I must admit that getting through a 700+ page novel in little more than a week is a rare thing, even when it’s something I really enjoy. This time I think it was because I’ve been impatiently waiting to read the English version of Tow Ubukata’s Mardock Scramble ever since the first part of the animated adaptation formed the high point of my recent Leeds Film Festival experience.
Another reason is that cyberpunk is a ‘comfort food’ genre for me in that every now and then I feel the need to come back to the William Gibson- and Blade Runner-style neo-noir futuristic thrillers. With a few little quirks and cultural peculiarities aside, this is one of the most intelligent and gripping examples of the genre I’ve had the pleasure to read.
For the benefit of the lucky few who saw the anime of The First Compression, it’s very faithful to the novel…right down to that abrupt cliff-hanger at the end of the movie. At that point it was pure cyberpunk thriller territory: shady dealings between the neon lights of a futuristic cityscape and its seedy underbelly, a heroine equipped with cybernetic technology, high-tech crime, plot twists and double-crosses…all with a healthy dose of comic book violence.
The action-orientated first volume seems to pay homage to anime and manga from the Akira and Ghost in the Shell tradition but bubbling under the surface, and coming to the fore in what follows, is more ideas- and character-driven. To my mind however, it’s more intelligent and much more interesting: the novel turns out to be a personal journey as opposed to a simple action thriller and for that reason really stays with you.
I daresay that Rune-Balot is one of the most memorable and downright awesome literary heroines I’ve encountered in ages. Her introduction paints her as a passive victim of her pitiless world but watching her personality grow and strengthen is a masterful piece of character development; the emergence of someone you can really admire and become attached to.
I don’t mean ‘admire’ in a sexual sense – given the age and background of her character there’s no way I could think of her that way – but in a more general appreciation of how she goes in search of answers and how that development is handled by Ubukata’s writing. The world-building, especially the legal system, is impressive and he even finds time for some philosophical chin-scratching in between the gunfights.
Even so, the characters are I think the main reason why this is so extraordinary. It’s not so much Balot’s rescue that’s so affecting but her long and difficult road to overcoming the trauma that blighted her early life – it’s a case of “don’t get mad; get even.” In addition to this, the bond between her and Oefcoque is something that’s pretty special in that they end up teaching each other the value of life. She needs support and understanding; his legal status requires him to show practical usefulness (yes, it’s italicised in the novel too) but that spills over to his personal feelings. Assuming an A.I. that takes the form of a talking mouse that can turn into any weapon of his handler’s choice has feelings, obviously.
This is one of those suspension-of-disbelief things that you simply have to just accept in order to get on with the business of appreciating the novel overall. Oefcoque comes across as a mixture of Stuart Little and T-1000 from Terminator 2…and if that wasn’t weird enough, the names of many of the characters are based on wordplays or references to certain recurring themes. Such as eggs.
There’s the initial idea that Balot’s mentally distressing background made her retreat into a metaphorical ‘shell’ and the egg puns take off from there. Ubukata is apparently a ‘polymath’ according to the commentary from the translator Edwin Hawkes so there’s a lot of eclectic elements that crop up here and there. He really does like his egg references though.
Along the same lines the narrative itself is a bit experimental: the second half of the second volume and the first half of the third are set in a casino and take a storytelling approach that’s very unusual to Western readers. In retrospect it’s easy to see how the slow and heavy-going nature of this portion of the story is so significant but after the straightforward and faster-paced opening act the shift in tone is quite jarring; it’s concerned with tactics and the psychology of the characters involved rather than any kinetic action or Cool Stuff Happening.
I initially thought that Ubukata was indulging in a personal appreciation of the mechanics of gambling and that his editor hadn’t made a sufficient effort to rein his enthusiasm in to streamline the progression of the storyline. The fact that it’s so drawn-out is apparently intentional though, so as to evoke the tedium and tension that the characters were feeling by making the reader feel similarly tired, impatient and a little disorientated. It’s a clever trick on the author’s part but readers who are impatient to find out where all this is leading may not thank him for it.
In fairness, Hawkes went to great lengths to make the English language experience as readable as possible, in the hope of keeping the spirit of the prose intact so we’d appreciate the author’s intent without losing interest. I’m confident in Ubukata’s knowledge of the games involved, but since I don’t have a head for figures nor the rules of, say, blackjack or roulette I skimmed over the numbers and concentrated on the human element instead.
My best explanation for this part of the novel is comparing it to Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, in which the protagonist attempts to change the course of his life through increasingly tense and convoluted gambling matches. Understanding the rules of the games is helpful but ultimately the way in which the characters face the challenges, and how these events in turn affect them, are what matter.
Sure enough, the casino segment contains some important personal moments amongst the repetition and implied zawa zawas but my problem with it stemmed more from the fact that it’s so wildly different from the earlier portion with its grotesque comic book villains and edge-of-your seat moments of a very different nature. I can only recommend sticking with it and trusting the author’s judgement on where it’s going because the payoff is well worthwhile.
As a parting shot I feel like making some pun about revenge being best served cold while I prefer cyberpunk hard-boiled but quite frankly it’s best to leave Ubukata to that. I’d rather urge you all to read the damn thing and let it speak for itself, because I enjoyed it one hell of a lot.