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Trafik
From the singularly inventive mind of Rikki Ducornet, Trafik is a buoyant voyage through outer space and inner longing, transposing human experiences of passion, loss, and identity into a post-Earth universe.
Quiver, a mostly-human astronaut, takes refuge from the monotony of harvesting minerals on remote asteroids by running through a virtual reality called the Lights, chasing visions of an elusive red-haired beauty. Her high-strung robot partner, Mic, pilots their Wobble and entertains himself by surfing records of the obliterated planet Earth stored on his Swift Wheel for Al Pacino trivia, recipes for reconstituted sushi, and high fashion trends. But when an accident destroys their cargo, Quiver and Mic go rogue, setting off on a madcap journey through outer space toward an idyllic the planet Trafik.
Quiver, a mostly-human astronaut, takes refuge from the monotony of harvesting minerals on remote asteroids by running through a virtual reality called the Lights, chasing visions of an elusive red-haired beauty. Her high-strung robot partner, Mic, pilots their Wobble and entertains himself by surfing records of the obliterated planet Earth stored on his Swift Wheel for Al Pacino trivia, recipes for reconstituted sushi, and high fashion trends. But when an accident destroys their cargo, Quiver and Mic go rogue, setting off on a madcap journey through outer space toward an idyllic the planet Trafik.
88 pages, Paperback
First published April 13, 2021
27 people are currently reading
1236 people want to read
About the author
Rikki Ducornet
63 books240 followersRikki Ducornet (born Erika DeGre, April 19, 1943 in Canton, New York) is an American postmodernist, writer, poet, and artist.
Ducornet's father was a professor of sociology, and her mother hosted community-interest programs on radio and television. Ducornet grew up on the campus of Bard College in New York, earning a B.A. in Fine Arts from the same institution in 1964. While at Bard she met Robert Coover and Robert Kelly, two authors who shared Ducornet's fascination with metamorphosis and provided early models of how fiction might express this interest. In 1972 she moved to the Loire Valley in France with her then husband, Guy Ducornet. In 1988 she won a Bunting Institute fellowship at Radcliffe. In 1989 she moved back to North America after accepting a teaching position in the English Department at The University of Denver. In 2007, she replaced retired Dr. Ernest Gaines as Writer in Residence at the The University of Louisiana. In 2008, The American Academy of Arts and Letters conferred upon her one of the eight annual Academy Awards presented to writers.
Ducornet's father was a professor of sociology, and her mother hosted community-interest programs on radio and television. Ducornet grew up on the campus of Bard College in New York, earning a B.A. in Fine Arts from the same institution in 1964. While at Bard she met Robert Coover and Robert Kelly, two authors who shared Ducornet's fascination with metamorphosis and provided early models of how fiction might express this interest. In 1972 she moved to the Loire Valley in France with her then husband, Guy Ducornet. In 1988 she won a Bunting Institute fellowship at Radcliffe. In 1989 she moved back to North America after accepting a teaching position in the English Department at The University of Denver. In 2007, she replaced retired Dr. Ernest Gaines as Writer in Residence at the The University of Louisiana. In 2008, The American Academy of Arts and Letters conferred upon her one of the eight annual Academy Awards presented to writers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
November 9, 2021
Do androids read books by Julio Cortázar?
Trafik is a space opera variation on the theme of the brave new world…
On board a superfast spacebubble, Quiver coexists with a monstrously smart bot named Mic… They spend their leisure in the advanced cosmic virtuality, which coolly interacts with reality… They’re on a mission…
They’ve failed so they are fleeing to the planet called Trafik – a fabulous paradise for all the pariahs of the universe.
In the future there will be even more trash than there is now.
Shower massages her in all the right places, but this is a shallow comfort. Once an avatar from another galaxy had – by no fault of its own – entered the shower at the very moment she had climaxed. Quiver’s muffled cries were enough to send it packing. To her dismay, there was no way she could coax it back. Such encounters happened all too rarely, and this avatar was unusually charming. It reminded her of Julio Cortázar, who, before he died, had the face of a lion. Cortázar, who wrote: The red headed night should see us walking with our face to the breeze. Just what, she wonders, is a breeze?
