Edited by Teika Marija Smits (Luna Press 2024)
Most readers will come across Nineteen Eighty-Four before We, and if inspired to read more dystopian fiction, move on to the likes of Brave New World and The Machine Stops, maybe even The Fixed Period and Erewhon from the Victorian period, all published before Orwell’s classic, and distinctly ‘different’ in tone to the more threatening and gruesome tale of Winston Smith.
Zamyatin’s We has a subtlety and intricate psychology which explores the concerns of the time in a gentler way, and has thus not had as gratuitous an impact on future generations (especially film makers). Yet for the dystopian connoisseur there is much to be explored in its softer approach, and this variety is reflected in The Utopia of Us. Yes, there are a bunch of characters with numbers for names, there are strict, hierarchical societies and fears of disorder, even nameless and hidden governments silently controlling the masses, but there are also genuinely human protagonists whose verisimilitude keeps these new stories inspired by Zamyatin from being a simple collection of pastiches.
Underlying all of these pieces is a very real awareness of emotions ready to break out like grass through the cracks in paving stones, recognising that feelings cannot be regimented and organised.
Aliya Whiteley’s ‘Intrinsic-Extrinsic-Terrific’ sets the tone by showing us the great engine of a We-like society that nonetheless has moral emptiness at the top, with the true substance of humanity represented by the masses. They are the interesting ones who ask the important questions, yet still hanker after the ethereal and seductive fantasy of the powerful and privileged.
This is followed by a collection of stories with some common themes, punctuated by a few which are bizarre and humorous.
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s highly readable contribution is about a civilisation whose people live in claustrophobic, panopticon-like pods, working as transliterators who relay messages they do not understand to other transliterators who in turn do not understand them. Amongst this crowd sits Yori, who unwittingly discovers the pointlessness of their existence in a state machine whose ultimate purpose is unknown, and who appear to be conduits for information which travels nowhere other than between themselves.
This postmodern theme is also reflected in Douglas Thompson’s ‘In Praise Of TwoState – Epiphanies – The Morning After,’ where society boils down to an acceptance that every choice we make is ultimately meaningless and has no substance beneath. This is life deconstructed to the point where the notion of an actual reality beneath the signifier of language is not even considered. The show becomes the reality.
Similarly, in ‘Peculiar Job – The Wash – Someone Waiting for Me’ by Liam Hogan, living itself is virtual reality. This idea culminates in Fiona Mossman’s ‘The Library is Perfect-An Error-Underwater,’ where the idea of an actual ‘referent’ behind the library’s cataloguing process is terrifying. Again, the system is for its own sake.
Another theme running through this collection is the idea that people are messy, especially their bodily functions and their feelings.
Tim Major, Nadya Mercik and Rayn Epremian show how the drive toward perfectionism eventually leaves organic life outmoded and undesirable. Motherhood is frowned upon and mothers conditioned to forget their children and childbirth experiences; apotheosis is applied to mechanisms; love is outlawed and daydreams become a threat.
Anne Orridge and Michael Teasdale present the notion that ‘combination’ is impure, separating tastes into their most basic forms and outlawing the combination of flavours, making art and the mixing of colours or shapes illegal. All in the name of state control.
Interspersed among these are three stories which cannot be easily categorised other than being postapocalyptic We civilisations. RT Ester’s bizarre tale about ‘okra,’ a battle-of-the-books story by Anne Charnock pitting the young against the old and science against tradition, and Ana Sun’s account of living by the roll of dice and the human need for ritual. All three leave us with the sense that the same mistakes are about to be made again as ‘civilisation’ reasserts itself.
Finally, and a definite stand-out story is Ian Whates ‘Education – The Final Ingredient – The Cost of Living,’ which is a welcome comic interlude with a rather disturbing thread that will remind readers of the sinister side of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where an accidental death becomes a welcome human sacrifice to (and literally into) the all-encompassing machine that controls everyone’s lives.
Having such a focussed anthology must have been difficult for the editor. How do you choose stories that are sufficiently reflective of We but also different enough from each other to keep the reader interested. How do you decide the running order, the tracklist?
On the whole this was successful, making not only an entertaining selection, but one in which how each writer deals with We becomes the overarching intrigue for the reader. The idea was a good one, and it works, bringing out the best in some well-known and lesser-known speculative writers.
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