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rbixby's review
4.0
This was a good one.
Back in my youth (no pun intended), I devoured Gibson's novels and so considered myself an ardent fan of the genre. And yet, I must not have been much of one because I never even heard of John Shirley before seeing this doorstop of a volume in the store a year or so ago. Intrigued, I bought it, brought it home, stuck it on my TBR shelf because I was in the middle of some other large master piece at the time (some Hamilton space opera, most likely), and forgot about it until now.
First published in the mid to late eighties, with updates by the author for this edition (Facebook and iPads are mentioned, as well as the Arab Spring as something positive. I wonder if Shirley regrets that last one), the book's anachronistic qualities are equal parts attractive and disturbing.
Attractive because it's fun to read a 25 year old sci-fi story to see how the the present and near future jibs with the author's view of the future two generations past the time it was written in. I have to say, Shirley hits the mark more often than he misses in that regard.
Disturbing because, despite all of the positive events that have moved the world closer to freedom and equality for all in the last 25 years, the current political climate is such that it is very easy to see how we could end up in the world of 2040 he envisions.
Back in my youth (no pun intended), I devoured Gibson's novels and so considered myself an ardent fan of the genre. And yet, I must not have been much of one because I never even heard of John Shirley before seeing this doorstop of a volume in the store a year or so ago. Intrigued, I bought it, brought it home, stuck it on my TBR shelf because I was in the middle of some other large master piece at the time (some Hamilton space opera, most likely), and forgot about it until now.
First published in the mid to late eighties, with updates by the author for this edition (Facebook and iPads are mentioned, as well as the Arab Spring as something positive. I wonder if Shirley regrets that last one), the book's anachronistic qualities are equal parts attractive and disturbing.
Attractive because it's fun to read a 25 year old sci-fi story to see how the the present and near future jibs with the author's view of the future two generations past the time it was written in. I have to say, Shirley hits the mark more often than he misses in that regard.
Disturbing because, despite all of the positive events that have moved the world closer to freedom and equality for all in the last 25 years, the current political climate is such that it is very easy to see how we could end up in the world of 2040 he envisions.
flexluthor's review
5.0
Combining the best parts of pop sci-fi, "alternate history" (read: alternate future), military and espionage novels, John Shirley's A Song Called Youth is THE book that has gripped me the most in the past year. Part Snow Crash, part Red Storm Rising, this book kept me up for 200-page nights multiple nights in a row.
The plot drives relentlessly forward, never meandering on unnecessary detours. The action moves from continent to continent, island hideaways to underground safehouses. The military action of the novel is rather sterile as it's written, reading like a description of a Call of Duty mission. The upshot of this is that words are not wasted in describing firefights and explosions, and the writing shines through as impactful in this way.
If you've read even a little cyberpunk before you probably will not find much in the way of new ideas here. There's the overarching and overreaching information networks, computer powered body modifications, plenty of novel drugs and a laissez faire attitude towards sex, indescribable styles of dress, the works. All of this functions exactly how it's supposed to in the story, without wasting much time on expositional explanations. If it's not the freshest of ideas they certainly follow the cyberpunk and sci-fi ethos of taking the ideas and technologies we have now and pushing them to their logical ends. One aspect of the cyberpunk future that felt fresh, fleshed out, and passionate was the examination of future music in the trilogy. There are a few main characters who are musicians converted to the resistance, and many musical subcultures are explored at length. This is mostly where the average reader will find new ground in cyberpunk.
Perhaps the most engaging facet of this book to me is the exploration of racism, classism, and fascism that drives the story. Citing plenty of real world history, Shirley shows a sober and logical (and frighteningly realistic) future of neo-Fascism and -Naziism that unfortunately turned out to be fairly prescient. He accurately describes the rise of far right fundamentalist christians in American government, and if you're able to find the single volume collection published in 2012 there are some clearly post-1985 (the year the first book of the trilogy was published) additions that further strengthen the feeling that this book is rooted in real world events. Any author that evokes a second Holocaust as the climax of a trilogy is certainly saddling themselves for a hard sell, but in the universe Shirley has created there is no question of what the world is speeding towards.
The two gripes that I can take away from the book: 1) by the third book there are so many characters to track, that eventually I just gave up remembering names and caught up using context clues later, and 2) the climax in the third novel comes about rather quickly and disappointingly. These two complaints are very minor however, and are absolutely no reason to forgo what for me was the best read I have had in months.
I can confidently recommend this book to just about anyone with a passing interest in sci-fi. I'm frankly shocked I had never heard of it before, because after reading I now think of it as a seminal text in the sci-fi genre and the cyberpunk subgenre. I will absolutely be reading this again in a few years, and can't think of ANY reason not to recommend it to anyone I know.
The plot drives relentlessly forward, never meandering on unnecessary detours. The action moves from continent to continent, island hideaways to underground safehouses. The military action of the novel is rather sterile as it's written, reading like a description of a Call of Duty mission. The upshot of this is that words are not wasted in describing firefights and explosions, and the writing shines through as impactful in this way.
If you've read even a little cyberpunk before you probably will not find much in the way of new ideas here. There's the overarching and overreaching information networks, computer powered body modifications, plenty of novel drugs and a laissez faire attitude towards sex, indescribable styles of dress, the works. All of this functions exactly how it's supposed to in the story, without wasting much time on expositional explanations. If it's not the freshest of ideas they certainly follow the cyberpunk and sci-fi ethos of taking the ideas and technologies we have now and pushing them to their logical ends. One aspect of the cyberpunk future that felt fresh, fleshed out, and passionate was the examination of future music in the trilogy. There are a few main characters who are musicians converted to the resistance, and many musical subcultures are explored at length. This is mostly where the average reader will find new ground in cyberpunk.
Perhaps the most engaging facet of this book to me is the exploration of racism, classism, and fascism that drives the story. Citing plenty of real world history, Shirley shows a sober and logical (and frighteningly realistic) future of neo-Fascism and -Naziism that unfortunately turned out to be fairly prescient. He accurately describes the rise of far right fundamentalist christians in American government, and if you're able to find the single volume collection published in 2012 there are some clearly post-1985 (the year the first book of the trilogy was published) additions that further strengthen the feeling that this book is rooted in real world events. Any author that evokes a second Holocaust as the climax of a trilogy is certainly saddling themselves for a hard sell, but in the universe Shirley has created there is no question of what the world is speeding towards.
The two gripes that I can take away from the book: 1) by the third book there are so many characters to track, that eventually I just gave up remembering names and caught up using context clues later, and 2) the climax in the third novel comes about rather quickly and disappointingly. These two complaints are very minor however, and are absolutely no reason to forgo what for me was the best read I have had in months.
I can confidently recommend this book to just about anyone with a passing interest in sci-fi. I'm frankly shocked I had never heard of it before, because after reading I now think of it as a seminal text in the sci-fi genre and the cyberpunk subgenre. I will absolutely be reading this again in a few years, and can't think of ANY reason not to recommend it to anyone I know.
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