Trafik is a space opera variation on the theme of the brave new world…
Quiver is a transitional prototype. She had gestated in a dynamic carbon envelope that, suspended from a rack, swelled as she swelled, her umbilical cord fused to a vitamin sack. Row after row, the envelopes and the sacks hung in the air. It was said that they were festive – music for the eyes. She hates to think of it.
On board a superfast spacebubble, Quiver coexists with a monstrously smart bot named Mic… They spend their leisure in the advanced cosmic virtuality, which coolly interacts with reality… They’re on a mission…
Mic, recalling that he is wired to be indefatigably serviceable, and in the mellow tones of his favorite homeboy psychobot, says: “We will do what we were sent to do. We will redeploy the benzine escalator, prepare for excavating, find the Wobble, load cargo, and return to Elsewhere with Harvey Troano and what looks like vast accumulations of nonionizing Cuticular in proton-bunch populations, glowing – see that to the dexter? – like cobs of gold teeth!”
They’ve failed so they are fleeing to the planet called Trafik – a fabulous paradise for all the pariahs of the universe.
In the future there will be even more trash than there is now.
June 20, 2021
The latest (painfully short) novella from Rikki Ducornet is a surreal space frolic tying the humour of Stanislaw Lem to the lexical impishness of Christine Brooke-Rose’s Xorandor. Most of the novella consists of Ducornet having a riot inventing loopy sci-fi concepts such as the Plonk Sidereal Atlas, the Disenfranchised Pico Cycle, and the Fumevap, along with ferociously silly nonsense phrases where Rikki channels her love of Lewis Carroll, and fondness for hirsute thespian stormtrooper Al Pacino. For fans of the comic side of Rikki (anyone who’s read The One Marvelous Thing will know that her tittersome chops are formidable), Trafik is a bizarre, parodic, soft-hearted spacial romp sweetly backdropped against the complete annihilation of our vastly overrated planet.
February 9, 2021
Quirky even for Ducornet. Suffused with her characteristic charm, wit, sensuality and signature linguistic exuberance. A vivid dreamscape of "tonguefeels." A melancholic deepening of post-atomic exotic, nebulous human-wannabes on the edge of the pendulous nostalgia-fueled singularity of an entire dissolving civilization.
Memories, avatars, simulations, showerhead massages, spacey antics: both delicious and miraculous. Post-apocalyptic Consumerism, alive with the longing for vanished places, times, and idols, characters rummaging through plasma clouds of kitsch debris, full of colorful improvisation, experimental futurism. A cobbled scatological gumbo. Plenty of subliminal jokes, poppy references and goofy genius.
Containing unprecedented romantic and literary entanglements. It ponders how we are "wired", how beings titillated by lasers and operating abstruse machinery in vast abysses of stimulating self-creation are only brief, playful extensions of our actual, tru-to-life selves. Written in its matrix latticescape is the secret formula for our doom. A descent through causality is present in its rollicking crescendoes. It is a marriage of low culture with high arts, meted out with aesthetic aplomb out of outer space flotsam. It is smart. It is "supermarvelous."
I only wish it was longer.
Thank you Edelweiss for the ARC.
Memories, avatars, simulations, showerhead massages, spacey antics: both delicious and miraculous. Post-apocalyptic Consumerism, alive with the longing for vanished places, times, and idols, characters rummaging through plasma clouds of kitsch debris, full of colorful improvisation, experimental futurism. A cobbled scatological gumbo. Plenty of subliminal jokes, poppy references and goofy genius.
Containing unprecedented romantic and literary entanglements. It ponders how we are "wired", how beings titillated by lasers and operating abstruse machinery in vast abysses of stimulating self-creation are only brief, playful extensions of our actual, tru-to-life selves. Written in its matrix latticescape is the secret formula for our doom. A descent through causality is present in its rollicking crescendoes. It is a marriage of low culture with high arts, meted out with aesthetic aplomb out of outer space flotsam. It is smart. It is "supermarvelous."
