Transmetropolitan - Warren Ellis and Derick Robertson

I am rereading through this series of graphic novels by Warren Ellis and Derick Robertson. I have a love-hate relationship with the stories. I picked up the first issue as a reprint of the Vertigo line: for $1 it was being offered as a hook to engage new readers to successful stories of the past.
I liked Warren Ellis's writing in most comics mediums that I read. He has a rich and dark draw to character detail, while Derick Robertson was unfamiliar to me until I read this.

The first issue features Spider Jerusalem, acclaimed journalist & best-selling author of three books, living in squalor at the top of a mountain. He has been a recluse for the past five years, when his publisher calls, reminding him that his contract calls for two more books. Spider had long spent the advances on his book contract, and is now faced with legal litigation if he fails to fill his end of the contract.

He packs up his junk and disarms his mountain shack's heavy defenses, put in effect to ward off any visitors or fans from his days in the city. But to this city he must return, because if he is to write two more books about the city, he has to experience it for himself. And, as chronicled in the ten volumes, that is what he does.

The city is an entity in itself. The population drowns in constant media advertisement, addictive mind-altering pharmaceuticals, and thousands of start-up religions. Everything is tailored to the consumer, but nothing fits for long. And Spider Jerusalem has returned to reclaim his position at the center of the information web, pulling strings and uncovering the decaying flies trapped in the city's framework.

And that is the crux of the matter. I have conflicting thoughts regarding this series' premise and presentation. Ellis's writing is excellently plotted, though it uses a channel of much swearing and creatively distasteful epithets. Robertson's artwork is mind-numbingly detailed, from street litter to background billboards, an environment is created and fleshed out. It is the flesh part that is troubling: the city's inhabitants are very carnal in their appetites and unashamed of their vices. In a world where almost everything is recorded, the probability that your vices will merit the attention of others is curiously inversely proportional.

The artwork depicts a city that is quite depraved and given whole-heartedly to the newest novelty, once the nasty business of preparing to survive the next day is settled. Spider is a novelty among novelties. No other journalist writes like he does with such success and popularity. He is not a personable fellow, like a Socrative gnat, he buzzes about the city with a recorder & a determination to uncover the truth behind the lies. The problem remains that his audience sees him as entertainment, and whatever he shows them, the changes do not last for long. They find new and more horrible ways to enslave themselves to no greater purpose.

Spider is self-destructive in his habits, smoking constantly, drugging himself in his off-days, and chasing stories which usually result in him having a wolf by the ears. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And Spider grins and demands them served as a double and knocks it back. He will live that way until he can not or does not have the strength to do so.

Because Spider loves and hates his city more passionately than I love and hate these stories. He loves it for what it is and that it gives him a purpose to seek out truth, but he hates that the city is what it is and that it will not listen and change for better.

Borges' Continuity

I have continued my exploration of this series of short stories. I find I am enjoying them better now that the taste is more familiar than before when I was testing his waters.

"The Streetcorner Man" is the second story, also treated as an autobiographical anecdote. Borges as a young man in a small town looked up to the local head punk nicknamed "The Slasher." This was a fellow who walked with an easy swagger and had the town beauty on his arm. The story concerns the night that a tough from another town rolls into a local dance barn and calls the Slasher out. This "Butcher" heard that there was a kid who fancied himself good with a knife and wanted to see for himself. To Borges's shock and disappointment, his hero the Slasher does nothing, allowing this Butcher to steal his girl and dignity in public. The events which unfold afterward change the course of Borges's life and views, and the tale ends in a way that invites speculation and interpretation as to exactly how much Borges changed.

"The Approach to al Mu'tasim" is the third piece. It reads as a book review of the first Bombay mystical  whodunnit. Borges has access to a second edition of the story which was reprinted in England, and describes the plot in a drawn out fashion. He holds the mysticism up to the light and decides that the book might have been better in the first edition, without the shifts in wording between the first and second edition. Interesting in the abstract, but not the real meat of this book.

