The Birthday Problem

by Caren Gussoff

In the year 2060, the next plague has arrived. MaGo bots, the nanotechnology used for everything from fighting the common cold to radical life extension, have begun to malfunction, latching onto the brain's acetylcholine receptors to cause a permanent state of delirium. The Birthday Problem follows four Seattle survivors: Chaaya Gopal Lee, great-granddaughter of the MaGo programmer, whom the pandemic turns into a killer; 40-something ex-rock star and pharmacy technician Greystone Toussaint, the "King of Seattle"; Alastair Gomez-Larsen, forced to become a blood-smuggler to treat his father's liver disease; and Didi VanNess, a lovesick former-WNBA center and CNA, who tries to win back her wife's heart against a backdrop of madness, death and 30 cats, all named Ira.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Dystopia, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novels, Post Apocalyptic

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2014

About the author

Caren Gussoff is a SF writer living in Seattle, WA. The author of Homecoming, (2000), and The Wave and Other Stories (2003), first published by Serpent’s Tail/High Risk Books, Gussoff's been published in anthologies by Seal Press and Prime Books. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 2008, was the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E. Butler Scholar at Clarion West. Her new novel, The Birthday Problem, will be published by Pink Narcissus Press in July, 2014.
Find her online at @spitkitten, facebook.com/spitkitten, and at spitkitten.com.

Reviews

[Mareike · Rating 4 out of 5]

4. 5 stars

CWs pandemic, death, suicide (mentioned), murder (partly from the perspective of a serial killer), rape, manipulation

I added this book to my list for SFFBC's 2020 TBR challenge last December because it fit one of the prompts. And then I procrastinated reading it for most of the year because it features a pandemic.
I'm glad I finally read it, though. The Birthday Problem is a very well-crafted mosaic novel telling the interlocking stories of a host of characters living in the Pacific Northwest and revealing, over time, not only parts of each characters' backstory, but also connections between them that range from the surprising to the sad. The structure is extremely well done and really pulled me in and the characters are all well-realized and profoundly human. I also liked the ambiguous, open, ending which manages to be both heartbreaking and hopeful.

I will probably be thinking about this book for a while. And I may yet give it the full five stars.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found myself crying after I finished reading this, not because it ends sadly but more because it ends truly. Life goes on, and we are all creatures of perfect imperfection. One of the most honest post-disaster novels I have encountered in my 40-odd years of reading them.

[Robbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really a little shy of three stars for me. As I was reading this, I couldn't figure out why I wasn't enjoying it more. It has a lot of the traits that I really like in a good David Mitchell novel or collection of stories, for instance, but none of the intertwining stories and perspectives really grabbed me. Part of it may be the poor editing and grammar (seriously, lay off the commas to join sentence fragments and learn how to use a semicolon). I also didn't feel that Gussoff did that good of a job of shifting perspectives. It comes across as the same narrative voice throughout most of it and yet, at least one time, she tells the same events from two different perspectives with two different sets of facts. Mostly, though, I think that it was two things: I just didn't like most of the characters and the post-apocalyptic setting wasn't that interesting or even really necessary to most of these stories.

The structure was basically an intro chapter for a character and then a concluding chapter to explain what happened to them, with a two or three of them only getting one chapter from their perspective with the rest of their stories being told from another character's perspective. It bounces around about a 50 year period of time that starts well before societal collapse but mostly takes place about a decade or so after. Not all of the loose ends were tied up by the end, but I didn't even really care what ultimately happened to Didi or the psychopath, though the psychopath was probably my favorite character because her story was more interesting than the others and she at least had strong emotions -- most of the characters seemed to have fairly flat or even blunted affects. Of course, they had every reason to be depressed and flat, but it doesn't make for interesting reading. The bots and the collapse of society were mostly in the background of the stories and the taboo against people showing their mouths is only partially explained and really borders on absurd. (Seriously, you can't have babies wear face masks: they explore the world by sucking on things.) Ultimately, though, the author failed to make me care about anything in the book at all.

[Yve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fun and sometimes scary book. It’s set in the late 21st century after humans have created incredible tiny robots to live in our bodies and cure our physical ills, and subsequently have fallen victim to a robo-plague where said tiny robots cling onto people’s brains and drive them insane. To emphasize the fact that society has collapsed, one of the characters calls himself The King of Seattle and steals the captains chair from the USS Enterprise as his throne. I was really impressed by the structure. Gussoff creates a lot of suspense and intrigue by changing time frames. As the title suggests it’s all about probability and coincidences. She also works with an enormous cast of characters - some great, some perfectly hatable, all memorable. The only downside is that I would read an entire book from any of these characters' viewpoints so some of them felt a little short. Only two chapters of Didi? I love Didi! It's 2018, why aren't there awesome lesbian cat ladies in every sf book by now?