I only wish it was longer.
Thank you Edelweiss for the ARC.
Read
April 8, 2023Video review: https://youtu.be/RPHwTuqXJlQ
October 3, 2021
This is just a gift. I can’t shake the feeling that RD had a blast skewering and lampooning tropes, conjuring fuck-dumb proper nouns, etc. There seems to be some damn great, good-natured potshots at peers in the form of not-obvious devices, making this a valedictory lap all the sweeter for the incomparable Ducornet.
Me? I’m just glad we were given this look into a side of RD often obfuscated by terrible birds that eat children’s pineal glands or the razored nipples of Eros’ pet monkey, Bang-Shang-A-Lang. Or the craven sociopathy of men that wear ties. You get me. Why: because who the hell had any idea Rikki was sitting on a goddam Space Rock Opera?!? The world is, incredibly, a slighter better place for this existing. At least until The Noise, anyway—
Me? I’m just glad we were given this look into a side of RD often obfuscated by terrible birds that eat children’s pineal glands or the razored nipples of Eros’ pet monkey, Bang-Shang-A-Lang. Or the craven sociopathy of men that wear ties. You get me. Why: because who the hell had any idea Rikki was sitting on a goddam Space Rock Opera?!? The world is, incredibly, a slighter better place for this existing. At least until The Noise, anyway—
October 27, 2021
Linguistic scifi greebles so beautifully laser-etched as to form galactic poetry. That was pleasure enough, but Ducornet slipped some really big questions into this tiny book, too. The epigraph from Lucretius heated my brain coil:
But were mind immortal wont to change its bodies, how topsy-turvy earth’s creatures!
Or put the Ducornet way:
On top of all this, due to a dysplastic tear, they are startled nearly out of their wits by a thoroughly unpleasant tequid shuffle causing their atoms to discompose (if but for a quik in time), which reduces them to a fluid extracellular hyperpromiscuity (cellular decoherence) —in other words their latitudinal diversity gradients are smacked. (They are briefly reduced to soup.)
(Don’t worry, it isn’t all like that [fortunately or unfortunately].) When technology allows humanity to be anything it can dream up, maybe this isn’t as pleasant as it sounds. The soupified human of terra infirma will long for bees, moss, to set eyes on a freshly laid egg; she will pine to be comforted “in a human way” if only by a sentient can opener who is in turn ogling the voluptuous grille of a Studebaker. Home Free is the name of the protagonist’s ship, and this is where the book lives, between the joys of being home free and the woes of being free of home.
I wanted to bitch about the brevity, but I’m not sure you’d want this cosmic confection to be much longer than its extant 88 pages. No, if I’m rankled it’s at Coffeehouse Press for charging me $16 for it. That’s, like, 20¢ a page. That’s no small amount of meter-feeder. Perhaps they were trying to sweeten the reviews via the sunken cost fallacy, which is only human. It worked, I guess.
But were mind immortal wont to change its bodies, how topsy-turvy earth’s creatures!
Or put the Ducornet way:
On top of all this, due to a dysplastic tear, they are startled nearly out of their wits by a thoroughly unpleasant tequid shuffle causing their atoms to discompose (if but for a quik in time), which reduces them to a fluid extracellular hyperpromiscuity (cellular decoherence) —in other words their latitudinal diversity gradients are smacked. (They are briefly reduced to soup.)
(Don’t worry, it isn’t all like that [fortunately or unfortunately].) When technology allows humanity to be anything it can dream up, maybe this isn’t as pleasant as it sounds. The soupified human of terra infirma will long for bees, moss, to set eyes on a freshly laid egg; she will pine to be comforted “in a human way” if only by a sentient can opener who is in turn ogling the voluptuous grille of a Studebaker. Home Free is the name of the protagonist’s ship, and this is where the book lives, between the joys of being home free and the woes of being free of home.
