10 Billion Days & 100 Billion Nights

 

SF is a genre that is open to so many interpretations, and then once you start to explore the genre further you discover that there exists  further sub genres to it, 10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights, is a novel whose scope takes in thousands of years, and fictionally  links together some sizable enigmas in it's path. Originally published in 1967, and then again in a revised edition in 1973, the novel must stand as being one of the earliest examples of Japanese SF in translation, the current edition in Japan is published by Hayakawa  Publishing, who also publish a large selection of classic SF titles in Japanese translation. The novel opens at the creation of the earth, the cosmic event is described in prose full of scientific terminology, which continues sporadically throughout the rest of the novel, passages of text journey over thousands, millions of years of evolution, the tide of time going in and out, Mitsuse layers the time periods arriving at what the reader presumes will be the permanent setting of the novel. In three chapters we are introduced to the main characters through historical episodes related to them, Plato travelling through  the remote town of Elcasia, the period of events are meant to be those of his writing Timaeus and Critias and his fascination for the doomed civilisation of Atlantis.

 

The novel is dotted with descriptions of domed buildings and of objects made from curious unknown materials, whilst in Elcasia Plato comes into contact with the strange building material of glaes and also the material orichalcum, and speaks with the suzerain, a strange oracle like entity, the room in which Plato and his servant stay in is fitted with electric lights, which at first terrifies then rouses their curiosity. At night during a sandstorm Plato is overcome by a vision that he is Orionae witnessing the end of Atlantis. The setting of the second chapter takes us to the besieged city of Sakya and the scene of Siddartha's departure from the city at the beginning of his spiritual quest. Accompanied with his Brahmins the journey begins to take on a celestial path, Siddartha encounters the warring Asura and the malevolent Maitreya, whose identity and origins are clouded with uncertainty. The third of the introductory chapters arrives at the trial and crucifiction of Jesus Christ, with Pilate being harangued into sentencing the Nazarene to death, in much of these chapters Mitsuse is setting the scene, re-illustrating the stories that we are familiar with, (or partially familiar with), but at the same time ending them with a hint or a clue of the novel's real plot.
 

The novel is published by Haikasoru and translated by Alexander O.Smith and Elye J. Alexander and comes with an afterword from Mitsuse from the 1973 edition and also a commentary from Mamoru Oshii who recounts meeting the author. Reading the novel is like discovering a classic episode from Japanese SF history, Ryu Mitsuse was one of the first SF writers to be translated into English. The novel's scope is gargantuan but as it progresses Mitsuse refocuses the action into following the main characters as they hunt down and try to decipher the cause and motive of the destruction they encounter  in a bout of civilisation hopping, the clues pointing to the Planetary Development Committee, although who is controlling the organisation?. Siddartha finds himself in a destroyed city which he discovers is the remains of Tokyo of 2092 and encounters some survivors,  much of the last half takes place within the landscapes of destroyed civilisations, the characters travel through thousands of years, their abilities and the appearance of their armies are somewhat suddenly introduced to the reader, but this is the way in which things happen in the world of anime and manga, (Mitsuse's Andromeda series was illustrated by manga artist Keiko Takemiya), and it lends the novel a great sense of cinematic immediacy.

An excerpt is at Haikasoru's page.   

The Cage of Zeus

The Cage of Zeus/Zeusu no ori is the first full novel by Ueda Sayuri to appear in English translation, (translated by Takami Nieda), with a jacket illustrated by Tatsuyuki Tanaka, (Cannabis Works), it's published by Haikasoru. The novel opens with an almost blink and you'll miss it kidnapping scene, the details of which you just begin to take in before you are transported to Hasukawa's narrative, his daughter sat on his knee, reminiscing about his childhood on Mars, when he was young before the moons of Mars were used for constructing huge elevators that straddle the planets surface, and the city's sky's were covered with huge canopies with an Earth like sky scape projected onto them, he recollects these things for his daughter's history assignment, this process of colonization was going to spread onto the next planet, Jupiter. Hasukawa works for the police department and learns of a terrorist alert, the target, Jupiter-I is a research ship orbiting Jupiter, the terrorist group, The Vessel of Life, who hold rigid bio ethical ideologies are believed to be on their way to the ship, Hasukawa appoints security officers Shirosaki and Harding to take them all out. Jupiter-I contains a research laboratory, and also the special district that houses the Rounds, a species of bio engineered hermaphrodites, created to assist humans in space exploration and colonization. The novel set in an undefined point in the future describes the progressively changing attitudes to sexuality and gender identity, Hasukawa notes that people change their gender as frequently as they do their clothes, surgically changing themselves they become fluid transgenders. Jupiter-I also appears to be in part social experiment, where a society cultivated by complete tolerance to sexual identities and behaviour is an ideal being aimed for - 'A society where we are equals, where only individual differences exist', the assertion by Aristophane's in Plato's Symposium, that humans were originally hermaphrodites with four arms and four legs, the gods tore the humans into two parts, creating man and woman, the beginning of each sex desiring and seeking out it's opposite, acts as a philosophical backdrop to Jupiter-I.