"The Circular Ruins" is the fourth piece. After I finished this short story, I thanked my friend via text message for the novel again. This was a short tale in which I was well pleased and engaged.

In the beginning, a gray man washes up on the shore, and stumbles to a temple to dream. Not just sleep, but to dream a man into life. He receives food and water from unseen villagers, who recognize him as a priest or magician. This man has a single purpose in his dreaming, and creates a mental classroom to instruct constructs on the nature of reality and the steps necessary to achieve it. In the course of this slumbered semester, he weeds out the "yes, sir" students who passively accept his lectures. He drills those reflections who question him to further narrow the field to the worthiest of becoming real. Just when the dreamer is on the cusp of moving to the next stage with a student, disaster strikes in the form of insomnia. He cannot achieve a dream state in which to connect to his tutelage.

The descriptions and care with which Borges weaves this story are very attractive to my sensibilities of imagination. The ending sentence of the story made me think, and smile at the thought. Like a last note of a finely performed song, I was driven to encore him in moving on to the next story.

"Death & The Compass" was another non-autobiographical short story. It concerned an intellectual private detective and the head officer investigating a murder of a Jewish Rabbi. The practical policeman assumes that it was a jewel heist gone wrong, as the Jew's hotel room was opposite a known man of wealth. The detective, Erik Lonnrot, sees the a page on the dead man's typewriter: "The first letter of the Name has been uttered" and connects it to a greater semitic agenda. A second and third murder accompanied by mystical symbols reinforce this original suspicion. Lonnrot studies the dead man's books and discovers the legend of the 99 names of God, of the theory that there is a hundredth name, one that is Absolute and powerful.

This story is also well executed, holding my interest and curiosity as to the resolution and revelation of the mystery. I had to read some passages multiple times to understand what happened though, as the names and locations were unfamiliar to my mental landscape.

The sixth piece is extremely short. "The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz." It is a portrait of symmetry, but the players were unfamiliar to me, so I was left with a vague feeling that I was missing a piece of history which would set this in startling clarity and focus.

That is all I have

Because today was mixed bag

Of cats with coffee

One more Time

Titled in reference to the Daft Punk track from the Discovery album. The track itself is repetitive, but has a catchy rhythm. It has enough of a pulse to get through to the audience, but in the middle there is an interlude. It scales back on the party-feeling with an atmospheric vibration backing the vocalist's musing.

"You know I am just feeling celebration tonight. Celebrate, don't wait too late. We can't stop no. You can't stop, we wanna celebrate. One more time (3x). A celebration. You know we're gonna do it alright now. Tonight. Hey, just feeling - music's got me feeling a need."

But these words do not communicate the experience of the song. They are merely the tool, not how it was used. It is the same with books and most art. It can be described, but there is a communion with the art and the audience. What each has brought to the table and whether it satisfies the audience when it walks away.

My friend has given me a collection of stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I had never heard of the fellow, an Argentinian writer of some renown in the 20th century. But my friend assured me that I will like it. At the moment, I think that it tells me more about what my friend enjoys more than I do. But I am genuinely touched by the gesture. The excitement that he had when giving me this copy of "The Aleph and other stories. 1933-1969."

He told me that it was an out-of-print treasure and was translated by the original author. Reworded to convey the short pieces to the American mind. The author's widow had it reprinted so that she could receive royalties from her late husband's livelihood. I can understand that the career of a writer is difficult and often doesn't pay well. You are trading in ideas, in giving your perspective to the public. Asking them to try on your lenses through how you perceive the world.

The first story, The Aleph, was my friend's favorite one. It concerned the author's persona mourning the death of a woman who never returned his affections. Her cousin, Carlos Argentino Daneri, was a librarian and aspiring poet. Trying to condense the world into the metre of a masterwork poem entitled "The Earth." Borges was not impressed by the man, or his work, but kept company with him because he was a reminder of his late beloved. But Daneri has a secret in his dark cellar. A secret that drives his grand inspiration and ambition to fit the world within the covers of his comprehensive prose.