I wanted to bitch about the brevity, but I’m not sure you’d want this cosmic confection to be much longer than its extant 88 pages. No, if I’m rankled it’s at Coffeehouse Press for charging me $16 for it. That’s, like, 20¢ a page. That’s no small amount of meter-feeder. Perhaps they were trying to sweeten the reviews via the sunken cost fallacy, which is only human. It worked, I guess.
July 7, 2021
Trafik is so short, I am not sure it even qualifies as a novella. Maybe it could be considered a mini/magazine-length space opera.
Having just finished Shining at the Bottom of the Sea with its interesting use of unique vocabulary, I had a bit of a compare/contrast exercise when reading Trafik, which has plenty of the same kind of invented wordplay.
Reviews seem to be waxing poetic about it, perhaps because of Ducornet's poetic and artistic chops. Yet, I felt underwhelmed. This is a pretty lightweight sci-fi, and one that almost felt too cutesy, perhaps almost YA at times. Too twee. It had a few interesting moments and a bit of fun humor, but overall I felt ambivalent about it in a way I can't quite put my finger on.
Perhaps part of my ennui is that it feels like an amalgam of various book parts that already exist elsewhere: inventive wordplay (Shining at the Bottom of the Sea); disaffected/run-away AI gorging on entertainment while trying to understand humans (All Systems Red/Murderbot series); comedic space opera (books by Yoss); and a bit of celebrity stan culture (Astral Season, Beastly Season)... yet the amalgam doesn't quite have the zest and zing of the separate pieces (imo).
Obviously I am missing what the hubbub is about. Shrug.
I did enjoy the Christopher Walken reference.
Probably 2.5 stars.
Having just finished Shining at the Bottom of the Sea with its interesting use of unique vocabulary, I had a bit of a compare/contrast exercise when reading Trafik, which has plenty of the same kind of invented wordplay.
Reviews seem to be waxing poetic about it, perhaps because of Ducornet's poetic and artistic chops. Yet, I felt underwhelmed. This is a pretty lightweight sci-fi, and one that almost felt too cutesy, perhaps almost YA at times. Too twee. It had a few interesting moments and a bit of fun humor, but overall I felt ambivalent about it in a way I can't quite put my finger on.
Perhaps part of my ennui is that it feels like an amalgam of various book parts that already exist elsewhere: inventive wordplay (Shining at the Bottom of the Sea); disaffected/run-away AI gorging on entertainment while trying to understand humans (All Systems Red/Murderbot series); comedic space opera (books by Yoss); and a bit of celebrity stan culture (Astral Season, Beastly Season)... yet the amalgam doesn't quite have the zest and zing of the separate pieces (imo).
Obviously I am missing what the hubbub is about. Shrug.
I did enjoy the Christopher Walken reference.
Probably 2.5 stars.
February 18, 2024
The Lights, Quiver runs through a virtual forest. She catches sight of the girl with the red hair and intense eyes. She recalls the corridors of the moon, her terrestrial lover and the book her lover gave her by Julio Cortazar. Her lover and books have since been disappeared.
For Mic the Lights are all about the virtual cites: Hollywood, the 1950s, the Studebakers, and Al Pacino. He believes he’s more than a “man of tin”. “‘I am a self….This means that I AM NOT A GIZMO’” He thinks “…he is human in so many ways! See how I suffer….Is this not human? This suffering?”
Quiver, a humanoid prototype, and Mic, an android, travel through space extracting rare minerals. They remain nostalgic for a past and a planet that they’ve never known.
“Mic is well aware of her sensitivities and at his best understands and respects her ongoing need to turn to the Lights for solace. Her need to run in the woods, on the mountain trails and country roads of vanished places. He, too, is wired to so much that is (or had been) terrestrial. In this way they share a profound (and most likely essential) experience of the original planet.”
Mic’s Swift Wheel holds the digital data about that lost world and using it they can revisit the past. Just now though, the simulation of reality was proving inadequate.
