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The Jim Munroe Reviews
Jim Munroe is a Canadian author whose works are generally not marketed as science fiction, even though all three of his books to date have strong elements of the fantastic. In this appraisal of his works by James Nicholl, the light side of anti-globalization ideology comes under the microscope.
For ideological reasons he chooses to self-publish. Often self-publishing is a warning sign that the book in question wasn't publishable any other way but this is not true in Munroe's case. Indeed, he only started self-publishing with his second novel, 'Angry Young Spaceman'. His first novel, 'Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask', was published by HarperFlamingoCanada and you don't get much larger than the HarperCollins behemoth. A brief aside: No, I have no idea why a Canadian branch of HarperCollins would name itself after the flamingo unless this is some veiled dig at the annual winter flight of Canadians to Florida. Even then, wouldn't 'HarperSnowbirdCanada' make more sense? Munroe does not keep his anti-globalization ideology to his website. Instead, it drives parts of the plot in all three books. Didactic writing can be dangerous, at least from the point of view of the reader who hopes for some entertainment to go with the wheel-barrow load of hot steaming Message. Happily, although I personally find Munroe's ideology tooth-gratingly flawed and personal tone on his web site www.nomediakings.org annoyingly shrill and self-congratulatory, the actual books are not bad. There's actually some story in there to go with the message. A trick I wish would be learned by other authors who have a Message they want to communicate to the rest of us. The Books:- Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask by Jim Munroe Ryan, a student whose mother is dying from cancer, has a mad crush on a waitress named Cassandra. They end up dating and share deep secrets with each other: Cassandra's baby was fathered by an alien and Ryan has the ability to transform himself into a fly at will. After some thought, Cassandra remembers she too has a super-power
- the ability to make anything disappear by willing it. The pair
decide to use their powers in the service of society and form the
Super-heroes for Social Justice with Ryan adopting the identity
of Flyboy and Cassandra that of Ms Place. Their super-heroing, which they fit in between lengthy episodes of hot sweaty sex, mainly consists of property crimes against companies and people whose politics they disagree with. Eventually, their vigilante actions escalate to the violent and while there are consequences from this, they don't include stopping. As the book ends, they are planning even more spectacular acts
in service of what they see as 'social justice'. Ryan and Cassandra may be more likeable than Alan Moore's Rorschach but when one looks at them closely they aren't much better. Neither one is especially bright or creative, as shown by Ryan's failure to test whether his shape-shifting extended to other insects than flies and to see if he can do forms other than insects once he discovers his abilities are wider than he thought. Perhaps it's just as well the pair does not get too experimental, since Cassandra suspects she could will the Sun away if she liked which would almost certainly be a bad idea. It'd fix global warming, though. Neither one thinks very hard on how to apply their abilities in a positive or constructive manner either, relying primarily on destructive actions. There's a narrow range of political thought in Ryan and Cassandra's social circle and while they feel very strongly that their views are right, this appears to be merely a powerful emotional attachment to their positions rather than conviction from careful thought. Munroe does a very nice job of conveying the hormone addled state of young lovers. Their minds thoroughly buzzed on Disney Chemicals, neither of these people are likely to stoop to rational thought for some time. It'd be cute if they weren't needlessly killing people as a result. It'd help if I didn't think the author was on the characters' side with respect to their choices about how to use their abilities. This was a gripping read and I sympathized at moments with Ryan and Cassandra but in an ideal world they would both be doing time. Angry Young Spaceman by Jim Munroe This time Munroe brings us Sam, a young man some time into a not especially convincing future after a Galactic War has put Earth on top and established English as the primary language of the Galaxy. After a disillusioning revelation about his teen sub-culture, he decides to take a job as an English teacher on a world called Octavia, a world that was on the losing side of the Galactic War. He finds a diverse crowd of like minded companions who are teaching
on worlds near Octavia and through romance becomes entangled with
Octavia's culture, eventually suffering a crisis of faith about
the morality of remaking the galaxy in Earth's image and his place
in that process. Even more than Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask, Angry Young Spaceman has a flawed plot structure. Where the murder in Flyboy comes out of left field but is understandable given that Ryan and Cassandra are vigilantes, the event that causes the disintegration of Sam's social group is absurd and pointless. In addition to this, the 'science' is not as hard-edged as that
of 'Futurama' or 'The Jetsons'. Since it's labeled 'kitsch fiction',
I assume the absurd aspects of the plot and background were deliberate
choices by the author rather than any disability to do better. There are good bits in the book which to some extent make up for the silly bits. The Octavians may be oppressed but they are not the hapless nice people another author might have used. They celebrate a genocidal war against dolphins on one hand and mistreat another semi-intelligent species rather badly because they can. While the idea of an inter-species romance is absurd, at least Sam and his sweetie have to put a lot of thought into how exactly to go about having sex, what with one being a human and the other an octopoid. The real world analogs Munroe has in mind are plain and it wouldn't have surprised me if the Teahouse of the August Moon had put in a cameo at any point but the writing is solid and the characters nicely drawn. Just don't buy this for Hal Clementesque world-building. Everyone in Silico by Jim Munroe Munroe experiments with a slightly more plausible future in this novel and a more complex story-telling technique, using multiple points of view rather than just one. The book is set in 2036, at a time when governments have been
abolished as inefficient. Computer technology is powerful enough
to allow extremely convincing virtual realities, populated with
down-loaded humans. This is not an unmixed blessing since AI emulations
can work much longer hours and there is also the mystery of what
happens to the discarded bodies, a mystery that gradually brings
the various subplots together nicely. This is Munroe's best to date. It lacks the plot structure flaws that marred his earlier books. Some of the antagonists' actions make little sense. Like why exactly a company that owns the media would have to work at a cover-up when they could just, you know, not publish any stories on the subject of the missing bodies? Other actions are charmingly evil. I rather like the idea of a VR where everyone has to work 20 hour days, for example. Some of the science is pretty daffy but not nearly on the scale of 'Angry Young Spaceman'. In many ways, it reminded me of an Egan story written from the point of view of the Fleshers, the people who don't want to become emulations on a machine. For more on his work, visit www.nomediakings.org James Nicholl
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OTHER CONTENT - November 2002
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Jim
Munroe is a Canadian author whose works are generally not marketed
as SF even though all three of his books to date have strong fantastic
elements. 
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