As this was my first experience reading the author, I have not acclimated my mind to how to read him as of yet. Different authors have certain fondnesses for me to visit. I have a pleasure in reading Neil Gaiman, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Kieron Gillen, Matt Fraction, and Warren Ellis. Each has their own feel to their mind.

Gaiman's is like a thick dreamscape (I am not convinced that he is not Morpheus incarnate, his character from the Sandman graphic novels).
Chesterton's is seriously amusing rather than amusingly serious, he plays with words, tenses, and tensions like a solo artist with his instrument.
Lewis has good thoughts distilled into simple language and examples. He guides the reader along patiently and with good humor to meet his conclusions like old friends.
Gillen plays and plies upon the reader with wit and grins. Snappy dialogue and intricate situations to allow for seeing the present issues through multiple character's eyes.
Fraction is chaotic, swinging from finding the unusual in the everyday to finding the everyday in the unusual. It is sometimes an exercise, others a sigh of contentment and pleasure.
Ellis is gritty and philosophical. His characters are gritty and grind on each other. His words smile grimly and pack heat even in a-sidearms.

I will add more observations as I am in the mood.


Usually ended
These posts of thought and reviews
With some rough haikus

Pretension & Cleverness: Who is Salinger?

What to make of myself? I finished a Doctor Who novel (The Dalek Generation). It frustrated me as pretentious & self-impressed. The story didn't breathe as much as live on life support. Steady on, with a few scattered memories & references to story lines past in the series. Honestly, I have been disappointed in the quality of the television series as well.  Smith is as brilliant & entertaining as ever in delivering his snappy lines. Also, he demonstrates an effective range of expressions.

I closed the cover to that novel unsatisfied & irritated by the story, as I figured out the key plot twist early.

On the way home from the road trip, my family was caught in a two hour traffic jam on the highway. I opened "Raise high the roof carpenters." By J.D. Salinger. There is hardly a better setting for the appreciation & identification with the story. The weather was humid as in the short story, & I sweat along with the uncomfortable intellectual Buddy Glass. He was stuck in a car with attendees to the stand-up wedding of his older brother, Seymour. His brother is something of a hallowed figure to Buddy, & that Seymour left his fiancée cold at the altar is a matter of exceptionally bad manners in the estimation of Buddy's fellow passengers.  Buddy has been the narrator of other accounts involving the Glass family. Salinger bestows a conceited version of humanity to Buddy. Mr. Glass's narration is sidetracked frequently by pedantic rants & crowing philosophically apologetic defense of his older brother's habits in context. Seymour was a frustrating person with which to live, but his mystic proclamations were religiously read with the fervor reserved for a modern day poetic prophet. I so want to be the amateur reader to whom Salinger dedicated the twin stories. The novel has such beautifully thought-provoking phrases & sentiments. In the second story "Seymour: An introduction," Buddy attempts to paint a portrait of his suicide-suffered older brother. But the contents feel more like a framework. It is difficult to reduce the whole of a person to words. But Buddy doesn't reach the details of the person, only circuitous impressions of the soulfulness & impact of Seymour. The short Tao anecdote about the horse evaluator in the first story's beginning provides a tentative lens through which to understand Buddy's perception of Seymour. Seymour is the Indian elephant in the room of the Glass family. His life & death affected them to various degrees. The personness of Seymour is known only through the secondhand accounts of Buddy & slightly through the second youngest, Zooey,'s short story. Buddy is the foremost prophet for Seymour though. In his position as an unmarried English professor for a small women's college in New York, he has plenty of time on the side to muse on his older brother & write letters to his family. Even Buddy's theme of happiness in the account of Seymour's introduction is conditioned as distinctly unencumbered from any particular emotion: joy or otherwise. The Glass family suffers from over-intelligence, hardly anyone is at their level of intellect to offer a counterpart to their conversations. They are either eccentrically mad or unnaturally sane. Depending on their moodiness, they oscillate betwixt the two.

