spate of scientific discipline fiction and fantasy authors do“thought experiments ” — but few of them disregard experimentalsafety communications protocol with quite as much joyful abandon as Eileen Gunn . And now , atlong last , Gunn is publishing a second Scripture of demented tale .
Gunn’snew book Questionable Practicescomes out in March fromSmall Beer Press , but we got hold of an former copy and were excited to delve into the strangeimagination of Gunn . For those who ’ve missed out on her written material , this formerMicrosoft exec publishedabook of jarring report , StableStrategies and Others , ten year ago , and also published the webzineInfinite ground substance .
rightful to form , Gunn ’s new book , Questionable Practices , contains a number of sardonically weirdlooks at the future and the strangeness of corporal culture . But herinsatiable eye for weirdness outgrowth out this time around , feature a numberof different takes on the fantastical .
There is also a good good deal of silliness in Questionable Practices , which should bewelcomed by anyone who ’s gotten tired of the permeative stiff upper backtalk in SFand phantasy of late . From outright travesty to metafictional pranks to sarcasticmischief , Gunn is constantly wink at the reader , while also packing piles ofclever theme . And just when you least expect it , she drops a serious truthbomb .
In footing of theme and subject matter , the stories in thisbook are all over the map . you could readher four - part steampunkpasticheonline , andher bizarre metafictional piece ofKirk / Spock slash fictionis also online . Butyoucan also read her unusual Christmas fairy story , a collaboration with MichaelSwanwick , which starts out goofy and slowly becomes sadder and sadder . Alsoonline : “ ZeppelinCity , ” another collaboration with Swanwick that include bothderring - do and abundant curiousness .
My favorite pieces in this al-Qur’an , in fact , are generally theones in which there ’s a surprising weight behind Gunn ’s flights of partiality . Including the Christmas level , “ The Trains That Climb the WinterTree , ” which turns into a coming - of - eld tale with kind of a heavy substance . likewise , another collaboration with Swanwick , “ The Armies ofElfland , ” involves a young girl learning some harsh deterrent example and facingsome serious grief in the midst of all the weirdness . Both of thesestories palpate like the kind of dark fables that a lot of young - adult bookauthors have aimed for of late , but Gunn ( and Swanwick ) take themto darker places and get an amazinginventiveness to them that add to the feeling of kick the bucket on a real journeying .
And on the “ glowering fabulist ” bakshis , probably myfavorite story in the book is the previously unpublished “ Chop Wood , CarryWater , ” which is told from the stage of persuasion of a Golem who is mystifiedby his own soulless existence and just wants to generate to being nonliving clay . The Golem tries to understand what it is to be animated , and the pregnant ofJewishness , even as terrible things are threatened for the small Jewishsettlement he lives in .
But Gunn also turn her satiric eye on several characterswhose self - delusions get them into trouble . In “ Up the Fire Road,”she tells the story from both the contradictory POVs of a man and a womanhood , whoare both variety of awful people , and both of whom finish up having a romantic / sexualrelationship with a sasquatch that winds up grow them into telecasting stars . In “ Hive Mind Man , ” a coaction with Rudy Rucker , she followsanother dreadful Latinian language , involving a humankind who takes our obsession with smartgadgets and societal medium to a fearful extreme .
In between these unknown satires and the bizarre fairytales , there are also straight - up mockery , such as the Star Trek and steampunk thing linked above , plus a metafictionaltale about Michael Swanwick and Samuel R. Delany eating hamburger .
The overwhelming belief you get after you finish reading Questionable Practices is one ofoppression — Gunn is not using notional writing and silly spoofs to liberateyou , as a lot of other writers would , but to show how you ’re being crushed by systemsthat make no sense . There are a lot of stories about enslavement andimprisonment here , and in none of them does liberation turn out to be as simpleas mass ideate .
Her first leger was describe as “ Kafkaesque , ” buthere she ’s moved beyond the Kafka Riffian into something operose to immobilise down — there are plenty of surreal touch , but also a circle of hints that our ownsubjectivity , our ways of constructing ourselves , are at the base of how webecome enslaved .
If you ’ve been wish well your science fabrication and fantasyshort tale had a bit more mischief lately , then Eileen Gunn ’s QuestionablePractices is guaranteed to escape from things up .
record book reviewBooksRudy RuckerSamuel R. Delany
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