T. R. Napper

I have to say Australian writers always surprise me in a very positive way. Works from down-under are not that frequent in my area (and sometimes are very much of local character and dont reachn world wide readers) but what gets published to the rest of the world (indie publishing or one of the known publishing houses) are truly gems.

While advertised as cyberpunk, all stories collected here would be more precisely be identified as stories from Twilight Zone set in so distant future (an in some aspects being extremely contemporary).

Backdrop of this collection is world in the last decades of 21st and first decades of 22nd century. Location - Australian-Asian area, more concretely Australia and [as far as I can see] Vietnam. It is time of war between China and ASEAN (with Vietnam suffering the brunt of the war and getting hit by pretty nasty nano and biological combat drones). China seems to be a victor of this pan-Asian-Indo-Pacific war (considering the hints given throughout the stories) and all other major powers ended up as either pulverized or totally pushed aside to political and military irrelevance. It is time of utter disaster and collapse, corporations control all the data and influence the normal every day life while remaining states/coalitions apply very disturbing (and again, rather contemporary) social means of control (very similar to West's modern approach to control of media and constant fight against "disinformation" with ostracizing everyone thinking differently and of course Chinese Great Firewall and terrifying social points system).

Why do I say these are stories from the Twilight Zone? Well, while technology is present it is not carrier of the story - you do not see net plugs, "surfing" the virtual worlds, human machine symbiosis nor cyborgs. Story is about ordinary people (or in some case extraordinary people) in extraordinary situations. Technology is there to show how use of technology gave birth to the dystopia but meat of every story are people, men and women and kids trying to survive the complete social collapse, trying to somehow provide for their families. And this is second thing that plays the role in this collection - family. Basic unit of human species finally returns and for me this was truly refreshing.

Stories are very diverse - from the battlefields of Asia, criminal underground, halls of overpowering corporations, Orwellian state control offices in form of Adjustment and Harmony departments and people trying to survive oligarchs playing people for money in pit fights or using them as fodder in dirty industries (complete fall back to abysmal conditions of miners and heavy industry workers before 20th century). Besides these, there are few stories that are true Twilight Zone stories that have nothing with the cyberpunk genre at all (E.T. betting industry was truly weird story :) ).

Stories are all very .... depressive and very few even have a hint of [some sort] of happy ending because that happy ending always comes at cost of something else - human decency or human lives - and nobody gets away clean (short story of organization in Australia organizing and paying for moving families from war torn Vietnam was excellent - weapon purchases go without problems but saving people, that is something that is under constant sanctions and prevention).

Philip K. Dick was obviously an inspiration (as author acknowledges in the afterword of this collection) and it shows in characters never-ending fight to keep their own personality, sanity and humanity intact by holding to the memories and constantly fighting to live in reality. Opposite to this we have constant efforts of the opposing forces (corporations, state social and media control/censorship) to warp these very memories in various ways - from buying them out, playing on persons complete disorientation and inability to discern reality from fantasy under duress so that nefarious goals are reached, controlling the main media and publishing the disinformation to break the opposition to alternating actual memories to fit the narrative using clandestine or overt ways and in that way placing people as unwilling undercover agents, using them and then discarding them. Best examples of these mind-altering stories are story of Klara from Adjustment Bureau of Australia and Eromanga tank crew story (this one was sicko in the twist, such a 6th Sense moment).

All in all very disturbing future but future all our progressive and freedom loving leaders lead us to. And people follow like sheep. Unfortunately. You know how they say - road to hell is paved by good intentions.

Very down-to-earthiness of the stories might cool down people to observe these stories as warnings and not something to aspire to (or consider it something unchangeable and let one self to it). Because believe me, we do not want to live in this world.

Highly recommended.… (meer)

T.R. Napper’s 36 Streets is a gritty, violent, neo-noir story with compelling characters, high-stakes action, and a fascinating, cyberpunk look at near-future Hanoi.

Lin Vu is an enforcer and investigator in crime lord Bao Nguyen’s organization, patrolling the 36 Streets neighborhood in a Chinese-occupied, near future, wartorn Vietnam. While Vu is Vietnamese by birth, she was raised in Australia, painting her as an outcast in either place.

Vu’s clearly had a hard life, even by 36 Streets standards. Between doing her boss’s dirty work and being groomed by him to eventually take over the gang, I’m not surprised. Napper’s Hanoi is a marvel of cyberpunk inventiveness, reminding me that the genre still has a lot of life. 36 Streets is more body horror than corporate hacking, though. Expect a lot of graphic violence and body modding. Napper presents Vu as an archetypal antihero, more concerned with the outcomes than who happens to get hurt along the way there. The only exception to Vu’s hard edge would possibly be her twin sister, and even that’s debatable. But for anyone else, including Vu’s girlfriend, it’s open season.

Setting the story in a Chinese-occupied Vietnam was a nice touch, lending the near-future tale a realistic, day after tomorrow vibe. Napper’s descriptions of future warfare are chilling, as they should be. Several quirks of the writing, including AR translations of non-English languages, aptly helped Napper avoid the pitfalls inherent in multilingual writing.

This book contains mentions of physical and mental abuse, loss of family members, and descriptions of war, violence, rape, and death.… (meer)