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Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy
From the New York Times Bestselling author of Lovecraft Country , now an HBO series . High above Manhattan android and human steelworkers are constructing a new Tower of Babel for billionaire Harry Gant, as a monument to humanity’s power to dream. In the festering sewers below a darker game is a Wall Street takeover artist has been murdered, and Gant’s crusading ex-wife, Joan Fine, has been hired to find out why. The year is 2023, and Ayn Rand has been resurrected and bottled in a hurricane lamp to serve as Joan's assistant; an eco-terrorist named Philo Dufrense travels in a pink-and-green submarine designed by Howard Hughes; a Volkswagen Beetle is possessed by the spirit of Abbey Hoffman; Meisterbrau, a mutant great white shark, is running loose in the sewers beneath Times Square; and a one-armed 181-year-old Civil War veteran joins Joan and Ayn in their quest for the truth. All of whom, and many more besides, are caught up in a vast conspiracy involving Walt Disney, J. Edgar Hoover, and a mob of homicidal robots.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Matt Ruff
14 books2,395 followersI was born in New York City in 1965. I decided I wanted to be a fiction writer when I was five years old and spent my childhood and adolescence learning how to tell stories. At Cornell University I wrote what would become my first published novel, Fool on the Hill, as my senior thesis in Honors English. My professor Alison Lurie helped me find an agent, and within six months of my college graduation Fool on the Hill had been sold to Atlantic Monthly Press. Through a combination of timely foreign rights sales, the generous support of family and friends, occasional grant money, and a slowly accumulating back list, I’ve managed to make novel-writing my primary occupation ever since.
My third novel, Set This House in Order, marked a critical turning point in my career after it won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Washington State Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and helped me secure a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. My fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, also won multiple awards and is being developed as a film, with Margot Robbie attached to star. My sixth novel, Lovecraft Country, has been produced as an HBO series by Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams. It will debut on Sunday, August 16.
In 1998 I married my best friend, the researcher and rare-book expert Lisa Gold. We live in Seattle, Washington.
My third novel, Set This House in Order, marked a critical turning point in my career after it won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Washington State Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and helped me secure a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. My fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, also won multiple awards and is being developed as a film, with Margot Robbie attached to star. My sixth novel, Lovecraft Country, has been produced as an HBO series by Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams. It will debut on Sunday, August 16.
In 1998 I married my best friend, the researcher and rare-book expert Lisa Gold. We live in Seattle, Washington.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 236 reviews
October 11, 2020
Satirizing the last drop out of anything thinkable, giving so many innuendos and connotations that the poor brain hurts, welcome one of the most unknown social commentary comedy hybrid authors.
In contrast to Ruff´s first work, Fool on the hill, this is easier to read and get the puns, but it´s still at a level that one read might not be enough to get the full package. It also doesn´t have the over the top, extreme, more meta and abstract philosophy and culture focus, it´s more down to earth, dealing with real, very severe problems, and possibly his best work, although I haven´t read Lovecraft country yet, so let´s see.
I also don´t get why it´s ratings are behind "Set this house in order", an ingenious, character focused work, that hasn´t the same complexity or message as this one. May have something to do with this sick fetishization of characters over metaplot, it´s terrible, as if there wasn´t already an extreme majority of onesided protagonist celebrating works over more complex art forms, even authors dancing on different genre weddings are more appreciated for the one, detailed perspective.
Ruff plays with different genres over his career, making this the sadly only sci-fi comedy hybrid, something truly unique with just other rare, exceptional authors such as Robbins coming close to the complexity and weird style of this indie author prodigy. And it´s so vivid, character fragments and actions will definitively stay in mind, I just can´t get behind how he does this. Although, in his case of studying creative writing and taking years to polish and finetune his works, the questions might be easier answered than in other cases, education, talent, and hard work united do the job. And magic.
It´s one of these pieces one has to reread after years, maybe after wiseness, not in my case, has kicked in and one sees things differently after having consumed new books and evolved to new, strange, ideology crossovers or has had complete 180 degree turns to the other extreme. This could make the second consumption of this work, with an enlightened or degenerated mind, even more enjoyable.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
In contrast to Ruff´s first work, Fool on the hill, this is easier to read and get the puns, but it´s still at a level that one read might not be enough to get the full package. It also doesn´t have the over the top, extreme, more meta and abstract philosophy and culture focus, it´s more down to earth, dealing with real, very severe problems, and possibly his best work, although I haven´t read Lovecraft country yet, so let´s see.
I also don´t get why it´s ratings are behind "Set this house in order", an ingenious, character focused work, that hasn´t the same complexity or message as this one. May have something to do with this sick fetishization of characters over metaplot, it´s terrible, as if there wasn´t already an extreme majority of onesided protagonist celebrating works over more complex art forms, even authors dancing on different genre weddings are more appreciated for the one, detailed perspective.
Ruff plays with different genres over his career, making this the sadly only sci-fi comedy hybrid, something truly unique with just other rare, exceptional authors such as Robbins coming close to the complexity and weird style of this indie author prodigy. And it´s so vivid, character fragments and actions will definitively stay in mind, I just can´t get behind how he does this. Although, in his case of studying creative writing and taking years to polish and finetune his works, the questions might be easier answered than in other cases, education, talent, and hard work united do the job. And magic.
It´s one of these pieces one has to reread after years, maybe after wiseness, not in my case, has kicked in and one sees things differently after having consumed new books and evolved to new, strange, ideology crossovers or has had complete 180 degree turns to the other extreme. This could make the second consumption of this work, with an enlightened or degenerated mind, even more enjoyable.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
February 10, 2021
An odd book that was very entertaining and energizing at times. It’s an absurd satire of capitalism, racism and environmental collapse. And yet, at other times, the off-the-cuff tone bothered me and came across as having too much fun with some painful issues. Yes, in the right hands one can produce comedy on (almost) any topic or theme. With the right touch and tone you can critique the powerful with humor—like Stephen Colbert or George Carlin. But it’s a razor edge because the risk is that it comes across as appropriation of painful issue for comedy. In Sewer, Gas and Electric, a central aspect of the story is the premise that a pandemic virus swept the world (!!!) and within a day, killed and dissolved the bodies of all black people with African ancestry. Now imagine this premise in a wacky comedic novel. You can see how dicey this is.
After watching the racially aware TV series Lovecraft Country that was based on the novel by Ruff, I gave him credit in the beginning that this was a satire. But as the book went on, it began to feel problematic. The irony became a cheap shortcut to squeeze humor out of cruelty. It’s not good sci-fi or even a good metaphor to propose that a virus could racially target the genes of all black Africans. Racial oppression is a social/cultural issue. Biological differences are minor and the conflation of the two is an ugly reminder of when scientists tried to measure the heads of black people and say they were an inferior race (just as white supremacists do today). I’m looking at you Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Ruff also spends quite a few pages critiquing Capitalism and Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness primarily via Socratic dialogue between one of the main characters and the disembodied head of Ayn Rand (programmed A.I.). Frankly, his arguments soft pedal the flaws in Capitalism and let her off far too gently. In fact I found them relatively weak sauce.
Sewer, Gas and Electric started with an electric spark in style and content, but over time it wore on me and failed to live up to the themes it was satirizing.