There were some cultural/societal elements of the book that I found really confusing. One was the fact that everyone wears a mask over their mouth. There are 2 mentions of filtration systems so I guess it has to do with air quality, but then it's never really explained and characters take their masks off with basically no consequence. Plus it was hard to tell when people were masked - it's kind of like reading 19th century novels and suddenly realizing that all the men have, by default, been sporting hats and mustaches the whole time. Since it's in the near future (one character's grandmother grew up in pre-mask times) I don't get how it has already become such an egregious social taboo to see someone's exposed mouth. ALSO in a science fiction book, the most implausible part for me was that characters regularly said "WTF" out loud. "Oh em gee" and "la-mao," ok, I get, but "WTF" is so much more effort than "what the fuck" if you're saying it.

Overall it was really absorbing and a nice break away from most of my regular reading!

[Kate Page · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another one from the feminist SF bundle. I felt like I should like it much more than I actually did, as I like her tone and there were some interesting ideas. But the disjointed narration and plot left me confused and ultimately not caring very much about any of the characters. I lost interest and had to drag myself through the last few pages, more for completion sake than out of any interest.

[Mathew Walls · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the way this book switched perspectives and times between chapters - it makes for a bit of a mystery or puzzle as you read - and the story and characters are pretty good. I don't quite buy the setting as plausible and I think there's a bit of a mix of too much detail on some aspects and not enough on others, but it's mostly a pretty decent read.

[Cath Ennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting elements (I do like my post-apocalyptic scenarios and seemingly disconnected narratives that (mostly) come together at the end), but the story and characters failed to really grab me. I read the e-book version and honestly just kept forgetting to pick it back up, which is why it took me so long to finish.

[Viking Jam · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://koeur.wordpress.com/2014/07/23...

Publisher: Pink Narc. Press
Publishing Date: July 2014
ISBN: 9781939056061
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 3.2/5

Publisher Description: In the year 2060, the next plague has arrived. MaGo bots, the nanotechnology used for everything from fighting the common cold to radical life extension, have begun to malfunction, latching onto the brain’s acetylcholine receptors to cause a permanent state of delirium. The effects are devastating. The Birthday Problem follows four Seattle survivors and how their lives irrevocably intersect.

Review: Really good cover art. Just wow.

Ah, dystopia where is thy sting? This was a maudlin rush through a fragment in time where civilization is in ruins after medical nanobots turn people into schizophrenic wanderers. There are multiple story-lines within the bounds of the novel, yet there really is no definitive plot. Which, I guess, is the point.

This is set in Seattle and surrounding areas where I grew up. The author does not rely on developing the surrounding scenes, as I suppose everyone must know what those areas look like. The real focus is creating the instances that led up to a particular characters’ situation and the inner processes that develop from those experiences. A myriad of lives conjoin, separate and intersect in clever reveals as the novel moves back and forth through time. The author has to make the characters likeable or vulnerable in order to generate a sympathetic appeal, otherwise the individual story-lines become fragmented vignettes within a downward spiraling event. Hope is fleeting where Rumi discovers what might be a cure. Mostly, people are either affected or not, and the ones that aren’t are able to move on to lives that are perhaps far more limiting than previously accustomed.

Personally I wasn’t really drawn to any of the characters. Chaaya is mostly concerned with herself. Greystone doesn’t generate an interest simply because he is bereft of personality. Didi is really kind of gross with 30+ cats running around her house. Rumi’s character should have been expanded upon. You kind of wander within the mind of Sasha, so that’s a bust. Book was the only character that drew you in to his mental processes and their outward manifestations.

There are no Mule Deer in coastal WA, until you get to the Rockies. All the deer depicted should have been coastal Black Tail deer. The whole novel might have been better served with a culminating event to drive the movement in new directions. I liked that it took place in Seattle, as no better shjthole is deserving, and Elma, Ocean Shores, Aberdeen.. all the places that I have formative despairing memories of. Still the writer has a mean talent and creative aplomb. For that she gets another star.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel of religion, sexuality, and 'bots is set in a future Seattle where ubiquitous nanotechnology slows aging and prevents disease. That is, until the nanobots, renamed "fuckyballs," cause a pandemic of mental illness: schizophrenia, depression, and a fourfold increase in suicide.

As in Gussoff's story collection The Wave, the characters feel real. And the writing is beautiful; in one favorite passage, the nanobots are described as hanging like barnacles on the brain stem.

The novel is chock full of interesting bits of science and history. My favorite character, the King of Seattle, is based on a real historical figure. In the madness of Gussoff's techno-dystopia, he takes the Space Needle as his headquarters. I was also fascinated by the titular Birthday Problem, which refers to humans' tendency to underestimate probability -- in particular, we are surprised that it needs a group of only 23 people to get a 50% probability that two people in the group share a birthday. I had fun seeing how this blind spot leads to the end of the world.

A sociopathic serial killer provides tension in the story, but a lot of my pleasure came from Gussoff's focus on the aspects of dystopia that most writers would overlook. For instance, in the midst of the pandemic, face masks become the normal fashion, despite being ineffective against the nano-plague, and Gussoff plays with the difficulty of deciphering the emotions of a masked person.

I like that the cast includes non-heteronormative characters. The structure of the novel is interesting, perhaps reflecting the structure of the fullerenes/fuckyballs. Overall it's a fun read, and it makes me look forward to Gussoff's next book.

[Bo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Birthday Problem
Caren Gussof has written a wonderful panorama of characters in a near future world.
Somewhere this century, humanity has not only perfected nanobots to cure cancer and mental illness, but as technology is wont to, it also goes wrong. Civilization breaks.
This book follows people whose lives intersect in various ways, by design or accident, in their personal quest for happiness or a meaning to their lives. Mathematics, as the title "The Birthday Problem" says, plays several roles in this book. One of the characters is a mathematician, the birthday problem is a mathematical conundrum, the laws of chance and chaos have caused and will cause all kinds of intersections between our protagonists' lives.
The portrayal of these many characters is Gussoff's great strength: they come to life on the page in all their oddities and human desires, with fabulous description and invention. Gussof's use of language and the telling detail is masterful. She hardly does infodumping, and she doesn't need it, she clues the reader in at just the right time. I could totally immerse myself in the characters for their chapters, and just trust the writer to take me to the right places.
The books winds and spirals to a sad and at the same time uplifting conclusion. My personal preference would have been for a little more plot, not as many characters and a little less randomness, but even without all ends tied up and a pretty bow on top, this is a satisfying and interesting read.

[Shel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hurrah for the post-apocalyptic Seattle setting, quirky characters, nanotech causes delirium concept, and shades of Gibson's Neuromancer and Stephenson's Snow Crash.

But, alas, I felt myself wading here when I wanted to be swimming and bogging down in the middle. Although, this is a much tighter book, at just 216 pages, it reminded me of Ryan Boudinot's Blueprints of the Afterlife (416 pages), also a post-apocalyptic nanotech character comedy with many similar pluses and minuses. That was another book that I wanted to love, not just like, but, sadly, didn't connect to as I had hoped (unlike Boudinot's short stories in The Littlest Hitler which I loved.). Darn.

Writers, read this for POV: Switching POVs between new characters each chapter can make a book choppy and hard to follow. George R.R. Martin's epic fantasies do it and even with his masterful, obsessive plotting, rich character development and compelling hooks at the end of each chapter sometimes the reader prefers one storyline to another or has difficulty keeping track of each character being introduced. Each time the writer makes a switch they risk losing the reader. It can work, but this POV choice has its perils and sets a high bar.

[Erica Satifka · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's the future, and nanobots have perfected health and slowed the process of aging. That is, until the nanobots start going haywire, leading to a plague of mental illness. An extremely large and diverse cast of characters living in and around Seattle live their way through the epidemic, their stories intersecting at surprising points. From the reluctant King of Seattle who lives inside the rundown Space Needle, to the ex-basketball player and her thirty cats (all named Ira), the characters are painted with precision, and the full-circle revelation on the last few pages brings the novel to a satisfying shape. This non-linear narrative isn't your average apocalypse book, but the multi-dimensional story line illuminates the many facets of the disaster in a way a straight telling would not. Mathematics, including the titular birthday problem itself, are another important theme running throughout the book, as the characters' random run-ins point to something beyond random chance. Recommended for those who like complex multi-character books with spare description and a lot of quirk.

[Mark Rzeszutek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a delight. While the nano-facilitated apocalypse is an interesting setting, it became almost unimportant to me because the characters were drawn so vividly. This story could have been set in the ordinary real world and this still would have been an engrossing story because of the interactions and histories of the people in this story. Greatly enjoyed.

[Neile · Rating 5 out of 5]

An emotionally complex novel with a fascinating extrapolation into a possible post-apocalyptic future. I was especially impressed with how the multiple characters each hooked me in so strongly. This novel packs a powerful punch.