Guest Post - Hugo Award Gamer Grab Bag 2025: Indelible Indies

We are pleased to share a guest blog post from friend of the blog N. 

The team behind Baldur's Gate 3 attended the
Hugo Awards ceremony in 2024.
(Image by Olav Rokne)

Last year saw the formal introduction of the Best Game or Interactive Work category to the Hugo Awards, set for re-ratification in 2028. This year saw beloved RPG title Baldur’s Gate 3 win the prize (accepted by an attending dev team!), showing that this category does indeed have juice.

Still, questions remain on logistics, and how Worldcon attendees can best evaluate games in the face of the sprawling gaming industry. That’s what we hope to tackle in this (sporadic) series of guest posts, in which we plan to highlight various genre titles worthy of Hugo consideration (and plain worthy of playing). Easing into this inaugural post, here are three acclaimed indie SFF video games of note released so far in 2024 that we think voters would enjoy:

1000xRESIST

Released: May 8

Platforms: PC (Steam, GOG); Switch

Despite being a 3D adventure game set in an ominous post-apocalyptic future with a high-tech aesthetic, 1000xRESIST has no combat. Instead, it is a purely narrative experience, unfurling its story in a way unique to the interactivity of the video game medium. You play as Watcher, a clone whose ALLMOTHER (once an adolescent girl named Iris) was granted immortality after extraterrestrial invaders carried with them a disease to which only she was immune. One of ALLMOTHER’s many clones who populate Earth under the Occupants’ rule, Watcher’s job is to traverse Iris’ memories in order to preserve them, a task that is suddenly given urgency when it becomes apparent that these memories are being tampered with. At its core, 1000xRESIST is a story of the complexities in the Asian diaspora, with allegory both political and personal, woven through a millennium-spanning tale that emerges as one of the most striking genre stories of the year in any format. A good title for a fan of cerebral genre fiction inexperienced in video games to try out.

Nine Sols

Released: May 28

Platforms: PC (Steam)

Nine Sols from Red Candle Games merges
cyberpunk with Taoism.
(Image via Red Candle Games)

The most beloved indie game of the year so far proudly wears its influences on its sleeve and turns them on their head. Nine Sols takes the Soulslike gameplay of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and seamlessly flattens it into a 2D Metroidvania, set in the world of New Kunlun, a futuristic yet barren realm that takes cues from traditional East Asian fantasies and taoism — a mix the game’s Taiwanese developer has dubbed “taopunk.” You play as Yi (named and modeled after the Chinese archer of legend), a vengeful warrior awoken after being in stasis, seeking to take down the titular nine Sols who rule New Kunlun with an iron fist. Nine Sols is a heartrending story about accepting that the past is immutable but realizing that the future isn’t, set against a stunning backdrop of hand-drawn art and colour and carried by lightspeed gameplay.

Tactical Breach Wizards

Released: August 22

Platforms: PC (Steam)

“Wizards with guns” would work as a summation of this game, but if one insists: this is a turn-based tactics game moves with the sensibility of a well-played tabletop campaign, filled to the brim with action-packed gameplay, colourful characters and an irreverent sense of humor, taking place in a genuinely intriguing urban fantasy setting. Fans of Terry Pratchett will get a lot out of this title. After a long disappearance, feared Chronomancer Liv Kennedy re-emerges to start a war with her former employer and allies, forcing her old partner Zan Vesker (a retired Navy Seer) and freelance witch Jen Kellen to assemble a ragtag team of misfit magicians. In line with its genre, Tactical Breach Wizards requires a fair bit of strategizing from the player — figuring out where to place characters, what powers to use, what choices to make. Don’t let that scare you off, though: TBW’s barrier of entry is forgiving, and its gameplay represents an innovative, more streamlined take on the genre. Its overall tone and package (and high amount of defenestration) make for one of the most fun experiences in this year’s flock of games.

Conclusion

In some discussions about Best Game or Interactive Work, there have been some fears about triple-A major studio games dominating the category, due to unfamiliarity with the wider video gaming scene. While these concerns aren’t unfounded, indie gaming has grown in stature and accessibility, and every year there’s rarely a shortage of key genre titles to seek out — they may just need to be highlighted.

A Tribute To Vernor Vinge

Even if you haven't read anything that Vernor Vinge wrote, you've likely read something that was inspired by his work. He was a titan in his field and his work spoke to fans around the globe.

This blog would likely not exist
without Vernor Vinge’s novel
A Deepness In The Sky.
(Photo by Olav Rokne)

When he died yesterday, his influence could be found in almost every corner of science fiction.

Vinge began writing science fiction when he was a teenager, penning the story “Bookworm Run!” while a senior in high school in 1962. It’s a story that appeared in print four years later, about the machine-human interface and the creation of a cyborg. Interestingly, it foreshadows much of Vinge’s career.

Cyborgs had, of course, been a science fiction staple for almost four decades by the time “Bookworm Run!” was written. Up to this point, cybernetic augmentation was depicted as either improving the physical abilities of the human, or challenging their self-identity (as in “No Woman Born” by CL Moore). In contrast, and as he would do often throughout his career, Vinge tried to imagine what it would be like for a human to think better.

“I had tried a straightforward extrapolation of technology, and found myself precipitated over an abyss,” he said about the story four decades after he’d written it. “It’s a problem writers face every time we consider the creation of intelligences greater than our own.”

In an era of punch-card readers and memory measured in dozens of bits, Vinge recognized the potential of computers in a way that most of his peers did not.

He earned his PhD in computer science at the University of California San Diego in 1971, studying conformal maps (functions that locally preserve angles, but not necessarily lengths), writing a thesis on Solutions to Extremal Problems in E^p Spaces. He began teaching computer science at San Diego State University later that year, which became the focus of his academic career.

Over the decades, Vinge became known for stories about enhanced cognition through consciousness uploading (“True Names”), machine-human cooperation (The Peace War), alternate-architecture group consciousness (Amdi in Fire Upon The Deep), virally-altered brain chemistry (Deepness In The Sky), and many more.

 In 1962 when Vinge started writing about computers,
the most powerful computer on Earth was the
Atlas 2 in Manchester UK. It had a 48-bit core memory.
(Image via Chilton Computers)

These ideas of altered and elevated consciousness dovetailed nicely with another of Vinge’s other major themes: the technological singularity, or the idea that more intelligent computers will drive the creation of even faster computers until progress advances so quickly it can no longer be understood.

“Singularity is the point at which our old models will have to be discarded, where a new reality will reign,” Vinge wrote. “This is a world whose outlines will become clearer, approaching modern humanity, until this new reality obscures surrounding reality, becoming commonplace.”

