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Fall Into Time
In these four stories, Douglas Lain explores the painful and mysterious chasms in the hearts and minds of people who want to break out from their lives, but find themselves becoming stagnant and self-destructive. Unable to escape or move forward, they lose themselves in the past and present, hoping for some insight that will lead them to a brighter future. Readers of Philip K. Dick, Donald Barthelme, and Kelly Link will rejoice in the work of Douglas Lain. THE LAST APOLLO MISSION 09/11 was an inside job. What nobody knows, except for writer Paula Austin, is that Stanley Kubrick was one of the men behind it all. With help of Nicholas Cage, of course. RESURFACING BILLY In a near-future city where radioactive trash is seeping up through the soil, one man creates a chewing gum that just might solve the planet's trash problem, while trying to prove to a Big Brother-like school that his son's behavioral problems are completely normal before they mandate a lobotomy. ALIEN INVASION/COFFEE CUP STORY Aliens have finally invaded, but apathy has overtaken the planet and nobody seems to care about the flying saucers in the sky. The tensions in a young couple's relationship rise to the surface as they discuss what the alien invasion means, or more to the point, what it doesn't mean, in this satirical mash-up of alien invasion and realist "cup of coffee" stories. CHOMSKY AND THE TIME BOX A tech blogger travels back in time and becomes obsessed with a twenty-two minute period in the Chicago O'Hara Airport on November 16th, 1971, when Noam Chomsky and Terence McKenna nearly met. But nothing goes according to plan in his repeated attempts to change the course of history, which entail kidnapping Chomsky and subjecting hostages from the Chicago O'Hara to footage of Ronald Reagan.
112 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 24, 2011
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45 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 1, 2020
Fall Into Time is a bit of an unsung gem among today's Bizarro readers. Douglas Lain comes from a hard science fiction background. Moreover, he hosts a weekly podcast where he and the guest try to solve the great mysteries of existence by examining and applying the ideologies of Zizek, Deleuze and Hegel, among others. So it goes without saying that you have to work for enlightenment, or the big payoff in his offerings.
Fall Into Time begins strong with a narrative about Stanley Kubrick's shadowy involvement with the September 11th tragedy. There is a scene where the main character auditions to work for Kubrick and because this character is so knowledgeable about his career, they don't get the job. That is such a succinct ideosyncrasy of Kubrick the director's obsessive nature that Lain deserves a high five on that basis alone.
The second story fell kind of flat for me, whereas his examination of what a post-ET Disclosure America would look like is another case of him predicting human nature with a futurist's accuracy.
However, even if none of the previous stories mentioned above manage to grip or enthrall you, Fall Into Time is undoubtedly worth exploring on the merits of the final tale, the crown jewel as it were, 'Chomsky and the Time Box'. In this story, we witness a fairly mediocre gentleman who becomes consumed with arranging a meeting between two disparate personalities in Terrence McKenna and Noam Chomsky in a very short window of time before they blink out of each other's lives forever. He tries repeatedly with the aid of a futuristic novelty toy called a 'Time Box', but all he seems to acquire is more frustration until he begins to act out in increasingly antisocial and unhinged ways, at one point even holding the plane's passengers at gunpoint. He plays with time with such flagrant disregard that he sees *through* time, that is, he views the building blocks beyond the superficial veil. It is only after viewing the architectural constructs of Chomsky and McKenna's being that he understands why the two can never meet or establish even the most remote acquaintance. Their shapes are totally incongruent. Perhaps that last sequence was a nod to Flatland, or maybe Lain just traveled so many light years ahead in critical thinking to realize this vision that I find myself now grasping at straws.
Whatever the case, I believe this as well as Lain's novel Wave of Mutilation, inhabit a less explored corner of Eraserhead Press' publishing history. I look forward to discussing these two works with him on my own podcast in the coming days. Until then, this is the perfect place for Bizarro readers to explore different approaches to surrealism and learn what makes Douglas Lain such a vital thinker in these ever erratic times.