After watching the racially aware TV series Lovecraft Country that was based on the novel by Ruff, I gave him credit in the beginning that this was a satire. But as the book went on, it began to feel problematic. The irony became a cheap shortcut to squeeze humor out of cruelty. It’s not good sci-fi or even a good metaphor to propose that a virus could racially target the genes of all black Africans. Racial oppression is a social/cultural issue. Biological differences are minor and the conflation of the two is an ugly reminder of when scientists tried to measure the heads of black people and say they were an inferior race (just as white supremacists do today). I’m looking at you Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Ruff also spends quite a few pages critiquing Capitalism and Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness primarily via Socratic dialogue between one of the main characters and the disembodied head of Ayn Rand (programmed A.I.). Frankly, his arguments soft pedal the flaws in Capitalism and let her off far too gently. In fact I found them relatively weak sauce.
Sewer, Gas and Electric started with an electric spark in style and content, but over time it wore on me and failed to live up to the themes it was satirizing.
February 26, 2011
Sewer Gas and Electric is an utter failure as an sf novel—if science fiction must be defined as a serious attempt to predict the future, anyway. From the large-scale to the small, Sewer Gas and Electric's prognostications about the early 21st Century have almost uniformly failed to pan out. The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts haven't merged into one urban exploration club; there are no high-speed trains criss-crossing the U.S.; nor are there twin towers still looming over southern Manhattan's Battery Park. Hugo Gernsback would be horrified, I'm sure. About the only thing Matt Ruff did get right, and I'm not sure how he managed that, was that "red state/blue state" (complete with shades of indigo and purple) would become the shorthand for the conflict of reactionary rural values versus more liberal urban policies.
Fortunately, science fiction is not solely about prediction, and fortunately, Sewer Gas and Electric is not at all a failure. On the contrary—Sewer Gas and Electric is a madcap romp, and a delicious skewering of a particularly odious mindset (about which more below).
In short, Sewer Gas and Electric is a lot of fun.
The plot... well, inasmuch as the plot matters, it triangulates on Harry Gant, trillionaire industrialist and perennial little boy, whose vast empire includes continent-crossing railroads, immense skyscrapers (including one in Manhattan called the Tower of Babel which, if it's ever completed, is slated to be a full mile high, a la Frank Lloyd Wright), and legions of android servants. Against Harry is his ex-wife Joan, who works in the sewers, armed to the teeth against mutant crocodiles and other denizens of the toxic sludge that flows beneath Manhattan's streets. Except that Joan's not really against Harry. She still harbors some feelings for him. Far more menacing is "Meisterbrau," a Carcharodon megalodon with no love for either Joan or Harry.
And then there's Philo Dufresne and his polka-dotted submarine.
What is it about the notion of a submarine that attracts fictional anarchists and freethinkers, anyway? It's not as if you can build and run a giant sub in the real world without the resources of a navy (or the equivalent) behind you. From Captain Nemo to the Beatles, though, the smoothly humming underwater luxury cruise vessel owned and operated by a proud loner is a staple of fiction. And here it surfaces again (heh... see what I did there?) as the eco-pirate Dufresne's transportation of choice, equipped with giant creme-pie flingers and other ingenious tools of performance art, interfering with Gant's corporate shipping in a thoroughly unacceptable and highly entertaining manner. Despite Harry Gant's undeniable charm, Sewer Gas and Electric is not especially kind to him or his corporate peers.
Nor is Sewer Gas and Electric especially kind to the so-called Objectivists, those admirers of the émigré writer Ayn Rand and in particular her immense and turgid magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. (John Scalzi pretty much sums up that particular work for me, by the way, although somehow his respondents didn't think to mention Sewer Gas and Electric until comment #139.) Joan spends a lot of time carrying a holographic replica of Rand through those aforementioned sewers, chain-smoking (to Rand, after all, every cigarette lit was a tiny reminder of Prometheus' gift of fire) and arguing philosophies. Despite, or perhaps because, the replica uses Rand's own words to defend itself, Joan definitely holds her own in the ensuing debate.
Sewer Gas and Electric isn't perfect, though. In particular, parts of the plot involving the Pandemic that killed off a billion dark-skinned people made me uncomfortable, especially on second reading. I do not presume to know how a person of color would appreciate the notion—introduced fictionally, mind you, and not at all with approval or as any kind of wish-fulfillment, but still—that almost all of the world's Africans and people of African descent had died (offstage) of what was plainly an engineered disease, and then, as if genocide weren't enough, been replaced in the U.S. by robotic caricatures called "Electric Negroes," the best-selling product of the Gant corporate empire. Ruff's satirical barbs make some serious and laudable points about racist America, to be sure, but I don't think this book is always sensitive as to how it makes those points.
My biggest problem with Matt Ruff, though, is that he just doesn't write enough. Sewer Gas and Electric is only his second novel, out of a total of just four to date (though according to his website, another is in progress). On the plus side, this makes him easy to catch up on—at least, if you can find his work at all; he doesn't tend to show up on a lot of shelves. Which is a shame. On the other hand, though... well, if "always leave 'em wanting more" is a reliable maxim at all, it applies to this guy.
Read it—if you can find a copy...
Fortunately, science fiction is not solely about prediction, and fortunately, Sewer Gas and Electric is not at all a failure. On the contrary—Sewer Gas and Electric is a madcap romp, and a delicious skewering of a particularly odious mindset (about which more below).
In short, Sewer Gas and Electric is a lot of fun.
The plot... well, inasmuch as the plot matters, it triangulates on Harry Gant, trillionaire industrialist and perennial little boy, whose vast empire includes continent-crossing railroads, immense skyscrapers (including one in Manhattan called the Tower of Babel which, if it's ever completed, is slated to be a full mile high, a la Frank Lloyd Wright), and legions of android servants. Against Harry is his ex-wife Joan, who works in the sewers, armed to the teeth against mutant crocodiles and other denizens of the toxic sludge that flows beneath Manhattan's streets. Except that Joan's not really against Harry. She still harbors some feelings for him. Far more menacing is "Meisterbrau," a Carcharodon megalodon with no love for either Joan or Harry.
And then there's Philo Dufresne and his polka-dotted submarine.
What is it about the notion of a submarine that attracts fictional anarchists and freethinkers, anyway? It's not as if you can build and run a giant sub in the real world without the resources of a navy (or the equivalent) behind you. From Captain Nemo to the Beatles, though, the smoothly humming underwater luxury cruise vessel owned and operated by a proud loner is a staple of fiction. And here it surfaces again (heh... see what I did there?) as the eco-pirate Dufresne's transportation of choice, equipped with giant creme-pie flingers and other ingenious tools of performance art, interfering with Gant's corporate shipping in a thoroughly unacceptable and highly entertaining manner. Despite Harry Gant's undeniable charm, Sewer Gas and Electric is not especially kind to him or his corporate peers.
Nor is Sewer Gas and Electric especially kind to the so-called Objectivists, those admirers of the émigré writer Ayn Rand and in particular her immense and turgid magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. (John Scalzi pretty much sums up that particular work for me, by the way, although somehow his respondents didn't think to mention Sewer Gas and Electric until comment #139.) Joan spends a lot of time carrying a holographic replica of Rand through those aforementioned sewers, chain-smoking (to Rand, after all, every cigarette lit was a tiny reminder of Prometheus' gift of fire) and arguing philosophies. Despite, or perhaps because, the replica uses Rand's own words to defend itself, Joan definitely holds her own in the ensuing debate.
Sewer Gas and Electric isn't perfect, though. In particular, parts of the plot involving the Pandemic that killed off a billion dark-skinned people made me uncomfortable, especially on second reading. I do not presume to know how a person of color would appreciate the notion—introduced fictionally, mind you, and not at all with approval or as any kind of wish-fulfillment, but still—that almost all of the world's Africans and people of African descent had died (offstage) of what was plainly an engineered disease, and then, as if genocide weren't enough, been replaced in the U.S. by robotic caricatures called "Electric Negroes," the best-selling product of the Gant corporate empire. Ruff's satirical barbs make some serious and laudable points about racist America, to be sure, but I don't think this book is always sensitive as to how it makes those points.