When Shirosaki arrives at Jupiter-I his team are met by Kline and Dr Tei, Dr Tei acts as a go between the Rounds and the Monaurals, the Monaurals being single sex/fixed sex humans, the Rounds occupy the special district and their interaction with the Monaurals is limited. Two members of Shirosaki's team, Arino and Shiohara gain entrance to the special district and meet the Round Veritas who reacts coldly to them, as the novel progresses we learn that Veritas had a bad experience with a Monaural, surprisingly turning out to be Security Officer Harding who at first appearance has an almost pathological hatred of the Rounds. To enter into the notions and themes of the novel the narrative employs the use of non-gender specific pronouns, the English translation here uses Spivak pronouns  which take a little getting used to, but their used to great effect which centres the reader's thinking into the heart of this non-gender specific world. Many different perspectives are explored through the novel's duration, Harding's relationship with Veritas in particular where he is faced with both the male and female desires of Veritas, and in turn the Rounds fascination with the Monaurals fixed sex status is also explored. After the security team has arrived a story is told of another Monaural visitor from Mars who had gone mad  fixating on the the red spot of Jupiter, the narrative reminds us that Jupiter is the Roman name of the Greek god Zeus, Jupiter-I acting as the cage of it's inhabitant's desires. With the arrival of the first unmanned ship from Mars security is at maximum alert, but an explosion in one of the labs diverts attention, bringing the realization that perhaps the terrorists was already working amongst them. The narrative of the novel, as well as being a taught sci-fi thriller, is an explorative inquiry into the ideas of this evolving dystopia,  persuing the ideas and visions it presents with an unflinching eye, I'm looking forward to reading the classic 10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights by Ryu Mitsuse.  

Haikasoru          

Inter Ice Age 4 by Abe Kobo

 

 

 

Abe's prose has a clinical eye to the detailing and psychology of his characters, the process of how he reveals the scenarios in his novels give them a very controlled momentum, Inter Ice Age 4/Dai Yon Kampyo-ki, one of his earliest novels from 1959 is no exception, perhaps the methodology of his medical training and his experiences in the theatre is shown in his novels. The translation from E. Dale Saunders has aged well, and the novel is complimented with fascinating illustrations from Abe's wife Abe Machi. Like The Face of Another/Tanin no kao, Inter Ice Age 4 has at it's center a scientific experiment, the after effects of it's consequences are uncertain. Inter Ice Age 4 cryptically opens with an underwater eruption, then moves to the scene of passengers on board a ship feeling a slight movement to the water's motion.  Professor Katsumi and his assistant Tanomogi have constructed a machine that can predict the future, at first Katsumi and Tanomogi input financial data and receive predictions about the state of the economy, they plan to showcase the machine using it to predict the next election, but the concerned organisers call it off. Katsumi becomes a celebrity; I anticipated all futures and dispatched villains left to right. 

As it's revealed that each nation has one of these machines a state of silent stale mate comes about with each side not wanting to upset the economic markets and political balance, the machines act as forecaster-come-spy. Katsumi's superiors begin to question the validity and results of the machine so Katsumi and Tanomogi organise a test cast, and a man chosen at random who they find seated in a restaurant is chosen as their guinea pig, they follow him to a woman's apartment but give up the pursuit. Reading the papers the following morning they discover that the man, (Tsuchida Susumu), had been murdered. Worrying that they maybe incriminated in the case, Katsumi and Tanomogi begin to go over their steps, Katsumi receives a mystery phone call from someone informing him that it will be dangerous to pursue the case, Katsumi recognises the voice from somewhere, but can't remember where. They ignore this call and  manage to obtain Tsuchida's body which they will examine using the machine, they manage to tap into Tsuchida's nervous system  observing through the view finder they see what he saw on the night of his murder, but it brings no results other than discovering the woman's name and also that she had an abortion and that the hospital paid 7000 yen to retain the foetus. Later Katsumi is chased by a man tagging him, theres a scuffle but he manages to make his way back to the laboratory where he discovers one of the assistants Wada Katsuko whose behaviour appears suspicious to Katsumi, she confesses that she and Tanomogi have started a relationship, also that she's willing to offer herself to be examined by the predicting machine. When Tanomogi arrives Katsumi suggests that they let the machine record their conversation for analysis, they find it has been recording already.

Katsumi discovers that his wife has also had an abortion although he discovers that she was drugged, when she came around she found that she had been given 7000 yen in change, she remembers a nurse with a mole on her cheek. The relationship between Katsumi and Tanomogi begins to strain, Katsumi begins to suspect that Tanomogi had in actual fact murdered Tsuchida and threatens to call the police, it's difficult to tell if Katsumi is serious or just testing how Tanomogi will react, Katsumi receives another threatening call. When the machine reports a fault whilst analysing data, Katsumi recognises the voice as the one that has been making the calls, that's your own voice that you programmed the machine with Tanomogi informs him. Another sub plot that emerges concerns Dr Yamamoto's laboratory, Dr Yamamoto is a leading figure in the predicting machine project, and Tanomogi begins to talk of seeing mammals with gills, at first mice and rabbits, then cows and pigs, eventually Katsumi is taken to Dr Yamamoto's submarine facility to view these experiments and discovers that humans are also being bred with gills. The reasons for Dr Yamamoto's breeding program become apparent when geological results show that due to global warming and the melting of the polar regions sea levels will rise, Dr Yamamoto's submarine project is a secret bid for the succession of the species. The novel ends seen from the perspective of an inhabitant of the underwater civilisation who goes in search of the remains of the world that was once lived above the waves, where music was heard through the air and not as vibrations through water.

 

Abe's sustained imaginative narratives weave unexpected correlations between the real world and the ones inhabited by his characters. A portion of the narratives between Katsumi and Tanomogi sees them discussing the implications of viewing the future, and while they pursue Tsuchida they contemplate how he would feel if he were to know that his whole life was suddenly about to be revealed to him. Abe devotes a postscript to this novel contemplating perceptions of the future and present further, I too, therefore, believe that I must understand the future not as something to be judged but something rather that sits in judgement on the present. Abe also views time as being continuous as opposed as being divided solely as present and future, this continuity is cut short for some of the characters in the novel, and Abe leaves it up to the reader and in a way to providence as to whether the novel can be read in hope or despair.