So I guess I’ve been on a cyberpunk kick lately. Well, let me back up: I’ve been on a kick of borrowed books (that happen to all be cyberpunk-ish) lately. My absolute evangelism for the likes of Klosterman and Sedaris has yielded an unexpected (but entirely predictable, I guess) side-effect: that being that when I foist a book or two upon a friend or acquaintance, they in turn foist a book back onto me.

Which is both convenient and potentially awkward, as anybody who enjoys binge-buying at Barnes & Noble or Amazon like I do. As much as I love the book store, I don’t like to go there every time I need a book to read…rather, I’ll wander in on some random Tuesday and walk out with 7 or 8 books…maybe one I’ve heard of, one that was next to that, one from the endcap, one with pictures….etc. That sort of pattern not only makes for more than a few unread copies of Gravity’s Rainbow and one-volume Civil War histories laying around the old orifice, but also…it sort of pre-plans my reading attack for a foreseeable future.

Illustration by Jason Courtney

So, when someone hands you (perspective change!) a book the next time you see them after a time when you handed them a book and DEMANDED that they read it—they’re eyes possibly wet with adulation and a somewhat desperate hope that you will relate to that thing that they relate to so much, etc.—it has the potential to rock the rig off the rails, so to speak. Pock the pig off the pails. You can delay the reading of said tome for a while, but if you’re not careful, you become that asshole who never gives beloved books back.

So really, it’s a Catch-22. Also: Go read Catch-22.

Enter my apostrophe: I had been barking at Carl, the post-Happy Hour bartender at my across-the-street joint—The Monkey Bar—for a few weeks about both At the Mountains of Madness AND Chuck Klosterman IV. I’m not quite sure how I managed to bind the two together in conversation (it’s possible that my Tomato-Bud-induced drunkenness had me relating this union to some sort of unholy, Final Fantasy-esque crafting excursion where two silver ingots and a tempest feather join to make a bronzed cuirass of awesome…or something) but I did, and before I really knew what was happening, I had walked back to HQ, scribbled my name and phone number in each, and brought them back…DEMANDING that he stop whatever he was doing and read HP, followed immediately by CK. So that was that (fast forward: he didn’t love Madness. A phenomenon that I found both strange and unsettling. Like dry water. or clean dirt) or so I thought.

Illustration by Jason Courtney

The following Friday, I got more than extra garlic with my fries and beer…I was proudly handed Oryx + Crake by Margaret Atwood. The look in Carl’s eyes betrayed to me that if I did not like it (the book) then Carl and I could no longer be book buddies. So began the cycle of the werewolf waiting. I finished Multireal (another loaner that took. for. ever.), fucked around with the first half of Catcher, and then finally cracked the thing open. To my surprise:

It was awesome. Scratch that. I wasn’t surprised. Smart people recommend smart books. But (see above) book recommendations are difficult and vulnerable. Just because you like something, doesn’t mean this person you like will like it. Etcetera. So I wasn’t surprised at the book, nor was I surprised that my bartender-slash-graduate student was keen on well-crafted fiction…I was just surprised to like something that I would have otherwise never come across. SO here you go Universe: paying it forward.

Illustration by Jason Courtney

Oryx + Crake is a bit hard to explain. Superficially (and I don’t say that in a bad way) it’s I guess what you’d call Apocalyptic Cyberpunk? Maybe Agoraphobic Suspense? Anachronistic Horror? Something wonky and very oddly autistic like that…super dumb and super smart all at the same time.

On first blush, the book poses a pretty good ‘hard sci-fi’: it’s the future, and of course, the corporate model has progressed into a sort of mutated fiefdom where rampant bio-engineering is the norm, and the white half of the world lives in ‘compounds’ and the other half are ‘pleebs’. Of course—as with all good Cyberpunk—it’s all fun and games until something goes horribly wrong, which is where the apocalyptic-ness part comes in. And you know? Without giving away anything major, that’s the pitch. The same T-Rex bones we’ve all been looking at over and over again and yet, they’re still fun to look at. Yes.

Take it and swaddle it in a few apt twists and shock-drama—a touch of kiddie porn, a dash of public execution, a brief tease from a few fully engorged, bright-blue penises, and you have Oryx + Crake. Recommend-able. For sure.

My feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t like it, but I like it, and I like you, so I figured what the hell.

- Hateball