My biggest problem with Matt Ruff, though, is that he just doesn't write enough. Sewer Gas and Electric is only his second novel, out of a total of just four to date (though according to his website, another is in progress). On the plus side, this makes him easy to catch up on—at least, if you can find his work at all; he doesn't tend to show up on a lot of shelves. Which is a shame. On the other hand, though... well, if "always leave 'em wanting more" is a reliable maxim at all, it applies to this guy.
Read it—if you can find a copy...
November 16, 2020
This book is FanTasTic, and so fun to read. It combines mind-bending, wacky ideas with neat characters in the setting of New York City in 2023. There's some sci fi and some mystery and Lots of hilarity, I laughed out loud every 10 pages or so. Included in this book are environmental warnings, conspiracy theories, artificial intelligence, and some very interesting ideas about how Americans really feel about black people. All of this is wrapped up in a clever package that you should read.
May 31, 2020
Vorrei evitare, questa volta, di giocarmi la carta de “il momento sbagliato” per dire che non sono proprio riuscita a trovare sintonia con questa storia.
Dopo aver aperto e chiuso il libro una miriade di volte, arrivata faticosamente alla fine credo proprio non si tratti di un momento ma di un genere di romanzo che proprio non fa per me.
Che poi dire genere qui non ha senso.
C’è una tale commistione tra fantascienza, humor, giallo, satira sociale e politica
...un minestrone di tematiche: discriminazioni, disuguaglianze, ecologia,
...una miriade di personaggi che, poi (ma poi...) trovano modo di legarsi
Una New York che parte in verticale.
Si parte dall’alto, dal Phoenix – l’edificio più alto della storia del mondo- da cui domina l’eccentrico miliardario Harry Gant per poi scendere nelle fogne dove lavora la sua ex moglie, Joan Fine, e dove nascono e crescono mostruosi animali mutanti frutto dell’eccessiva industrializzazione.
Una società tra l’altro travolta da una strana pandemia che ha praticamente cancellato dalla faccia della terra la quasi totalità della popolazione nera...
Androidi che vengono prodotti in serie per diventare “Servi automatici” disponibili con tutte le gradazioni del colore della pelle. Chissà perché poi le vendite registrano un impennata del colore nero e da lì per un’operazione di marketing chiamerà ogni robot servo: “Negro elettrico” (questo mi ha fatto ricordare “Il negro artificiale”, racconto di Flannery O’Connor).
Una girandola di situazioni e personaggi che fa passare dalle indagini investigative alle azioni degli eco-terroristi. Bella l’idea di fondo satirica che ridicolizza gli estremi: il capitalismo sfrontato (per cui si resuscita Ayn Rand) e l’ecologismo massimizzato...
Un romanzo interessante per molti aspetti ma con cui non sono riuscita a legare...
” Ma a proposito di buchi nel suolo… Uno dei pontili in legno che si protendevano dalla banchina era crollato, mettendo a nudo la bocca di un canale di scolo delle fogne che correva sotto il porto. Al momento non ne usciva molto, solo un rivolo di lordura che si era ammucchiata sulle assi del pontile e tracciava una scia scura nelle acque circostanti. Oscar, in mezzo al marrone uniforme, intravvide sprazzi di rosso, bianco e blu. Incuriosito, guardò meglio, e restò scioccato nello scoprire in tanta sporcizia i brandelli di una bandiera degli Stati Uniti.
L'ovvia metafora, un'icona dell'America finita nella merda, fu più di quanto lui potesse sopportare, o ignorare.”
Dopo aver aperto e chiuso il libro una miriade di volte, arrivata faticosamente alla fine credo proprio non si tratti di un momento ma di un genere di romanzo che proprio non fa per me.
Che poi dire genere qui non ha senso.
C’è una tale commistione tra fantascienza, humor, giallo, satira sociale e politica
...un minestrone di tematiche: discriminazioni, disuguaglianze, ecologia,
...una miriade di personaggi che, poi (ma poi...) trovano modo di legarsi
Una New York che parte in verticale.
Si parte dall’alto, dal Phoenix – l’edificio più alto della storia del mondo- da cui domina l’eccentrico miliardario Harry Gant per poi scendere nelle fogne dove lavora la sua ex moglie, Joan Fine, e dove nascono e crescono mostruosi animali mutanti frutto dell’eccessiva industrializzazione.
Una società tra l’altro travolta da una strana pandemia che ha praticamente cancellato dalla faccia della terra la quasi totalità della popolazione nera...
Androidi che vengono prodotti in serie per diventare “Servi automatici” disponibili con tutte le gradazioni del colore della pelle. Chissà perché poi le vendite registrano un impennata del colore nero e da lì per un’operazione di marketing chiamerà ogni robot servo: “Negro elettrico” (questo mi ha fatto ricordare “Il negro artificiale”, racconto di Flannery O’Connor).
Una girandola di situazioni e personaggi che fa passare dalle indagini investigative alle azioni degli eco-terroristi. Bella l’idea di fondo satirica che ridicolizza gli estremi: il capitalismo sfrontato (per cui si resuscita Ayn Rand) e l’ecologismo massimizzato...
Un romanzo interessante per molti aspetti ma con cui non sono riuscita a legare...
” Ma a proposito di buchi nel suolo… Uno dei pontili in legno che si protendevano dalla banchina era crollato, mettendo a nudo la bocca di un canale di scolo delle fogne che correva sotto il porto. Al momento non ne usciva molto, solo un rivolo di lordura che si era ammucchiata sulle assi del pontile e tracciava una scia scura nelle acque circostanti. Oscar, in mezzo al marrone uniforme, intravvide sprazzi di rosso, bianco e blu. Incuriosito, guardò meglio, e restò scioccato nello scoprire in tanta sporcizia i brandelli di una bandiera degli Stati Uniti.
L'ovvia metafora, un'icona dell'America finita nella merda, fu più di quanto lui potesse sopportare, o ignorare.”
May 14, 2009
The last sentences of this book in the acknowledgments are:
"Thanks also to the New York Times, newspaper of record, for confirming that even in a rational universe, 'far-fetched' is a relative term. In an article dated February 10, 1935, the Times recounts the story of a group of teenagers who found a seven-and-a-half-foot alligator in a Harlem sewer, dragged it up onto the street, and beat it to death with shovels. Public works officials have since denied the existence of any reptile larger than a turtle in the New York underground, but we know the truth."
This is a good book. It reads like a bizarro novel. Ruff doesn't spend too much time telling us all about this amazing new world of his, instead he give a story and treats us like we should understand the world because it is the God damn world after all. He talks about the "future as it existed in" thereby allowing us to place the book within our lifetime.
The book opens with a guy from maine who's city experience was Bangor, which made me smile.
The one issue which I had with the other Ruff book as well is a slight inability to keep all of the people straight. Even when all the people aren't in the same head. Ruff creates so many characters that at least for me even after over 400 pages I am not positive on how clear I am on who all the characters were.
There also seemed to be a few characters just hanging around for comic relief, not that it was a problem.
"Thanks also to the New York Times, newspaper of record, for confirming that even in a rational universe, 'far-fetched' is a relative term. In an article dated February 10, 1935, the Times recounts the story of a group of teenagers who found a seven-and-a-half-foot alligator in a Harlem sewer, dragged it up onto the street, and beat it to death with shovels. Public works officials have since denied the existence of any reptile larger than a turtle in the New York underground, but we know the truth."