Fall Into Time begins strong with a narrative about Stanley Kubrick's shadowy involvement with the September 11th tragedy. There is a scene where the main character auditions to work for Kubrick and because this character is so knowledgeable about his career, they don't get the job. That is such a succinct ideosyncrasy of Kubrick the director's obsessive nature that Lain deserves a high five on that basis alone.
The second story fell kind of flat for me, whereas his examination of what a post-ET Disclosure America would look like is another case of him predicting human nature with a futurist's accuracy.
However, even if none of the previous stories mentioned above manage to grip or enthrall you, Fall Into Time is undoubtedly worth exploring on the merits of the final tale, the crown jewel as it were, 'Chomsky and the Time Box'. In this story, we witness a fairly mediocre gentleman who becomes consumed with arranging a meeting between two disparate personalities in Terrence McKenna and Noam Chomsky in a very short window of time before they blink out of each other's lives forever. He tries repeatedly with the aid of a futuristic novelty toy called a 'Time Box', but all he seems to acquire is more frustration until he begins to act out in increasingly antisocial and unhinged ways, at one point even holding the plane's passengers at gunpoint. He plays with time with such flagrant disregard that he sees *through* time, that is, he views the building blocks beyond the superficial veil. It is only after viewing the architectural constructs of Chomsky and McKenna's being that he understands why the two can never meet or establish even the most remote acquaintance. Their shapes are totally incongruent. Perhaps that last sequence was a nod to Flatland, or maybe Lain just traveled so many light years ahead in critical thinking to realize this vision that I find myself now grasping at straws.
Whatever the case, I believe this as well as Lain's novel Wave of Mutilation, inhabit a less explored corner of Eraserhead Press' publishing history. I look forward to discussing these two works with him on my own podcast in the coming days. Until then, this is the perfect place for Bizarro readers to explore different approaches to surrealism and learn what makes Douglas Lain such a vital thinker in these ever erratic times.
August 29, 2011
I'd actually read two of these stories when they first appeared in online magazines. This is Lain's second book-form publication, the first was his debut short story collection, Last Week's Apocalypse. Lain's stories exist somewhere on the intersection of PKD, Kafka and a William Gibson who is more engaged with personal spaces and ideological possibilities than that funky data dance. I consider him one of the most exciting and intriguing writers I've encountered in the contemporary SF field, albeit one who does not press the buttons the bulk of genre fans expect their writers to. I'll try and weigh in with a more detailed version of this review sometime when it isn't a saturday evening and I don't have a bottle of excellent whiskey at hand.
*crickets*
Right, it's Monday morning. You know, I used to spread drinking through the week, but lately I seem to get it all done in a few hours on Saturday evenings. Improved time management skills, I suppose.
I'd like to add a story-by-story review of this book which is easy because it only contains 4 stories.
The Last Apollo Mission: Lain parlays moon landing fraud theories and post-9/11 conspiracy paranoia into a story about a failed (or is she?) writer's intersection with a top-secret Kubrick project and the very bizarre aftermath. When you accept that everything's part of a conspiracy theory, what happens when conspiracies collide?
Resurfacing Billy: In a near-future where toxic waste is being dumped in public spaces and seeping out everywhere, a man tries to invent a miracle substance that will seal the garbage in for good. At the same time, the private franchise school he sends his son Billy to is attempting to find ways to curb Billy's supposedly anti-social streak, and is willing to use means that extend all the way up to lobotomy. Something about our increasingly counter-productive problem-solving strategies as a species, I think. The most emotionally poignant story in this set.
Alien Invasion/Coffee Cup Story: Dozens of SF fans love to hate this parody of the slice-of-life epiphany short story, spliced with an infuriatingly static alien invasion scenario. We expect too much from things, whether they're drunken conversations in bars or gleaming spacecraft hanging in the sky.