“How often, Quiver thinks, how often have I been without access to safety. How terrible it is and yet how familiar, to be forever on the verge of falling….Sometimes I wonder if my excursions into space are not simply an excuse for leaping off a cliff. How often have I been between planets, between worlds, between galaxies- without footing, relentlessly alone, without promise of release, trapped in the web of unknowing, the unending memory of loss.”
For Mic the Lights are all about the virtual cites: Hollywood, the 1950s, the Studebakers, and Al Pacino. He believes he’s more than a “man of tin”. “‘I am a self….This means that I AM NOT A GIZMO’” He thinks “…he is human in so many ways! See how I suffer….Is this not human? This suffering?”
Quiver, a humanoid prototype, and Mic, an android, travel through space extracting rare minerals. They remain nostalgic for a past and a planet that they’ve never known.
“Mic is well aware of her sensitivities and at his best understands and respects her ongoing need to turn to the Lights for solace. Her need to run in the woods, on the mountain trails and country roads of vanished places. He, too, is wired to so much that is (or had been) terrestrial. In this way they share a profound (and most likely essential) experience of the original planet.”
Mic’s Swift Wheel holds the digital data about that lost world and using it they can revisit the past. Just now though, the simulation of reality was proving inadequate.
“How often, Quiver thinks, how often have I been without access to safety. How terrible it is and yet how familiar, to be forever on the verge of falling….Sometimes I wonder if my excursions into space are not simply an excuse for leaping off a cliff. How often have I been between planets, between worlds, between galaxies- without footing, relentlessly alone, without promise of release, trapped in the web of unknowing, the unending memory of loss.”
April 4, 2021
Gosh I wanted to like this more than I did. It sounded like something I would totally dig.
Set in space, a human-ish woman named Quiver and her robot sidekick Mic work to harvest valuable minerals and materials from asteriods that I believe are the remanents of a now obliterated Earth. Onboard their ship, when not sifting through the detritus, they appear to spend their downtime bonding and obsessing over dead Earth records, studying and critiquing its culture and coutoure.
While clever in theory, the futuristic language applied by Ducornet was quite frustrating, and felt as though she was simultaneously trying to dazzle and confuse us. Right from the get-go, she began tossing about terms without any context, some of which we are able to make educated guesses at, like the "Swift Wheel" that Mic relies on for all of his earthly knowledge which I assume is like a computer database; the "Wobble" which I believe is their spaceship? And the "Plonk Sidereal Atlas", which may be the ship's interactive computer-slash-navigator? But who the hell really knows...
And then there's the references to things like The Burnout, The Washout, The Scouring, The Scaliding, The Noise, and the Scattering, which I wonder if those might be plague like, apocalyptic events that slowly but surely brought Earth to the end of its existence. But they are never explained in any real sense, so I supposed we're left to let our imaginations run wild.
While I'm usually all for a quick impactful read, I think in this case the book's brevity worked against it. If Ducornet wasn't interested in helping us understand her strange post-apolcalyptic slang while we're reading it, then at least throw a glossary of terms at the end of it!
Set in space, a human-ish woman named Quiver and her robot sidekick Mic work to harvest valuable minerals and materials from asteriods that I believe are the remanents of a now obliterated Earth. Onboard their ship, when not sifting through the detritus, they appear to spend their downtime bonding and obsessing over dead Earth records, studying and critiquing its culture and coutoure.
While clever in theory, the futuristic language applied by Ducornet was quite frustrating, and felt as though she was simultaneously trying to dazzle and confuse us. Right from the get-go, she began tossing about terms without any context, some of which we are able to make educated guesses at, like the "Swift Wheel" that Mic relies on for all of his earthly knowledge which I assume is like a computer database; the "Wobble" which I believe is their spaceship? And the "Plonk Sidereal Atlas", which may be the ship's interactive computer-slash-navigator? But who the hell really knows...
And then there's the references to things like The Burnout, The Washout, The Scouring, The Scaliding, The Noise, and the Scattering, which I wonder if those might be plague like, apocalyptic events that slowly but surely brought Earth to the end of its existence. But they are never explained in any real sense, so I supposed we're left to let our imaginations run wild.