This is a good book. It reads like a bizarro novel. Ruff doesn't spend too much time telling us all about this amazing new world of his, instead he give a story and treats us like we should understand the world because it is the God damn world after all. He talks about the "future as it existed in" thereby allowing us to place the book within our lifetime.
The book opens with a guy from maine who's city experience was Bangor, which made me smile.
The one issue which I had with the other Ruff book as well is a slight inability to keep all of the people straight. Even when all the people aren't in the same head. Ruff creates so many characters that at least for me even after over 400 pages I am not positive on how clear I am on who all the characters were.
There also seemed to be a few characters just hanging around for comic relief, not that it was a problem.
July 1, 2020
Was für ein irrer, großartiger Trip mit bombastischem Ende! Es war mir nur manchmal in der ersten Hälfte ein bisschen zu ausschweifend für 5 Sterne.
April 3, 2009
I had to stop. I'm sorry. I hate not finishing books but this one increasingly felt like a waste of my ever precious reading minutes.
Yeah, this book is crap.
This book was very bad. It is not genius, clever, or even that interesting. The characters are not developed in any real way and the premise and plot situations are sophomoric and trite. This reads like a college student who had just read some philosophy and other literature decided to write a novel based on what he'd just learned. Had Ruff just read Ayn Rand before he wrote this? There's really no excuse for using her as a character in this book. It's unfair to and not even funny.
This book was a waste of time and my whole book group agreed. It just made us angry. I advise you to use your time more wisely to read something worthwhile. I can't believe this got published. Is it possible to give negative stars as a rating?
Gosh, this book sucked!
Yeah, this book is crap.
This book was very bad. It is not genius, clever, or even that interesting. The characters are not developed in any real way and the premise and plot situations are sophomoric and trite. This reads like a college student who had just read some philosophy and other literature decided to write a novel based on what he'd just learned. Had Ruff just read Ayn Rand before he wrote this? There's really no excuse for using her as a character in this book. It's unfair to and not even funny.
This book was a waste of time and my whole book group agreed. It just made us angry. I advise you to use your time more wisely to read something worthwhile. I can't believe this got published. Is it possible to give negative stars as a rating?
Gosh, this book sucked!
July 7, 2009
WTF.
That's pretty much the only way to describe this book. I loved it, I don't really remember the entire plot even though I've read it at least 4 times, and I'm pretty sure the plot made sense when I read it. What sticks with me are the vivid images in my head of certain scenes and moments in the book, permanently rendered there by the clever phrasing of the text.
I highly recommend this book. I wish I could coherently tell you why, but you can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes, you get what you need: The holographic image of Ayn Rand's head projected in a storm lamp to "answer" questions and guide you on your search.
That's pretty much the only way to describe this book. I loved it, I don't really remember the entire plot even though I've read it at least 4 times, and I'm pretty sure the plot made sense when I read it. What sticks with me are the vivid images in my head of certain scenes and moments in the book, permanently rendered there by the clever phrasing of the text.
I highly recommend this book. I wish I could coherently tell you why, but you can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes, you get what you need: The holographic image of Ayn Rand's head projected in a storm lamp to "answer" questions and guide you on your search.
October 17, 2018
Dopo un inizio folgorante ho via via perso interesse per la trama e i vari personaggi del romanzo.
Quando può succedere di tutto, la stessa attesa del momento in cui succederà perde colore, si carica già dell'insoddisfazione che verrà dalla trovata successiva.
Il punto è che credo di detestare questi novelli campioni della letteratura postmoderna o avant-pop o come diavolo piace loro definirsi.
Caro Matt Ruff, cos'è?, non ti sta bene scrivere fantascienza? Non ti basta, forse? Ti senti costretto dall'etichetta, non del tutto compreso nel genere, nevvero?
Eppure non ci sarebbe nulla di cui vergognarsi. Anzi, se ti fossi contenuto un po', avrebbe potuto uscirne un buon romanzo di fantascienza.
Certo, però, che il sottotitolo "La trilogia dei lavori pubblici" è davvero geniale.
Quando può succedere di tutto, la stessa attesa del momento in cui succederà perde colore, si carica già dell'insoddisfazione che verrà dalla trovata successiva.
Il punto è che credo di detestare questi novelli campioni della letteratura postmoderna o avant-pop o come diavolo piace loro definirsi.
Caro Matt Ruff, cos'è?, non ti sta bene scrivere fantascienza? Non ti basta, forse? Ti senti costretto dall'etichetta, non del tutto compreso nel genere, nevvero?
Eppure non ci sarebbe nulla di cui vergognarsi. Anzi, se ti fossi contenuto un po', avrebbe potuto uscirne un buon romanzo di fantascienza.
Certo, però, che il sottotitolo "La trilogia dei lavori pubblici" è davvero geniale.
September 12, 2008
'Sewer, Gas and Electric' mixes ideology and fantasy in a funny, witty and inventive manner. The novel gives a creative and intelligent consequentialist interpretation of what the world could be like in 2023, while at the same time drawing in philosophical dialogues concerning morality, the environment and unrestrained liberal capitalism.
Would not recommend this book for someone who has difficulty keeping tack of many characters or following multiple plot lines.
May suggest reading Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' prior to reading this book.
Would not recommend this book for someone who has difficulty keeping tack of many characters or following multiple plot lines.
May suggest reading Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' prior to reading this book.
September 13, 2019
“But Aristotle has written—” “Forget Aristotle. [He] only covers research and development. This is consumer marketing.” “Which philosopher should I have studied to comprehend consumer marketing?” “Munchhausen.”
Absurd? Of course, it’s absurd; that’s the point. But better written than many similar tales of the silliness of modern life. Better-than-average advocacy fiction.
“So you lied to yourself.” “The first symptom of true intelligence. Selective self-deception. How’s that for a Turing test?”
Still, I don’t recommend this to sensitive, introspective readers. It’s satire, as subtle as a Mack truck. Rude, crude and full of platitudes, though Ruff allows viewpoints other than his own stage time—if only to knock down their strawmen. And lots of profanity.
“What makes war terrible isn’t that the soldiers are men; it’s that men are soldiers. Let women become soldiers—or politicians, or diplomats—and you haven’t changed war at all.”
Ironic. What actually happening in the first two decades of the twenty-first century was as improbably as what Ruff wrote. (He mentions Cray PCS several times. Younger folks may not recognize that reference to the super-computer pioneer, killed in a stupid auto accident about the time Ruff published.) And wrong. Remember when faxes were a big deal? Remember faxes?
“Thanks to the New York Times, newspaper of record, for confirming that even in a rational universe, ‘far-fetched’ is a relative term.”
Absurd? Of course, it’s absurd; that’s the point. But better written than many similar tales of the silliness of modern life. Better-than-average advocacy fiction.
“So you lied to yourself.” “The first symptom of true intelligence. Selective self-deception. How’s that for a Turing test?”
Still, I don’t recommend this to sensitive, introspective readers. It’s satire, as subtle as a Mack truck. Rude, crude and full of platitudes, though Ruff allows viewpoints other than his own stage time—if only to knock down their strawmen. And lots of profanity.
“What makes war terrible isn’t that the soldiers are men; it’s that men are soldiers. Let women become soldiers—or politicians, or diplomats—and you haven’t changed war at all.”
Ironic. What actually happening in the first two decades of the twenty-first century was as improbably as what Ruff wrote. (He mentions Cray PCS several times. Younger folks may not recognize that reference to the super-computer pioneer, killed in a stupid auto accident about the time Ruff published.) And wrong. Remember when faxes were a big deal? Remember faxes?
