Jack Faust

Rating:
Summary: Not bad...
Review: ...but, by the same token, not all that great, either. Michael Swanwick is one of science fiction's most accomplished literary artists, and for good reason. However, Jack Faust falls short. Mephistopheles, the classic character from the many re-tellings of the equally classic tale Faust (one of the more prominent of which was written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), can be viewed as evil incarnate. However, I would put him a notch lower than that, since his malevolence falls short much of the time. As the story goes on, though, Mephistopheles becomes more than simply two-dimensional and fleshes out into a fully realized character, his evil notwithstanding. The novel loses steam, however, when Faust begins to descend, morality-wise. The plot also begins to wind down, until we reach the horrendously predictable ending. Swanwick, I think, couldn't find anywhere else to go with the novel, so he slapped on the ending and sent it off to the publisher. Despite all the bad things I've said about this book, however, it's good and worth reading. Swanwick is clearly a good storyteller, but Jack Faust isn't up to his usual par.

Rating:
Summary: This isn't Goethe's Faust . . . .
Review: As he showed so expertly in The Iron Dragon's Daughter, industrialism and medievalism are two sides of the same rusty coin. Here, he takes the semi-legendary 16th century seeker after truth, Johannes Faust of Wittenberg and Nuremberg, and imagines an alien, trans-dimensional "demon" whispering in his ear, handing him on a platter the secrets of the universe. His fellow scientists are more interested in protecting their own positions than in learning new things, so instead of becoming a proto-physicist, Faust becomes a Promethean engineer. Before you know it, Germany is crisscrossed by telegraph wires, an ironclad Spanish Armada faces off against a missile-armed English navy, and industrial pollution is everywhere. Faust is in exile in London, separated forever from Margarete, the love of his life -- who has become a corporate CEO to be reckoned with. The irony throughout is dark and delicious, the style is triumphantly nasty, and the experience for the reader is extremely satisfactory.

Rating:
Summary: A compelling, if rather melancholy story.
Review: Few science fiction novels are set in pre-renaissance Europe. In fact, I can think of none besides "Jack Faust". I see this book largely as an allegory for the present day, in which we invent new technologies--often astonishingly powerful ones, with far reaching effects--faster than society can come up with new mores and social structures for dealing with them. As such, the author does a good job of presenting his warning to us by means of a fictional history whose events seem as obvious and unavoidable as tomorrow's dawn once they are set into motion. And yet he does so in a way that kept me turning pages one after the other.

As a whole, however, I found certain aspects of the book somewhat disturbing. More so because I cannot tell whether they come from the author himself or are natural artifacts of the story and the characters' evolutions. If you do purchase this book (and don't get me wrong; I'm not sorry I bought a copy), be prepared to confront some subtle mysogynies, racist attitudes, and the like. But as I say, I cannot tell whether these are the author's own beliefs or simply reflections of the times in which the novel is set.

Rating:
Summary: Dark Matters
Review: Having read some of his Fiction I was excited to finally get hold of a novel by Michael Swanick. It is a brilliant novel but it's quite a disturbing read. Most people who really enjoy reading like it because they get into the minds of the characters but at the centre of Fausts mind is evil itself. After a while it gets a bit claustrophobic. The ending is chilling. Buy it, but don't expect to finish it with a smile on your face.

Rating:
Summary: Technology is the Devil...
Review: The story of Faust has ancient roots: the over-reaching anti-hero who offers the core of his being in return for material benefit is present in many folk tales and legends. In its best-known form it is a tragic cautionary tale of mediaeval Christianity: the sacrifice of the soul for wordly power and knowledge. This is how both Marlowe and Goethe presented the message.

During and after the industrial killing frenzy of the Twentieth Century it became difficult to portray evil as 'outside': Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus is a more subtle work about art and Nazism, and the very human processes of self-annihilation that lead down the road to the the concentration camps and the gas chambers. By the end of the Twentieth Century though, science and technology had become the points of contention. Though knowledge has always been key to the Faust story, Michael Swanwick puts scientific and technical knowledge at the heart of his re-telling.

