Favourite monkey #2

• wherein the shelf monkey continues to peruse his vast library for those works of fiction that have tickled his funny bone, goosed his cochlea, frightened his liver, or in some way achieved some sort of response from some area of his anatomy.
• i.e. the monkey's favourite books this far in his short life. 
• and what excites the monkey today? A good old-fashioned mind-job.

Today's intriguing instalment: 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
by Philip K. Dick

"The whole experience of empathy is a swindle."

 
Plot synopsis (from the Official Philip K. Dick website):

By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans.

Emigrees to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.

Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.

When did the shelf monkey first read this? I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (hereinafter DADES?) when I was twelve, the year that the book was commonly known under its cinematic adaptation title Blade Runner. Being a huge Harrison Ford fan at the time — still am, although I wish he would take some chances, hook up with Tarantino or Soderbergh, c'mon, man, try something — but being unable to watch the R-rated film due to a mixture of my age and my parents' just crazy unwillingness to sneak me in to the theatre, I had to make do with the book.

What were the first impressions? DADES? hit me like a tonne of proverbial bricks. My sci-fi knowledge up to that point was confined to the adventures of Tom Swift and John Christopher's Tripod trilogy. Being introduced so young to the thematic complexities of P.K. Dick probably warped me.

How many times has the shelf monkey read this? Estimation? Somewheres in the teens. Possibly even twenty.

Has it withstood the perils of time and maturity? In the name of Mercer, yes.

New thoughts:  Is it at all strange to claim a work that raises immense levels of despair and existential angst in the reader as a favourite? It feels wrong somehow. 'Favourites' should induce joy and wonderment, not dread, fear, and self-loathing. Nevertheless, there you have it. Id est, quid id est.

DADES? is one of those novels that reveals more and more every time you read it, exposing new pleasures and forgotten plot points. The movie version keeps pushing the novel to the side in my head, and while it is a superb film, it really isn't the novel. Aside from a few themes and character names, it's barely recognizable from its literary origins.

Like the movie, DADES? concerns identity, and the increasing loss of it in society. In this instance, a society wherein most of the able-bodied people have fled the planet after World War Terminus, and the citizens who remain are slowly succumbing to the radioactive dust which coats the planet. It is a world where entropy rules, one where every person and thing is turning to the wondrously awful concept of "kipple:"

"Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match, or gum wrappers or yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you leave any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more."

While the world yields itself to its kipplization, its citizenry makes do with a variety of mood-altering conveniences. There's the Penfield mood organ — a clear comment on the increasing use of medicines to alleviate states of emotional being — a device wherein the user may dial an appropriate mood to get through the day. Rick Deckard gets through the day by dialing for "a creative and fresh attitude towards his job," and he is horrified when he discovers his wife Iran has dialed herself a six-hour self-accusatory depression. As she explains, explaining one of the novel's leading themes:

"I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness [in the surrounding apartments] intellectually, I couldn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting — don't you see? I guess you don't. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness: then called it 'absence of appropriate affect.' So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair. So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything, about staying here on Earth after everybody who's smart has emigrated, don't you think?"

As Deckard works to hunt down and kill the androids that have infiltrated Earth, he undergoes an existential crisis as he begins to empathize with them. In this future, empathy is in short supply, which is a main reason for the rise of Mercerism, a religion that uses a virtual reality linkup with the user to increase their empathy through a metaphorical trek up an endless mountain alongside a very old man. As you trek, stones are hurled from unseen enemies, often leaving the Mercerite bruised and cut, allowing them to become more in tune with the feelings of other. The lack of empathy is a major reason why humanity is seemingly on its last legs, with officials claiming that "Mercerism reduced crime by making citizens more concerned about the plight of their neighbors." This is also why it is considered the height of one's existence to own at least one true animal (most animals being extinct, and people making do with electronic facsimiles). I have in my literary life had few emotional responses as strong as my pity toward Deckard as he uses his bounty money to purchase a real goat; the joy he has, the utter belief that this will make him a better person, is as pathetic and heart-rending a moment as any I've read.

The empathy shortage is also a reason why androids fit in so well. Deckard's investigation leads him to a bizarre subworld of his city where is seems androids have taken over the neighbourhoods, with their own police force. As his quest continues he becomes increasingly depressed, unable to determine the real difference between man and machine.

DADES? is not perfect; there are some plot points that still don't make sense to me, especially Deckard's sudden realization that the Russian policeman he is sitting with is an android. Deckard also obsesses over how hard these new androids will be to track and kill, yet they appear remarkably easy prey.