One of these forays into singularitarianism helped launch an entire subgenre of science fiction. First appearing in a Dell paperback alongside George R.R. Martin’s Nightflyers, the story True Names offered a blueprint for cyberpunk that would influence and inspire everything from blockbuster movies to role playing games and television series.

Perhaps just as prescient are passages like the scene at the end of A Deepness In The Sky, when Trixia Bonsol asserts the value of neurodiversity, and the right of individuals to have differing experiences of consciousness. Bonsol is one of a number of characters whose consciousnesses become chained by the villainous Emergents; her will subsumed by neurochemical conditioning such that her brain becomes a living computer. Because her brain has become “focused” on the task that she’s best at (translation), she is no longer neurotypical.

Trixia’s decision at the end of the novel to remain focused is quietly a revolutionary act that can be read as celebrating the value, independence, and agency of those on the autism spectrum.

Vinge is often praised for his wide-ranging imagination and for exploring weird, wonderful, and unique science fictional concepts. He should also be recognized for being ahead of his time on some political matters and his centering the better natures of humanity. He was critical of South Africa’s apartheid regime when many looked the other way. And he was never as reactionary as some right-wing fans wanted him to be.

Vinge accepted the Hugo for Best Novel in
Chicago in 2000 for Deepness In The Sky.
(Image via Midamericon)

“Every anarchical scheme has some set of assumptions for why people will cooperate (you can usually spot the assumption in the names: anarcho-communism, anarcho-capitalism…),” he once wrote. “There’s a fundamental problem all such plans must face: how to prevent the formation of power groups large enough to in fact be the government.”

Vinge’s last Hugo-winning novel Rainbows End is set next year. Published in 2006, the book correctly predicted Uber-like micro-transactions, and widely-available wireless broadband, and the ability for hackers to track everyone via the signals emitted by their devices. Sadly, the ubiquitous use of augmented reality goggles, driverless cars, and a cure for Alzheimer’s all remain on the horizon.

Despite his influence, Vinge was never going to be a household name outside of the genre. His writing was inescapably fannish, he was one of us, and he will be missed. 

God Never Talks. But the Devil Keeps Advertising. — Hugo Cinema 1974

This blog post is the seventeenth in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

If you looked only at the Hugo shortlist for 1974, you might be excused for assuming that it was just a bad year for screen science fiction and fantasy. But there were, in fact, excellent movies and even television shows to be found. The Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation had missed the mark before, but never this substantially.

Rather than dwell on the uninspiring shortlist, the frankly abysmal winner, or the at-best controversial celebrity who created it, let’s start by talking about the works that deserved to be celebrated instead.

The Exorcist is an iconic and enduring movie, but
somehow was not honoured by the Hugo Awards.
(Image via Bloody Disgusting.)

For starters, the absence of The Exorcist on the 1974 Hugo ballot for best dramatic presentation is one of the most glaring omissions in the history of the award.

Reportedly, viewers fainted in the cinema and experienced nightmares for weeks after. To this day, it routinely tops lists of the greatest horror movies ever made. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Exorcist won two Oscars including Best Screenplay. It was the highest-grossing movie of the year.

And considering that Rosemary’s Baby had earned a Hugo nomination just five years previously, it was obviously clear to WSFS members that supernatural horror movies were eligible for the award.

But … it appears not to have been well liked by fandom at the time. Writing in the WSFA Journal, Richard Delap describes it as a “shallow, poorly-written jumble of religious assertions and flaky characters.” Writing his own review a few months later in Son of the WSFA Journal, Don Miller was dismissive of the movie, suggesting that despite the hype, it would be quickly forgotten.

But for those of us watching The Exorcist with 50 years of hindsight, the movie holds up remarkably well — and better than most of its contemporaries. We can see why this movie was instantly hailed by most in the mainstream press as a classic. It straddles the line between high-art and pulp entertainment, combining superb filmmaking with well-paced dialogue and narrative momentum. The Exorcist stands out among supernatural horror by playing with the boundary between what is known and what is unknowable. From the perspective of science fiction and fantasy fandom, a surprising amount of the movie involves characters attempting to solve the problem scientifically before they turn to a supernatural solution.

We would suggest that the early dismissiveness that many in fandom had towards The Exorcist shows some of the difficulties of providing quick assessments of the enduring value of art. Or maybe the film just made them uncomfortable.

Don't Look Now, directed by Nicholas Roeg,
is an unsettling movie that remains a classic of
supernatural horror. 
(Image via The New Yorker)

Another horror-fantasy that would have been a creditable Hugo finalist is Don’t Look Now, a subtle and carefully constructed British ghost story based on a novelette by The Birds author Daphne du Maurier. The movie follows a couple after the accidental death of their daughter, as they start to explore supernatural options to regain contact with her. Director Nicolas Roeg approaches the subject with a Kubrickian attention to detail, alluding to themes and portents with carefully constructed visual elements. Interestingly, writing in the fanzine Starling in early 1974, Jim Turner highlighted the quality of Don’t Look Now, and noted that the movie was Hugo-eligible.

George Romero’s The Crazies received some attention from contemporaneous fanzines, with Christopher Fowler writing in Vector that it might make a credible Hugo finalist. Using the premise of a biological weapon being accidentally unleashed in an American small town, The Crazies paints a picture of organizational dysfunction and of government incompetence. It is worth noting that this is one of the few movies of the era to cast a BIPOC actor in a role of authority, with Lloyd Hollar playing Colonel Peckham, one of the few competent government officials trying to keep the disease contained. In the decades since its release, it has become a cult classic, and has been interpreted by libertarians as a condemnation of big government, and interpreted by leftists as a takedown of right-wing military thinking. It’s a rich text that continues to inspire conversations, but was overlooked.

Imagine if The Matrix had
been made in Germany during
the 1970s by an art-house genius,
that's World On A Wire.
(Image via Criterion)

Though any foreign-language movie is always unlikely to make the Hugo ballot, World On A Wire (AKA Welt am Draht) needs to be highlighted as an option, as it is possibly the first depiction of virtual reality in screen science fiction. A German-television adaptation of Daniel F. Galoye’s book Simulacron-3, the show follows a scientist who takes over a computing project after the mysterious death of his boss. As it turns out, the project is a simulation of the real world used for market research, and within the simulation, there are thousands of artificial intelligences who think they are in the real world. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this might be the best-looking television production of the decade, stylish, moody, and thoughtful. Although slow at points, this philosophical masterpiece would have topped the Hugo ballot for at least one member of our viewing group.

