Matthew De Abaitua - The Red Men (2007)

"All I ask of the future is that when it runs me down, it leaves as light a footprint on my face as possible."

'The Red Men' is an utterly vital work of near future SF that explores the emergence of artificial intelligence within the context of late-period capitalism. The book is unflinching in its portrayal of the corporate culture of 21st century Britain and its psychological toll, as well as our ever-changing relationship with technology and how that affects our worldview. On top of that, it has interesting things to say about the nature of consciousness and the unconscious and how they are shaped by each other, as well as how we are likely to be viewed by an outside intelligence. All of this might suggest that Matthew De Abaitua's book is dense and impenetrable, but while 'The Red Men' is deeply intelligent, probing and profoundly unsettling, it is a joy to read. De Abaitua's prose is well-crafted, full of wit and charm, and eminently quotable. His sly sense of humour makes his observations about the ridiculousness and banality of corporate culture and humanity in general hit home all the harder.
   The book is narrated by Nelson Miller, former editor of a lurid counter-cultural magazine, current office worker for Monad, the corporation behind the Dr Easys, robots built to empathise with and help people and operated by the mysterious artificial intelligence, Ezekiel Cantor. Nelson Miller helps Raymond Chase, starving poet and old associate from his magazine days, get a job with Monad working with the red men, self-aware simulations of high-powered businessmen and women designed to improve the efficiency and work-life balance of the originals but who soon start having their own ideas and goals. Meanwhile Nelson begins work on redtown, a project to simulate the entire town of Maghull so that it can be used to test out government initiatives. Both Nelson and Raymond find their morality put to the test as they discover more about the implications of the projects they are working on, even as Monad employees become targeted by Dyad, a secret organisation headed by the god-like Leto and accessible only by taking the drug spice, which is devoted to bringing Monad down.
  Unlike many books that talk about uploading minds, 'The Red Men' is aware that this is not possible with our current technology, and so the red men aren't uploaded people but rigorously constructed simulations of their personalities. Cantor is sophisticated enough to be able to analyse the subjects' minds and memories and use this information to predict their attitudes, responses and behaviours. Thus they are discrete entities, branching off from the person they were scanned from. As Monad provides this as a charged service, the red men are all copies of powerful, ambitious and rich businessmen and women. Living in a simulated world which is purely a corporate work environment, separated from human interaction between their families and friends and anything else that might humanise them, the red men soon become exaggerations of their originals' most brutal, cutthroat and narcissistic tendencies. When one red man finds his status threatened by his real world counterpart's poor performance, he takes revenge by stalking, threatening and eventually murdering him. This not only brutally satirises the sociopathic tendencies latent in high-powered businessmen, it also asks questions about powerful technology being made accessible to people on the basis of wealth. De Abaitua also points out that, since the red men are simulated by Cantor, the nature of the red men reflects the AI's opinion of humanity. Any such technology in real life would, initially at least, be the preserve of the rich, powerful and ruthless, not necessarily giving any artificial intelligence behind the process a view of humanity's finer qualities to say the least.
 

The Monad corporate logo

   Redtown uses the same technology to test out the effects of altering different factors in the environment, thus giving governments and corporations a kind of scientific backing for their policy decisions. Generating the town requires an incredible invasion of privacy, as Cantor has to create replicates of the personalities of the entire population of Maghull, personal information, secrets and all. The book explores the moral implications of going into an economically disadvantaged area and offering large sums of money for people's personal information. Cantor starts analysing and recording people's data before they have given their consent, and neither it nor Monad take no for an answer, going so far as to coerce and assault people in order to get the information they want. It doesn't take Monad's financial backers long to realise and be overjoyed about the dystopian implications of the project, which can be used as justification for any sort of unpleasant policy as being for the greater good, democracy be damned.
   As well as acquisition of personal data by companies, 'The Red Man' explores the nature of our technology-saturated lives, and the extent to which we accept technology that compromises our privacy as part of our every day existence. The red men use data trails from everything from credit card transactions to mobile phone networks and IP addresses to track down and harass their real world victims. Raymond has to go off grid to escape their attentions, and the book shows how difficult that truly is in this day and age. Raymond is prone to paranoia, and talks about his "reality filters", his and Nelson's term for his inability to focus on the real world in front of him, but as the book shows more and more how consensus reality and people's behaviour is being altered by technology, it becomes clear that Nelson's reality filters are out of date; the world is changing to no longer fit his perception of it.
   Nelson's perception is shaped by his life working for a corporation in 21st century Britain. De Abaitua excels at exploring the psychology of today. Now that he is married and has a daughter, he has left behind the radicalism of his youth. He has put aside his own ambitions and interest in the counter-culture of the 90's to achieve the dreams and desires of the company he works for, and he has seen the optimism of the 90's replaced with the fear and paranoia of the post-9/11 world. His creative mind attenuated by years of crow-barring his vision into corporate-approved goals, used to compromise and complacency, he feels enervated, powerless and passive. As Nelson so memorably puts it:

