Let’s get down to it. The substrata. The core bits, the tiny tech, the miniscule building blocks that make up everything and everyone. The data that informs us, “you will be a green plastic bucket,” and “you will be a dandelion seed,” and “you will be a winged buzzy thing that lives 12 hours and dies an ecstatic, incandescent death.”
The Dervish House finds British speculative fictionist Ian McDonald breaking things down to their tiniest parts and reshaping them into objects of beauty. This describes not only his writing—luminous, incredibly accurate, devilishly clever, as always—but his knack for building worlds bright and brassy enough to smell and touch. It also connotes the way in which he constructs his plots: he begins with scattered characters and slowly draws connections between them, weaving their destinies together. But, above all it describes the central, pulsating idea of Dervish: nanotechnology.
Sweet. I was right. The win goes to the man with the best name in sci-fi, and condolences to the people who must pronounce it during the awarding. Also, thank god Boneshaker didn’t win. :shudder:
Janelle Monae’s first album—Metropolis: The Chase—debuted in 2008 with a stupendous sci-fi android-fugitive love-story concept. Monae’s voice was a more powerful version of Gwen Stefani’s, the music was a crazy mish mash of retro seventies, energetic pop, sensuous balladry and high-brow orchestral (sci-fi effects thrown in for fun), and the plot was pure space operatics. With just an album’s-worth of songs Monae described an entire futuristic society built on the backs of enslaved androids who yearn for equality, justice and the chance to love whom they will—including humans. A winner all around, and an important introduction for an ambitious musician.
When the official video dropped for single “Many Moons” (above) it represented a second revelation. Set at a high-stakes android auction where dubious and powerful players vie for the best droid to come down the line, the video combined slick special effects, fabulous costumes and a caliber of dance not seen since, well, since MJ himself. The dizzyingly high production values and completeness of its vision make it play as if plucked from a longer, larger film: it stands on its own, but could easily be the dazzling centerpiece of an entire movie. One element I particularly adore about the setting is how it screams “the future” without having to rely on sci-fi tropes. No eighties neon, no sixties bodysuits, no aliens: just smart, sexy technology, and a cast of unique characters ready to fly off the screen. (Those elegant, prepossessed characters? All created by Monae. That guy in the sunglasses? ‘The Haitian’ from Heroes. Monae’s charismatic and confident performance? Her very first music video.)
The video cemented Monae’s debut as its own moment in music time, as well as setting the stage for the next movements in her futuristic Suite. And, happily, the second album—The ArchAndroid—will be released this very week. Keep fingers crossed for another incredible video to accompany the music of this totally groundbreaking artist!
Hmmuh? I thought everyone had agreed that Willy Gibby’s Neuromancer was untouchable by grubby movie fingers? In an unspoken-baseball-rule kind of way. In a don’t-cross-the-pitcher’s-mound-when-walking-through-the-infield-A-Rod-I’m-looking-at-you kind of way.
Don’t get me wrong: I love “Cube” as much, nay, more than the next girl, but…no? No! Hands off the sacred origins of cyberpunk!
Africa = Cyberpunk argues Ghanian Jonathan Dotse at the blog AfroCyberPunk. How exactly does that equation work? Like this:
Africa is science fiction.
Not the science fiction of your grandfather or the Foundation of your Asimov, no. Africa lends herself to the dystopian gloom of failed states, the iron rule of corruption, cartels snaking cold fingers into the upper echelons of government, and high tech gangs of disillusioned youth. Follow her streets into dark melancholy and taste her despair, the bitter and the sweet simmering together to form her unique flavor. Follow the trails of waste spilling out from her gutters, follow them down to the banks of her industrial empires, her charred forests, and damp mines. You will not find your Jedi warriors here, but you might run into some street thugs or hackers, scammers, drug dealers, con men and women, street children, ritual murderers, street evangelists preaching hope and doom. The only Force here is hard currency, and it’s dark on both sides. Embrace her reality.
Africa is cyberpunk.
The science fiction/spec fic/future worlds of developing nations is something I’ve been thinking on over the past few months.
Science Fiction (that which generally takes place in space, where cosmic epics take place between galactic powers) still currently belongs to the “first world,” or at least that’s what those who write it would have you believe. Very little cosmic territory has been allowed the developing world, and not terribly much hard sci-fi is coming out of those nations (at least that has been translated for Anglophone audiences) to claim it.
