“These strangely prescient stories are perfect for fans of Haruki Murakami, George Saunders, and Philip K. “The stories chosen for this collection showcase an author whose interest in alienation and despair as well as playful literary exploration parallels the work of other ’70s SF titans such as Joanna Russ or Thomas Disch … Essential reading not only for those interested in Japanese SF, but for anyone interested in spiky, beautiful, and bleak literature.” “Eagerly awaited … readers to worlds both familiar and unfamiliar, indulging our fantasies and fears of the future … Dark and slightly absurdist, this collection is a poignant rumination on the despair and isolation of modern society.” “Weird and wonderful, unique and unsettling … You won’t put this one down.”

“If you’re into Kōbō Abe and prefer Ryū Murakami to Haruki you’ll not (as the title of this inaugural translation of Suzuki into English suggests), be bored.”

Jessica Esa, Metropolis Japan (“5 Japanese Novels to Read in 2021”) In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.“Suzuki is a daring writer and these stories will show the English-language world what she is made of.” A bickering couple emigrate to a world that has worked out an innovative way to side-step the need for war, only to bring their quarrels (and something far more destructive) with them.Īnd in the title story, Suzuki offers readers a tragic and warped mirroring of her own final days as the tyranny of enforced screen-time and the mechanistion of labour bring about a shattering psychic collapse.Īt turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki's singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. Two old friends enjoy cocktails on a holiday resort planet where all is not as it seems. On a planet where men are contained in ghettoised isolation, women enjoy the fruits of a queer matriarchal utopia - until a boy escapes and a young woman's perception of the world is violently interupted.

Terminal boredom book