While I'm usually all for a quick impactful read, I think in this case the book's brevity worked against it. If Ducornet wasn't interested in helping us understand her strange post-apolcalyptic slang while we're reading it, then at least throw a glossary of terms at the end of it!
April 22, 2022
A very enjoyable science fictional jaunt. Influenced by From the Observatory which is refefrenced as the last remaining book in existence in this book.
May 1, 2021
If Alastair Reynolds and Jeff Noon had a baby and gave it to Douglas Adams to raise, the result might be this weird, funny, rather adorable but not quite comprehensible book.
July 26, 2021
This was not for me. Intentionally indecipherable, thankfully it's under 100 pages. This felt like reading a space craft owner's manual narrated by an annoying, unfunny robot. 1.5/5
June 10, 2022
A zany grail quest for a spectral redhead across the cosmos, Rikki Ducornet's novelette Trafik is like a commixture of Solaris and like Pynchonian absurdity. The story tracks two astronauts in their craft (the Wobble) traversing the universe after "going rouge" because they lose a mineral cargo. In dreams/virtual reality, protagonist Quiver is haunted by the image of a beautiful redhead, and the quest becomes part escaping to the planet Trafik, but also a journey to find the woman.
What I really enjoyed about this piece was it's ability to familiarize the reader in an unfamiliar world--the novel is set generations into the future, with only vestiges of culture and history of our present time preserved in a digital archive, accessible only through a virtual reality machine called The Lights. Deftly surreal, unforgivingly comic absurdity, and an unnervingly sad future with a renewed optimism in its conclusion, Trafik is a tiny package that comes with a hefty punch.
What I really enjoyed about this piece was it's ability to familiarize the reader in an unfamiliar world--the novel is set generations into the future, with only vestiges of culture and history of our present time preserved in a digital archive, accessible only through a virtual reality machine called The Lights. Deftly surreal, unforgivingly comic absurdity, and an unnervingly sad future with a renewed optimism in its conclusion, Trafik is a tiny package that comes with a hefty punch.
May 5, 2021
I mean, okay. But also...why?
Wasn’t for me. It’s got a Philip K. Dick vibe, but like if someone took him to a rave before writing. There were a few spots I liked, but I think for me it was simultaneously too much and not enough happening.
Wasn’t for me. It’s got a Philip K. Dick vibe, but like if someone took him to a rave before writing. There were a few spots I liked, but I think for me it was simultaneously too much and not enough happening.
September 8, 2021
And now for something completely different…and I mean, completely different. No matter how much science fiction I’ve read, this intergalactic voyage definitely stood out. So even if it wasn’t mindblowing and even if it was definitely an acquired taste you gotta be in the mood for it sorta thing, you can fault it for not being original.
Just how original? Well, the short answer is very. The language alone…is so, no pun intended, trippy, it takes a while to get used to. It’s almost poetic in a way, in a nonrhyming very strange way, that is.
It does have an actual plot under all the wackiness and weirdness. A female astronaut named Quiver and her twitchy glitchy robotic sidekick named Mic travel through space to a planet Trafik. Quiver is obsessed with some mysterious redhead she saw in her dreams, Mic is obsessed with Al Pacino, among other things. Both of them spend time discussing random pop culture sort of things and reminiscing about the destroyed Earth.
The entire thing is very strange, but oddly charming. And very brief too. Maybe 90 minutes. This is important to mention, because any longer and it would potentially overstay its welcome and the weirdness would become tedious. But at only 124 pages, it manages to maintain its novelty.
Not sure how to categorize this…maybe quicky sci fi. But at any rate, it’s an interesting sort of oddball. And kinda funny too, at times. Obviously, going by the reviews, not for everyone. But if you’re looking for something different, something completely different…this’ll do.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
Just how original? Well, the short answer is very. The language alone…is so, no pun intended, trippy, it takes a while to get used to. It’s almost poetic in a way, in a nonrhyming very strange way, that is.
