STARSHIP & THE HAIKU

Rating:
Summary: A Writer's Transition
Review: I think I have read everything published by Somtow Sucharitkul, who also publishes as S.P. Somtow. The previous reviewer very accurately describes the qualities of this book, which in many ways encapsulates all that is wonderful and maddening about reading his work.

In Mallworld, and his Inquest series (Light on the Sound, etc.), he created unexpected yet fascinating worlds,which is what one always hopes to find in science fiction, but rarely does. These books are novel, fresh, and funny. His vision can make one think of Vonnegut at his SF prime. That he wrote with such searing wit and sophistication cross-culturally (he is Thai but writes in English) makes these even more remarkable works.

His fascination with death and its curious juxtapostion to that which we aspire to in life, was one thread throughout these early writings. In these great SF novels of the 1980's the thread often is reprsented in various versions of a roller coaster, metaphors of thrill, danger, and mortality. This morbid fascination moves distinctly in the direction towards obsession in Starship and Haiku. He would ultimately move much further in that direction in other novels which are even darker, more gothic, and where vampires, blood and decay abound.

Starship and Haiku is not my favorite, but it is certainly miles ahead of much of what passes as SF these days. Had I never read the truly brilliant Mallworld, I might be more satisfied with Starship and Haiku. As it is, to me the book seemed to herald the conversion from from a brilliant SF author to a much less interesting writer of gothic tales.

Rating:
Summary: Deeply flawed, but still worthwhile
Review: This may be one of the more obscure books that I've ever read, and it, more than anything, validates my insistence on shopping at used bookstore. It's by no means a masterpiece, but Sucharitkul's vision of post-apocalyptic Japan is more alive and original than most mass-produced heroic fantasies and repackaged techno-thrillers. If you can't understand how Darwin's Radio won the Nebula, this novel is for you.

I admit that you'll have trouble seeing this novel as the book that rekindled my faith in science fiction if you only read these next two paragraphs. The characters are mostly one-dimensional: Takahashi is the ultimate Dark Lord Foulness character, and his fate at the end is a cheat. I had to keep reminding myself that Josh Nakamura was thirty years old; he would have been a more interesting fifteen-year-old. The only interesting character, Akiro Ishida, only appears for half the book.

The plot itself leaves much to be desired; plot holes abound, and, as I said before, the villain's final fate, and the lessons learned, were incredibly unsatisfying. Not only that, but the characters think in exclamation points, and sometimes the revelations can be too obvious. So you'll have to trust me when I say that, despite the numerous flaws in narrative, Suchartikul's vision is so compelling that I'd recommend it anyway.

I always got the sense that he was busting at the seams with ideas about the tension between art and life, about beauty, about courage and honor and ecology and a dozen other things, and if he wasn't subtle enough, that's because this is a labor of love. His triumph is in a tour of a suicide colony; the mixture of the grotesque and the serene, culminating in an cruel mockery of artistry, is simply astounding, and absolves a good many literary sins on its own accord.

I understand that not everyone will be willing to ignore the book's flaws as I was, so take this for a limited recommendation (or possibly damning with faint praise). It was unique, and I derived enjoyment out of it; if you're looking for something other than the near-identical novels clogging up the Science Fiction section, you may like it too.