire (the KLF's current incarnation) for the new millennium. This ranges from cattle mutilation to plans for Stonehenge. It is as bizarre as one would expect - but it is real, touching and intelligent with it. Dealing with the pressure to succeed, or at least to maintain your status, this is telling and witty. And for those who watch for those things - this story contains the first reference to the number 23, with another four being made through the course of the collection - can you spot them all?

"Pavlov Bitch And Yoga Cow Reach 2000" - an anarchic, erotic, drug frenzy - this story is so fucked up! A work of genius ? A disturbed one perhaps - but then, what better way to be? Tania Glyde provides us with a Britain where all meat has finally been banned for its detrimental effects. Her characters are two crazies on search for beef for an incarcerated friend. Other nice touches are the omnipresence of the web and the inevitable http://www.millennium.riots.co.uk. This piece challenges the accepted narrative style.

It appears that "Retoxicity" is an extract from Steve Beard's forthcoming novel "Digital Leatherette". Set on the 5th of November 2012, significant to the Mayan calendar, we have a chaotic tech story. Ranging from wicker man to digital avatars, this is a piece with rich textural substance. The underlying end result of the story is actually quite similar to Blincoe's "English Astronaut", with both concerned with the transcendence to another level. However the differences are in the means and the purpose. This is an intense piece in a style that I enjoy a lot. Reading this, I feel compelled to seek out the finished novel.

Other stories readers may be looking out for are ones by Neal Stephenson, Poppy Z Brite, Martin Millar, Douglas Copeland and Robert Anton Wilson. Stephenson's "Crunch" is unexpected and disappointing, especially at a mere 7 pages, and deals with a man eating cereal before leaving for an event. Brite's story is a laid back tale of drugs and sex, with undertones of Burroughs and the Millennium Bug, while Millar's story is true to form with "Radiant Flower Of The Divine Heavens", power struggles at the Millennium Bondage Ball; amusing as always. Copeland's story makes us think about the twentieth century and its chemical legacy - where pills solve all problems, but cancer and infertility remain the ultimate threats. For the invisible hand and illuminati fans we have Wilson delivering a strange story of reality, control, and perception; "Dali's Clocks" is an amusing story featuring lines like:

"If you've ever had a seeming-virus that did no real damage but kept coming up at odd moments to incite you to send lasagna to the starving aliens in Area 51 you might - just might - have intersected one of Simon's 'pataphysical invasions of ordinary mindspace."

RVWR: PTR
July 1998