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The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need
Plant-based skyscrapers, reluctant sex robots, pencil-wielding black-belts fighting a zombie apocalypse...
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Adam Marek’s third an almanac of the absurd, a handbook to the hardware problems of being human. From driverless bodies, to life-coaching AIs, to sleep research on primates, to the effects of time dilation on married life... these stories explore the unlikeliest of possibilities the future may hold for us, as a race, but at their heart is a what happens when the seemingly limitless potential of human ability runs up against the insurmountable inadequacies of basic human psychology? Sons never forgive their fathers. Superheroes are brought low by simple performance anxiety. Billionaire space industrialists are exposed by their bad parenting skills. Hardwired into our humanity, it seems, are bugs that no amount of future upgrades can ever fix.
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Adam Marek’s third an almanac of the absurd, a handbook to the hardware problems of being human. From driverless bodies, to life-coaching AIs, to sleep research on primates, to the effects of time dilation on married life... these stories explore the unlikeliest of possibilities the future may hold for us, as a race, but at their heart is a what happens when the seemingly limitless potential of human ability runs up against the insurmountable inadequacies of basic human psychology? Sons never forgive their fathers. Superheroes are brought low by simple performance anxiety. Billionaire space industrialists are exposed by their bad parenting skills. Hardwired into our humanity, it seems, are bugs that no amount of future upgrades can ever fix.
240 pages, Paperback
First published February 29, 2024
2 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Adam Marek
35 books86 followersAdam Marek is the author of three short story collections: Instruction Manual for Swallowing, The Stone Thrower, and, most recently, The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need. His stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4, and in many magazines and anthologies, including The Penguin Book of the British Short Story. He is an Arts Foundation Short Story Fellow. He loves collaborating with scientists on creative projects, and recently visited CERN to write a story for the Collision: Stories from the Science of CERN anthology, featured on the BBC Click television programme. He regularly works with SciFutures, using storytelling to help prototype the future.
Visit Adam online at: www.adammarek.co.uk
“Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg…Genuine, unsettling talent.”
The Independent
“…this bold young writer is refreshing the form.”
Financial Times
“…hits the target every time.”
The Guardian
“Adam Marek is one of the best things to have happened to the short story this century…Any day now the word ‘Marekian’ is going to enter the language.”
Alison MacLeod, author of Unexploded
Visit Adam online at: www.adammarek.co.uk
“Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg…Genuine, unsettling talent.”
The Independent
“…this bold young writer is refreshing the form.”
Financial Times
“…hits the target every time.”
The Guardian
“Adam Marek is one of the best things to have happened to the short story this century…Any day now the word ‘Marekian’ is going to enter the language.”
Alison MacLeod, author of Unexploded
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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June 3, 2024This is Marek’s third collection. Disappointingly, none of the stories match that brilliant title. But it’s a disappointment I soon overcame once I started reading the collection.
Most of the twenty-one pieces deal with the intersection between technology and our daily lives (even if that urban life occurs on a space station). But you wouldn’t know that with the opening piece, “We Won’t Show Any of This,” an intense monologue between a director and an actor. The director explains the motivation of the actor’s character, but at a level of detail that’s more than anyone would ever need to know, especially when we discover that this scene is unlikely to make it to screen. It’s a funny slice of absurdity.
The second story is more indicative of the rest of the collection. Presented as an article penned by a science fiction writer, it deals with the history of a failed piece of technology, Cog Shift, which can control a person’s body, switching off their consciousness during exercises. (You can imagine how that might end up being a terrible idea).
With “Poppin” and “Pale Blue Dots”, he gets on the AI-is-evil bandwagon. The former sees a digital assistant start making relationship decisions on behalf of its user. In the latter, an AI makes a digital copy of its user to live a life free of doubts, regret and anything remotely human. Several of the stories take us into space. I especially liked “Lightspeed”, set on a space station where time dilation is straining the relationship between a pilot and his family.
Between the science fiction, there are moments of surrealism and humour. “Commit. Plunge. Bam!” sees one superhero, Mr Indomitable, take relationship advice from Leopard Man. The joke goes on for a little too long, but it’s still funny. And I loved “The Bullet Racers”, about a boy who outraces a bullet in an annual race.
But my favourite story is the magnificent “End Titles”. Like “Commit. Plunge. Bam!” it’s written entirely in dialogue, but in this case, it's the transcript of an episode of Desert Island Discs. On the show, Professor Brody Maitland chooses his favourite tunes and discusses discovering the Hermes Particle, an extraordinary, human-shaping discovery. But bubbling underneath all that is Maitland’s deep jealousy of his sister, who, despite all the famous things he did, was always viewed (at least in Maitland’s eyes) as the more successful. It’s a spiky portrait of jealousy and fame.
There’s more to like here — I go into far more detail in my Locus review… due next month — but if you need a serving of top-quality genre short fiction, this will sort you.
Most of the twenty-one pieces deal with the intersection between technology and our daily lives (even if that urban life occurs on a space station). But you wouldn’t know that with the opening piece, “We Won’t Show Any of This,” an intense monologue between a director and an actor. The director explains the motivation of the actor’s character, but at a level of detail that’s more than anyone would ever need to know, especially when we discover that this scene is unlikely to make it to screen. It’s a funny slice of absurdity.
