Customer Reviews

Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy (Public Works Trilogy)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Matt Ruff has written three novels in a literary career spanning nearly two decades; all three are rooted somehow in fantasy and should be regarded as fine examples of speculative fiction. "Sewer, Gas Electric: The Public Works Trilogy" is a dazzling, hilarious cyberpunk adventure set in the New York City of 2023. Ruff conjurs up a bizarre, almost dystopian, view of a near-future New York City laced with the political wisdom of Ayn Rand, who returns, resurrected as a major protagonist in this novel. Multi-billionaire Harry Gant strives to build the tallest building in the world while his ex-wife, Joan Fine, is joined by Ayn Rand, as they wage war against homicidal robots and a sinister conspiracy involving Walt Disney and J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's legendary first director, within the sewers of Manhattan. Ruff's novel is just as hilarious as Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash", but quite a bit longer. And not only are there apt comparisons to Stephenson's work here, but I can see some influence from the likes of Thomas Pynchon, Bruce Sterling and William Gibson too. Fans of "Snow Crash" and other cyberpunk fiction will not wish to miss this book. Without question, "Sewer, Gas, Electric: The Public Works Trilogy" is Ruff's splendid sophomore outing, and demonstrates to me why he may be the finest writer ever to have graduated from New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School.

Sewer, Gas and Electic is one of the strangest, most off-the-wall books I've read in years. And I loved almost every bit of it. If this is representive of Matt Ruff's work, he's a brilliant writer.

The only reason that I didn't give the book five stars is that the ending is a bit weak compared to the rest of the book. But, regardless of the ending, the ride was worth it.

The cast of Sewer, Gas and Electric includes a Multi-Billionare businessman, Harry Gant. Harry wants to do the right thing, but doing the right thing is boring -- it just doesn't hold his attention. So, he hired an environmentalist that he'd dated in college, Joan, as an executive in his company to keep him honest. They battle over company decisions and eventually marry and then divorce, all the time where the story occurs.

Other characters include a non-violent eco-terrorist with a submarine decorated with pink polka dots that he docks under the statue of liberty, the crew of the submarine, including a mixed Israeli/Palestinian family, and a few war veterns suffering from serious PTSD. Oh, and we can't forget the VERY evolved, very dangerous shark that has escaped from the NY City sewers. And the Queen of England...

Early on in the book, it isn't clear whether the plot revolves around Gant's quest to build a mile-high tower or the eco-terrorists efforts to stop Gant industries from drilling for oil in the Antarctica. It turns out that its neither.

I really don't want to give anything away. If you like science fiction and you enjoy off the wall plots and don't mind a bit of politically incorrect humor, you'll LOVE this book.

Sewer, Gas & Electric takes place, for the most part, in New York City in 2023 as Matt Ruff explains in his intro: "...just like the present, only more so." Corporations dominate the city skyline with giant glowing advertisements while under them specially trained city workers track and kill the mutant inhabitants of the sewers. Althewhile, keeping these strange animals existence a secrete.

Early in the twenty-aughts a strange plague decimated the black population. This plague not only kills within days but also seemingly consumes the bodies leaving nothing behind. Nothing except strange rumors- tribes of green eyed blacks; while the ghosts of billions of dead negros seem to haunt every part of the Earth.

Ruff mixes the seemingly silly with the mortuary seriousness of a funeral and I have never read anything else that pulls off that conceit to this level of perfection except maybe , Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book) by Neal Stephenson. Below are a list of characters, if you feel that they are silly then you are right. If you are not a fan of Kurt Vonnegut or novels such as The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers or the above mentioned Stephenson you may want to look elsewhere. If by chance any of those are your favorites then you may be able to add another novel to that list:

Harry Gant: Eccentric billionaire and manufacturer of the electric negro
Joan Fine: Harry's ex-wife, eco warrior, ``white liberal Catholic'' and former Comptroller of Public Opinion at Gant Industries (main protagonist)
Philo Dufrense: Eco-terrorist and captain of the pink-and-green submarine designed by Howard Hughes the "Yabba-dabba-do". Also, one of the last black people left on the planet after a plague
Meisterbrau: An alternative-environment-adapted Carcharodon carcharias (Aka, a mutated great white shark living in the sewers of New York City).
Ayn Rand: Resurrected and bottled in a hurricane lamp to serve as Joan's annoying assistant. Side note: She gets her objective @ss handed to her in an argument over her theories.
Abbie Hoffman: His personality programmed into the computer of a Volkswagen Beatle.
Kite: A one-armed 181-year-old Civil War veteran(don't ask).

All of whom, and many more are caught up in a vast conspiracy involving Walt Disney, J. Edgar Hoover, and a mob of homicidal robots. Without ruining the story, all I can say is it's a genocidal conspiracy revolving around the Disney Corporation, a supercomputer and a mysterious plague that wiped out every black person on Earth (except those with green eyes). I hope this was helpful and I hope you enjoy the book.

I truly enjoyed this book. It was original, irreverent and at times screamingly funny. Character development was excellent but not overblown. I also liked the pace of this book: a fun story that moved at a good clip without rushing. Clearly the author is thumbing his nose at the politically correct movement of the 1990s but the story is still relevent and great fun.

It's the future and Mr. Gant is a strong force to be reckoned with in the business industry and there's an eco-terrorist group intent on bringing him down. There's also an artificial intelligence trying to take over and a mutated shark on the loose in the city`s sewers. All this is wrapped up in a large ball of satire and craziness. Overall, I liked this one. Unfortunately, there are instances where the author is trying too hard to be clever and that's what puts a kink in my enjoyment of the story because a lot seems forced or just downright irritating. But hey, all-in-all it's a pretty fun read.

couldn't put this book down. one of the best books i've read!!!! LOVE IT!

I originally wrote this "private" review in December 2002; however, I noticed some of the negative reviews and decided to re-post. Matt Ruff is just amazing. SGE and FOTH are two of my all time favorites. I've read SGE twice but lost my original copy so now I must buy another. Thank you to Amazon for restocking it!!!

12/21/2002:
Brilliant! Genocide, electronic slaves, eco-crusaders, the politics of power, social responsibility...how do you construct a novel with all these elements without frightening or boring your reader to death? Matt Ruff knows: a true artist. He extends reality to the point of what is seemingly fantastic; but, is it really? Probably not; however, the flow of Ruff's lyrical writing style and excellent comic relief empowers the reader with a sense of hope. All I can say is... WOW!!! This is a must for anyone's personal library. A rating under 4 doesn't do this book justice. I've given it a 5.

PS: FOTH is a very different book but another great example of Ruff's amazing talent.

To begin with, I understand the comparisons with Ruff to authors like Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut. Each of these latter authors encompass a very particular American postmodern literary idiom, first seen in the 1950's and still present today in the work of authors like David Foster Wallace and William T. Vollmann. Like these authors, Ruff's voice is verbose (and I don't mean that in a negative way) and eccentric, his plots expansive and multi-layered. However, unlike all the authors mentioned above, Ruff's book fails to carry the burden of a convoluted plot and a hyperactive narrative style. More importantly, though, it also fails to convince me that there is any real meaning behind this character parade.

Not helping are Ruff's tired and unsophisticated ideas. Talking about androids might have been brilliant and intriguing when Philip K. Dick was doing it in the late sixties; writing about them in the early nineties (when I assume Ruff was composing this mess), is not. So, too, with the inclusion of Ayn Rand, Herbert Hoover, and Walt Disney in the story. With the latter, Ruff seems giddy to relate all the new biographical information he has just learned about Disney and rather sanctimoniously supposes we haven't already read about; yet, fails to make this information mean anything to his plot or what we must suppose is the overall cultural critique presented to us.

With the characters of Rand and Hoover, on the other hand, what we have is an author using historical figures as characters that, without the ability to "talk back," become victims of Ruff's critical intent. Authors do this all the time--create characters merely as springboards off which to bounce their ideas, or airborne targets which they can shoot down without fear of rebuttal. Ruff's problem is that by using such public and infamous personages as these--characters that already carry enough cultural stigma to carry novels all by themselves--their fictional victimization becomes too obvious, too contrived, and so literarily presumptuous as to be only conceivable from the pen of a freshman in first-year workshop.

Lastly, what of the plot? The question I kept asking myself is: what does it matter? What do the stories of Lexa and Philo and Harry Gant matter? What are they pointing us toward? Why all the mention of American history and cultural nostalgia and why this ridiculous plot that involves painted submarines and lemurs? And why is this supposed to be funny? Why indeed! Beneath the surface, this novel is not a satire of popular, political, philosophical, or even aesthetic America culture despite the constant riffing off "American" themes like capitalism, technology, and war. Instead, it is a long, confusing, and boring quasi-sci-fi, quasi-comedic novel about nothing at all. And that's not clever: that's just a waste of time and paper.

I wasted two weeks reading this book and feel like contacting Grove Press and asking them to explain just why they would publish such a amateurish joke of a book.

I could write a 448 page book describing all of the different things I didn't like about this book, but I'll keep it short and sweet. This book was amateurish at best. When reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to a record, I frequently find myself in awe of the creators' talent. I criticize carefully, knowing that I probably couldn't do better. In this case though, I probably could do better than Matt Ruff! The humor, plot, and characters go beyond falling flat; they're damn near concave. The characters are all so superficially developed that it's as if they all have the same voice and the same (god awful) sense of humor. It was painful to read a 448 page book that is peopled by the annoying, unfunny, predictable uncle I never had wearing 40 different outfits and having 40 different names. I rolled my eyes so many times reading this book that I almost lost my balance on the subway. If you are looking for something TRULY edgy with a futuristic theme, check out Dhalgren.

Do not waste your time, or money on this.

Dear mr ruff. When writing "satire" you must be both funny and relevant. You achieve neither.