From /tmp/sf.15692 Tue Mar 30 18:12:47 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!pipex!uunet!wupost!uhog.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: octela!marble!shaun@uunet.UU.NET (Foo Loops) Subject: Cigawette Boy wesubmission Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 14:30:34 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 167 Cigarette Boy (a book) by Darick Chamberlin (an author) Review by @Man (a reviewer) This review is in the public domain: no restrictions on use or distribution. Please contact me if you use it for anything. My Internet address is atman@ecst.csuchico.edu. : GAMES WHERE DEAD STRANGERS WERE STRIPPED AND SMEARED WITH SYNTHETIC HONEY ON THE MOUTH SO THAT THEY WOULD SAY NOTHING BUT SWEET THINGS IN THE OTHER WORLD ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL SCENE : - From _Cigarette Boy_ START So begins the "mock-epic" _Cigarette Boy_. START SOLOPRINT `E-CODE' FUGITIVE AUTOSCHEMATIC OF X-STATION PROTONOVEL OUTLINING "C" : [RECRUIT NUMANGA COPYCAT SKIM SACCADES : ACOLLIDE I.D.C. AUTOSCHEMA VIA ELEVENTH HOUR REBEL IONS : IGNITE OVERCLEVER COPYCAT PHAROAH SCANS IN "CIGARETTE BOY" SEQUENCE CUTS VIA DYMOSAURICK RE-EXPLODERS] : So it continues. So it goes on for 84 pages. It is one long 100% uppercase, right-and-left-justified, stream-of-machine-consciousness textual dump. No, that's not really fair. It is, however, how it appears on the surface. The most obvious thing about _Cigarette Boy_ is definitely its layout, and, to some extent, the presentation of the material matches the approach to the content: nearly impervious. Now, that's not to say that the content is impossible to decipher, nor worth the effort; it's simply woven in a complex fabric that approaches the human-unreadable. At one point I considered writing a program that would parse the text and reformat it into something easier to read, but the task of typing in the entire text was too daunting. I still think it would be possible, however, because the text, while about as forgiving as a jet-black obelisk, is arranged in a way that makes it susceptible to machine processing. In fact, the entire text is supposed to be machine-generated, or at least gives that impression. Mixed-media cues nested in square brackets are mixed with images, background information, and indexing commands that give the impression that if you fed the "novella" into the right piece of equipment with access to the right libraries of audio and video footage, it would sit silently for a while, then emit a sonorous "bing" when it had digitally assembled the requested pieces into a "movie" or whatever term mixed-media interactive artwork eventually gets tagged with. Example: 7:30..." : [AUDIOTRACK ENHANCEMENT : RE-TRACK EXCERPT LINE FROM THE MESA DELATA FILE: CARBON- INDUCE INTERLAMINATE NUCLEOTRACKS ] : [ RESUME SCAN] : [ IMPLY THE DELIBERATELY ENGINEERED SIXTEENER CRUSADE COPY ON CHARIOT GLACIATIONS VIA FOSSIL THEORIES LISTED TO DATE BY VARIOUS AUTHORS : The end result of this methode du presentacion (to use a bogus Frenchism for no good reason) is that _Cigarette Boy_ demands far more effort on the part of the reader than most works of prose. In addition to demanding that the reader keep track of which level of nesting the current passage is in, and parsing lots of weird new terms (like "ACOLLIDER," "PARAWELD," and "SURGIRAFFE,") multiple thematic elements including Egyptian imagery and genetic, temporal, and wafer-level engineering, the reader is encouraged (some might say required) to produce sophisticated mixed-media mental imagery in order to follow the story. On top of all this there is a regular and heavy layer of transformational word-play adding a shiny metallic thread to the fabric of the piece. Puns, spelling twists, even limericks surface, snap, and submerge in the midst of the contorted plot and the media directions. : EVERYONE WHO KNEW THE FOSSIL FOURTH MASTER KNEW THE FLOWER GIRL : BLUE BEGONIA GIRL : ANTOINETTE CODE GIRL : LUNAR 5 SUFFICIENT "SAVE" GIRL : [BAROQUE FLECK SOCIALIST APRICODE BEE PERFUME CORAL GIRL] : and : THEY CUT AN ELEGANT MOON MANOUEVRE BUT IN VAIN : NOON VAIN : [NOTE VAIN ORE] What all this meant is that this 84 page book took me three weeks to read. Often I would read four or five pages carefully, still get lost, reread part of what I had just finished, and end up either staring out the window pondering the material or feeling extremely tired from the effort. For some reason the style never became transparent to me, and I had to expend enormous mental effort to make substantial progress. It felt like reading the Canterbury Tales without glossing and without the reassuring pull of iambic pentameter to draw one onward. At two or three places, after lengthy squares of nearly incomprehensible machine commands I almost gave up. However, each time, without fail, I found soon afterward an exquisitely crafted image (like the one mentioned at the top of this review) that would give me pause, and gave me reason to continue. In case you've forgotten the abovementioned image, here it is again: : GAMES WHERE DEAD STRANGERS WERE STRIPPED AND SMEARED WITH SYNTHETIC HONEY ON THE MOUTH SO THAT THEY WOULD SAY NOTHING BUT SWEET THINGS IN THE OTHER WORLD ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL SCENE : There are many other are equally poetic images buried in the mass of text that makes up _Cigarette Boy_. The plot didn't become anywhere near clear to me until I was about 80% of the way through the book. I'm still not sure exactly what is going on. There is some kind of warfare-oriented genetic engineering occuring, and temporal manipulation; spaceships fight, and battles are played out; there are hints of rebellion against corporate interests, and betrayal, but the storyline's progress was lost for me, distorted beneath the high-pressure blanket of the author's style. Was it worth reading? To be honest, I'm not sure. I think so. As an amateur writer, it was useful as an extreme experimental position from which I can retreat to something I consider useful; as I reader, again, yes, I think so. The guts (which in this case I suspect are electromechanical) are there to be probed, analyzed, and understood. I can feel the story, which is intertwined with the presentation, trying to touch me. Unfortunately, this book requires more than one reading, a trait it shares with all fine literature. Whether it actually _is_ a piece of fine literature (in the sense of being able to provide a rich, diverse set of internally coherent interpretations,) remains to be seen. I suspect it can indeed support a host of interpretations, but I have the uneasy feeling that there are a lot of subtleties and details I am missing, having read it only once. It is going to be a while before I tackle it again, however; for my tastes, the style is really thick, and slightly irritating. Prose is, at its heart, a human communication form, and the style of _Cigarette Boy_ comes dangerously close to crossing the line into unintelligibility. Although _CB_ is supposed to be written by a machine, it is ultimately intended for human consumption (for you and I, the real-world readers,) and that fact requires some concessions if it is to be read cover to cover instead of paged through like a coffee-table book. One choice that would tip the balance in favor of readability without compromising the story's integrity would be the use of lower case. Today, there is no good reason for computers to produce English text in all uppercase. It doesn't even look "computery" or futuristic anymore; instead, it makes one think that the text was either generated by a completely obsolete computer, or by someone who is new to textual telecommunications and doesn't realize that when they speak in all caps, THEY ARE YELLING THEIR FUCKING HEAD OFF. One would think that a computer sophisticated enough to generate this kind of story would have a caps lock bit under software control. :^) Yeah, it's a nit, but it's a large one--about as big as nits get, I reckon. Fortunately, the font is almost sans-serif and about as close to readable as possible for all-caps once you get used to it. I don't give numerical ratings, because I think they are worthless, and the idea of expressing months or years of effort in 4 bits is silly, so I'm not going to give this X stars, or a laughing hyena with a split side, or a pulsating amoeba shaped into a meaningful symbol. If you want a second opinion, you can read Paul Di Filippo's review in _Science Fiction Eye_ #11. He was able to piece together more of the plot than I was, by the way. _Cigarette Boy_ is not available in stores--if you are interested in purchasing a copy, you'll have to order it directly from the author for US $15, including postage and handling, for a signed and numbered copy. The author can be reached at the following address: Darick Chamberlin 1562 E. Olive Way #402 Seattle, WA 98102 USA %A Darick Chamberlin %T Cigarette Boy %I N/A %C Seattle %D 1993 %G N/A %O US$15.00 %P 84 pp