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<center><b>THE FLOOD</b><p></center>
This book is a dam breaking; a flood of ideas pouring over after they've been held back for years. I'm prone to assuming a lot of things about books and the writers and what things mean when they don't necessarily mean a thing. It's part of the enjoyment, even if it is but a small part. Perhaps one should only pay attention to the book, when writing a review, but I find it inseparable from the reality outside, or my perception of that reality. So what I'm writing here is, rather than a review per se, a reaction to what I read and how I perceived various things. If you want to know the plot, read the book.<p>
K. W. Jeter hasn't published an original novel after 1992's WOLF FLOW, but he has published 8 books. Yet, that is not to say he has written unoriginal novels in the meantime, merely that the books have been based on somebody else's work. The few I've read have varied from competent to good - yet there has been a seeming restraint there when compared to his earlier, original work. NOIR, while drawing on tradition, expands without inhibitations and pushes onwards. <p>
<blockquote>"...That's why I sold out to DZ, joined up with them so hard it'd take a titanium crowbar to pry me loose.. Me and the rest of the ones like me, plus everybody at the Snake Medicine<SUP>TM</SUP> franchise headquarters -- we could see the handwriting on the wall...<i>You've been weighed in the balance and we've found you worthwhile enough to buy, so you can either sell out now or go back to selling rubber vibrators at strip-mall discount outlets</i>." (NOIR, page 302)</blockquote><p>
<center><b>THE BETRAYAL</b></center><p>
The word NOIR is full of history and implications. This is a world where betrayal is expected, death accepted. Even worse, but John McNihil has a new set of eyes that show him only the world he wants, or once wanted, the world of film noir: TOUCH OF EVIL, THE BIG HEAT and DOUBLE INDEMNITY. I gather he once thought he could escape. <p>
McNihil is an easy man to despise, even loathe, and it took me a while to get past the feeling after we find him doing his work - finding, torturing and for all practical purposes executing copyright violators. But you shouldn't make the same mistake I did when I started the book; I took it all too seriously, and there is humour inside. Not the kind that gives relief or relieves the tension - but knowing, sly humour, found lurking in between the lines. <p>
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"..in some senses, suspense fiction is really at its most interesting when it's anxiety fiction - when the people are having a hard time because they have problems [...] Most of them would just be fucking grateful if they could live out their lives going to some dumb job, going home in the evening, having their wives cook them dinner... They don't want to fuck around with the bad stuff, but something happens and they have to deal with it." <br> - K. W. Jeter in an interview, 1987
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This is almost a quote from one of the characters, an old bastard of a writer called Turbiner. I'm sure it's not the only thing the author has in common with the character, and the chapter where McNihil meets with Turbiner is one of the best sequences in the book - there is a relaxed atmosphere full of implied thought, a familiar place with understanding which Jeter obviously has enjoyed writing about. It is also the most traditional part of the book, both in feel and the content.<p>
<center><b>THE PAST</b></center><p>
There is a lot inside the book, ideas which aren't mere window-dressing but explored through the experiences of the characters. One of often mentioned ideas within the book, in blurbs and reviews, is it's concerns over intellectual property. It should be noted though, that while I found these parts thought-provoking, the thing that makes the book work is the people inside. Jeter understands and is capable of conveying to the reader the darker side of human nature; the blurring line between human and inhuman. This is familiar territory to those of you reading Phil Dick's work (and if you aren't, you should be), and it should be familiar to anybody who has read Jeter's earlier work. The insights into human nature are expressed with subtle precision amongst that which is unusual and strange, yet also that which echoes our current concerns. <p>
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<blockquote>"You see," continued Harrisch, "it's important to concern ourselves with what's real. What's really real. Who was the wise man who said that reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it's still there?" (NOIR, page 110)</blockquote><p>
<center><b>THE FUTURE</b><p>
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The book isn't perfect. Not many are. But besides being a terrific read on it's own, it nicely combines a lot of Jeter's earlier fiction, metamorphosing into something new. This is what the BLADE RUNNER books should have been; this is the true successor to both DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? and the Ridley Scott adaptation of it - like the film, NOIR pushes forwards, bending the rules and at the same time creating something new while acknowledging what was left behind. <p>
More importantly this is a synthesis of Jeter's own earlier work, combining the science fiction and the suspense into something larger. It works well on it's own, but as a piece in the body of work it makes even more sense. It isn't a flawless transition, but there are not only fascinating concepts inside - NOIR also has some perfect, precisely and beautifully captured moments that make it something new and excitingly original. Science fiction is often more of the past and the present than it is of the future. NOIR embraces it all.<p>
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K. W. Jeter<br>
<b>NOIR</b><br>
Bantam Spectra 1998<p>
thoughts hastily scribbled 1999 Juha Lindroos<p>
[<a href="k-noir.html">NOIR</a>]
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