13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
We Are The Machine, February 19, 2002
This review is from: I-O (Paperback)
When I first read about Simon Logan's collection "i-o", with its "cyber-goth" blend of horror and
science fiction, I felt immediately drawn to it...and immediately curious as to how its approach
might resemble the blend of horror and SF in my own collection, PUNKTOWN. However
dystopian the two books might be, however, Logan proves to be a powerful stylist with a distinct
vision that sometimes makes my future city of Punktown seem cozy by comparison. Logan's
future is a bleak, half-rusted wastescape of factories and warehouses where little else seems to
exist, each story related in the first person by significantly nameless protagonists, burnt-out lost
souls in an industrial hell. Only the last story, AKIN TO INSECTS, takes place in a very near and
more familiar future, but in a kind of mythically heightened version of Seattle, and reads like a
Poppie Z. Brite story on acid. The nihilistic IGNITION presents the intriguing character Shiva,
an artist of mechanized destruction not unlike characters in Kathe Koja's SKIN, and a blend of
both FIGHT CLUB's anarchist Tyler Durden and self-destructive Marla Singer. This story, like
PRISM, PARTOFIT and others, conveys a sense of disconnectedness, loneliness and a haunting
yearning beyond the characters' expression or comprehension. All eight stories are intensely
visual, even in cinematic terms. PARTOFIT could easily be a stop-motion film by the Brothers
Quay. This is gorgeous word art, and as such, the best stuff to come along since China Mieville's
vividly imagined PERDIDO STREET STATION and Michael Cisco's darkly surreal THE
DIVINITY STUDENT. As striking as the literary imagery are the book's brilliant cover design
and interior digital collages, rendered by the author himself. A proofread and final polish would
have tidied up the book's typos and erratic tense shifts, but one can envision Logan as having
welded this collection together out of jagged shrapnel in a delirious fever of creativity. Simon
Logan's "i-o" paints a dismal, desolate future of alienation and emptiness in a mechanized world
where humans are little more than cybernetically assimilated drones. But the terrible beauty of
its visuals and the dull ache of its characters connect with the reader. The scariest thing about "i-o"
is how readily we might see a distorted reflection of our own lives in its cold metallic surfaces.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
brillance in an inkly manner., December 7, 2003
This review is from: I-O (Paperback)
logan pulls off an amazing stunt here---combining mad descriptions and metaphors which would seem so nonsensical when naked from its surroundings, but completely genius together. all stories are set into a futuristic setting, where machines have hearts and humans can divide into two beings---absurdity and absolute beauty.
truthfully, i cannot wait for his next production.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
very original book . . ., April 12, 2002
This review is from: I-O (Paperback)
Simon Logan's 'Industrial Fiction' style is very original. The stories in I-O are unlike anything I've read before. Simon creates a very moody atmosphere in his fiction that is a little depressing (in an enjoyable way, not in a slash-your-wrists way!). His unique writing style draws you deeply into his strange and dark little world. You'll be glad you don't live there, but you'll want to go back and visit him again.
-Paul Fry, Peep show magazine
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