French animated sci-fi fantasy Fantastic Planet (AKA La Planète sauvage) received some discussion in that year’s fanzines, and would have been a worthy contender for the Hugo. An epic parable about colonization and the rights of sentient beings, the movie depicts humanity being enslaved by giant aliens who keep us as pets. It’s an odd and beautiful movie at times, because of the animation, with the visuals serving to hammer home the horrific nature of being treated as less than human. Similarly, The Belladonna of Sadness, a Japanese animated movie about a woman who makes a pact with the devil to enact revenge against men who assaulted her, uses innovative artwork to underscore the inhumanity of the villains. These have both stood the test of time far better than anything that actually made the ballot.

We might also highlight Alejandro Jodorowski’s sophomore effort The Holy Mountain, which was released in 1973, and would have been eligible for the Hugo. The surreal and poetically weird movie presents a parable about searching for meaning, and about the sins of humanity. The protagonist — who is either a thief or Jesus — must team up with human avatars of the planets of the solar system to journey to the top of a mountain in order to replace the magicians who live at the summit. It’s at turns self-indulgent and thoughtful, philosophical and crass, entertaining and ponderous, and is one of the high points of 1970s cinema overall.

Playful, beautiful, kaleidoscopic, The Holy
Mountain plays with the sacred and the profane.
One of the high points of 1970s cinema.
(Image via IMDB.com)

So given all these excellent options in terms of science fiction and fantasy on screen, what did make the ballot? Soylent Green, Sleeper, Westworld, Genesis II, and The Six Million Dollar Man.

Of these, only Soylent Green would have ranked slightly above ‘No Award’ for us. Though it has lines that are often quoted today, this adaptation of Harry Harrison’s novel Make Room, Make Room did not age as well as many other movies. There are some scenes that work; in particular the suicide machine, and the depiction of fresh fruit as something extraordinary. But more often than not, this movie fails. The sexism is pervasive, and stands out even among the contemporaneous movies we have watched. Live-in prostitutes are referred to as ‘furniture,’ and almost every female character is treated as little more than a sex object. Although the premise of a society that treats women as ‘furniture’ could have been a satire of real-world sexism, director Richard Fleischer seems unable to bring a critical lens to the behaviour. Even contemporaneous (and cis-male) critics found the sexism of Soylent Green objectionable — In the WSFA Journal, Richard Delap noted the uncritical and misogynist depiction of prostitution in a scathing review and concluded “It’s easy to complain about a film that aborts the fine material on which it was based; but Soylent Green is much worse than that.” 

Given that the movie Westworld — written and directed by Michael Chrichton — would go on to spawn a sequel and two television series, it clearly connected with audiences. With a great premise — an amusement park filled with robots that descends into chaos — this could have been a first-rate film. But it quickly devolves into a monster movie as robot Yul Brenner tries to kill the two protagonists. It’s light on dialogue, light on character, and mostly pretty wooden in direction. Some contemporaneous fans agreed; “The good moments are much too infrequent, and the remainder much too trite. Any SF fan is bound to be saddened to see such workable potential by bad editing to throw-away trivia.” Richard Delap wrote in the WSFS Journal. The narrative premise would be better implemented forty years later in an HBO adaptation, which deserved a Hugo nod far more than the original.

The Belladonna of Sadness is a weird, problematic
movie with some incredible artwork and themes.
Those planning to watch it should probably read
this essay from The Anime Feminist, which 
highlights both the movie's strengths and 
flaws. (Image via Anime Feminist).

Genesis II, one in a long line of Gene Roddenberry failed pilot episodes, is a jumbled mess of a show about Dylan Hunt, a scientist from the present who is frozen in time and wakes up in 2133. Finding himself in a post-apocalyptic world, Hunt joins up with pacifist scientists and fights against evil mutants. Laden with excessive narration, weak characters, and ethnic stereotypes, there’s little to recommend Genesis II. One can only suspect that leftover goodwill from Star Trek earned Roddenberry this Hugo nomination.

Conversely, The Six Million Dollar Man pilot episode did get picked up to series, going on to last five seasons, a spin-off series, and several TV movies. The character of Steve Austin, introduced in this Hugo-finalist TV movie, would grace screens for more than two decades and produce several excellent outings (The Seven Million Dollar Man and Death Probe come to mind.) But the pilot episode is clunky at best; there’s little narrative arc for the first two thirds of the episode, and the terrorism plot seems tacked on. The nominated episode is simply not Hugo worthy.

Woody Allen’s listless, puerile, Hugo-winning comedy Sleeper is self-indulgent to the point of onanism. Allen stars as Miles Monroe, a jazz clarinetist who is cryogenically frozen and wakes up 200 years later in a Brave New World-style dystopia. (To be clear, this is not an Orwellian dictatorship, but rather one that controls people through hedonism.) After various pratfalls and masturbation jokes, Miller is then caught up in a revolution to overthrow the oppressive society. It’s a fairly banal science fiction story whose plot is often twisted out of shape just to force one more joke about self-pleasure into the script. The movie still has fans today, but to us, most of the slapstick jokes fell relatively flat — though your mileage may vary. In retrospect, and in light of Allen’s later conduct, we feel deeply uncomfortable with him being honoured with a Hugo.

It is a shame — but not surprising — that in a year that offered cinema with such strong themes of rejection of authority, female empowerment and social activism, the Hugos went with some of the whitest, most regressive picks available. All-too-often, nerd culture has reproduced the exclusionary aspects of mainstream culture, and such was the case with the 1974 Hugos.

Having now watched almost two decades worth of Hugo-eligible movies and television, it’s clear that the Best Dramatic Presentation category has a poor track record of selecting works that would enjoy enduring value. But even by those standards, the 1974 shortlist is a low point. It is particularly galling considering the quality of cinematic and televised SFF that was available to viewers in the preceding year. The Exorcist should have won, and for it to be denied even a nomination must have been a bad look for the award itself, even in 1974.

A Unanimous Gold Mine Of Subtext

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if Sun Ra and Samuel R. Delany had tried to make The Matrix, the answer is something like Neptune Frost.

Burudian rapper Kaya Free (AKA Bertrand
Ninteretse) gives a compelling nuanced performance
as Matalusa in Neptune Frost. 
(Image via the Facebook Page of Saul Williams) 

A collaboration between alternative hip-hop artist and provocateur Saul Williams and Rwandan artist and playwright Anisia Uzeyman, Neptune Frost is structured in alternating segments between a story following a coltan miner named Matalusa whose brother is killed while mining coltan in an open pit mine, and an intersex runaway named Neptune who flees from an attempted sexual assault. Neither of them fits into the systems at play in the communities they call home, and through this, the viewer is challenged to find parallels between the oppression of gender conformity and the oppression of standard capitalist employment relationships.

The ability of each of these narrative threads to engender empathy hangs on superb performances in these two roles; Matalusa as played by Kaya Free and Neptune who is played alternatingly by Cherylel Isheja and Elvis Ngabo.

Finding each other when they join a revolutionary anti-capitalist hackers collective, Matalusa and Neptune discover that their relationship warps the fabric of reality and may provide the key to freeing society from the grip of a rapacious mining company and an authoritarian regime.

But a simple plot summary does not begin to convey what makes the movie so unusual and compelling. The central characters’ journeys through this imagined future Rwanda and Burundi shimmers between differing states of existence; musical understandings of the world and cinematic explorations. It’s … a lot to work through.

Additionally, given that it’s a multilingual movie whose dialogue is in parts spoken in Kirundi, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, French, and English, and given that some of the subtext depends on puns in the various languages, it is the sort of cinema that takes some generosity, imagination, and effort to parse.

Although the movie can be opaque and obtuse at times, what is clear is the criticism of capitalism, of colonialism, and of exploitation. This is a movie about an anarchist, anticolonial rejection of heterodox narrative conventions.

This carries through to the exuberant and kaleidoscopic visuals that are elevated by found-item and repurposed set construction. This world is built of broken, discarded, and recycled computers and technology, evoking a punk aesthetic; handmade yet high tech.

Creators Saul Williams and 
Anisia Uzeyman. 
(Image via Facebook)

Although it opened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021, it’s eligibility for the Hugo Awards was extended at the 2022 WSFS business meeting, so it can be nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2023. And it deserves your attention. 

Although the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation has a long history of celebrating works that are already successful, several nominations in other categories show that Hugo voters are interested in works that represent cultural perspectives other than North American.

In an era when mainstream science fiction movies have embraced safe and comforting fare, experiencing cinema that dares to offer non-traditional narrative structures is refreshing.

Currently available for purchase on various streaming services (YouTube, Apple+, GooglePlay), this challenging, multilayered, perplexing, beautiful beat poem of a movie is probably the most interesting piece of science fiction cinema to have arrived from Africa since the 2009 release of Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi.

To quote Neptune Frost itself: this is a Unanimous Gold Mine.

Subtweetpunk, shadecore, and other subgenres

There is power in the act of naming. 

Labels are part of how people communicate and make sense of the world. This can bring us together, but until new terms have meaning for a larger group, they can also isolate. There

The word is "Midichlorians"… and this
organization you're joining is totally not a cult!
(Image via Lucasfilm) 

’s a reason that numerous cults have their own dictionaries filled with loaded terms such as ‘Thetans,’ ‘Jness,’ ‘HODL,’ or ‘Meeks.’

At times, science fiction likewise seems to be a genre in love with inventing its own dictionaries; and not just as part of world building in books like Lord of the Rings and The Fifth Season. While terms like ‘SMOF,’ ‘mundanes,’ or ‘gafiate,’ can be useful shorthand in fan discussions, their prevalence can compound or create obfuscation for those not steeped in the genre and its convention culture. Often terms are created to describe new subgenres, whether or not the new term has any real meaning to it.

It makes sense that those trying to make sense of science fiction and fantastical discourse (for good or ill) will coin new terms for trends, tropes, and ideas they are grappling with. But creating categories within a genre can be an attempt to exert control and can easily succumb to gatekeeping.

The effects of creating increasingly arcane terminology for subgenres are at least twofold: those who don't understand the new terms are excluded from being able to fully participate in the discussion and the creation of the term divides works into those worthy of inclusion, and those that are unworthy. Stories that are deemed to conform to a nebulous criteria (or are written by an author considered to be a part of the in-group) can be declared to be part of the select subgenre, while those that do not meet their standards (or are written by an author considered to be a part of the out-group) can sometimes be declared to be part of a lesser or derided subgenre.

As an aside, it does seem worth noting that which works are selected or rejected to be considered part of subgenres often show biases based on the gender, age, class, and cultural backgrounds of those creating the categories.

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan once noted, “All words, in every language, are metaphors.” And the

Marshall McLuhan
(Image via MediaCentre) 

connotations of these metaphors are particularly evident in many of the invented words of fandom. Take for example “Hopepunk,” the term coined by Alexandra Rowland as she called for uplifting stories that helped inspire people to believe in the future. This portmanteau combines an aspirational ideal of hope with the positive anti-authoritarian connotation of the punk music scene. By doing so, the very word “hopepunk” suggests that those in power benefit from the hopelessness of the masses, and that in fact the most rebellious thing people can do is dream of a better tomorrow.

Thus, naming something sometimes allows the term to define it, and to some degree can help shape how the public learns about it, thinks about it, and even searches for it. But naming also legitimizes a concept, and formalizes it in ways that are often unexpected. Calling music “shoegaze” was originally intended as an insult to guitarists who liked using distortion pedals while they played; it became a badge of honour. Fred Hoyle was trying to dismiss the concept of an explosive start to the universe when he dismissed it as a “Big Bang”; now it’s the common term for how many people believe existence came to be.

Nothing appeals to
the kids like references
to an obscure 75-year-old
Canadian SF author!
(Image via wikipedia)

Usually, naming something connects best with audiences when there is a clear and concise definition of what it is. “Cyberpunk” for example is one of the most enduring subgenres in part because the extent of literature in this category is relatively easy to identify. Likewise, “Urban Fantasy” existed and had tropes and conventions long before anyone tried to put a name to it.

Successful subgenre names are ones that help people find books they might enjoy, but are rarely used to
define something as good or bad. They’re descriptors, rather than pejoratives. In short, the thing being described existed before the terminology.

As fans, we should be careful about the language we choose to describe the genre, the subgenre, and ourselves. The idea that ‘Fans are Slans,’ as example created a linguistic wall around fandom that in some ways persists today. At their worst, these empty ill-defined terms become semantic stop-signs that are a language of non-discourse. They can be the thought-ending cliche of cultural discussions, unquestionable for fear of offending those who accept the term unquestioningly. And they can define and alienate us all from relevance.

The Future Refusing To Be Born

There will always be a place that our unevenly distributed future reaches last.

(Image via Goodreads)

In Neil Sharpson’s excellent debut novel When The Sparrow Falls, that place is The Caspian Republic: a country founded by expatriate American and Russian bioconservative activists, whose boundaries are roughly those of present-day Azerbaijan.

While the rest of the world has embraced an almost-singularitarian future of AI-guided mass prosperity, near immortality, and widespread expansive human rights, this Caspian Republic has hewed to a quasi-religious “Humanity First” doctrine and polices the use of technology.

The reader’s guide to this setting is Agent Nikolai South, an aging detective with StaSec, one of the country’s various rival agencies devoted to maintaining ideological purity, and punishing those who try to use illegal technologies.

In a police state where ambition is often met with tragedy, South’s proclivity for keeping his head down has kept him safe. But when the agency needs someone politically reliable, yet expendable, he gets swept up into a protection detail and investigations that have implications for the entire country.

Sharpson’s prose is sparse, clear, and engaging. He ably paints a picture of a deeply flawed society, and one that is the all-too-believable result of nostalgia-driven politics and identity-driven ideology. Because the Caspian Republic’s technology is pretty much limited to what was common in North America in the 1980s, readers will be reminded of late-era Cold War spy stories.

Welsh statesman 
Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960)
once described Fascism as
"The future refusing to be born."
(Image via Wikipedia)

But while the setting may seem familiar to readers over 40, many readers will engage with it viscerally because of quotable passages like “Nominally, the currency of the Caspian Republic is the moneta, but in truth the coin of the nation was fear. Whoever could inspire fear was rich, whoever lived in fear was poor.”

One of the highlights of the book is the way in which cultural mores come into conflict between the protagonist and influences from the world outside the boundaries of the Caspian Republic, and the questions that are interrogated. Who or what deserves to have legal rights? What limits should be placed on individual action for the good of the community? To what extent should we allow technology to dictate the future of the species and the planet?

There are coincidences scattered throughout the book that do strain credulity. It is suggested at one point that this may be due to an iteration of Roko's Basilisk — a thought experiment about a future artificial intelligence so advanced it can manipulate events in our present to ensure it comes into being — but for us this thread of the novel fell flat.

Author Neil Sharpson provides
interesting insight into his novel
on an episode of Androids and Assets.
(Image via Amazon)

Likewise, it was at times difficult to believe South’s emotional journey from apathetic true believer in the national cause, to someone who sees the country’s problems and is willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Not because this journey can’t happen, people can change beliefs, but because of the speed with which it happens in the novel. Over the course of two days, South becomes comfortable betraying all he has stood for his entire life.

While many reviewers have made comparisons between When The Sparrow Falls and Orwell’s 1984, we feel that those comparisons, while useful, are perhaps superficial. Although both authors begin by examining repressive government autocracies, Sharpson is far more hopeful and seems to suggest that all such regimes are unstable and will collapse under their own internal contradictions. We feel that When The Sparrow Falls is just as much in conversation with a lesser-known midcentury science fiction novel: the infamous Hugo winner They’d Rather Be Right, as it tackles similar questions of governance by algorithm.

Because the novel takes place almost entirely within the borders of the Caspian Republic, the AI-embracing rest of the world is largely ignored. The few glimpses of the mind-uploading, technocratic, utopian society are somewhat facile (though it has to be admitted that such scenes are difficult to write well). We were left with questions about whether the rest of the world is that much better than the Caspian Republic. If nothing can be done without approval of the Artificial Intelligences that guide humanity, in what way is it not a totalitarian state?

The strength of Sharpson’s prose, the fast-paced and engaging plot, and the extraordinarily interesting political dynamics of the setting make for one of the best debut novels of the year, despite some minor flaws.

Not On The Shortlist 2021

Every year there are more worthy works than could fit on any Hugo Awards ballot. There will therefore

(Image via Goodreads)

always be works that are not included, no matter how great they may be. As our book club has done in previous years, some of us have selected the books, movies, and comic books they wish could have made this year's ballot.  

(KB) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 

Set in the 1950s Mexican countryside, college-age Noémi navigates a tense and horrific situation that holds her cousin captive.  

Evoking the same style of romantic gothic and speculative fiction horror in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Moreno-Garcia’s carefully crafted novel ratchets the tension and addresses settler-colonialism, environmental racism, and sexism. Using a unique mechanic to bring the eco-gothic setting into the fantasy and science fiction genre, the novel was full of surprises beyond just the plot. 

As a horror aficionado (and obviously a SFF fan), this book is an outstandingly creative entry for the speculative fiction subgenres. Moreno-Garcia, whose previous book Gods of Jade and Shadow earned her Nebula and Locus nominations, is an author to keep a closer eye on, and it’s a shame that Mexican Gothic didn’t make it onto Hugo readers’ radars.

(AW) Bridge 108 by Anne Charnock — Best Novel

Not sure how this thoughtful, socially speculative and dystopian novel didn’t make it on the ballot. Anne Charnock gives us interesting and relatable characters that must move forward, both literally and figuratively, to survive in a world struggling with deep social and economic divisions.

Caleb and other point of view characters provide distinct interpretations of the same reality, revealing layers of social conditioning to the reader. But you don't need to care about social relations and labour issues to enjoy this book (even if you should). Despite backstories of despair, each character’s choices reveal an inherent and universal drive to survive without doing harm.

This is near-future climate change fiction at its best — gently disclosing the impact of current conditions and choices through sympathetic experiences and hope.

(MB) Repo Virtual by Corey J. White — Best Novel

Repo Virtual is a really great response to anyone that suggests cyberpunk is a finished genre. It takes aim at the giant internet companies dominating the world today and at the precarious labour that allows the world to function.

It’s a great little heist story that has hackers, a predatory pseudo-intellectual cult leader, a massive multiplayer online game all set in a frighteningly realistic near-future smart city.

The story is a smart critique of the world and the trajectory we’re on and White absolutely deserves an

award.

(OR) Jack Kirby: The Epic Life Of The King Of Comics by Tom Scioli — Best Related Work

One of the most visually distinctive artists of the golden age of comics, Jack Kirby helped create a plethora of characters who have gone on to be household names: Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, Nick Fury, and The Fantastic Four just to name a few. Elements of his art style echo throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His contributions were often however overshadowed in the popular imagination by his more charismatic colleague Stan Lee. So a volume like “The Epic Life of The King of Comics” provides a welcome insight into who Kirby was, what influenced his genuinely progressive vision for comic books, and what his legacy might be. 

Told as a linear chronological narrative, The Epic Life Of the King Of Comics follows Kirby’s service in World War 2, his confrontations and altercations with home-grown American racists, his ascent to the top of his profession, and his fight to claim ownership of his work. It is a story worth reading and understanding for fans of comics, fans of creator’s rights, and fans of the genre in general.  

Rather than telling this story through a conventional biography, Tom Scioli offers us a beautifully drawn comic book in which the art carefully offers connotations of Kirby’s style. This artwork is notable for how Scioli helps us see Kirby the way that Kirby saw the world, though he avoids slavishly aping the master’s style. 

This is truly one of the great works of comic book history. 

(Image via Goodreads) 

(CF) The Unspoken Name by AK Larkwood

This fantasy novel follows the life of Csorwe from dedicated death god mouthpiece and sacrifice to assassin and spy and beyond.

Inspired by Le Guin’s Tombs of Atuan, AK Larkwood’s debut novel The Unspoken Name follows a young orcish death cultist for whom a vast new world becomes possible when she is saved from being a ritual sacrifice. Set on a quest for an artifact of incalculable power, she learns the world is more nuanced and complicated than she had been raised to believe.

Despite this being a debut novel, which earned Larkwood a spot on the ballot for the Astounding Award, this book has better balance of complex worldbuilding with character development than works by far more established authors. While some might complain that the plot isn’t particularly tight, that gives the characters more space to breathe and to grow.

One of the many facets of the book that made it stand out is how Larkwood engages with and subverts the prejudices baked into standard fantasy tropes. Orcs may have a different culture that doesn’t align with that of the dominant (white) majority, but in this narrative it is made clear that they are just as human.

Another facet that adds brilliance to this little gem are the positive queer representation. Both Csorwe and her friend were queer but it was just part of their characters and not used as tokenism for the plot. And in the wider world, there was no institutionalized homophobia.

It is great to see AK Larkwood on the ballot for the Astounding Award, but all the same I would have liked to have seen The Unspoken Name shortlisted for best novel.

The Humanity Of Machinehood

Several short works by S.B. Divya have been among our favourites in the past five years or so.

Image via Simon
& Schuster

“Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse,” “Loss of Signal,” and the Nebula-shortlisted novella “Runtime,” demonstrate that she is a writer who delivers interesting ideas wrapped in approachable and stylish prose. We therefore had high hopes for her debut novel Machinehood — and were not disappointed.

The novel is clever, brimming with engaging ideas, and provides important commentary on current political trends. Set a century down the line, Machinehood delves into the erosion of human rights, the perils of capital-driven pharmaceutical development, and the evolving understandings of privacy.

Machinehood centres on Welga, a security contractor who ends up investigating a series of terrorist attacks thought to be orchestrated by the world’s first truly sentient artificial intelligence. Although the story initially feels like an adventure novel, it’s soon apparent that the story centers on Welga’s quest to create stability, the precariousness of her work situation, and her sister-in-law’s medical investigation into seizures that Welga begins experiencing.

Divya uses these narrative threads to explore how capitalist-driven competition can lead to negative outcomes for society. In particular, the use of performance-enhancing drugs has been normalized in this future, leading to workers whose employment is contingent on their willingness to punish their bodies and nervous systems beyond their natural limits. While this is a bleak (and unfortunately believable) aspect to the world Divya has crafted, it is not entirely dystopian.

While the novel depicts various forms of body modification having detrimental effects, and the gig economy making working relationships more tenuous, other advances such as automatic kitchens, the ease of global travel, and medical printers have created higher standards of living in other ways. This is a nuanced future that avoids monocausal explanations for society’s changes.

Escape Pod co-host
S.B. Divya's engineering
background is evident.
Image via Analog

One of the recurring themes explored in the book — and one of the reasons it should be considered for the Prometheus Award — is the relationship between government services, the private sector, and do-it-yourself culture. As an example, those wanting to go to space do so through the participation of voluntary hobbyist rocket-ship clubs, while health care is allocated through a system of micro-auctions. Pharmaceuticals are often printed at home with some government oversight, but pill designs come from both giant corporations and from hobbyists. None of these details are delivered by way of polemic, but rather flow naturally within the story.

In such a setting, the most powerful actors seem to be religions, in part because of the unassailable sway they have over their followers. Without giving too much away, there are philosophical aspects to a religion of Neo-Budhism that provide incredible motivations to some of the religion’s adherents. Religion thus is shown to be a tool to navigate and instigate change.

One of the greatest strengths of the novel is that as it progresses, the conflict becomes less and less black-and-white. The antagonist is compelling in large part because it’s easy to see their side of the issues, even though their tactics aren’t acceptable. Has the terrorism perpetrated by the Machinehood improved the lives of humanity? Divya has the courage to leave that question unanswered.

Every few years, it starts to seem like science fiction is running out of ideas. Thankfully, authors like Divya remind us that the future has an almost infinite array of possibilities. Machinehood is the type of novel that gives us faith in science fiction as a genre.

The Death And Life Of Cyberpunk

Few science fiction subgenres have been proclaimed dead as often as cyberpunk. If you need any

Christine Foltzer's cover
for the novel Repo Virtual.
(Image via Amazon)

proof that these claims are exaggerated, look no further than Corey White’s 2020 debut novel Repo Virtual, which shows that cyberpunk is still vital and evolving.

Set in the fictional Korean city of Neo Songdo, Repo Virtual is both an action-based heist and an exploration of how corporate hegemony subverts human freedom.

Protagonist Julius Dax is a person with a disability who repairs robots as his day job and has a side gig conducting repossessions in various augmented-reality online games. The skills he has from working his repo work come into play when his step-sibling Soo-hyun drags him into a risky heist involving the theft of an artificial intelligence from the hands of a reclusive billionaire named Zero Lee.

The novel gets a bit more complicated when Dax (who is being hunted by the corporation that made the AI) decides to try and extort the person who organized the heist — a charismatic cult leader named Kali who may have nefarious plans for the artificial intelligence.

We’ve long observed that members of marginalized groups are often the first to face the adverse impacts of technological change. Which is why it is baffling that cyberpunk (a subgenre that explores the freedom-destroying aspects of new information technologies) is often focused on able-bodied white male characters as protagonists. White’s inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters, a prominent enby character, and other minority characters hints at some of the reasons why a revival of cyberpunk could be vibrant. We might have appreciated a bit more development for these characters, but their presence was natural and inclusive without seeming tokenistic or heavy-handed.

Despite a brisk pace and approachable prose, Repo Virtual was occasionally baffling. Transitions between chapters were sometimes jarring, and there were points at which the narrative became a bit arcane and labyrinthine. That being said, these minor flaws actually made the book feel more authentic and raw; this is a book whose unpolished edges contribute to the ‘punk’ aspect of ‘cyberpunk.’ There is a crackling anti-authoritanian energy to the novel, and it’s this punk element that makes the novel truly shine.

When it comes to tackling issues of authority and capitalist overreach, this novel is quite quotable: “Corporate capitalism is built on a foundation of infinite growth despite our very finite resources. We’re on track to consume our way to an unlivable planet, and no one seems to care.”

Although it’s pretty clear from the novel’s ending that this is a stand-alone book, Neo Songdo is a

Corey J. White's debut novel
is often quotably Marxist.
(Image via Twitter)

setting that we could have happily spent more time in. One of the major challenges for cyberpunk writers is to imagine exactly what uses the street will find for new technologies; Corey White is particularly good at this. White’s thoughtful worldbuilding shows why cyberpunk continues to be a relevant subgenre; gamified economies, precarious employment, augmented reality, and globalization have all accelerated since cyberpunk’s heyday in the 1980s. We kept being drawn into the story by details like the autonomous police security robot dogs, the quasi-veneration of the ultrawealthy, and the wealthy kids who conspicuously smoke cigarettes as a status symbol to show that they have the resources to be cured of cancer.

These bits of worldbuilding help reinforce the anti-capitalist themes of the story. Privatized health care helps trap Dax in disability. The need to eke out a living has corrupted Dax’s family relationships. This is a sadly believable future, and one that White depicts well.

Repo Virtual is cyberpunk for those who are attracted to cyberpunk for its anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian vibes. The world needs more proletarian science fiction that tackles issues of class and economy and recognizes the struggles of marginalized populations. Corey White has just made a solid argument as to why cyberpunk might be the subgenre most well-suited to doing so.

Imagining the future of organized labour (part one of three)

List of unions.

This is the first of a three-part blog post about the historical invisibility of organized labour in science fiction. The second post, was published in mid-February explores recent works that address this notable absence. A third blog post examines labour unions in science fiction TV and movies. These articles could not have been completed without the help of science fiction historian Alec Nevala-Lee and labour researchers Mark McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson. 

Science fictional narratives are filled with depictions of employment.

Whether it’s Gaal Dornick taking a job with the mathematics department at the University of Trantor, or Robinette Broadhead leaving his job in the protein mines to pursue an opportunity with the Gateway corporation, the genre is rife with examples of standard capitalist employment relationships.

Often given less focus, however, are the rights of those workers, and the means by which those rights are asserted. When it comes to employment, the majority of science fiction offers either utopian visions in which everyone has a share in societal prosperity, or dystopian nightmares in which the elites have all the power and workers are crushed underfoot.

For example, neither Star Trek nor Babylon 5 ever explore the reason why productivity gains of new

The character Robocop crosses a picket
line to appease the corporate masters
of a privatized police department.
In the labour movement, he would be
called a 'scab.'
(Image via DenOfGeek.com)

technologies have not been concentrated into the wealth of an ultra-elite. Conversely, neither Altered Carbon nor Neuromancer offer explanations for why the working class has failed to organize solidarity-driven or democratic responses to societal problems.

Few of us have memories of the might of the North American union movement in the 1940s and 1950s. It was this movement that accorded workers stability and living wages that increased on par with productivity gains. It is probably this era of increasing income equality that made expansive utopian imaginings without explanation seem plausible.

In 1951, famed science fiction editor John W. Campbell wrote to H. Beam Piper, one of his regular writers, asking the author to tone down anti-union language in the story Day Of The Moron. He did so not because he supported the labour movement, but because he was afraid of offending members of the printers’ union that his magazine, Astounding, relied upon.

At their peak in 1954, unions represented almost a third of workers in the United States, and it was easy to take their existence — and their action as a counterbalance to the power of capital — for granted. Even employees in non-union workplaces enjoyed gains because employers had to keep up with union shops to retain and recruit labour.

But despite their prevalence in society, labour unions were largely absent from science fictional narratives during the Golden Age, and their few portrayals in the genre are usually either comedic or antagonistic.

As labour activist and science fiction author Eric Flint pointed out at WorldCon76, the major

At Worldcon 76 in San Jose, Eric Flint,
Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Cory
Doctorow discussed the dearth of
labour unions in science fiction.
(Photo by Kateryna Barnes)

contributors to the development of science fiction — from the dawn of the Golden Age of Science Fiction through this era of union organizing and stability — were largely drawn from academic circles or the upper middle class. Despite working for a living, these authors and editors did not see themselves as part of the proletariat, and thus based their narratives on assumptions that their privileged working relationships allowed them to hold.

Arthur C. Clarke’s scientist and astronaut heroes exist in a rarefied academic bubble that’s divorced from more typical job markets. Even when tackling a worker’s revolution in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein defined the conflict in terms of nationalism rather than solidarity. Ray Bradbury seems to be largely unaware of conflicts about labour conditions. And the Amalgamated Union in Alfred Bester’s classic The Demolished Man is largely a force for ill due to corrupt leadership.

Of all the big-name authors of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, special notice should be given to Isaac Asimov’s troubled relationship to organized labour. Despite the fact that Asimov came from a working-class background, his portrayals of workers is often problematic and condescending - In Caves of Steel (1954), workers who are displaced by robots are shown to be semi-literate at best, using pidgin like “‘Maybe it’s time the gov’min’ reelized robots ain’t the only things on Earth.”

If his portrayal of individual labourers is dismissive, his depiction of organized labour is actively hostile: In Robbie (1940), the labour movement forms an unholy alliance with religious fanatics to oppose progress in the form of robots; in the Foundation saga, nepotistic labour guilds are in part responsible for the collapse of the Empire; and to make his antipathy more obvious, he wrote the story Strikebreaker (1957), in which the heroic lead character forces a worker to accept employer demands.

A hero to many left-wing science
fiction fans, Isaac Asimov had feet
of clay on some subjects, including
workers' rights.
(Image by Rowena Morrill) 

It is disappointing to note that Asimov, member of the Futurians and an author often perceived as a progressive voice, might have had such a significant blind spot.

Even one of the most labour relations aware works of that era, Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth’s comedic novel The Space Merchants, is far from a paragon. The novel introduces us to the United Slime-Mold Protein Workers of Panamerica, a union that both exploits its membership through unfair fees, and is unable to stand up against the corporation’s might.

The progressive New Wave of science fiction of the late 1960s may have addressed the genre’s blind spots around race and gender, but when the subjects of class and labour were examined, it was usually with a sense of despair. This viewpoint is understandable in the context of the times: after declining for most of the previous four decades, American inequality was on the rise; trust in liberal democratic political institutions was being undermined; and the worst aspects of hierarchical business unions were on full display through such figures as Jimmy Hoffa and Carlo Gambino.

Those few representations of labour-rights organizations are presented with either antipathy or comedic disdain. When Douglas Adams introduces the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the union’s representatives Vroomfondel and Majikthise are actively fighting against knowledge and research. Arnie Kott, the antagonist in Philip K. Dick’s Martian Time-Slip, is a broad caricature of a union leader and is presented as bigoted, corrupt, egotistical, and thin-skinned.

One notable exception to this anti-union sentiment was found in Larry Niven's 1966 short story A Relic Of Empire, in which unions are described as a necessity

Depictions of workers rights and the struggle to defend those rights are few and far between by the

Has anyone from the Occupational
Health and Safety department
completed an ergonomic assessment
 of this power armor?
(Image via TheVerge) 

late 1970s and 1980s. Employees of the Weyland-Yutani corporation in Alien have little-to-no recourse when it comes to their right to refuse unsafe work. Neoliberal assumptions around employer-employee relations are reflected in more and more depictions of independent contractors in the genre. Johnny Mnemonic is a precarious worker, as are most denizens of the sprawl.

It could be argued that the cyberpunk subgenre is the apotheosis of despair over the state of workers’ rights. In The Diamond Age, the thete (lower-class) citizens have absolutely no rights, let alone employment rights, while workers like Molly in Neuromancer are even stripped of their right to remember the tasks they perform.

In these corporatist dystopias, workers are either unwilling or unable to organize in opposition to these measures, and what few escapes from serfdom exist are accomplished through heroic personal narratives. This view of the struggle for workers’ rights can be seen again in Neil Bloekamp’s 2013 box-office dud Elysium, in which a disenfranchised worker fights an unfair system, but does so on his own through violent action, rather than by organizing his workplace.

Interestingly, even in Ursula LeGuin’s exploration of anarcho-syndicalism The Dispossessed, workers rights are defended in neither the capitalist society of Anarres, nor on the anarchic world of Urras. On the latter world, the protagonist is forced into manual labour due to societal strictures, while on the former he’s part of a labour protest that’s violently put down. In neither world do we see an example of an effective labour movement.

As Mark A. McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson argue in their 2016 paper Resistance is Futile: On The

"THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!
YOU WILL BE PRIVATIZED!
PRI-VA-TIZE! PRI-VA-TIZE!"
(Image via BBC.com)

Under-Representation of Unions in Science Fiction, “The paucity of realistic representations of unions in SF thus has political implications: it reinforces the absence of alternatives to ... neoliberal capitalism.” This observation is mirrored by Margaret Thatcher’s famous slogan, “There Is No Alternative.”

The rigid adherence to one paradigm might be understandable in memetic (non-genre) fiction that strives to represent the world as it is, but in a genre like science fiction, which purports to be based on imagination, it is deeply disappointing. As Cory Doctorow noted this summer at a Worldcon76 panel on the working class in science fiction “There is no sentiment more antithetical to science fiction than ‘there is no alternative,’ … what we do as science fiction authors is exactly to imagine alternatives.”

Thankfully, a new generation was about to do exactly that.

Part two of this blog post, covering a renewed interest in organized labour in science fiction in the 1990s and 2000s, was posted on February 18, 2019. 

Company Town — The best 2016 SF novel not on the Hugo shortlist

The 2017 best novel shortlist was filled with worthwhile nominees representing diverse strains of

Our favourite SF novel
of 2016 did not get
a Hugo nomination.
(Image via Amazon.ca)

modern science fiction. From populist space adventures with hidden depths like A Closed And Common Orbit to ambitious and challenging far-future tales like Too Like The Lightning. 

It is interesting to note that the slate did not include much in the way of near-future works or grounded hard science fiction. And that’s a bit of a shame because 2016 saw the publication of one of the finest such works in recent memory. 

Madeline Ashby’s book Company Town may have escaped Hugo nomination because of its Canadian provenance, and primarily Canadian distribution. But it is a well-thought-out, nuanced thriller that should have appeal to a much wider audience. 

Set in a city built on a series of converted oil rigs off the coast of Newfoundland, Company Town is the story of Go Jung-hwa (AKA Hwa), a Korean-Canadian security worker and bodyguard who becomes caught up in a web of corporate intrigue when she is hired to protect the scion of a powerful business family. 

But that capsule plot summary does not do the author’s breadth of imagination justice. The city of New Arcadia is a character in and of itself, whose social strata, economy, citizens and culture are integral to the story. It has personality based on history and memory without leaning on nationalism or pride. 

This history of New Arcadia and the personal histories of its denizens never arrive in awkward infodumps, but are baked into the story in a natural and subtle ways. This is deft worldbuilding; enough detail to be relevant to the reader without distracting from the narrative or plot. 

As has been observed often, when the future arrives, it is unevenly distributed. In Company Town,

Given the size and growth of offshore oil rigs, its not
inconceivable that one day, they will be the size of cities.
(Image via The Motley Fool.com) 

Ashby introduces us to a world in which low-level genetic and technological augmentation has become normalized — but is class-based. We learn that some implants are cheaper and flawed, that others can be hacked.

For reasons of class and income, Hwa remains one of the few baseline humans around, having not even been cured of a serious neurological condition she was born with. 

As the book begins, Hwa is employed by the (completely legal) United Sex Workers of Canada, providing protective services to the union members. Although she quits that job fairly early in the story, her relationship to the union, and to the union members she protected provide both an anchor for her character, and a view into life in New Arcadia. This was written with evident knowledge of organized labour. 

After New Arcadia is bought out by a major corporation, Hwa goes to work for the CEO’s family. The various class strata that Hwa interacts with, and the characters that inhabit this world are well thought out, and believable. This is a book where we cared about what happened to just about everyone, and wondered what the future held for their city. 

Although this is not a cyberpunk work, Company Town is clearly part of the same intellectual tradition as Neuromancer and Snow Crash. The focus on inequality, the street-level perspectives, the body augments, and the class struggles all point to the earlier works’ influences. This is post-cyberpunk at its finest. 

No book is without its flaws, and in the case of Company Town those flaws are most evident in the conclusion. In the last 70 pages, there is an odd tonal shift and an unnecessary romantic subplot. The book seems to get less grounded and more fantastical. But even these issues are overshadowed by strong writing, engaging characters and inspired conceptual work.

If Company Town had been nominated for the Hugo Award, it would have been at the top of most of our ballots. As Canadians, we are left wondering why this book didn’t have stronger uptake. Although it failed to secure a nomination, this is a book that we suspect will have enduring value, and will be remembered as an exemplar of Canadian science fiction.