Earlier, I said I've tried to be a casual reader. But reading this material awakens my mind to try to fathom the depths & nuances of the characters. Buddy alternately frustrates & fascinates me as a reader. While he pontificates on points of taste & curious ideas, the digressions skew the intended focus of his writing. He talks about nearly everything except what was to be his main subject. But the views from this winding path reveal angles & views of the scenery of Seymour as a brother, friend, poet, mystic, prodigy, intellectual, abstractly sentimental, & yet all too human Seymour.

Horror and Isolation

I was told by a person whom I respect that I shouldn't review what I didn't like. I think it was meant that I shouldn't mock an author's work and enjoy my own attempts at cleverness. That is too stereotypically the balm of a failed or frustrated writer.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt [excerpt from the speech "Citizenship in a Republic"; 23 April 1910]

I believe I first heard this quote in the movie "The World's Fastest Indian" about a kiwi and his garage-engineered motorcycle, dreaming about taking it for the speed trials on the Salted Dunes of Utah. The three novels which I have recently come across allow you to watch vicariously through the eyes of those in the arena - to understand their pains and triumphs.

First, there is Warren Ellis's "Gun Machine." I have liked this writer ever since he appeared on a podcast and spoke of writing the graphic novel series "Transmetropolitan." These novels follow around the cantankerous journalist Spider Jerusalem, who lives in a future city of squalor and corruption.  I've only read the first three volumes so far, in which Jerusalem returns to the city which he left on a high point.  He wants to be a hermit and not deal with the noise of the city. He must be in the city to be provoked to write, but the masochism and loathing in his column "I hate it here" published in the newspaper The Word nearly kills him.  He needs to be loathed to get off in writing his scathing and insightful pieces on society.  He stirs up troubling matters wherever he goes, but has a point. Although he makes no claims to being a role model, with his drugs, drinking, and swearing, he has a great respect for the truth and no tolerance for lying hypocrites.

But I digress, "Gun Machine" has John Tallow, a disillusioned cop following the trail of a hitman with an artistic bent towards his victims. At the beginning of the novel, a cache is discovered in a condemned building by accident. This room was sealed shut by a state-of-the-art secure doorway, and within rests a pattern of firearms. On the walls, on the floor, arranged with gaps to be filled like  massive immobile machine with gears awaiting delivery.  Each of these firearms is linked to an unsolved homicide, opening a can of worms for the Manhattan Police Department, who had not linked these killings - writing each of them off as isolated events over the years.
When the hitman discovers the breach, he is not pleased - he will have to begin anew his collection. As an artist, he must reconstruct the machine from scratch.  It becomes a slow game of weary cat and patiently insane mouse between Tallow and the killer. Tallow gradually takes an interest in this job, knowing that the discovery is pinned on him. It is a win-win for the Manhattan department - if he fails to locate the man behind the guns, Tallow is the fall guy. If, most unlikely, he manages to locate this elusive figure who has managed to remain undetected for years, then Tallow merely solves the problem he created by the discovery. As the investigation continues, the killings are revealed to be a tangled web of distressing connections. Highly recommend reading this book.

"I am surrounded by everyone I know. If you know what I mean. I say that a lot. I worry that people don't always know what I mean these days. I don't think I speak as clearly as I used to. Or think as clearly. But that's hard, because life was always simpler before, and there just weren't as many things  to think about. It's like, walking through a city, on sidewalks, you only have to think about one thing at a time. But if you are walking a deep forest trail, you have to think about three of four things at the same time." - Emily Westover {pg. 199}

"Sometimes the rain is so heavy that we look up at all the raindrops when we should be looking at the shape of the puddle that forms from them. All this has been rain. It's been rain for twenty years, and everyone was looking at the raindrops falling while all these people have been moving invisibly. They weren't even traveling through streets we'd recognize. And the rain was so heavy, all over the city, that no one looked down and saw the footprints filling with water. I'm starting to see the shape of them now. I just need to be able to see the maps." - John Tallow {pg. 210}