But cyberpunk came out of science fiction to pull it—kicking, screaming, firing its lasers futilely—back down to Earth. Cyberpunk cities are generally polluted, overcrowded, socially striated, globally connected and fraught with Problems. Sounds like the developing world (India! Mexico! South Africa! Vietnam!) is fertile, solid ground for real cyberpunk to emerge. And it makes it the best place from which to see fantastic emerging spec fic.
With ears perked and finely attuned to any news about sci-fi author Ian McDonald’s forthcoming novel, The Dervish House, I decided to spend part of the wait delving into his catalogue of older books. I chose Desolation Road, his inventive, lyrical 1988 debut novel. Does it hold up after 20 years? Does it compare to his current works, such as River of Gods andBrasyl?
Have you noticed any of these books over the last six months? Have their bright covers and intriguing synopses* tempted you as you walk past your local book purveyor? Have you lain awake pondering whether they are worth your precious time and attention? Have countless minutes elapsed while you shifted from foot to foot in the shoppe aisles, hefting one and then the other in hand, comparing their relative densities, paper quality and font choice**? Would you like to know which of these five are nominated for the Nebula award for best novel***?
Friends, I have read all of these books. I am here to assist you.
Read on for scathing criticisms and ranting delight.
*Do not, under pain of death, read the back cover synopsis of The Manual of Detection. It is both factually wrong and riddled with spoilers.
** Boneshaker is printed in brown ink. BROWN.
*** Hint: four out of these five are nominated, all in the same category. Apparently, the nomination committee lives behind my bookshelf.
Yeah, so he was telling me about this movie called “Snow Crash,” and, well, it’s not actually a movie yet, but it totally should be. It’s, like, a book right now, but he was telling me about it, and it’s so totally perfect for like a big blockbuster action movie. I don’t remember who wrote it, and I haven’t read it, but he was describing all these scenes that are like perfect for a movie, and we were casting it in our heads. It’s like there are all these people, and they’re all online— like the Matrix—but not. And all of these people are also addicted to this drug. That’s the ‘snow’ reference. And it’s a really good story.
So, we decided that Mark Ruffalo would be perfect for the lead guy. I don’t remember his name. Did you see 13 Going on 30? Mark Ruffalo is the lead in that. He’s so dopey and cute, he’s perfect. Megan Fox would be the main girl. She’s like this really sexy programmer chick, and it would be so awesome. I want Jerry Bruckheimer to make this movie. It’s gonna be so legit.
The girl who is excitedly talking about making Neal Stephenson’s beloved cyberfreakout Snow Crash into a movie is the most normal of college girls. Think the Gap plus a smidge of Columbia sportswear. None of her very normal friends have heard of it. They are Not geeks, Not nerds. They are terrifying.
This unholy union of terrible terrible terrible ideas is simultaneously horrifying and gut-bustingly funny. Mark Ruffalo + Megan Fox + Jerry Bruckheimer + a hilariously awful plot synopsis = me holding my GUFFAWING laughter in, not even able to sip my coffee for fear of snorting through my nose. Oh, so awful.
And yet, it is exactly what would happen should Hollywood ever make Snow Crash into a blockbuster, which, mercifully, has not happened yet. Thank Hiro Protagonist for small miracles.
Ian McDonald (River of Gods, Cyberabad Days, Brasyl) has made writing speculative fiction set in second and third world countries a house specialty. Coming down the pipe in June/July of this year will be “The Dervish House,” a new techno thriller that takes place in a country woven through with complex dichotomies and warring traditions: Turkey.
“In the sleepy Istanbul district of Eskiköy stands the former whirling dervish house of Adem Dede. Over the space of five days of an Istanbul heatwave, six lives weave a story of corporate wheeling and dealing, Islamic mysticism, political and economic intrigue, ancient Ottoman mysteries, a terrifying new terrorist threat, and a nanotechnology with the potential to transform every human on the planet.”
Sounds like classic McDonald to me: seemingly disconnected character plots that eventually cinch close and tight, some sort of techy/bioware crisis that only they can prevent, and a fascinating, richly textured country in which to set his characters racing.
Load up your playlist with some Mercan Dede and get out your Turkish-to-English slang dictionary, because this will be a frolic through some amazing territory. Can’t wait.
Gosh, and what’s this little number below, which drops around the same time as “Dervish?”
Cute Circuit’s Galaxy Dress. Really gorgeous to see in motion, and totally sci-fi.