It begins, as with Marlowe and Goethe, in mediaeval Germany, and a fine, dirty and pungently atmospheric Germany it is too. Swanwick's descriptive style is immensely rich and seductive and quickly pulls the reader into a world before computers, before cars, before factories, before steam, before states, before industrial warfare. Faust is desparing. He, alone of all scholars, has seen through the hypocrisy of contemporary scholarship, and he despises every bit of it. Burning his books to the dismay of his servant, Wagner, he is confronted with Mephistopheles, not a demon or a devil in the traditional sense, but a collective entity from another dimension, immensely knowledgeable (beyond Faust's wildest dreams), but also afraid of what humanity could become and unable on their own to do anything about it. Instead they intend to destroy the world through scientific knowledge. Even the name, Mephistopheles, is presented to Faust as a complex equation about quantum energy, the details of which he cannot understand, but the import - oh, is it not everything that he wants? The deal then is simple: Faust will have total knowledge, but in return, this being a thoroughly millenial retelling, that knowledge will destroy not just Faust but all humanity, irrevocably and forever. The cruelty then is not so much with Mephistopheles but with Faust from the beginning: he always knows that his knowledge will destroy and kill, and even understanding that there will be no divine salvation - one of Mephistopheles' first revelations is that there is no God - he still fools himself into believing that he can control the forces which he is about to unleash. This self-deception is only confirmed for him by the fact that he wins the heart of the one woman whom Mephistopheles tells him he cannot have: Margaret, daughter of a wealthy merchant.

At first Faust tries to spread elements of his new knowledge in pure scientific form, for free, throughout Europe, but he finds only rejection and scorn. Finding that there is no interest in 'pure science', and with the wealth of Margaret's family behind him, Faust turns to applied science: engineering and the production of new (mainly military) technologies, and starts to produce rapid changes. Mediaeval Europe industrialises at frightening speed. But the technologies are soon beyond Faust's control, and in combination with the most base human desires for power and conquest they take on a destructive logic of their own.

As in earlier tellings: the end is inevitable and tragic in the true sense of the word. Faust can see it approaching: he is destroyed as a human being and left bitter, loveless and empty long before the conclusion - his deal has left him as nothing in the face of the destructive power produced by his machines. He is left to use his knowledge to pursue petty projects of personal vendetta and to further destroy the hopes of the most hopeless. The holocaust comes earlier and more fiercely than in our own history.

The Faust story is a bleak one, and Swanwick's variation is perhaps the bleakest and most nihilistic yet, particularly because it is unclear if there is any lesson of possibility of redemption (spiritual or material). There are hints that love in its purest human form might have saved Faust if he had not abandonned it, but this is not explored. Is Swanwick suggesting that there is no future for humanity in pursuing a technology-driven society? Is he effectively casting technology as the new devil? I don't know. The cumultive effect of this book is powerful, disturbing and pessimistic especially with the curt and cold ending.

Rating:
Summary: I would give it zero stars if I could
Review: This book is pure evil! I loved every page of it. Michael Swanwick's short fiction makes up half the Hugo nominees for short stories this year, and if you've read this book, you won't be surprised as to why.