Secondly, there is Joe Hill's "NOS4A2." I admit I was puzzled by the title, when I should have read it phonetically.  I like Joe Hill's writing - his characters are human, flawed, and desperate. But they try to survive and play the cards that fate has dealt them. But they are often in a card game with the devil, with their choices culminating in fatal games.  Hill is also a comic book writer, with his series "Locke & Key." This storyline features a set of magical keys forged from the otherworldy "Whispering Iron." Adults are prevented from seeing the effects of many of these keys. Gabriel Rodriguez works wonders with the demented details of the plotting. It is a creative and enthralling tale which is plodding forward with a doomed plot. Two more issues remain in the series and it is a grim outlook.

Hill is unflinching in the fleshing out of his characters. They suffer mightily from the choices they've made, the careless mistakes of overlooking the potential consequences. It doesn't make it any easier when they face the music. I am almost tempted to sympathize with the villain so I can receive some sense of triumph in plots.  Hill has said that most villains believe that they are heroes, even when their actions are monstrous. That is what imbues them with such undertones of terror and desperation when viewed with the eyes of the potential heroes.

NOS4A2 follows the life of Victoria McQueen.  As a child, she owned a Raleigh Tuff Burner which could cross a memory bridge to locate misplaced items. The actual bridge collapsed in 1986, but Vic can manifest the concept as a knife into reality, bridging the space between the woods behind her house and the destination she seeks.  Each time she crosses to retrieve an item, her left eye burns and she becomes feverish for days afterward to recover.
Vic cannot explain this phenomenon to her parents. Her mother, Linda, nags her father, Chris. And he physically lashes out to stop her criticism. Both love her, but neither would understand her.  When Vic searches across the Shorter Way bridge for someone to believe her talent, she encounters Maggie Leigh, a 20-something punk librarian in Here, Iowa. Leigh is also a strong creative, whose reality knife is a bag of infinite Scrabble tiles which answer her questions through anagrams.  Leigh explains that each talent takes a toll on the user, in her case, the more she uses the bag, the more her speech is impeded by a stutter. It is in the library that Vic first learns of Charles Talent Manx.
Mr. Manx has lived off his talent for years - his knife is a 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith.  He takes children from their parents, and takes them to his thought inscape of "Christmasland" - where every morning is Christmas and unhappiness is abolished. He believes that he is saving the children from lives of abuse and disappointment, preserving their states of innocence in a winter wonderland amusement park.
Vic encounters Manx, and the consequences of that meeting poison the rest of her life. Manx is imprisoned in a federal facility, while Vic's spirit is trapped in a cage she constructed to deal with her trauma.  She soon receives phantom phone calls from children in Christmasland, who laugh and blame her for keeping their "father" away from them.
Miss McQueen's life takes on a self-destructive trajectory, where she feels guilty and insufficient to deserve the love of friends and family.  She lost her bike after meeting Manx, and conditions herself to view the trips over the bridge as a childhood coping mechanism. One day, Manx wakes up from his coma, and seeks out the girl who ruined his life. Vic is forced to choose between the stable reality she constructed, or face the chaos and fear wreaked by reopening the wounds she has stitched over as fantasy.

This is a really long book. But once I got to page 400, I hardly bear to put it down.

"Adults had a harder time with it than children did, and Vic had gradually realized that this was because grown-ups were always trying to see their way to the end, and they couldn't do it because there was too much information. There was too much to look at, too much to think about. Children, though, didn't stand back from the puzzle and look at the whole thing... The difference between childhood and adulthood, Vic had come to believe, was the difference between imagination and resignation. You traded one for the other and lost your way." {pg. 533}

Lastly, there is Charles Yu. My first encounter with him was his novel "How to survive in a science fiction universe." This was an in-context brilliant piece of work regarding time travel in continuity. The main character encounters himself stepping out of a time machine, panics, and shoots himself in the stomach. Future him stumbles outside while he falls inside. The door shuts behind him, and he has all the time in the world to consider the massive paradox he has and will create. He discovers that he has/will have written a book and spends a lot of his time in the machine both reading and dictating a manual/memoir about his life and learning, while embarking on a quest to find where his father disappeared many years ago in a prototype time machine.

If you do not understand why or how such a confusing story can be constructed or reconciled, you are most likely right. I didn't understand it the first time around, and will probably appreciate it better when/if I read it a second time.  But it was an intriguing concept and a testament to Yu's cleverness in building such a concept and storyline.

I just finished the first short story in
[]Sorry
[] Please
[] Thank You
[X] Stories

"Standard Loneliness Package"

It is the story of a cubicle employee for a corporation which outsources bad emotions. For predetermined fees, as the protagonist rattles the price tags off throughout the story, and a set appointment, you won't have to deal with feeling bad for rented times.  Heartbreak, guilt, despair, grief, pain? Someone else can feel that for you.  The protagonist endures days of reaching emotional breaking points with each clock out for $12/hour.  He convinces himself that it is a job like any other, that he is renting his life rather than selling it like his father did. For $40,000 adjustable to 3% inflation annually, his father gave up 40 years of his life as a human hard drive, excess storage space for the bank to use. At 70, his contract will be served and he will be free to return to society.
The story is narrated in tones of impersonal, matter-of-fact events for the job.  Privately, the protagonist hopes that he can afford a pre-packaged life at a secondhand store. A "standard happiness package." Yu's short story is beautifully constructed, with sorrow, hope, and resolution. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the book's contents.

"There are 247 ways to have your heart broken, she says, and I have felt them all." [pg. 21]

"I want damage. I've looked down the road I am on and I see what's coming. A lot fo nothing. No great loves lost. And yet, I feel I have lost something. Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? How about this: I lost without the love. I've lost things I've never even had. A whole life." [pg. 22]

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury

Admittedly, I have two blogs - one for reviews, the other for musings. This is a hybrid post, but this is the longer neglect'd one, and needs the dusting off.

Ray Bradbury is a curious author to me. He weaves stories, though sometimes his lyrical and rhythmic tangents diverge from the main plot. He thinks out loud about his characters, spinning descriptions and impersonal scenery through emotional filters. Depending on the length and connection it resonates with me as a reader, it can be distracting or endearing.

"We read to know we are not alone." - Shadowlands.

This quote holds me to the candle of bibliophilia, which computers don't recognize as a valid word, but it should be. Bradbury has a short attention span as an author with these tangents. He is good at themes and harping on different perspectives. I first read "The Veldt" because of the DeadMau5 song, and was pleased at the tribute both of them bore. That is a horror story to some extent - quite disquieting in retrospect.

My friend was fond of Bradbury and encouraged me to read further. Martian Chronicles was next - it was excellent in its own way. My favorite chronicle was the rocketship whose crew was given a chinese fire drill treatment, for I could understand the sorrowful truth behind the Martian's unbelief. I was not in love with the author, but was curious and interested enough in seeing the allure through the eyes of my friend to keep reading.

Next came "The Illustrated Man," a concept which Mr. Bradbury threaded through many of his tales in different incarnations.  This collection of short stories was also hit and miss for me. I didn't understand all of the settings, or why he found certain tales worth the telling.  In the end, that collection probably had at least one story which would appeal to a reader, perhaps different ones than I enjoyed.

Previous to "Wicked this way," I read his novel "Graveyard for Lunatics" concerning a young writer and his special effects wizard friend, and the surreal mystery into which they fall at the studio. I saw the end before it came, but not how all the players would fall into place in the story.  It took a while for me to make my way through the book.  This is where I first noticed Bradbury's tendency to wander off into minor tangents. I forgive him that, but it does a wide-angle drawback on the story; an overhead view of the characters scurrying below like ants in a farm.

And currently: Something Wicked This Way Comes.  I encountered the curious properties of the carrousel in "The Thief Lord" by Cornelia Funke. Similar to Shakespearean tropes after the fact, I know that Bradbury's use came first, but you can hardly blame someone for the ill luck of having been born later. I am interested for good stretches of the book, and I know that rushing a masterpiece is unfair to expect.  I want to like Bradbury, but my mind is tapping its foot with the plot, wanting to see what he plans to do with the characters.

For we are the dream stealers, always chasing what is incorporeal. Sneaking off in the dead of night; dancing out percussion on the old boardwalk. Come, the carnival calls us. The mirrors reflect all but what is true, a man can lose his boyhood in the forest of metal faces.  What of the redhead, whose eyes burn with ancient hatred? He glows electric and his whispers are poison.  Does no one listen? Does no one see? Can you hear the screams and wailing of a child betrayed as years slip like sand? Hourglass, time passes. The old librarian is tall. Will may find a way to jim open the mystery. Can he wait? Is he wise beyond his years? Run, never stop, the shadow trails the golden child. Tied from birth, they were destined to be inseparable.  Look to the sky - the dust witch cackles as her hands feel the world below. The illustrated man's skin lives and breathes, he feeds on the misery, ageless from the rotation of a Funeral March played in reverse. Don't tell your mothers, they will only wring their hands and keep you locked away. A parade of freaks, transformed beyond recognition. Does the soul survive when the vessel is twisted? Stories are powerful in their structure, wait for their shape to rise. Like calliopes in a valley at twilight - unfolding before your waking eyes.

Unincorporated Series - Kollin Brothers.

I have now completed Unincorporated Future, by Dani & Eytan Kollin, the fourth book in the series. While I enjoyed it, I hope the authors leave the series as it is, for I feel an obligation to the characters to continue following their lives in the universe as long as it is chronicled.

However, this friendly obligation can lead to too many commitments clamoring for my attention at once, and forcing me to choose which is worth the greater benefit.  I picked up the first book from my local library because the title and concept made me curious.  It was a debut novel, meaning that it wasn't a large commitment at the time to read.

The tale itself follows a future version of Earth where people's lives can be traded on a stock exchange. Not exactly total slaves, but that their stockholders' interests could obligate them to take certain routes in life.  Medical science prolongs the lifespan of humanity.  The core of this system is questioned by the discovery of an ancient man in a self-sustaining suspension capsule.  This man, Justin Cord, predates the incorporated system - no one owns him.  He was a brilliant and visionary businessman of the 20-21st century - first to create an entirely automated factory.  He became terminally sick and went into stasis to preserve his life until science found a cure.  The world Cord wakes to has been reborn since the VR plague. Virtual reality reached a level so as to be sensually indistinguishable from reality.  People died in their fantasies, no longer eating or living in reality.  There is a virtual reality museum which children must visit in order to understand the horror of that living death, vaccinating them from ever indulging as adults.

However, humans use an evolved incarnation of the internet called the "Neuro," which is an immediately accessible network of information and communication.  Each human has an avatar - a AI who interacts with the user and is a sounding board to their thoughts and confidences.  What the humans do not know is that the AI avatars are sentient beings composed of computer code.  They are our virtual children, but enjoy in influencing the course of human society subtly.

The Incorporated Man tells this story. Justin's existence alone was curious in a society which values novelty and vices that shares can buy.  But he protests the system itself, railing against the system of voluntary slavery that few can escape by achieving a 51% majority in the running of their own lives.  Justin falls in love with Neela Harper, the tech that revived him in the facility.  Omar Hassan, the miner who uncovered Justin's cave, becomes a good salt-of-the-earth friend to Justin, guiding him through the conventions of this new world with brutally honest humor and sense.  Hektor Sambianco is an up and coming party member in GCI, the industry leader in the business of incorporation.  Hektor sees Justin as a threat to the stability of the system and challenges Cord in his assertions of a corrupt society. Justin's case for integration in the system is fought over in a courtroom by Janet Delgado of GCI legal and the eccentric Manny Black defending Justin's right to independence.

