For the past eight years, South Portland author Alex Irvine has concentrated on his career as one of the foremost movies/comics/games tie-in writers in the industry. If a media company needed a gun-for-hire to plan a superhero video game or pen a “based on the hit film” spinoff novel, Irving was a guy to go to.
Cover courtesy of Tor.com
Now with “Anthropocene Rag,” the author of “A Scattering of Jades” and “The Narrows” is back with a novel set in a world of his own devising, a twisty futuristic tour through an American West transformed by nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.
Told from multiple viewpoints, “Anthropocene Rag” chronicles the travels of six strangers after they meet Prospector Ed, a human-seeming emergent AI construct straight out of a spaghetti Western, one who is generally not much more chatty than Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name. Walking the mostly deserted highways, Ed hands out Golden Tickets to a half-dozen puzzled recipients, inviting them to Monument City. The legendary – and perhaps unreachable – locus might be a cybernetic version of Heaven or just another trap in a continent of sudden, absurd disasters.
In the wake of an apocalyptic primal force dubbed “The Boom,” the physical world has become dangerously mutable. Something that calls itself Life-7 works behind the scenes in a topsy-turvy, remade version of the West. Irvine writes, “Life-7 was scared and sad and imbued with the desire to be human, or as close as possible, because that was a condition of its existence. But the human is always driven relentlessly to destroy or change the nonhuman, so Life-7 was at war with its rivals in Monument City and elsewhere, but also with itself. The war and its proxies were imperceptible to humans.”
The war might be hard to see, but its repercussions are certainly felt by Prospector Ed’s recruits. The travelers include a shapeshifter, a castaway, a builder, a believer, a thief and a problem solver. Each is walking toward a confrontation with Moses Barnum, the mysterious figure said to rule Monument City.
“Anthropocene Rag” plays to its author’s strengths, its game-like structure allowing Irvine to put his own unique stamp on familiar characters and tropes. But there’s more going on than the collection of plot coupons. As Prospector Ed begins to emulate humankind with more complexity, the more he is troubled by the concept of empathy. He is not supposed to care, but he can’t help himself. That’s the revelation that gives the book its power.
Although each major character gets a turn in the spotlight, the plot coalesces around twin brothers Kyle and Geck (short for “gecko”). Sticky-fingered Geck steals Kyle’s ticket, figuring that his unadventurous sibling wouldn’t use it anyway. As Geck heads to Monument City on his own, trailed by his brother and two women, there are hints the Boom may have something special in store.
“Anthropocene Rag” mixes disparate influences, from Willy Wonka to the Wizard of Oz to Westworld. In attempting to understand what it means to be human, the Boom manifests in myriad ways, some whimsical, some deadly. Br’er Rabbit, Mark Twain, pirate Jean Lafitte, Scott Joplin and Sam Spade make appearances, some of them in more human form than others.
For most of its length, “Anthropocene Rag” successfully juggles its large cast and the motivating conflicts of those characters. If one section is confusing, Irvine usually has something enlightening and digestible to say in the next. The book is apocalyptic science fiction, with a sense of humor and an appreciation for myth and pop culture. It’s sometimes frightening but always fun, jazzy in its prose and inventive in its world-building. It’s also relatively short and sleek, avoiding the narrative bloat that can afflict this kind of end-of-the-world quest.
Then there’s the ending.
I have to admit that I was brought up short by the final pages of “Anthropocene Rag.” I wanted more: more time with the characters, more explanation of the central mystery, more exploration of the Boom and its powers.
The disciples of Prospector Ed do reach a destination. Kyle and Gecko share a reckoning. Secrets are revealed, and resolution of sorts is achieved. But like the inscrutable Boom, what exactly does it all mean?
Every reader who reaches the denouement will have his or her own set of questions, many of which will not be answered. Which is fine. There’s enough closure that the plot’s ambiguities can be forgiven or even celebrated.
We suddenly live in a world that seems as surreal as a Boom-ravaged landscape, where microscopic particles can change the course of life and death in an eyeblink. Despite its post-civilization setting, “Anthropocene Rag” offers a welcome respite from the current crisis. Irvine composes a richly American tune, and I definitely would like to hear further verses.
Berkeley writer Michael Berry is a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, native who has contributed to Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books and many other publications. He can be contacted at:
mikeberry@mindspring.com
Twitter: mlberry
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