Reviews

Moderan by David R. Bunch

radicalmguy's review against another edition

challenging funny lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

homietheclown's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

chamblyman's review against another edition

5.0

NYRB has really found a lost gem in this one! Obscure even in their time (1960s/70s) and long out-of-print, David Bunch's interlinked Moderan stories present a startling, grim, bordering on absurdist future world of hyper-gendered society, fields paved in plastic, bodies merged with metal, and endless pointless warfare, all written in a gnarly poetic language that immerses the reader in the mind of a "Moderan man". This is Literary science fiction of the highest order, for readers that appreciate Stanislaw Lem, Jeff Vandermeer, LeGuin, Sam Delaney, Calvino & Kafka.

bobwoco's review against another edition

3.0

i really enjoyed the overall tone and style, as well as the message behind it, but the repetitiveness of the stories got to me over time. most have a very similar premise - stronghold 10 sees someone unexpected on the horizon - and not many stick out as remarkable from that premise. when they do, they are excellent, which makes me think that perhaps some of the stories didn't need to be included.

funcharge's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny

beepbeepbooks's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I can only read this in short spurts, but the sing song buffoonery is really strong. Kind of love how simplistic this world is, so sad, so full of missed or cut off encounters. The amount of oddities that come in to castle are really fun

eccles's review against another edition

challenging dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

A collection of short stories originally published between over about two decades from 1958, forming a kind of coherent picture of Bunch’s post-apocalyptic plastic-sheeted world with its new-steel “replaced” men and their flesh-strips, waging endless all-out Max war (YES!).   The stories centre loosely on one character, Stronghold 10, who despite his evident but inexplicable puissance is distracted from his doll-bombs and GRANDY whumps by occasional doubts and dark fears that apparently still leak from his few remaining flesh strips.   Intimations of mortality in the Land that Aimed at Forever.   It’s a weird imagining, written in language littered with neologisms, with a cadence out of Clockwork Orange; a style that is effective and disturbing.  It reads to me as archaic, expressing an anger and frustration with 1970s America’s ill-considered techno-optimism and I suppose what Bunch saw as inhumanity inherent in this ideal of an engineered Progress.   There is real poetry in this mechanical dystopia.  A paragraph that starts with “And when I find her! which I will! I hope I have my revenge schedule ready.” is followed by one with the phrase “Even in this heart-hurt spring, flat place in the wheel of the sad world’s journey, I have a hope.”  Although as a collection of stories there’s fair amount of repetition across the 330 pages of this volume, his prose is endlessly inventive, fresh and provocative.   I don’t know if as an author or poet he ventured much out of this steel-and-plastic future of his, but I would certainly try reading something else if he had.   However the principal merit of this collection, I think, is as a monument to the author’s overlooked genius, of interest mainly to archivists or historians of the genre, rather than a fix for clucking sci-fi addicts.

nihilisk's review against another edition

3.0

Bunch’s Moderan is a zany and horrifying place. The language of unending warfare, Joys, and hatred is all his own, and helps to immerse you in his world-building. These stories were written over 30 years, and yet the tone is consistent. A very worthwhile trip into a new-metal mirror version of humanity’s past, present, and quite possibly, future.

reader_drinker's review against another edition

4.0

A satirical science fiction where man has covered the Earth in plastic, science has developed immortality for a chosen few in the form of turning the human body into 90% steel, and where the agreed upon way to fend off the boredom that comes with immortality is constant and hard-nosed war, this was an enjoyable read. A good bit of the satire has dark undertones of being a potential future truth as well. The narcissistic warmonger protagonist Stronghold 10 is truly a great character as well.

Bunch's writing style is incredibly eccentric, which was fun initially but makes for tough sledding for a 300+ page dense book. Overall I still quite liked it.

justinpaszul's review

5.0

Like nothing else out there. Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Terminator 2 as a series of future-medieval courtly vignettes. Shouty and deranged and an entire world of its own.