Rating:
Summary: A Creative Reworking of the Faust Legend
Review: While Swanwick may not ever achieve the status of a Thomas Mann, he has penned a quite creative reworking of the traditional Faustian myth. Casting his vision on the template of science fiction, Swanwick adds interesting dimensions to the already complex Faustian characters. Mephistopheles appears as an alien force; as arrogant and manipulative an extraterrestrial as he ever was a demon. Margarete still appears as the innocent caught in the crossfire of evil and eviler. Wagner, the fanatic sycophant, who never realizes that not only is he a pawn, but he's a pawn that neither side cares enough to either advance or gambit. And Faust, the perpetual megalomaniac. His desire to master thoughts ends up making thoughts his master. He creates and creates but with no purpose except the creation, much like a pathogen. Ultimately the purpose, as in the traditional legend, serves those who gave him the tools to create.
And in all this richness, Swanwick adds. This is a message to the future, our future, which is nightmarishly similar to Faust's reality. Ushering in an UltraIndustrial revolution, Faust overwhelms too many with too much and as Mehpistopheles knows, the gifts that mechanization brings to fruition are never used for benefit. For example, one of the first films produced after the invention of film (in the book) is no less than a pornographic movie (the title being a colorful four letter word starting with "f"). And in this uncontrollable momentum, this Newtonian nightmare, no end is in sight. Indeed, no end is possible. Like a vehicle out of control people will die because of the chaos. Mephistopheles is counting on the entire world to die. And he is not disappointed.
Swanwicks reason for the reworking. Knowledge doesn't make us more certain of a future. It could very well be the opposite. What makes us certain of a future is knowledge used properly. Knowledge used without greed, without vanity; knowledge used with humanity, with compassion. Creation for a higher purpose. Faust was like a child who desired a toy and once that toy was possessed, only desired another which he did not have. It is not how much one knows, but how one uses that knowledge which they already possess . . . to help others. All this can be gathered from the classical workings of the myth. What Swanwick adds is a slight, but significant twist. In giving Jack Faust the knowledge to create scientific wonders without end, Mephistopheles knew that WE, as a people, would misuse them, regardless of if Faust misused them or not (he did). And that is the beauty, that is the addition Swanwick gives us to the Faust legend. We are all Faust. We are all culpable. Because we all had a hand in our own damnation. And consequently, if we are all Faust, we can all stop this damanation. We have a choice to stop the "death instinct", as Freud called it. But guilty or innocent we will drag each other down or lift each other up. It is, in the end, a simple matter of choice.

Rating:
Summary: A Creative Reworking of the Faust Legend
Review: While Swanwick may not ever achieve the status of a Thomas Mann, he has penned a quite creative reworking of the traditional Faustian myth. Casting his vision on the template of science fiction, Swanwick adds interesting dimensions to the already complex Faustian characters. Mephistopheles appears as an alien force; as arrogant and manipulative an extraterrestrial as he ever was a demon. Margarete still appears as the innocent caught in the crossfire of evil and eviler. Wagner, the fanatic sycophant, who never realizes that not only is he a pawn, but he's a pawn that neither side cares enough to either advance or gambit. And Faust, the perpetual megalomaniac. His desire to master thoughts ends up making thoughts his master. He creates and creates but with no purpose except the creation, much like a pathogen. Ultimately the purpose, as in the traditional legend, serves those who gave him the tools to create.
And in all this richness, Swanwick adds. This is a message to the future, our future, which is nightmarishly similar to Faust's reality. Ushering in an UltraIndustrial revolution, Faust overwhelms too many with too much and as Mehpistopheles knows, the gifts that mechanization brings to fruition are never used for benefit. For example, one of the first films produced after the invention of film (in the book) is no less than a pornographic movie (the title being a colorful four letter word starting with "f"). And in this uncontrollable momentum, this Newtonian nightmare, no end is in sight. Indeed, no end is possible. Like a vehicle out of control people will die because of the chaos. Mephistopheles is counting on the entire world to die. And he is not disappointed.
Swanwicks reason for the reworking. Knowledge doesn't make us more certain of a future. It could very well be the opposite. What makes us certain of a future is knowledge used properly. Knowledge used without greed, without vanity; knowledge used with humanity, with compassion. Creation for a higher purpose. Faust was like a child who desired a toy and once that toy was possessed, only desired another which he did not have. It is not how much one knows, but how one uses that knowledge which they already possess . . . to help others. All this can be gathered from the classical workings of the myth. What Swanwick adds is a slight, but significant twist. In giving Jack Faust the knowledge to create scientific wonders without end, Mephistopheles knew that WE, as a people, would misuse them, regardless of if Faust misused them or not (he did). And that is the beauty, that is the addition Swanwick gives us to the Faust legend. We are all Faust. We are all culpable. Because we all had a hand in our own damnation. And consequently, if we are all Faust, we can all stop this damanation. We have a choice to stop the "death instinct", as Freud called it. But guilty or innocent we will drag each other down or lift each other up. It is, in the end, a simple matter of choice.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad...
Review: You'd think an old story like the Faust legend and the SF chestnut of a society unprepared for technology getting the atom bomb wouldn't make for such a good book. But "Jack Faust" is one of the best SF novels I've read recently. It's sort of a throwback to the days when SF was basically our society's conscience; it's incredibly well-written and you read and keep reading. This is an excellent book I heartily recommend.