Pump 6

I just finished reading Paolo Bacigalupi's Pump 6 in Fantasy and Science Fiction, and I must say I'm a bit surprised that it saw the printed page.

Don't get me wrong--the author did a brilliant job of bringing a particular world to life.

But that's all he did. Aside from showing me the rise of dystopia, Bacigalupi did nothing of literary note in his story. There's no real conclusion to the story--and the story itself seems like a cheap way to say, "Society is falling apart! Lookie!"

The story could have been so much more. Short fiction is such a hard venue, though--and selling anything to Fantasy and Science Fiction is nothing short of a miracle. Still--an ending would have been nice. I'd have loved to see Bacigalupi use his massively impressive skill to convey something deep, something thought provoking. Half human mutants fornicating in the street isn't thought provoking--it's irritating.

Perhaps he just touched a nerve with me when he compared his trog-mutants to college students. Or perhaps I didn't like the fact that his protagonist was given no chance to succeed or fail. There was no closure with his demented boss, no closure with his girlfriend trying to get pregnant. Just a heavy handed message about how bad the world is getting, and how we're all too stupid and medicated to fix it.

And I really don't dig that. Because I don't think its true. I see a lot of hope for the world. I see medicine advancing every day. I see the new atom smasher in Europe farting scientific breakthroughs every minute. I see us achieving a Mars landing in my lifetime. I see people really starting to take note of the environment and, in doing so, taking care of it.

I really don't think it'll ever get as bad as Bacigalupi seems to suggest.

-Bart out.