“Thanks to the New York Times, newspaper of record, for confirming that even in a rational universe, ‘far-fetched’ is a relative term.”
March 28, 2020
5/10 en 2008
Tres estrellas y gracias. Si leéis la sinopsis veréis que este señor mete de todo en la trama: futuro distópico, contaminación, mutantes, la construcción de un mega-rascacielos y supuestas pinceladas de humor.
Pues bien, me aburrió (y eso para mi gusto ya es decir bastante)
Tres estrellas y gracias. Si leéis la sinopsis veréis que este señor mete de todo en la trama: futuro distópico, contaminación, mutantes, la construcción de un mega-rascacielos y supuestas pinceladas de humor.
Pues bien, me aburrió (y eso para mi gusto ya es decir bastante)
May 20, 2008
My favorite of Matt Ruff's books. Like some of his others, it's packed full of characters. This one is very fun, lots of satire and comedy.
It involves robot servants, a flying mutant shark named Meisterbrau, a crew of ecoterrorists who pilot the polka-dotted submarine "Yabba-Dabba-Doo," a hurricane lamp containing the AI representation of Ayn Rand, and a mystery involving a sentient computer which resides underneath Disneyland.
It involves robot servants, a flying mutant shark named Meisterbrau, a crew of ecoterrorists who pilot the polka-dotted submarine "Yabba-Dabba-Doo," a hurricane lamp containing the AI representation of Ayn Rand, and a mystery involving a sentient computer which resides underneath Disneyland.
January 16, 2012
Matt Ruff has written three novels in a literary career spanning nearly two decades; all three are rooted somehow in fantasy and should be regarded as fine examples of speculative fiction. "Sewer, Gas Electric: The Public Works Trilogy" is a dazzling, hilarious cyberpunk adventure set in the New York City of 2023. Ruff conjurs up a bizarre, almost dystopian, view of a near-future New York City laced with the political wisdom of Ayn Rand, who returns, resurrected as a major protagonist in this novel. Multi-billionaire Harry Gant strives to build the tallest building in the world while his ex-wife, Joan Fine, is joined by Ayn Rand, as they wage war against homicidal robots and a sinister conspiracy involving Walt Disney and J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's legendary first director, within the sewers of Manhattan. Ruff's novel is just as hilarious as Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash", but quite a bit longer. And not only are there apt comparisons to Stephenson's work here, but I can see some influence from the likes of Thomas Pynchon, Bruce Sterling and William Gibson too. Fans of "Snow Crash" and other cyberpunk fiction will not wish to miss this book. Without question, "Sewer, Gas, Electric: The Public Works Trilogy" is Ruff's splendid sophomore outing, and demonstrates to me why he may be the finest writer ever to have graduated from New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School.
(Reposted from my 2004 Amazon review)
(Reposted from my 2004 Amazon review)
Shelved as 'abandoned'
February 14, 2018That's a whole lotta NOPE.
I made it about 25 pages in before the LITERALLY BLACK SKINNED SERVANT ROBOT said "Zippety do DAY!" as way of greeting.
Maybe he was trying to make comments on the state of race in America or something? I'll never know.
I made it about 25 pages in before the LITERALLY BLACK SKINNED SERVANT ROBOT said "Zippety do DAY!" as way of greeting.
Maybe he was trying to make comments on the state of race in America or something? I'll never know.
October 2, 2023
Hammer!
January 29, 2018
WOW! I really liked this book (A birthday gift from my adult daughter.) And for me, it is striking as the most "originally unique" novel since I read A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. Definitely reminds me of some of the best of KURT VONNEGUT. I agree with other reviewers who describe this book as very hard, and indeed pretty hard to describe in a formal review. Written more than twenty years ago, the authors presents a "vision" of the future where sharks are living in the New York sewers, eco-terrorists/anarchists have a submarine, an evil computer under Disneyland, and a future with competing pollution versus capitalism, a car belonging to Abbie Hoffman, and genocide followed by androids called "electronic Negroes". It is certainly no accident that an AI artifical intelligence of Ayn Rand's ghost who argues loudly with her critics. An obnoxious billionaire who is the epitome of selfish big business. The book is very funny, and I found myself laughing out loud, so don't read on the subway. I will gift this book BACK to my daughter,
March 20, 2018
An almost impossible to define and literally laugh-out-loud science fiction satire. Atlas Shrugged meets Snow Crash meets a Carl Hiassen novel.
October 6, 2013
Okay, the rundown is as follows. This is a sprawling, crazy work about a great white shark, homicidal robots, eco terrorists, and overstuffed with insane twists and turns. The good is that there's a rich world full of colorful characters and a very "comic book" kind of feel to the overall proceedings that works in its favor.
The bad is that there is almost too much here, and definitely too much going on. That's really the only flaw with the book. Sorry to disappoint you, guys, but a) I'm the least caustic critic on the internet, and b) I actually really like this one. It's disturbing in places, but it's wholly recommendable.
In the end, this is a "by any means necessary" kind of book. Read it. It's a good, light read despite being four hundred pages, it's a lot of fun, and it goes by quicker than almost any other book of its type. Its worldbuilding is tight, its writing is spot-on, and more people need to know this book. So read it already. More as always below.
[[MORE]]
"One thousand ironic prosecutions."
- Roy Cohn
This book was my first brush with Matt Ruff. It's actually what convinced me to read Fool on the Hill, the other book that I consider to be one of the two high-water marks for Ruff. When you find a book like Sewer, Gas, and Electric, a big messy densely-written book that doesn't so much unfold as sprawl open to fill every corner of its world, you know it's worth reading. It's a twisted, beautiful, brightly-colored apocalyptic work filled with humor, references, and a cast of well-developed characters. It's the kind of book that makes me very, very sad that its author abandoned its insane futurescapes and dense stylings for slimmed-down and (in my opinion) not as well-written novels that, much to my dismay, have gained him critical and commercial success.
It's to be expected, though-- it's a thing that happens with a lot of artists. When they get "big" enough, or have that one runaway success to lift them out of the underground, they cling to it. Some of us doubt that we'll ever be able to top that one big vault, so we try to keep the lightning in the bottle. It's happened to actors and actresses who win that big award and then are allowed to just coast and phone in their performances. Directors who make it big when they switch from sci-fi and fantasy films to do big historical epics. Comedians who get married, have kids, and start to lose their edge. And authors who find people take notice when they abandon their crazy trappings and do conspiracy/mystery novels* . I don't begrudge them their success, but when they stop being as brilliant, as ambitious, as hungry as they once were, when they hit the point they no longer have to try, they're no longer interesting to read. Matt Ruff is still writing, but after the one-two disappointment of Set This House in Order and then Bad Monkeys-- Both well-written but a far departure from all the things that made me fall in love with Ruff in the first place-- I do not care to read The Mirage to find out if he's returned to form or fallen further off.
But Sewer, Gas, and Electric is none of those things. It's hilarious, sharp, and skewers its targets both mercilessly and cheerfully. It's a delight to read from start to finish, never flags, and is a book that more people should definitely know about. This is SCIENCE!-fiction at its finest, and it is brilliant.