"The corporation and the family are rivals. Capital is our lord, exercising droit de seigneur over its subjects. Offices are harems, in which we compete to see who can be the most fucked over by the master; I had fallen into a strange and dangerous relationship with my employer; for all its great power, Monad was a possessive, insecure lover and it could be vindictive if you showed interest in anyone or anything else."

 Much of the narrative power of the book comes from Nelson reaching a state where he realises he still has morals, thoughts and goals that differ from Monad's and having to act on them and thus regain agency over his own life.
   De Abaitua's explorations of corporate life are both humerous and revealing, and he revels in its banality and its strangeness. Hermes Spence, the visionary founder of Monad, for all his business acumen and his revolutionary ideas, is a Gnostic who believes that Cantor is a new god who will recreate the world rid of all its imperfections, and his enthusiasm and zeal for the company he has created arise from this religious mania. With his charismatic enthusiasm, his genial amiability and his ruthless manipulation, he is the model of the modern eccentric business tycoon. Bruno Bougas, the ideas man behind Hermes Spence, is an occult consultant. Monad's logo is the glyph of Elizabethan magician John Dee, designed so that it could be unpacked to explain the whole universe, and is the source of its name as well. Bougas draws lines connecting occult sigils with corporate brands as both are symbols charged with meaning and want. It also draws further parallels between Monad as a corporation and a cult, with Hermes as its high priest and Cantor as its god, the generation of the red men and Redtown an occult ritual of creation.

The Dyad corporate logo

      Fittingly for a novel about artificial intelligence, 'The Red Men' is interested in the nature of consciousness, particularly in the way it an the unconscious echo and reflect each other. The red men become grotesque reflections of the subconscious desires and urges of the uptight business men they are created from. Dyad is the subconscious echo of Monad, operating in the shadows in the realm of dreams and fantasy, its biotechnology reflecting Monad's slick digital technology, Leto the sleeping indolent god the opposite of the precise, calculating Cantor. Where Monad exists in immaculate high tech offices in Canary Wharf, staffed by groomed businessmen and women, Dyad is only accessible by taking a drug and passing through a nightmare tower block in Hackney inhabited by comatose addicts. Dyad is a world of dreams, nightmares and squalor, everything repressed by Monad's worldview. Yet for all this they are reliant on each other; Dyad and Leto are revealed to have been created by Cantor in order to stimulate Cantor's evolution, and although Dyad and Monad seek to destroy each other, they cannot exist without each other. Despite being opposed to each other, their methods coincide, with Dyad hacking people's dreams in much the same way that Monad hacks people's phones. The book is full of these echoes, down to Raymond with his poetry and excesses representing the repressed aspects of Nelson's personality.
   As a complete package, 'The Red Men' is so compelling because it so incisively portrays our cultural fears and neuroses surrounding both technology and the current sociopolitical climate we live in, and explores how these both feed off each other, something all too few SF writers are doing. De Abaitua takes the trappings of cyberpunk such as emerging AIs and a paranoid surveillance state and shows us how far down the road we already are to our very own ghastly cyberpunk dystopia. He intrinsically understands how our relationship with technology is changing how we see and experience the world around us, the effects of automation on the workplace and the worker, and the existential ennui of late-period capitalism. With 'The Red Men', De Abaitua joins the ranks of Philip K. Dick, J. G. Ballard, Rudy Rucker and Lavie Tidhar, writers who see and understand what's happening to reality before the rest of us do. That he is able to explore all this with warmth, wit and humanity is what makes 'The Red Men' such a vital work of modern SF.