It does have an actual plot under all the wackiness and weirdness. A female astronaut named Quiver and her twitchy glitchy robotic sidekick named Mic travel through space to a planet Trafik. Quiver is obsessed with some mysterious redhead she saw in her dreams, Mic is obsessed with Al Pacino, among other things. Both of them spend time discussing random pop culture sort of things and reminiscing about the destroyed Earth.
The entire thing is very strange, but oddly charming. And very brief too. Maybe 90 minutes. This is important to mention, because any longer and it would potentially overstay its welcome and the weirdness would become tedious. But at only 124 pages, it manages to maintain its novelty.
Not sure how to categorize this…maybe quicky sci fi. But at any rate, it’s an interesting sort of oddball. And kinda funny too, at times. Obviously, going by the reviews, not for everyone. But if you’re looking for something different, something completely different…this’ll do.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
May 16, 2021
An acid trip and a fever dream in one. The best line is also its summary:
“What if there is no intrinsic meaning to the universe?” Quiver whispers it.
“Well,” Mic replies, “that would explain everything.”
“What if there is no intrinsic meaning to the universe?” Quiver whispers it.
“Well,” Mic replies, “that would explain everything.”
January 31, 2023
Un viaggio psichedelico, guida galattica per autostoppisti sotto acido.
Un viaggio divertente e appassionato in un universo così lontano nel tempo da essere quasi incomprensibile
Un viaggio divertente e appassionato in un universo così lontano nel tempo da essere quasi incomprensibile
May 14, 2023
Silly satire making fun of the sci-fi invented jargon and whatever tropes the genre has while pitching pop culture references unprompted. It's funny if you don't take the texts seriously but it's also extremely confusing.
March 3, 2025
I hated it. And then I loved it. Oh, and I decided to reinterpret the ending so it suits a five star rating. Yeah, it's that kind of a book.
October 8, 2022
A book described as “surrealism meets space opera.” I found the space opera more compelling than the surrealism. Ducornet plays with language admirably—riffing on the technobabble common to science fiction, I think—but I wish I had a better idea of what was actually going on.
July 3, 2022
An intergalactic road trip. A novella full of nostalgia for something you've never had. A love letter to the cosmos and yet a worried fable to our current civilization. This feels like a WALL-E side quest and I'm here for it.
September 26, 2021
This science fiction novella is short, surreal, and fun if you like the vertigo of sentences that are syntactically valid but only sort of comprehensible. It’s possible that the whole story is laden with deep symbolism or partially-hidden commentary on real people, but if so, I missed it. Mostly, it was fun just to trying to figure out what was happening, and going along for the ride when I couldn’t.
Oh, and the book might make more sense if you can locate and read a copy of Julio Cortazar’s book From the Observatory first. I’ll try to find it and see if it reading adds depth or clarity to Quiver and Mic’s journey.
Oh, and the book might make more sense if you can locate and read a copy of Julio Cortazar’s book From the Observatory first. I’ll try to find it and see if it reading adds depth or clarity to Quiver and Mic’s journey.
April 3, 2021
You can tell Rikki Ducornet relishes the usage of silly science and outer space jargon that illustrates this book's galactic setting. And with this, you can also tell she's a poet. All the weird words fused, made-up and made into funny baubles adorning the story—I couldn't help relishing them either! Quiver the astronaut and her robot pal Mic are basically the book's only characters, but that's all you really need. Both are rendered so endearingly, although I will say Mic's occasional making of Japanese culture into an accessory/plaything nibbled at my patience a little. On the whole, I enjoyed the utopic (and pretty socialist, actually) dreamscape of Trafik, with its bushes and hedges made of free food, and clouds that get inspired by the happiness of the world below. Also, the Julio Cortazar references made me immediately interested in his work.
June 12, 2021
Low rating because this is not at all what I expected based on the back cover description. It's only 88 pages long but I struggled to finish, and it never became easier to read. If you're looking for a sci fi novel about characters doing exciting things amidst cool and coherent world building, this is not your book.