Sewer, Gas, and Electric tells the story of the United States in the year 2033. The world has grown by leaps and bounds technologically, most of the progress spearheaded by eccentric pacifist billionaire Harry Gant. Gant is practically an overgrown kid, building huge skyscrapers in New York and working towards his magnum opus, a new Tower of Babel. As he does this, his ex-wife Joan Fine hunts gigantic mutated creatures in the sewers of New York until her team's fateful encounter with a gigantic mutant great white shark named Meisterbrau. With her team wiped out in the ensuing battle, Joan is then tasked by her friend Lexa Thatcher to investigate the mysterious death of a corporate raider named Amberson Teaneck by his automatic servant robot. Meanwhile, a polka-dotted submarine led by eco-pirate Philo T. Dufresne and his genius partner-in-crime Morris Kazenstein sinks icebreakers and eludes a mercenary kill team sent by Gant Industries to take them out.
And then things get weird.
Meisterbrau spends most of the book continuing to mutate new features and mulch a surprising and unfortunate group of supporting characters. Joan and her one-armed civil war vet sidekick stumble on to a mystery involving a plague that killed off all the blacks on the planet and a mysterious dinner club in Disneyland. Philo must rein in his willful daughter Serafina and at the same time evade a deranged ex-military crew hell-bent on revenge for sinking their ship. An AI representation of Ayn Rand in a hurricane lamp tries to educate Joan on the nature of selfishness. And all of this has to do with an impending apocalyptic event and the mysterious billboard reading "997" on one of Gant's buildings. Gant, meanwhile, is oblivious that anything at all is going on, and continues building. But soon all of these people and more will be swept up in the insanity. The hard to describe, strange and densely-written insanity.
The biggest thing the book has going for it is its sense of humor. Matt Ruff's created a sharp satire here, taking aim equally at all of his targets. Most of all, he seems to be satirizing the social science-fiction genre. Social science fiction is a genre that believes science fiction should be used to explore social themes and ideas, usually working towards whatever message the author finds most favorable. Atlas Shrugged, to which this book owes some small debt, is definitely part of this genre, and indeed the most shining example, as it is as subtle as a brick to the back of the face. At gunpoint. But it doesn't really stop there. While big business is merely one of Sewer, Gas, and Electric's targets, it also takes aim at environmentalism, pollution, liberalism, conservativism, feminism, racism, sexism, and a whole host of other targets, and hits them dead on. And it's subtle. The book seems like a cartoonish exploration of a history that can never be, but manages to make fun of a surprising number of targets.
Also, the world-building is immense. Ruff clearly spent some time fleshing out his world and making sure all the pieces worked together. While the reader only gets hints of things beyond the scope of the book, Ruff fills in the blanks just enough so that when he does mention a concept or something that plays into a larger part of the story, you can imagine where it goes from there and fill in the blanks. There's an amazing amount of flavor, and while everything seems a little comic-booky, it all fits into a very well-realized world with a very sturdy backbone. And it's a testament to this that each absurd turn the plot takes then fits into the overall world, making it that much sturdier. This helps the book, as it makes the larger world in which the book takes place that much more manageable.
And finally, Ruff has a way of characters like no one else. Despite having a cast that takes a page and a half to list, and so many dramatis personae and stories going on that he needs to have a list at the front of the book, even the mooks and the people who're there mainly for canon fodder get at least a page's introduction, their own unique voice, and a place in the story. Usually this place doesn't last as long, but they get a place for a few moments before they get utterly destroyed. That Ruff takes his time to make sure each and every one of his characters has a name, a face, and a way around the world is great, and makes the world feel real. It also makes the characters feel real.
But there is a problem. In all of the brilliant, dense plotting, a flaw arises. Where Ruff kept everything swirling nicely around the central chaos in his last book, Sewer, Gas, and Electric doesn't have the same focus. It's spread out. Like I said further up, it sprawls. Because it's unfocused and there's a lot going on, it's looser in places and sometimes the cracks start to show. As you can probably tell from the plot summary further up the page, there's a lot going on at once, and while it makes sense in context, try explaining the plot to anyone who hasn't even heard of the book before. Things get out of hand really fast.
This is, however, a small problem. Sewer, Gas, and Electric is a brilliant book, one that reveals something interesting on every page. It's a fun apocalyptic novel, and the nods to real-world history and conspiracy theory scattered throughout make it all the more fun. I recommend this book. I recommend buying this book. You will never read anything like it. You may never read anything like it again. And it's worth your time and then more.
NEXT WEEK:
The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
AND THEN
Scar Night by Alan Campbell
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Complication by Isaac Adamson
AND MORE
*Hello to Thomas Pynchon**, whose attempt at writing a Don DeLillo novel with Bleeding Edge almost killed this blog
**You'll get that Gravity's Rainbow review eventually. If I have to pen it on my deathbed
February 26, 2020
"Hope’s a choice, not a sum; you can have as much of it as you damn well feel like having, regardless of actual circumstances. I’m not sure any event has a meaning unless we humans decide to give it one. That’s why hope is optional rather than mandatory. I think we’re born with a need to explain all the things that happen to us, not just to scientifically explain them but to actually create an account for them, a sort of framing story to hang them on; and I think we have a wide variety of choices as to what our own framing story will be.
The first question you as yourself- the first question, even before “Will I live” is “Why. Why am I made to suffer like this?” One drawback to belonging to a race of storytellers is the tendency to forget that life isn’t a story, however great our own need to perceive it as one. And one of life’s greatest failings, from a storytelling perspective, is that life lacks closure, in the sense of narrative convergence, all the elements coming together, loose ends tying off neatly in a final climax. Real life is never that tidy and it doesn’t stop happening just b/c someone won a victory. Where the end paper would come in a novel, actual events follow, and more actual events…so even if women’s suffrage had led to paradise on earth- something still had to happen next. New conflicts take shape, another struggle of some kind. And never mind if you’ve got no energy or patience left after the last one. That’s why my sufferette was so apt to tears: the only ending antidote to struggle and the suffering that accompanies it is to somehow escape the future. And the only way to do that-the only real way that isn’t the wishful closure of a fable- is to die before the future gets here. What hope is, is deciding you’d rather be nonfiction than a corpse."
A clever book with Douglas Adams-esque situational humor (a green submarine with pink polka dots named the Yabba-Dabba-Do, and sharks in the sewers are significant plot points) that also manages to deliver biting social commentary and profound insights into being human (see above). The book also happens to be set in a dystopian future with Donald Trump as President, but was written back when that was just a ridiculously improbable idea and not reality.
The first question you as yourself- the first question, even before “Will I live” is “Why. Why am I made to suffer like this?” One drawback to belonging to a race of storytellers is the tendency to forget that life isn’t a story, however great our own need to perceive it as one. And one of life’s greatest failings, from a storytelling perspective, is that life lacks closure, in the sense of narrative convergence, all the elements coming together, loose ends tying off neatly in a final climax. Real life is never that tidy and it doesn’t stop happening just b/c someone won a victory. Where the end paper would come in a novel, actual events follow, and more actual events…so even if women’s suffrage had led to paradise on earth- something still had to happen next. New conflicts take shape, another struggle of some kind. And never mind if you’ve got no energy or patience left after the last one. That’s why my sufferette was so apt to tears: the only ending antidote to struggle and the suffering that accompanies it is to somehow escape the future. And the only way to do that-the only real way that isn’t the wishful closure of a fable- is to die before the future gets here. What hope is, is deciding you’d rather be nonfiction than a corpse."
A clever book with Douglas Adams-esque situational humor (a green submarine with pink polka dots named the Yabba-Dabba-Do, and sharks in the sewers are significant plot points) that also manages to deliver biting social commentary and profound insights into being human (see above). The book also happens to be set in a dystopian future with Donald Trump as President, but was written back when that was just a ridiculously improbable idea and not reality.
