Thoreau’s Microscope (Outspoken Authors, 21)

by Michael Blumlein

Paperback, 2018

Status

Available

Call number

PS3552.L855 A6

Genres

Science Fiction

Fiction

Publication

PM Press (2018), 128 pages

Description

The politics and terrors of biotech, human engineering, and brain science are given startling fictional form in a selection of short stories with Michael Blumlein's signature mix of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and wicked humour. The title piece, 'Thoreau's Microscope,' is a stunning mix of hypothesis and history, in which the author inhabits Thoreau's last days to explore the politics of impersonal science and personal liberation - a journey as illuminating as it is disturbing.

User reviews

LibraryThing member iansales

I’ve been a fan of Blumlein’s fiction for many years, but he has not been especially prolific: three novels – this book claims The Roberts is a novel, but it’s really a novella – and only one collection all the way back in 1988 and another, What the Doctor Ordered, in 2013 (but also a new

one, as well as this one, All I Ever Dreamed, this year). Having said that, these PM Press Outspoken Authors collections are odd beasts, as they contain a mixture of fiction and factual pieces, most of which are not that well-known. The title of this one refers to the collection’s longest-piece, an essay about Blumlein, his lung cancer, and a hike into the High Sierras with friends to name a mountain after Thoreau, and, er, Thoreau. Also included are ‘Paul and Me’, in which the narrator meets and makes friends with Paul Bunyan; ‘Y(ou)r Q(ua)ntifi(e)d S(el)f‘, written in the third person and almost impossible to summarise; ‘Fidelity’, which is not genre, about a Jewish couple who have twin sons and can’t decide whether to circumcise them; ‘Know How, Can Do’, about a worm given a brain graft, who gains sentience; and finally an interview with Blumlein. As an introduction to Blumlein’s short fiction, this is not a good place to start. The contents seem to have been chosen more because of their unusual nature than because they are representative of his oeuvre. Good stuff, but more for fans than casual browsers. Having said that, followers of PM Press’s Outspoken Authors series will probably not be phased by the collection’s contents – and if it persuades them to try more of Blumlein’s fiction, then job done.

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