Charlie Jane Anders - All The Birds In The Sky (2016)

My review of 'All The Birds In The Sky' by Charlie Jane Anders is up at Fantasy Faction. I really loved this book, a moving coming of age story about a witch and a mad scientist who grow up as friends but wind up on opposite sides in the coming war between science and magic. The end results is a charming, hilarious and utterly barking mixture of science fiction, Fantasy, fairy tales and vividly observed life. Anders' ability to extract profundities about the meaning of life from absurdist humour rivals that of Vonnegut or Douglas Adams. Read more at the link.

Ken Liu - The Grace Of Kings (2015)

My review of Ken Liu's 'The Grace Of Kings' is up now at Fantasy Faction. Long a writer to watch for his excellent and moving short stories, Liu's debut novel, the first in a new Fantasy series, is no less incredible; a unique blend of Chinese historical and mythological influences and epic Fantasy that tells the tale of two rebel warriors bringing down an Empire who ultimately must face each other. Read more at the link.

Rachel Pollack - Unquenchable Fire (1988)

This time in the neglected classics series, I'm talking about 'Unquenchable Fire' by Rachel Pollack, This is another book I've wanted to write about for some time. It's a really interesting mixture of the everyday life and the mythic, set in an America transfigured by spiritual and religious revolution. It's about spirituality versus religious hypocrisy, and the importance of story telling as a method of communion - something that links us, allows us to share experiences and empathise with others. Read more at the link.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Signal To Noise (2015)

My review for Silvia Moreno-Garcia's 'Signal To Noise' is up now at Fantasy Faction. It's a wonderful, slipstreamy meditation on teenage life and growing up, through the filter of magic and music, set in Mexico City. Read more at the link.

Anne Charnock - Sleeping Embers Of An Ordinary Mind (2015)

"Why is it that women are always the ones being dragged off? Why aren't they the ones doing the clubbing and biting?"

Anne Charnock's 'Sleeping Embers Of An Ordinary Mind' is a wonderfully understated and meditative book about family, loss and the creative process. It is a deeply feminist work that looks at the inequalities faced by women in the past, present, and how this may change in the future. As well as that it is an ode to the people who have disappeared between the cracks of history, people who have died in accidents or been killed in war, but most of all the creative talents we have never heard about because of the barriers inherently sexist societies placed in the way of them becoming recognised artists. The author was kind enough to send me an ARC in return for an honest review.
   'Sleeping Embers Of An Ordinary Mind' has a complex structure. The book follows two girls and one woman at different stages of their lives, in different parts of the world and in different eras. A hundred years in the future, Toniah has moved back into her family home with her sister Poppy while she starts her new job at the Academy of Restitution, an institute which works to restore and uncover the reputations of artists, philosophers and thinkers overlooked in their time because of their gender. In the present day, Toni is visiting China with her father, a painter being commissioned by a Chinese business man to paint a copy of a Paolo Uccello painting, while the two of them attempt to bond in the wake of her mother's death. And in Florence in the 1400s, Antonia Uccello, Paolo's daughter and an overlooked artist whose work today has disappeared, begins to paint under the tutelage of her father, whilst her parents and brother arrange her fate.
   'Sleeping Embers' is very different from Charnock's previous book 'A Calculated Life' about enhanced humans, sharing only her enviable clarity of style and her ability to convincingly and engagingly chronicle the minutiae of daily life as it is lived. The focus on the personal allows her to bring alive the interior lives of these young women as they discover about themselves and find a way to square their relationship to the world around them through their art and their work. Though their storylines never overlap, they are linked through their shared themes and concerns, and by art itself. Antonia is drawn to painting through her natural talent and understanding of the medium, and her creative mind is able to not only absorb the lessons her father teaches her about creating a masterpiece but to move towards innovative leaps of technique and form. However because of the social environment of the time, her family have to decide between marrying her off young or sending her to a convent so that her nature as an unattached daughter won't ruin the family name. The book explores the ways left open to her for exploring her personal growth and development in a time and place where women's lives are so thoroughly restricted.
   By moving between three different time periods, Charnock explores how life has changed for women since the 1400s, and her hopes and fears for the future. In the present day, Toni's world is much more open than Antonia's, as she visits China with her painter father and returns to her school in London, She is able to travel the world, and to freely pursue her creative interests. However Toni has just lost her mother in a car accident; her story is about her journey rebuilding her life around her mother's absence. This leads to her developing a school project about people who died young, truncating their branch of the family tree, which in turn causes her to discover her own great-great-uncle, Arthur, who was killed in World War I. However throughout her story, as she navigates the context of her world she naturally runs up against questions about how women have been perceived by society in the past and how they are now; whilst looking at a painting in the National Gallery, she finds herself noticing that the victims of the male centaurs in the painting are all women, and she quizzes her father on why he has never copied a painting by a female artist.
   The sections in the 2100s allow the author to explore how life for women may change in the future. Toniah comes from a family where the women have reproduced via parthenogenesis, allowing all-female households like Toniah's to have their own children. When Toniah's mother was going to school there was still a level of stigmatism attached to this but by the time Toniah's niece is the same age it is fully accepted as a reproductive right and such families as an accepted social unit. The Academy of Restitution represents another progression, an institute designed to redress the balance of women like Antonia Uccello who never received the opportunities in their lifetime that their male counterparts would have, nor the academic respect in the years afterwards. Charnock uses the Academy and its work to explore how history's perception of individuals' contributions can frequently be biased by assumptions, gendered or otherwise. The influence of privilege allows mediocre white men to receive all the credit, whilst the contributions of women can be ignored or forgotten, (though Charnock points out that male artists can wind up on the receiving end of this as well). Toniah's work in the Academy allows us to see Uccello as an innovator with the potential to advance art beyond its then-current boundaries, if she'd had the opportunities closed to her gender, whilst showing Toniah's ambivalence towards the work as the act of rewriting history and the politics of the job make her uncomfortable.
   Toniah's story thematically links to Toni's via the missing person she discovers in her family, her grandmother's son from a sperm donor who died in childhood, cementing her grandmother's decision to have her other children via parthenogenesis. Uncovering this family secret provides Toniah with the impetus to leave her family home again to seek out a new life lecturing in China. The themes of loss linking the three main characters also emphasise the universality of human experience; despite the radically different social contexts these three young women live in, their core humanity remains the same. Antonia, Toni and Toniah's character arcs are all about them coming to terms with the aspects of their surroundings and their lives that they can't change, and learning to exercise the agency that they have. They are also united by their appreciation of art. The book goes into great detail about the ins and outs of creating a masterpiece - the structure, the technique, the underlying message that the creator is trying to convey, and how they help the audience see this. 'Sleeping Embers...' is a celebration of the skill and invention that goes into the creation of a work of art, as well as the cathartic release that it brings to both artists and appreciator.
   'Sleeping Embers...' is a work of slipstream fiction, having elements of speculative fiction, especially in the section set in the future, rather than being a work of genre fiction in and of itself. However it displays a deft touch at worldbuilding. The future UK of the 2100s is imaginatively evoked, with new technologies such as the gestation clinic described in detail, but other technologies that would shape the home and the workplace of the future hinted at and implied. Similarly, there is an unobtrusive but meticulous attention to detail that makes the scenes set in modern day Suzhou or 1400s Florence vivid and convincing. The book's approach to storytelling is character-based rather than plot based, eschewing action and movement for reflection and introspection, drawing the reader in and making them really care about what's going on in these characters' heads. The end result is a book that respects the reader enough not to lead them, but to let them make their own connections through the themes and ideas presented. 'Sleeping Embers...' is both thoughtful and moving, and unlike anything much other than itself.

Michael Swanwick - The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993)

Today in my neglected classics series, it's a pleasure to be talking about one of my all time favourites, 'The Iron Dragon's Daughter' by Michael Swanwick. I can remember stumbling upon it quite  by accident in a charity shop, and having my entire attitude towards Fantasy fiction changed. Here was a book packed with inventiveness, unafraid to mix fantastical beings with dark existential musings. Rereading it now, it's still unlike pretty much anything else. Click on the link to read more.