January 28, 2023
Aus verschiedenen Gründen habe ich für dieses Buch mehrere Jahre gebraucht, weil ich es angefangen habe, wieder beiseite gelegt habe, wieder angefangen habe... Dies ist aber nicht das Problem. Das Buch ist zweifelslos gutgeschrieben, allerdings sind zu viele Charaktere drin und darum gibt es auch zu viele Handlungsstränge, die m. E. nicht gut zusammengeführt werden und die dementsprechend das Ende ein bisschen lang ziehen. Auch braucht es viel zu lange um auf die Verschwörung zu kommen die zwar gut gedacht, aber auch ungenügend umgesetzt ist. Es ist ein lustiges Buch in Teilen, aber man verpasst nichts, wenn man es nicht gelesen hat...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
September 3, 2023I'm not going to rate this book haha. I don't think I have enough background information etc to understand what I was reading. There were characters and parts that I enjoyed. Some quotes I liked but most of the time I was confused. so many characters and plotlines. I'd have to see a lecture on this or something haha
But most of all I'M SO HAPPY IM DONE. didn't get too much out of it. It was too much going on
But most of all I'M SO HAPPY IM DONE. didn't get too much out of it. It was too much going on
October 22, 2018
I started reading this book many times over the years only to get around page 100 before giving it up and reading something else. Twenty-one years after buying it, I finally finished it. It left me with a ho-hum impression. The writing is fine, but maybe it's just the absurdist humor that I didn't like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
February 8, 2020
Well, ya gotta like a guy who has a favorable blurb from Pynchon on his book cover. Also I'm of the opinion that Ruff has read Stephenson's 'Snow Crash' more than twice. These are both very good things and so is this book. His sense of humor is maybe a little heavy handed at times, but he tells a rousing story that moves quickly into a climaxogasm.
June 15, 2010
(Preliminary apologies: I kind of sped through this book, and I will kind of speed through this review- my apologies to the author and also the the lady who recommended it to me! It's not been much of a week for dawdling, which is too bad- I could use some dawdling (although, of course, the fact that I dawdle so much is precisely what makes this a non-dawdle-able week, so perhaps I really could not use that dawdling)- and of course quality suffers where quantity prevails, but I want to add this review to my done list before I forget everything about this novel!).
Ok! So! This novel was recommended to me by a friend of a friend in the course of a conversation which was leading me towards an implicit trust of her literary opinion (under the principal that interesting people are, generally, interested in interesting things). I'm grateful for that- because honestly, had I passed by this novel on the library shelf, I would have just kept on going. Neither the title nor the cover recommend itself to me: as a city worker, I'm sort of blase about utilities as a topic, and as a reader, I'm kind of turned off by surrealistic book covers, which this one, or at least the version I'm reading, has (you can't really tell by the icon, but that blue thing at the bottom left is a shark. A shark. Sort of swim-floating in a crimson sky alongside several columns. I'm not saying it's an invalid art form, surrealism, it's just thoroughly not my cup of tea). And while I know the old adage, I'll admit, I am definitely a judger of books by their covers.
So don't make my mistake, is my point.
This novel is set in the year 2023 as imagined by the author in 1999 (in Boston, at the time). Like David Foster Wallace, Matt Puff envisions a future where consumerism has fully pervaded every element of human experience (essentially, a hyper-concentrated version of now), and like David Foster Wallace, he uses absurdity to explore class and consumerism (this particular book even comes, at the very beginning, with a social register, handily denoting the characters as the Rich, the various degrees of Middle Class, and the various degrees of poor). Unlike David Foster Wallace, who seems to imply that consumption has more or less drained the world of its inate grace and vitality, Matt Ruff seems to focus on the absurd, irrational, subversive inclination of humans to- well, to be fully human, in all of our joy and our piques and our passions and our gritty determinism. This is a novel with a lot of dead people in it (several million, possibly billion), and some extremely troubling racial undertones (the novel hinges on a mysterious plague that *only* kills people of African descent), and some very ambiguous judgment calls- yet which still manages to make you feel generally optimistic and hopeful about our future.
Mostly, I think, this is achieved by the creation of some extremely likeable characters. I felt, as I read this novel, split between focusing on the the incredulous but entertaining romp (the novel's cover does not lie- sharks feature in this, as well as submarines, pirates, androids (both evil and benign), AI, industrial espionage), the utterly bizarre (I was promised this would feature Ayn Rand reincarnated in a lamp- and I'm not going to lie to you, this novel, dedicated to Ms. Rand, gave me a strange sense of the warm fuzzies for her!), and the incredibly likeable and warm characters. These characters are not perfect, but of course that is a huge reason why they are likeable (Ayn Rand, take note!)- in spite of their many imperfections and contradictions, they are characters who you can imagine just really having some fine moments of deep enjoyment in the world, and in their love for each other. (Also, this featured a fleeting, but to my mind, very very touching, depiction of polyandry, which I think is a hard act to pull, so well done with that, Mr. Ruff!)
As a person who loves conspiracy theories with the skeptical loyalty (comparable to the love a lapsed Catholic has for the Church, I think), this novel handily indulges in all manners of fantastical world weaving, implicating beloved and not so beloved cultural and political figures; I wouldn't say this novel brilliantly reveals anything that the average American adult hasn't already considered about the dangers of technology, the role of capitalism, or the relatively futility of activism, but that's a minor quibble.
I will say that as a white American, this novels treatment of race made me deeply deeply uncomfortable. I can't say whether this is the author's intention, or if this is a criticism of the author- I kind of feel I need to take the tack of familiarizing myself with Mr. Ruff's work before I know for sure. But I do offer that as a head's up- pretty much my soul reservation about this novel is that I am not sure if his treatment of a plague that wipes out an entire race of people is flippant or brutally satirical- I lean towards the latter, but I'm just not sure.
All in all, a book I highly recommend you read. And then talk to me about it when you do.
Ok! So! This novel was recommended to me by a friend of a friend in the course of a conversation which was leading me towards an implicit trust of her literary opinion (under the principal that interesting people are, generally, interested in interesting things). I'm grateful for that- because honestly, had I passed by this novel on the library shelf, I would have just kept on going. Neither the title nor the cover recommend itself to me: as a city worker, I'm sort of blase about utilities as a topic, and as a reader, I'm kind of turned off by surrealistic book covers, which this one, or at least the version I'm reading, has (you can't really tell by the icon, but that blue thing at the bottom left is a shark. A shark. Sort of swim-floating in a crimson sky alongside several columns. I'm not saying it's an invalid art form, surrealism, it's just thoroughly not my cup of tea). And while I know the old adage, I'll admit, I am definitely a judger of books by their covers.
So don't make my mistake, is my point.
This novel is set in the year 2023 as imagined by the author in 1999 (in Boston, at the time). Like David Foster Wallace, Matt Puff envisions a future where consumerism has fully pervaded every element of human experience (essentially, a hyper-concentrated version of now), and like David Foster Wallace, he uses absurdity to explore class and consumerism (this particular book even comes, at the very beginning, with a social register, handily denoting the characters as the Rich, the various degrees of Middle Class, and the various degrees of poor). Unlike David Foster Wallace, who seems to imply that consumption has more or less drained the world of its inate grace and vitality, Matt Ruff seems to focus on the absurd, irrational, subversive inclination of humans to- well, to be fully human, in all of our joy and our piques and our passions and our gritty determinism. This is a novel with a lot of dead people in it (several million, possibly billion), and some extremely troubling racial undertones (the novel hinges on a mysterious plague that *only* kills people of African descent), and some very ambiguous judgment calls- yet which still manages to make you feel generally optimistic and hopeful about our future.
