Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2018), Edition: Reprint, 352 pages
Description
"Welcome to Moderan, world of the future. Here perpetual war is waged by furious masters fighting from Strongholds well stocked with "arsenals of fear," earth is covered with vast sheets of plastic, and humans vie to replace more and more of their own "soft parts" with steel machinery. What need is there for nature when trees and flowers can be pushed up through holes in the plastic? Who requires human companionship when new-metal mistresses can be ordered from the shop? But even a Stronghold master can doubt the catechism of Moderan. Wanderers, poets, and his own children pay visits, proving that another world is possible. "The effect is as if Whitman and Nietzsche had collaborated," Brian Aldiss wrote of David R. Bunch's stories. Originally published in science-fiction magazines in the 1960s and '70s and passionately sought by collectors, the stories have not been available in a single volume for nearly fifty years. Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, and borrowing from the Bible and the language of advertising, Bunch coined a mind-bending new vocabulary. His intent was not to divert readers from the horrors of modernity but to make them face it squarely"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member agmlll
Still remarkable on a second reading.
LibraryThing member Shrike58
How you'll respond to this collection of linked short stories (really fables) will depend a great deal on your ability to stare unflinchingly on the abyss, as the author was on a mission to afflict the comfortable and rub their noses in the rottenness of High Cold War America. That said I'm going
As for myself I see a body of work that is part of dystopian literature of the apex of Cold War nuclear terror and needs to be located in that period. I would also compare Bunch's work to the satirical fiction of Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth at their most acid with a certain literary gloss, or perhaps to Kurt Vonnegut with a more decided commitment to being genre science fiction. As for whether these stories are period pieces or news that remains news, well, we are still afflicted with leaders suffused with the hubris, vain-glory and sense of denial that Bunch excoriated and the dread of dehumization and the destruction of the natural world Bunch invoked still stalks our imaginations so yes; these stories are still worth the investment of your time.
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to diverge somewhat from Jeff VanderMeer's lyrical introduction, where he credits David Bunch with the poetics of E.E. Cummings, the inventiveness of Philip K. Dick and the sense of body horror of Clive Barker, while at the same time celebrating that there's not been anything like this body of work before or since it's been written.As for myself I see a body of work that is part of dystopian literature of the apex of Cold War nuclear terror and needs to be located in that period. I would also compare Bunch's work to the satirical fiction of Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth at their most acid with a certain literary gloss, or perhaps to Kurt Vonnegut with a more decided commitment to being genre science fiction. As for whether these stories are period pieces or news that remains news, well, we are still afflicted with leaders suffused with the hubris, vain-glory and sense of denial that Bunch excoriated and the dread of dehumization and the destruction of the natural world Bunch invoked still stalks our imaginations so yes; these stories are still worth the investment of your time.
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LibraryThing member nmele
I know this is considered by some a classic work, but I think reading Bunch's short stories as they appeared may have been a better experience than reading through this collection of them. Interestingly, most of them appeared in magazines I read monthly at the time these stories first appeared, and
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not a single one left any impression on me, unlike some contemporaneous magazine science fiction, e.g., Roger Zelazny's stories and novellas. Reading the Moderan stories through was a tedious exercise for me, since throughout Bunch sounds a single note, and yes, I get it's satire, but satire wears thin though relentless repetition. Not a favorite of mine. Show Less
LibraryThing member richardderus
The Publisher Says: A collection of chilling and prescient stories about ecological apocalypse and the merging of human and machine.
Welcome to Moderan, world of the future. Here perpetual war is waged by furious masters fighting from Strongholds well stocked with “arsenals of fear” and everyone
“As if Whitman and Nietzsche had collaborated,” wrote Brian Aldiss of David R. Bunch’s work. Originally published in science-fiction magazines in the 1960s and ’70s, these mordant stories, though passionately sought by collectors, have been unavailable in a single volume for close to half a century. Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, Bunch coined a mind-bending new vocabulary. He sought not to divert readers from the horror of modernity but to make us face it squarely.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: First, read this:
“WE’LL FIGHT! We’ll fight each other. We’ll make harsh monsters, set them loose and fight such monsters across all our space. We’ll move with engines and hard, programmed thoughts. We’ll make all manner of dragons for our involvement, and we’ll overcome them. For we’ll program the conquests a little more carefully than we’ll feed in the threats. But mostly we’ll just fight each other—each other and ourselves, the truly tireless enemies.”
Fifty years ago, these stories...I really bridle at calling them stories, it feels to me more like loosely interconnected chapters of a single, too-big-to-fail novel...appeared. I wasn't aware of them. I was too young to "get" them. I am still too young to get them...they are brilliant tours-de-force of a man's vision of a future no one could possibly want, but they're likely to get anyway.
In a lot of ways, Author Bunch's world reminds me of the world that Sandy Hook took place in, and no one stopped it from happening again.
And then the flesh-man - oh, consider. CONSIDER him - the sick few that are left. Please do. Then perhaps you will see why we in our new-shining glory, flesh-strips few and played-down, pay homage to a massive stick of new-metal placed as our guide star when New Processes Land, our great Moderan, was new!
J.G. Ballard at his bleakest, John Brunner at his most sarcastic, Joanna Russ at her most misandric. SF futures don't usually age well...this one, more's the pity, has.
Welcome to Moderan, world of the future. Here perpetual war is waged by furious masters fighting from Strongholds well stocked with “arsenals of fear” and everyone
Show More
is enamored with hate. The devastated earth is coated by vast sheets of gray plastic, while humans vie to replace more and more of their own “soft parts” with steel. What need is there for nature when trees and flowers can be pushed up through holes in the plastic? Who requires human companionship when new-metal mistresses are waiting? But even a Stronghold master can doubt the catechism of Moderan. Wanderers, poets, and his own children pay visits, proving that another world is possible.“As if Whitman and Nietzsche had collaborated,” wrote Brian Aldiss of David R. Bunch’s work. Originally published in science-fiction magazines in the 1960s and ’70s, these mordant stories, though passionately sought by collectors, have been unavailable in a single volume for close to half a century. Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, Bunch coined a mind-bending new vocabulary. He sought not to divert readers from the horror of modernity but to make us face it squarely.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: First, read this:
“WE’LL FIGHT! We’ll fight each other. We’ll make harsh monsters, set them loose and fight such monsters across all our space. We’ll move with engines and hard, programmed thoughts. We’ll make all manner of dragons for our involvement, and we’ll overcome them. For we’ll program the conquests a little more carefully than we’ll feed in the threats. But mostly we’ll just fight each other—each other and ourselves, the truly tireless enemies.”
Fifty years ago, these stories...I really bridle at calling them stories, it feels to me more like loosely interconnected chapters of a single, too-big-to-fail novel...appeared. I wasn't aware of them. I was too young to "get" them. I am still too young to get them...they are brilliant tours-de-force of a man's vision of a future no one could possibly want, but they're likely to get anyway.
In a lot of ways, Author Bunch's world reminds me of the world that Sandy Hook took place in, and no one stopped it from happening again.
And then the flesh-man - oh, consider. CONSIDER him - the sick few that are left. Please do. Then perhaps you will see why we in our new-shining glory, flesh-strips few and played-down, pay homage to a massive stick of new-metal placed as our guide star when New Processes Land, our great Moderan, was new!
J.G. Ballard at his bleakest, John Brunner at his most sarcastic, Joanna Russ at her most misandric. SF futures don't usually age well...this one, more's the pity, has.
Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1971
Physical description
352 p.; 8 inches
ISBN
1681372541 / 9781681372549
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