Dystopian – The Bouncy Kitty

First, we had ‘bears, beets, and Battlestar Galactica’; thanks to the fantastic imagination of Emily St. John Mandel – we also now have an incredible book that delivers Shakespeare, Star Trek and the Traveling Symphony.

A fantastic dystopian post-apocalyptic tale that hits almost too close to home for comfort, Station Eleven weaves it’s web around what Vonnegut would consider a Karass, a group of people somehow destined to intertwine their lives.

Between the Georgia Flu and the deterioration of what we’ve deemed normal, and the foreboding feelings of post apocalyptic dystopia – Station Eleven enveloped me in a world that felt similar to mine yet so, uniquely separate. For days, I was interchangeably Kirstin and Miranda; I had two knife tattoos on my wrist and I was slowly uncovering bits of myself, like a backwards puzzle piece through her eyes, or I was discovering myself in Miranda’s evolution, in time with the world around me – delving into the worlds beyond with Dr. Elven and into the depths of myself and the Undersea.

Even with the book over, the words ‘Survival is Insufficient’ weave their way through my brain, leaving a permanent reminder to not only find beauty in this world, but to create and curate that beauty as well.

Without spoiling things, here are a few of the quotes that sat with me.

“At moments when other people could only stare, he wanted to be the one to take step forward.”

“I repent nothing”

“…only the dishonorable leave when things get difficult…can you call the pursuit of happiness dishonorable?”

“…if she reached far enough with her thoughts she might find someone waiting, that if two people were to cast their thoughts outward at the same moment they might somehow meet in the middle.”

“If you are the light, if your enemies are darkness, then there’s nothing that you cannot justify. There’s nothing you can’t survive because there’s nothing that you will not do.”

“What did it mean to seem like yourself, in the course of such unspeakable days? How was anyone supposed to seem?”

“A fragment for my friend —
If your soul left this earth I would follow and find you
Silent, my starship suspended in night”

“Hell is the absence of people you long for”

“I don’t believe in the perfectibility of the individual”

“- it’s like the corporate world’s full of ghosts. And actually, let me revise that….to say adulthood’s full of ghosts. I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them. They want to do something different but it’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped. High functioning sleepwalkers.”

Upon finishing the novel, I wanted to rush to the interwebs and demand that someone make a miniseries of this – low and behold, HBO is already in the process of creating an adaptation of Station Eleven, with The HBO adaptation. Directed by Hiro Murai of Childish Gambino’s This is America and Atlanta fame, I have high hopes for the series and am already anxiously awaiting it’s release.

Station Eleven is a timely and instant classic; the perfect read for our current world situation. After the solitude and self sufficiency of Thoreau’s Walden, this is a close second for me.

What’s a book you’ve read during quarantine that hit close to home in a good way? If you have one to add, let me know in the comments below!

[Station Eleven] Author’s Webpage | Amazon / Good Reads

[Emily St John Mandel] Webpage / Amazon / Twitter / Good Reads

Image result for Altered Carbon

There’s an old adage that admittedly most of the younger generation knows only variations of; I grew up with my parents informing me that I shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but it quickly became “Don’t judge a song by it’s cover” and “Don’t judge a movie by the TV show (/ Video Game / Etc)”. But, per usual, I digress. Over the last year, there’s been an explosion of amazing Science Fiction shows entering our sphere of entertainment – from dystopian movies like Elysium, Interstellar and The Arrival to television shows spanning from Black Mirror, Dark Matter, the latest Star Trek: Discovery, Dark, The Expanse and Incorporated (ps. Kudos to Netflix and SciFy for their creative and mind bending content!). Until now, I hadn’t much found one as enthralling in both story line and technological potentially as Netflix’s Altered Carbon, and the second I found out it stemmed from a novel series by Richard K Morgan – I had to see how they measured up to each other.

Set in the 2500s, in a world that’s evolved out of our current San Francisco, Digital Human Freight is currency and your memories are stored in a cortical stack from birth; though your body has an end date – your soul no longer does. Takeshi Kovacs is a man of many hats, and sleeves – Quellest, Envoy and now Detective, he’s been brought back from the ether to solve a murder…or, has he? Over the course of ten high-octane, vividly lit episodes, we dive into Kovac’s past, present and potential futures. Thanks to Netflix’s formatting, we sped through the series in a weekend, injecting ourselves over and over with Altered Carbon’s universe and potentialities. It’s a slippery slope for me to fall digital head over digital heels with a concept, because I will do my best to uncover anything and everything about it; loopholes, cut chapters, the unnatural evolution of characters. Low and behold, I discovered that Altered Carbon (like most good things that just came about this year), is a remake.

Originally a trilogy of novels, the Takeshi Kovac’s series – consisting of Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies – is even more apocalyptic, militaristic, sexualized and dystopian than even the series would have one imagine. I’ve never once believed that Netflix held back on a show, but the raw carnal nature of Kovac and Miriam’s relationship was heavier in the book, as were the guts, gore and good stuff that I thought they would have surely capitalized on for television; not that I minded though, I love when books and shows truly can deviate. Now, the first half of the book was spot on – however, slowly but surely the show begins to deviate and take liberties of its own.

I have to say: both the novels and the show become worthwhile, altered, story lines – but each remain equally compelling for their own reasons. Not surprisingly, the critical acclaim the show has received almost matches the book., which earned the prestigious Phillip K Dick award back in 2003 when it was penned. Now that I’ve migrated to the second novel in the series, Broken Angels, and have the third to look forward to (Woken Furies), I can’t help but think of how the show could surpass or manipulate the books to become it’s own universe all together. For as much as I love the adaptation to television and the presence of more of a female protagonist in Ortega, I very much prefer the novels, with their raw grit and truer dystopian lone wolf feel to Kovacs.

To learn more on the series, show and author – head to the links below; I promise you: this is a ride you will not want to end. To those of you that both read the series and watched the show, what did you think of the nuanced differences and what did you prefer?

Richard K Morgan: Website | Goodreads | Twitter

Read the Books: Altered Carbon | Broken Angels | Woken Furies

Watch the Show.