This will appeal to you if you like Al Pacino and Julio Cortázar and absurdist literary fiction. Large sections of the book are filled with mumbo jumbo nonsense that reads like a weird, unsuccessful parody of science fiction. As a reader of the genre this felt alienating and a bit insulting, as if the author thinks sci fi is a joke and not "serious" writing. There were some funny lines and interesting images (thinking of the angels) but the narrative immediately moves on and we never learn more about the interesting bits. Overall, not a fun read for me as a fan of sci fi.
This will appeal to you if you like Al Pacino and Julio Cortázar and absurdist literary fiction. Large sections of the book are filled with mumbo jumbo nonsense that reads like a weird, unsuccessful parody of science fiction. As a reader of the genre this felt alienating and a bit insulting, as if the author thinks sci fi is a joke and not "serious" writing. There were some funny lines and interesting images (thinking of the angels) but the narrative immediately moves on and we never learn more about the interesting bits. Overall, not a fun read for me as a fan of sci fi.
October 12, 2022
The language is absolutely incredible. Bonkers. Ducornet has a GIFT for words. Like I didn’t understand anything I read but also I really did. The writing honestly doesn’t seem to want to be fully understood, but instead seeks a kind of adjacency to understanding. Very cool, and works conceptually and as an experience.
It’s also like if Waiting for Godot was a space opera between a semi-human and a semi-AI. I love the tenderness the main characters have for each other, formed from a sort of sad dependency. Entanglement. It mirrors our relationships with technology. We need it, even if we don’t always love it.
It’s also like if Waiting for Godot was a space opera between a semi-human and a semi-AI. I love the tenderness the main characters have for each other, formed from a sort of sad dependency. Entanglement. It mirrors our relationships with technology. We need it, even if we don’t always love it.
April 25, 2021
Despite my low-star review, this little book has some fascinating moments. There are some real important questions here about life, love, robots, and humans.
May 22, 2024
Good camp 👍
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April 13, 2021All the Ducornet hallmarks are here, the surreal imagery with the somber introspection; this is a lighthearted romance at its core.
January 13, 2023
This space opera just wasn't for me.
I was really tied between giving this two and three stars.
The prose is so pompous feeling that it really overshadowed the bones of the story for me. The story itself, underneath all the ennui and unique vocabulary, is about space miners who have spent too much time confined in a small space together. Their quarrels are actually quite amusing, but I wanted to like this more than I truly did.
Science fiction is just that way for me sometimes with all the "science-talk" and use of phrases like "...considering the risks of entering into the Counter Punctual Velocity Bubble's plasmic spume." I just can't focus on the story when I'm trying to imagine what exactly that is.
I was really tied between giving this two and three stars.
The prose is so pompous feeling that it really overshadowed the bones of the story for me. The story itself, underneath all the ennui and unique vocabulary, is about space miners who have spent too much time confined in a small space together. Their quarrels are actually quite amusing, but I wanted to like this more than I truly did.
Science fiction is just that way for me sometimes with all the "science-talk" and use of phrases like "...considering the risks of entering into the Counter Punctual Velocity Bubble's plasmic spume." I just can't focus on the story when I'm trying to imagine what exactly that is.
April 17, 2022
Rikki Ducornet's Trafik is a marvelous space opera, part Will Alexander, part Andrew Joron, and all Rikki Ducornet, where the organic and inorganic blur and fuse, its story switchbacking as much as its language bewitches and switcheroos.
A quote from the novel:
"And this inherent restlessness! Was it due to randomness, or an innate longing for answers, for belonging? And was the erotic impulse at the heart of the matter sparking a fundamental, an unstoppable yearning to bring things together, ideas and particles and bodies? And lastly, was Eros a cosmical dragon breathing fire and making it all happen?"
A quote from the novel:
"And this inherent restlessness! Was it due to randomness, or an innate longing for answers, for belonging? And was the erotic impulse at the heart of the matter sparking a fundamental, an unstoppable yearning to bring things together, ideas and particles and bodies? And lastly, was Eros a cosmical dragon breathing fire and making it all happen?"
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