For me, such moments do not matter. DADES? gets to me like few novels ever have; perhaps it is a flaw in my mindset, an error in my programming, but sometimes I just need to feel bad. Like Iran, sometimes I need to remind myself of the misery of the world, to force myself to accept feelings I don't enjoy. Some may achieve this by reading Kafka, or the plays of Chekov. For me, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the cure for my happiness.

Verdict: still a favourite monkey

Tiny Monkey droppings - The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar

The Bookman (Angry Robot, 2010)

by Lavie Tidhar

Description (from the publisher)

When his beloved is killed in a terrorist atrocity committed by the sinister Bookman, young poet Orphan becomes enmeshed in a web of secrets and lies. His quest to uncover the truth takes him from the hidden catacombs of a London on the brink of revolution, through pirate-infested seas, to the mysterious island that may hold the secret to the origin, not only of the shadowy Bookman, but of Orphan himself…

What the Tiny Monkey Thinks

This is a type of book I'm beginning to refer to as a Dog's Breakfast Novel; it's messy, there's a little bit of everything, and hopefully it's palatable to the tongue and not simply snouts and entrails. What I mean is, the author seemingly throws everything into the mix, and in order for it to work, it better have verve, style, and entertainment value galore, or it's going to be really sticky (Gord Zajac's recent Major Karnage is another such example). Luckily, Lavie Tidhar (of the gloriously weird Tel Aviv Dossier) has style to spare, and his steampunk adventure novel echoes Verne and Wells while reviving the go-for-broke cliffhanger style of classic pulp fiction. Tidhar's narrative — set in an alternative history Victorian England where automatons converse with humans, martian probes are being launched into space, and intelligent lizards rule the land —is a hodge-podge of indelibly cool ideas and gee-whiz enthusiasm, wrapped in loving affection for the genre and its progenitors. Tidhar has great fun mixing historical personalities such as Karl Marx and Jules Verne with fictional heroes of the time, and the pages are rife with in-jokes for the literary crowd. I cannot say as I fully understood the complexities of the plot (it gets sensationally strange at times), but as Orphan's adventures unraveled, taking him from the slums of London to the high seas to the shore of mysterious islands, I found I didn't care one whit. I'll be looking up The Bookman's sequel Camera Obscura as soon as I can.

Tiny Monkey Greatly Enjoys the Ride

Monkey Droppings -Robopocalypse vs. Major Karnage! Winner take all!

Today, the monkey pits two two sci-fi actioneers against each other.

One is a heavily-hyped apocalyptic epic with a huge promotional push and expectations up the ying-yang.

The other is an unassuming, almost unheard-of sleeper from an unknown Canadian author.

Guess which one works, and which one doesn't?

Robopocalypse (Doubleday, 2011)
by Daniel H. Wilson

"You humans are biological machines designed to create ever more intelligent tools. You have reached the pinnacle of your species. All your ancestors' lives, the rise and fall of your nations, every pink and squirming baby—they have all led you here, to this moment, where you have fulfilled the destiny of humankind and created your successor. You have expired. You have accomplished what you were designed to do."

This is the big one, the tentpole action epic of the summer reading season! A high concept thrill ride, already speculated to soon be adapted to film by Steven Spielberg! With blurbs by heavy-hitters such as Clive Cussler! Lincoln Child! Robert Crais! The author Daniel Wilson has a Ph.D. in robotics! He's a genius! How could this be anything less than a genre masterpiece?

Quite easily, as it turns out.

It's all in the execution. Depending on whose hands wield the power, a tale of robots battling mankind can be either spectacular, exciting, and thought-provoking (think The Terminator), or dreary, repetitive, and uninspiring (Transformers). Robopocalypse lands far on the lesser end of the spectrum; it has some good ideas, but it has a paucity of style, little originality, and not much in the way of imagination.

Granted, it starts out nicely, as an oral history of humanity's battle with the robots (tremendously reminiscent of the format of Max Brooks' World War Z, a novel about the zombie uprising that is nowhere near perfect, but aces out Robopocalypse on every level). Humanity is just starting to recover from its years-long struggle, a struggle which began at the advent of artificial intelligence. The intelligence Archos viewed mankind as a danger, both to itself and to all other forms of life on Earth, and began the conquest of the planet through control of all mechanized resources it could summon.