I can just picture a fancy party of the future with everyone wearing these. Two women spot each other with the same light pattern. One harumphs and presses a button, changing the colors.
Holy crap, Gaius Baltar is real. Can’t you see this guy giving up scientific secrets to a supermodel Cylon for sexings? Can’t you see him lying, stealing and begging to stay alive—tears in his teary, teary eyes—aboard a starship with the remnants of humanity aboard? Don’t you kind of want to punch him in the face?
So, scientifically speaking: if it looks like a Baltar and talks like a Baltar and has ridiculously coiffed hair like a Baltar and makes you want to punch him in the face like a Baltar…yep. The harbinger of death is nigh.
So excited was I by Ian McDonald’s 2004 Indian opus, River of Gods, that I immediately scrambled to acquire his 2007 foray into national/ethnic sci-fi, Brasyl. Clocking in at under half the length of River, Brasyl deals with another bustling country on the verge of greatness: Brazil.
River of Gods astonished with a blinding whirl of intricate world-building, so much so that its central plot was almost incidental. Content to simply follow his multitude of interesting characters as they ambulated through the dizzying world of 2047 India, the main plot of the book was an afterthought, a quick tying together of disparate plot strands and A.I. pyrotechnics.
Brasyl, taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and the Amazon jungle, follows quite a different structure. The chapters not only jump from narrator to narrator, but back and forth in time: from a Jesuit missionary on the Amazon in 1732, to a cutting-edge reality tv producer in 2006, to a slick and almost-legal entrepreneur in 2032. Sticking with these three voices exclusively, McDonald hits upon some of the pivotal cultural landmarks of Brazil: its history as an exploited colonial depot for slaves, its modern obsessions with beauty-capoeira-guns-soccer-cool factor, and a future Brazil that may well be a locus for all sorts of black market technology and lucrative possibilities.
Streamlined and curt, Brasyl eschews the tendency for magnificent sprawl that defined River and instead presents a compelling, tight plot. Instead of the artificial intelligence and battle robots of India, the three protagonists of Brasyl must contend with quantum realities and multi-dimensions. (Yes, even the Jesuit in 1732.) Whether entrenched deep in the murk of the Amazon, ensconced in a glittering penthouse in 2006, or racing through favelas and neon canyons on motorbike in 2032, McDonald’s characters will have to face the possibility that their Brazil isn’t the only—or the best—version.
I ran through the 599 pages of Ian McDonald’s River of Gods as if the entire Hindu pantheon were hot on my heels. Compulsively readable, bursting with literary acrobatics, McDonald’s hefty hardcover plunges the reader into the meticulously crafted world of India, year 2047.
India, however, doesn’t exist anymore. Imagined as a fractured patchwork of nation-states, the state of Bharat is just as hectic and multilayered as ever. Bharat still has one foot firmly rooted in the traditions of purdah, religious fervor and caste, and the other dancing towards a dizzying future full of A.I. technology, genetic manipulation and quantum physics. Skyscrapers rise dazzling between one day and the next, ascetics starve themselves on street corners in dhotis, and the entire nation is addicted to a daily soap opera that stars actors who only exist on humming servers.
Navigating their precarious way through the dichotomies of the political, cultural and scientific landscapes are a dozen compelling characters. Some of the most intriguing include an Afghan journalist aching for her big break, a cop who specializes in hunting down rogue A.I., and a genetically restructed “neuter” who writes plots for the nation’s most popular television show. Others include scientists, gangsters, politicians, housewives, and a young woman who may be a little more than human.
This is a world not yet spun out to ridiculous sci-fi proportions, but one yet recognizable to us, its forebears. The most compelling aspect of River is the astonishing depth of world-building, and the amount of extrapolatory thought inherent in Bharat’s creation. Each new technology is based on breakthroughs that could arguably happen over the next forty years, each cultural more is either rooted in Indian tradition or is a realistic possibility. The ease with which McDonald slings Hindi/Urdu words, and his apparent familiarity with the religious currents, customs and history of India all add richness and flavor to this incredible literary tapestry.
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Posted by various vapor, assembled. on Wed Sep 1st at 9:08PM
Posted by Leif on Fri Nov 13th at 10:36PM
I ran through the 599 pages of Ian McDonald’s River of Gods as if the entire Hindu pantheon were hot on my heels. Compulsively readable, bursting with literary acrobatics, McDonald’s hefty hardcover plunges the reader into the meticulously crafted world of India, year 2047.