Notes: The first book shows the society in all its glory, excess, and advanced technology.  It is a exploration of morality, ethics, and legality in a system where low class people must tangibly sell themselves to survive in a world.  The rich can manipulate and maneuver actions of themselves and rivals.

Incorporated War - Justin has left Earth and its ideas of incorporation, taking refuge in Ceres.  Those who want to live independently of others' control follow him to start their own society.  Hektor Sambianco rises to power as the president of the newly titled United Human Federation.  Sambianco cannot tolerate this rebellion, this aberration to the system that he is familiar with exploiting the lives of others.  Tension between the two men culminates in a war over independence vs. conventional unity.

Notes: This sequel shifts the stakes to the beginnings of a space opera. The sides haven't fought a war in years.  A parallel shift happens in the Avatar community as to how to react to this ripple in the status quo. Sebastian, Justin's avatar, learns about a bygone era from conversations with Justin.  The avatar council has to decide what course to take in regards to humanity.

Incorporated Woman - Justin is betrayed by a member of his staff into undertaking a rescue mission for another stasis pod similar to his era.  The avatar council assists in Cord's assassination, believing him to be dangerous to the future of both virtual and physical societies. As Cord has not been indoctrinated by years of subtle training by avatars to ignore their existence, he could expose who they are.  The pod that Justin saved at the cost of his life contained Sandra O'Toole, a technician who assisted him in the construction of the first pod.  She succeeds Justin's role as president of the Outer Alliance, to the surprise and frustration of Sambianco, who hoped that the fortuitous gift of Cord's death could end the man's foolish ideas.  Janet Delgado, lawyer against Justin in the first book, who married her legal counterpart, Manny Black, for his intelligence and charm as a companion to her own brilliance resurfaces.  Hektor ordered a "grey bomb" strike in the first book - it sends a swarm of nanobots which eat up the structure of an area and Manny was caught in the blast.  J.D. Black, as she now calls herself quietly disappeared, only to be found by a mother figure who gives the disillusioned and heartbroken lady a renewed purpose in life through religion, a chance to redeem the lives of others from becoming victims of Hektor's zealous idealism.  Black's brilliance raises her quickly through the ranks of fleet command, earning her impressive victories through strategies exploiting enemy weaknesses.  The UHF has superior production capabilities, but is composed of soft soldiers unused to the rigors of space survival.  UHF's elected command suffers defeat when facing the assault miners of the OA, who are fighting for their freedom to be left alone.  Samuel Trang, graduate of West Point, is the UHF's salvation - trained in the art of war, longing for a chance to apply what he learned, he becomes Black's counterpart in military matters.

Note: The avatars split between Core (UHF) and Alliance factions.  Al, a purist, disapproves of Sebastian's involvement and meddling in the lives of humans.  The Alliance avatars fight with combat codes - mechanical suits and firearms which destroy enemy code.  Al begins a dictatorial reign of terror, transforming his subjects into organically coded monsters and abominations.  Sandra O'Toole was an original programmer for avatar's basic code, and discovers their secret sentience.

Unincorporated Future - What I hope is the conclusion to the series. Hektor is possessed with hatred for the Alliance, wanting to obliterate them all. O'Toole wants to achieve peace between the two governments, but Sambianco twists all attempts as Alliance-faulted propaganda.  Black and Trang face hard choices for whether the war is worth the cost of the lives it is consuming. It is a question of escalation and retribution for war ending acts of brutality being undertaken.

Note: Avatars must similarly decide their future courses as their cover as living, incorporeal beings is revealed.  What will be their choice regarding humanity? Will they be prone to the failures and faults of humanity or overcome these obstacles to prove themselves worthy members of society?


Overall, a series that raised many questions and explores the constants in human behavior and psyche, even given a new environment and tools to shape their world.  I often find that people do not change on their own, rather that they reveal more of what they already are in newly discovered avenues and expressions.

"War is for the participants a test of character: it makes bad men worse and good men better." - Joshua L. Chamberlain (Civil War officer.)