Mostly, I think, this is achieved by the creation of some extremely likeable characters. I felt, as I read this novel, split between focusing on the the incredulous but entertaining romp (the novel's cover does not lie- sharks feature in this, as well as submarines, pirates, androids (both evil and benign), AI, industrial espionage), the utterly bizarre (I was promised this would feature Ayn Rand reincarnated in a lamp- and I'm not going to lie to you, this novel, dedicated to Ms. Rand, gave me a strange sense of the warm fuzzies for her!), and the incredibly likeable and warm characters. These characters are not perfect, but of course that is a huge reason why they are likeable (Ayn Rand, take note!)- in spite of their many imperfections and contradictions, they are characters who you can imagine just really having some fine moments of deep enjoyment in the world, and in their love for each other. (Also, this featured a fleeting, but to my mind, very very touching, depiction of polyandry, which I think is a hard act to pull, so well done with that, Mr. Ruff!)
As a person who loves conspiracy theories with the skeptical loyalty (comparable to the love a lapsed Catholic has for the Church, I think), this novel handily indulges in all manners of fantastical world weaving, implicating beloved and not so beloved cultural and political figures; I wouldn't say this novel brilliantly reveals anything that the average American adult hasn't already considered about the dangers of technology, the role of capitalism, or the relatively futility of activism, but that's a minor quibble.
I will say that as a white American, this novels treatment of race made me deeply deeply uncomfortable. I can't say whether this is the author's intention, or if this is a criticism of the author- I kind of feel I need to take the tack of familiarizing myself with Mr. Ruff's work before I know for sure. But I do offer that as a head's up- pretty much my soul reservation about this novel is that I am not sure if his treatment of a plague that wipes out an entire race of people is flippant or brutally satirical- I lean towards the latter, but I'm just not sure.
All in all, a book I highly recommend you read. And then talk to me about it when you do.
December 16, 2022
Stupid
November 17, 2023
I really wanted to love this book but it was just too ridiculous
September 9, 2022
So far only about a fifth of the way through, but wow, what a great read so far. Quite clever and hilarious. I'd pay good money to see a film or TV adaptation of this.
May 18, 2012
Just re-read this, as it's my book club pick this month. I love it as much as always. I happen to think that Matt Ruff has a fine command of excessive plot threads, a knack for fun characters (and Joan is so so great), a penchant for exhilarating action, and a delightful sense of the absurd.
He has also gotten better at women in this one (compared to my old favorite Fool on the Hill). Instead of a fairy whose battle scene we don't see, a cop who gets knocked out before she can help (although Nattie Hollister is in fact my favorite character in FotH), and a love interest who sleeps through the climax, we have Kite, the 187 year old one-armed Civil War vet; Vanna, the comptroller with the complicated background and motivations; Seraphina, master of subterfuge and yet kind of dumb; Lexa Thatcher, journalist and polyandrist; Ayn Rand herself (sort of) at her obnoxious and yet strangely likable best; a host of miscellaneous female bit parts; and of course my easy favorite, Joan Fine: complicated, likable, crabby, heroic, and all-around way more interesting than any of the other (male or female) characters in this novel (or, in fact, most novels). So props to him there.
I don't quite have a handle on/a fully formed opinion about how Matt Ruff deals with race (also politics - mainly in that I think some of the ways he pokes fun at liberals are off base. Not because I don't have a sense of humor about my politics - I do - but because I think he's poking fun at what is essentially a conservative strawman of what liberals actually are/do/think. For one thing, I've never met liberals so terrible at explaining the dynamics of oppression. Make fun of the infighting, sure, but for goodness' sake don't go after us for censorship; we've done very little to earn it. But I forgive him because it's a blip in a book that is actually pretty environmental and social justice-y). Sometimes I start to get mad at him or frustrated or think I should be able to pinpoint something problematic about what he's doing, but then I end up feeling that it's justified/handled relatively well. Of course, I'm white and so is he, so my view is necessarily limited, which makes me wary, and he definitely has plot devices (and ways of describing characters) that could be racist or even offensive and/or hurtful - I just flat out can't tell. I can tell that he's not trying to be - and in fact, he does some pretty daring things with his plot, and it's clearly toying with/commenting on American racism (and not in a didactic way), which I appreciate. It certainly hasn't halted my enjoyment of the book - but again, I'm white, so it wouldn't, necessarily. I'll have to listen carefully to the opinions of others on this one.
There is so much going on in this book that even though this was the fourth time I'd read it, there was still stuff I didn't remember and/or couldn't predict, or that I hadn't caught the first three times. Which was awesome. (It helps that I have a poor memory for plot details in both books and movies.)
I do wish we had had just a hint more Joan at the end - a loose manhole cover or something equally missable but promising. I mean, maybe it was the person in green and white (who reminded Harry of her), but I want just a touch more, just to sell it a little. Subtle but more definite.
Oh, well. Minor complaints, and substantial political and theme questions that could turn into more major complaints, but this book is still in my top 15.
He has also gotten better at women in this one (compared to my old favorite Fool on the Hill). Instead of a fairy whose battle scene we don't see, a cop who gets knocked out before she can help (although Nattie Hollister is in fact my favorite character in FotH), and a love interest who sleeps through the climax, we have Kite, the 187 year old one-armed Civil War vet; Vanna, the comptroller with the complicated background and motivations; Seraphina, master of subterfuge and yet kind of dumb; Lexa Thatcher, journalist and polyandrist; Ayn Rand herself (sort of) at her obnoxious and yet strangely likable best; a host of miscellaneous female bit parts; and of course my easy favorite, Joan Fine: complicated, likable, crabby, heroic, and all-around way more interesting than any of the other (male or female) characters in this novel (or, in fact, most novels). So props to him there.
I don't quite have a handle on/a fully formed opinion about how Matt Ruff deals with race (also politics - mainly in that I think some of the ways he pokes fun at liberals are off base. Not because I don't have a sense of humor about my politics - I do - but because I think he's poking fun at what is essentially a conservative strawman of what liberals actually are/do/think. For one thing, I've never met liberals so terrible at explaining the dynamics of oppression. Make fun of the infighting, sure, but for goodness' sake don't go after us for censorship; we've done very little to earn it. But I forgive him because it's a blip in a book that is actually pretty environmental and social justice-y). Sometimes I start to get mad at him or frustrated or think I should be able to pinpoint something problematic about what he's doing, but then I end up feeling that it's justified/handled relatively well. Of course, I'm white and so is he, so my view is necessarily limited, which makes me wary, and he definitely has plot devices (and ways of describing characters) that could be racist or even offensive and/or hurtful - I just flat out can't tell. I can tell that he's not trying to be - and in fact, he does some pretty daring things with his plot, and it's clearly toying with/commenting on American racism (and not in a didactic way), which I appreciate. It certainly hasn't halted my enjoyment of the book - but again, I'm white, so it wouldn't, necessarily. I'll have to listen carefully to the opinions of others on this one.
There is so much going on in this book that even though this was the fourth time I'd read it, there was still stuff I didn't remember and/or couldn't predict, or that I hadn't caught the first three times. Which was awesome. (It helps that I have a poor memory for plot details in both books and movies.)
I do wish we had had just a hint more Joan at the end - a loose manhole cover or something equally missable but promising. I mean, maybe it was the person in green and white (who reminded Harry of her), but I want just a touch more, just to sell it a little. Subtle but more definite.
Oh, well. Minor complaints, and substantial political and theme questions that could turn into more major complaints, but this book is still in my top 15.
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