The second story is more indicative of the rest of the collection. Presented as an article penned by a science fiction writer, it deals with the history of a failed piece of technology, Cog Shift, which can control a person’s body, switching off their consciousness during exercises. (You can imagine how that might end up being a terrible idea).
With “Poppin” and “Pale Blue Dots”, he gets on the AI-is-evil bandwagon. The former sees a digital assistant start making relationship decisions on behalf of its user. In the latter, an AI makes a digital copy of its user to live a life free of doubts, regret and anything remotely human. Several of the stories take us into space. I especially liked “Lightspeed”, set on a space station where time dilation is straining the relationship between a pilot and his family.
Between the science fiction, there are moments of surrealism and humour. “Commit. Plunge. Bam!” sees one superhero, Mr Indomitable, take relationship advice from Leopard Man. The joke goes on for a little too long, but it’s still funny. And I loved “The Bullet Racers”, about a boy who outraces a bullet in an annual race.
But my favourite story is the magnificent “End Titles”. Like “Commit. Plunge. Bam!” it’s written entirely in dialogue, but in this case, it's the transcript of an episode of Desert Island Discs. On the show, Professor Brody Maitland chooses his favourite tunes and discusses discovering the Hermes Particle, an extraordinary, human-shaping discovery. But bubbling underneath all that is Maitland’s deep jealousy of his sister, who, despite all the famous things he did, was always viewed (at least in Maitland’s eyes) as the more successful. It’s a spiky portrait of jealousy and fame.
There’s more to like here — I go into far more detail in my Locus review… due next month — but if you need a serving of top-quality genre short fiction, this will sort you.
July 10, 2024
At their best, Marek's stories are a conjuring trick performed right before your eyes. You believe you see every movement but don't understand how the thing was accomplished.
Shouting at Cars for example. It has an opening sentence that deposits the reader in a world of wonder: "Every Christmas Eve we took a hamper to the troll beneath the East Bridge."
The dad speaks to the creature in the way one might to an elderly relative who has just cursed at the nursing staff. They speak awkwardly for a few moments and soon bid farewell.
It's a parable perhaps, about a family's shameful secret. "What made me angry was how everyone else in the house seemed so much more relaxed after the troll died." But almost as an epilogue the young narrator reveals how he used secretly run amok with the troll, shouting at cars, drawing graffiti, rolling manhole covers down the street. Probably the best-ever Marek story.
Another one etched in memory is The Bullet Racers. It's a wonderfully absurd tale of a traditional village festival where local boys try to outrun a bullet. The Ghosts We Make is a lucid tale with aberrations of weirdness. Each time the couple have sex, a small ghost will hover around the room for a few days. It's a fascinating story where the obvious interpretations constantly slip away.
Brilliant stories here, End Titles, Shouting at Cars, Companions, Screws, The Ghosts we Make, and the woozy summer heat of Roberto's Blood Emporium - a tale with teen crushes, blood, and a constant anxiety to it.
Only flaw is there are a couple too many stories. There are 21 compared to 13 or 14 in the first two collections. I think the editors could have left out 4 stories to make the collection zing and bam.
Shouting at Cars for example. It has an opening sentence that deposits the reader in a world of wonder: "Every Christmas Eve we took a hamper to the troll beneath the East Bridge."
The dad speaks to the creature in the way one might to an elderly relative who has just cursed at the nursing staff. They speak awkwardly for a few moments and soon bid farewell.
It's a parable perhaps, about a family's shameful secret. "What made me angry was how everyone else in the house seemed so much more relaxed after the troll died." But almost as an epilogue the young narrator reveals how he used secretly run amok with the troll, shouting at cars, drawing graffiti, rolling manhole covers down the street. Probably the best-ever Marek story.
Another one etched in memory is The Bullet Racers. It's a wonderfully absurd tale of a traditional village festival where local boys try to outrun a bullet. The Ghosts We Make is a lucid tale with aberrations of weirdness. Each time the couple have sex, a small ghost will hover around the room for a few days. It's a fascinating story where the obvious interpretations constantly slip away.
Brilliant stories here, End Titles, Shouting at Cars, Companions, Screws, The Ghosts we Make, and the woozy summer heat of Roberto's Blood Emporium - a tale with teen crushes, blood, and a constant anxiety to it.
Only flaw is there are a couple too many stories. There are 21 compared to 13 or 14 in the first two collections. I think the editors could have left out 4 stories to make the collection zing and bam.
December 21, 2024
Some stories from BBC radio 4, and commissioned stories from several anthologies. Most stories have an interesting premise. Not all of them (even those with excellent starts) end satisfyingly. Definitely worth reading. Favourites include Poppins, End titles, Part No.57: Eagle Claw, Roberto's blood emporium and Defending the pencil factory. More details on http://litrefsreviews.blogspot.com/20...
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June 8, 2024I was a big fan of his earlier collections but this one lost me halfway through and I didn't finish. The writing itself was good but the stories liked the vibrancy and lunacy of his earlier stories which is what I loved.
November 27, 2024
A solid and entertaining collection of short stories, 4 stars. Some are inevitably weaker than others, but generally a thoroughly enjoyable collection. I loved the striking differences from story to story. Surprised at only 12 ratings here on good reads!
July 15, 2024
Some very good short stories with unique ideas and superb prose. I would say maybe 70% of the collection is quite good.
December 9, 2024
Most enjoyed:
Driverless Humans
Poppins
Shouting at Cars
Driverless Humans
Poppins
Shouting at Cars
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews