These
two important collections are like Gunn herself--so supremely cool in their
lack of pose yet so richly diverse and deep and generous that you end up
learning stuff you didn’t mean to, laughing wryly and getting on top of stuff
that was destroying you, getting moved to move the immovable, even feeling deeply
about someone you don’t necessarily want to be. Quite Marvelessly, Gunn does
this to you with not a superhero in sight. I wondered about her sense of humour
and satire, which makes me think first, of Gogol; second, of Norbert Davis; but
third, of Nabokov, so I wasn’t surprised to learn she’s fluent in Russian, has
lived in many places, and done a great many things, including being a key worker
in a corporate hive.
Unlike many writers, especially those who’ve been moulded by an MFA, she doesn’t try to create an absurdity or sprinkle odd things in, or twist the
plot, to make some nothingstory quirky.
 |
foreword by William Gibson
afterword by Howard Waldrop
|
Gunn’s a curator of absurdities--of the real life dimension. I can’t imagine
her constructing a story out of the prescribed elements. Nor does she try for
tricky interesting language effects. Her own voice when writing about
organisations, for instance, seems to burst forth from a well of experience and
fedupness (so the very funny and famous "Stable Strategies for Middle
Management" told in a matter-of-fact tone, might have sprung from Kafka’s
“Metamorphosis”, but gets far more mileage with readers because it does it with
the engineered lightness of, say, David Langford’s The Leaky Establishment).
She is
also a constantly curious delver into the generally unknown, so her stories are
often like a Cracker Jack box would be, mid-last
century, to a five-year old who's eating away till, !!!--for this kid must have lived in a cave far from Howdy Doody tunes and therefore never heard there’s a prize in every box. Awesome
knowledge coming as a surprise gift--Jeffrey Ford does this too, and in the
hands of writers as smooth and ego-invisible as these two, the stuff we learn
is an intrinsic part of what makes the stories so memorable, be it snowflake
collecting from Ford, or phantom-limb hauntings from Gunn.
If
this were a different time, I wouldn’t compare Gunn to anyone, for I think her
stories have their own voices, none of them being anyone but Gunn in service to
them, or in her collaborations, a certain seamless synergy that works a treat.
My favourite collabs are with Rudy Rucker. These two writers are intimidatingly
smart but don’t act or write like that. Instead, this duo produces fun, smart
stories that I’d call ‘screwball’ to their own design. And as is usual with
their individual works, there’s serious stuff aplenty there--just not with any
pretentious labels.
As
Gunn has often been called a writer of science fiction, it is in this capacity
that I am the most frightened to say anything, for my perception might be too
screwy to expose without ridicule, but here goes.
Science
fiction has often been burdened by having to be either Present / Future or P \
F. Rarely is it P?! > F?!, which I would define as seeing the future not
with any foundation of optimism or pessimism, but with the realism of today’s
absurdities continuing to their logical future. This is how I see Lem’s
immortal works, and I think it was the ruse of science fiction, and satiric at
that, that allowed him free rein to write about the future as fiercely as he
regarded the present. I think Gunn does this too, making her science fiction
all the more meaningful to this reader.
Mind
you, this isn’t some Praise Be session. I don’t love everything she writes. My
personal taste prejudices stuck to me like fleas when it came to “The Steampunk
Quartet”, first published by Tor. It’s not so much that I’m not into steampunk.
I’m not, but I can stomach it when it comes to the brilliant Gail Carriger,
though I’m hanging out for her to outgrow steampunk and invent her own new
genre. So it's not steampunk in the Quartet that gives me gas, but the towering genius of China Miéville: and since
I’ve tied on my concrete boots, I may as well sink myself so deep, my bubbles won't reach the surface, by adding that celebrated
“recluse”, Thomas Ligotti. But some of my best friends find much in these two,
as they do, one of the most quoted of all authors, the man who penned “The pen
is mightier than the sword”. Just kidding. I don’t know anyone but me who admits to
a regard for Edward
Bulwer-Lytton. No, some of my best friends are Lovecraftians; but we must
all see the good in people and ignore the parts every right-minded cephalopod
would want treated with extreme prejudice.
imo,
Gunn’s best when she writes alone and in her own strong, service-to-her-story
way. I think it is her humbleness in the presence of the story itself, that
makes her a great writer and natural storyteller.
 |
| unquestionably excellent, and as with Stable Strategies, unusually pleasurable book design by John. D. Berry who also designed the font as though he tailored it to fit Gunn. Published by the excellent, easy to buy from Small Beer Press |
I’ve spoken of her finely honed sense of humour and satire, but she’s got such a broad range that satire is only one of her methods of getting into our heads and hearts. In her aptly titled Questionable Practices (she’s got a great feel for titles) one story above all shows this range. Heartbreaking tragedy is made all the more powerful by the way it is told, with shifting points of view and interjections of painless, succinct Dummies’ level information. In the hands of another writer, this could have turned into a mess, but Gunn’s depth of emotional involvement. knowledge and feel for what she is talking about, and control of her elements makes “Phantom Pain” a perfect story to end this collection--with a resounding whisper.
EXTRA: The portions of both books that are not fiction are not decoder rings, but positively clutchably precious. There're prizes of info in both collections,
but few other authors will give you, for free,
a tale of a delicious, successful, lie.
And a bonus. A Secret that Really Works.