There is a hint of real originality at one point, when true artificial intelligence is created in other robots, who then in turn decide to rebel against their robot overlord, but such flourishes are lost in pages of deadening prose and disposable, interchangeable characters. Three days after completion, I am hard-pressed to remember anything of the plot save a few scenes of robotic warfare that would, in a movie version, likely raise the coolness factor, but in the book merely get an eyebrow raise. I got far more entertainment in twenty-two minutes from the robot rebellion in the episode "Mother's Day" from Futurama, where I was treated to humour, style, and the image of Hermes Conrad screaming "Help! My stapler is collating me alive!" while being chased by an electric stapler. Not to mention the immortal phrase, "Conquer Earth, you bastards!"

So Robopocalypse isn't great, or even good, but what's even more damaging is that it is a dull, dull book. Direct comparisons are made in the publicity to Michael Crichton and Robert A. Heinlein, but Wilson has none of the satiric or stylistic flair of the latter, and very little of the former's ability to synthesize believable scientific research into a propulsive plot. Crichton was no maestro, but at his best (The Andromeda Strain, Sphere) he was able to throw out vast quantities of scientific exposition that never bogged down the storyline but instead actually enhanced it. Crichton didn't write great art, but he wrote great pulp (until he became bogged down in his own portentousness). Wilson's research isn't half as well presented, and never remotely believable, which lends the book an air of fantasy rather than the true-to-life science it appears to aim for.

Robopocalypse is a real let-down, not even a mildly diverting beach read. I was promised Crichton and Heinlein, Spielberg and James Cameron; I was given Michael Bay instead. Not a fair exchange.

Not even close.


VERDICT: MONKEY IS DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED



Major Karnage (Chizine, 2010)
by Gord Zajac

"Welcome to the Dabney Correctional Executive Class Hospitality Centre. We hope your stay with us is a pleasant one. Please enjoy these pastoral images and soothing mood music while you await trial and sentencing. And remember—at Dabney Correctional, we believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty. And it shows."

Now, see, if you're going to be derivative, this is how you do it.

Major John Karneski ('Major Karnage' to his friends/enemies) is unhappily enjoying forced retirement. After many glorious campaigns, he and his soldiers have been forcibly confined to a Veteran's Home for observation and re-education. In a world without war, a world completely run by the Dabney Corporation and its mascot cat, warriors are unnecessary, but people as violent as Karnage cannot be expected to meld back into society willingly. So for the better part of two decades Karnage has been held against his will, his violent tendencies held in check by a Sanity Patch on the back of his head which will explode if stress levels reach critical mass. At the start of Major Karnage, the patch is set at Lemon Breeze, with colour-coded levels that run the gamut from Snow White to Tricycle Red, with stops at Daffodil, Citrus Blast, Peachy Keen, Tangy Orange, Sharp Cheddar, Coral Essence, and many others. At Tricycle Red: boom!

But Karnage knows that the world is not safe. His man Cookie has been receiving alien transmissions in his skull, and it looks as if Unidentified Flying Objects of Death! are already on their way to lay waste to humankind. Only Karnage can hope to halt the invasion, but he'll have to fight his way past the guards, and then have to cope with a world that has moved on without him. To save the world, Karnage will have to deal with Dabneycops armed with Goober Guns, bizarre religious cults, alien sandworms, squidbugs, and a diligent cop named Sydney who can incapacitate a man with one flick of her baby toe:

"[Karnage had] never seen anyone move like this before. It was like a martial arts version of shiatsu. Sydney knew all the right pressure points to cause extreme pain in the body. It was brilliant. It was like ballet, except it didn't suck."

Quite obviously, Gord Zajac is first and foremost concerned with having a good time. This is not hard science fiction, and unlike Robopocalypse it doesn't have any pretensions to be. No, this is glorious b-movie-worth sci-fi ridiculousness, a non-stop chase through a landscape limited only by Zajac's imagination. Heavily indebted to pretty much every movie and novel you can think of, Zajac begs, borrows, and steals to great effect, steamrolling over plotholes and inconsistencies with glee.

Let's face it, you are either in the mood for such entertainment, or you're not. Me? Sign me up for more. Zajac is not a great stylist, but he moves his plot along with a sense of fun that is impossible to fake. There's more than a bit of the joy of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series and the early satire of Heinlein to be found here, by way of Douglas Adams. It's an anything goes, balls to the wall approach that can be wearying, but manages to hit all the right notes. It's nonsense, but it's good nonsense. ChiZine has always put out a quality product, but this may be their first release that is just out and out genre merriment.

If Zajac sees fit to continue the adventures of Karnage, I, for one, will be eagerly awaiting the next installment. Robopocalypse may get the endorsements and the mega-budget film, but Major Karnage is the winner.


VERDICT: MONKEY LEAVES WELL-SATED