Chomsky And The Time Box: In a recent essay on Zizek, Lain says 'The only thing to expect from Zizek is that he challenges us to think and create new modes of Praxis. Not that we should stay at Zizek's level of political intervention, but rather that we should brutally test his ideas and criticize him so that we can discover to what degree the impossible is possible'. I think this story is of a piece with that sentiment, it's partly a commentary on our need to find gurus, using two such disparate figures as Chomsky and mushroom-mystic Terence McKenna to convey this point. It's also a hilarious, frustrating take on the history-changing time travel trope and there are one or two things here about our consumerist obsession with gadgets and gratification.
I may have made these stories seem like dry exercises in making points; in fact each of them has a richly textured narrative and is often downright hilarious. I'm a steadily-lapsing SF fan who finds that most current strands of the genre have very little to do with his own futuristic or literary interests. Lain is the rare writer who addresses my increasing need to read SF that engages with the currents that are really shaping our world in a mode that owes more to the 70s New Wave, for instance, than to Crichton-envy. Well done!
*crickets*
Right, it's Monday morning. You know, I used to spread drinking through the week, but lately I seem to get it all done in a few hours on Saturday evenings. Improved time management skills, I suppose.
I'd like to add a story-by-story review of this book which is easy because it only contains 4 stories.
The Last Apollo Mission: Lain parlays moon landing fraud theories and post-9/11 conspiracy paranoia into a story about a failed (or is she?) writer's intersection with a top-secret Kubrick project and the very bizarre aftermath. When you accept that everything's part of a conspiracy theory, what happens when conspiracies collide?
Resurfacing Billy: In a near-future where toxic waste is being dumped in public spaces and seeping out everywhere, a man tries to invent a miracle substance that will seal the garbage in for good. At the same time, the private franchise school he sends his son Billy to is attempting to find ways to curb Billy's supposedly anti-social streak, and is willing to use means that extend all the way up to lobotomy. Something about our increasingly counter-productive problem-solving strategies as a species, I think. The most emotionally poignant story in this set.
Alien Invasion/Coffee Cup Story: Dozens of SF fans love to hate this parody of the slice-of-life epiphany short story, spliced with an infuriatingly static alien invasion scenario. We expect too much from things, whether they're drunken conversations in bars or gleaming spacecraft hanging in the sky.
Chomsky And The Time Box: In a recent essay on Zizek, Lain says 'The only thing to expect from Zizek is that he challenges us to think and create new modes of Praxis. Not that we should stay at Zizek's level of political intervention, but rather that we should brutally test his ideas and criticize him so that we can discover to what degree the impossible is possible'. I think this story is of a piece with that sentiment, it's partly a commentary on our need to find gurus, using two such disparate figures as Chomsky and mushroom-mystic Terence McKenna to convey this point. It's also a hilarious, frustrating take on the history-changing time travel trope and there are one or two things here about our consumerist obsession with gadgets and gratification.
I may have made these stories seem like dry exercises in making points; in fact each of them has a richly textured narrative and is often downright hilarious. I'm a steadily-lapsing SF fan who finds that most current strands of the genre have very little to do with his own futuristic or literary interests. Lain is the rare writer who addresses my increasing need to read SF that engages with the currents that are really shaping our world in a mode that owes more to the 70s New Wave, for instance, than to Crichton-envy. Well done!
Read
January 8, 2012Two or three of these stories really haunted me, and I mean that in a good way. World-creation is the bailiwick of normal SF; these stories seem to be more about dream creation, philosophy creation, question creation. Solid, believable characters wrestle with absurd problems in all four stories. One guy needs to pave over an ocean of toxic waste, another is trying to maintain interest in a flying saucer invasion that the rest of the world is bored with. Time travel also disappoints, as does life on the moon. But all of the protagonists accept responsibility for making their worlds better, and the questions that come with that decision are the crux of the stories. FALL INTO TIME is not ultra-difficult reading, but it's tasty food for thought.
October 5, 2013
Super excellent surreal sometimes funny, some times deep Sci-fi novellas. Great stuff full review coming.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews