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虐殺器官
９・11を経て、“テロとの戦い”は転機を迎えていた。先進諸国は徹底的な管理体制に移行してテロを一掃したが、後進諸国では内戦や大規模虐殺が急激に増加していた。
米軍大尉クラヴィス・シェパードは、その混乱の陰に常に存在が囁かれる謎の男、ジョン・ポールを追ってチェコへと向かう……彼の目的とはいったいなにか？ 大量殺戮を引き起こす“虐殺の器官”とは？ ゼロ年代最高のフィクションが電子書籍版で登場。
米軍大尉クラヴィス・シェパードは、その混乱の陰に常に存在が囁かれる謎の男、ジョン・ポールを追ってチェコへと向かう……彼の目的とはいったいなにか？ 大量殺戮を引き起こす“虐殺の器官”とは？ ゼロ年代最高のフィクションが電子書籍版で登場。
432 pages
First published June 1, 2007
92 people are currently reading
2430 people want to read
About the author
Project Itoh
37 books105 followersProject Itoh (伊藤 計劃 Itō Keikaku?), real name Satoshi Itō (伊藤 聡 Itō Satoshi?, October 14, 1974 – March 20, 2009), was a Japanese science fiction writer.
Born in Tokyo and graduated Musashino Art University. While working as a web designer, he wrote Gyakusatsu kikan and submitted to Komatsu Sakyō Award contest in 2006. Although it did not receive the award, it was published from Hayakawa Publishing in 2007 and was shortlisted to Nihon SF Taisho Award. A poll by the yearly SF guidebook SF ga yomitai ranked Gyakusatsu kikan as the number one of the domestic SF novel of the decade.
Since 2001, he had to be hospitalized time to time for recurrent cancer. He died at age 34 on March 20, 2009. The video game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was dedicated to his memory.
Born in Tokyo and graduated Musashino Art University. While working as a web designer, he wrote Gyakusatsu kikan and submitted to Komatsu Sakyō Award contest in 2006. Although it did not receive the award, it was published from Hayakawa Publishing in 2007 and was shortlisted to Nihon SF Taisho Award. A poll by the yearly SF guidebook SF ga yomitai ranked Gyakusatsu kikan as the number one of the domestic SF novel of the decade.
Since 2001, he had to be hospitalized time to time for recurrent cancer. He died at age 34 on March 20, 2009. The video game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was dedicated to his memory.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
March 24, 2013
I was initially put off by the author's hubris. The main character who is an introspective weeaboo, trapped in the body of a special forces soldier takes some getting used to, especially considering the author's propensity for using him as an outlet for his own political and philosophical concerns. Eventually though the frequency of interesting ideas and the author's sensitivity towards the topics he addresses won me over.
Though the novel feels like an anti American tirade at times(as Japanese sci fi is often prone to turn into)the characters that are woven into the story who represent different voices on everyone's favorite super power all represent legitimate concerns and motives, mudding the waters enough that the novel reads more as a discussion than a rant. Aesthetic elements such as the artifical flesh of the first worlder's state of the art weapon systems, the post colonial killing grounds of the third world countries where child soldiers and pmcs face off and Europe's mix of historical architecture and futuristic holograms create a unique world that is at once dark, cynical, fantastic and believable. Much of the violence at first seems like it's there purely as shock value and comes across as forced but it becomes essential to the motivations of the characters at the end.
The prose is at times quite clunky but mostly readable, probably to be expected because it's a translated work, but it's never hard to understand what the author is trying to communicate.
This novel reminded me of Mamoru Oshii's films which meld high technology with philosophical monologues and believable action sequences. It could also be compared to the Metal Gear Solid series with all its references to popular culture though it comes across as far less cheesy.
Though the novel feels like an anti American tirade at times(as Japanese sci fi is often prone to turn into)the characters that are woven into the story who represent different voices on everyone's favorite super power all represent legitimate concerns and motives, mudding the waters enough that the novel reads more as a discussion than a rant. Aesthetic elements such as the artifical flesh of the first worlder's state of the art weapon systems, the post colonial killing grounds of the third world countries where child soldiers and pmcs face off and Europe's mix of historical architecture and futuristic holograms create a unique world that is at once dark, cynical, fantastic and believable. Much of the violence at first seems like it's there purely as shock value and comes across as forced but it becomes essential to the motivations of the characters at the end.
The prose is at times quite clunky but mostly readable, probably to be expected because it's a translated work, but it's never hard to understand what the author is trying to communicate.
This novel reminded me of Mamoru Oshii's films which meld high technology with philosophical monologues and believable action sequences. It could also be compared to the Metal Gear Solid series with all its references to popular culture though it comes across as far less cheesy.
October 15, 2022
So, there was this little girl’s head shoved face first into the tire tracks in the mud.
It looked almost like a scene from Alice in Wonderland—it was as though the girl were trying to enter the magical kingdom through the deep furrows in the mud left by truck tires. Only I don’t remember the back of Alice’s head being shot clean open or the contents of Alice’s skull glistening under the sky like a crimson flower in full bloom.
Keikaku "Project" Itoh was an award-winning Japanese science fiction author who was probably best known for writing one of the Metal Gear Solid novels. He died from cancer at the young age of 35. Genocidal Organ was his debut novel, which he supposedly wrote in ten days.
Genocidal Organ takes place in an alternate history very much like our own, except that post-9/11, the "security state" ramped up its surveillance even more than it did in the real world, and technology accelerated a little faster, so that by the present day, soldiers benefit from nanobots, wireheading, and advanced psychotherapeutic techniques that remove all moral hesitancy or pain reactions while they're in the field. They have chameleon-skin bodysuits, and are dropped into war zones at supersonic speed in capsules that are encased in the flesh of vat-grown dolphins and whales. This supposedly provides cloaking and other benefits, though it's never really explained why dolphins and whales. It's a bizarre bit of technology that was perhaps meant as a commentary on Japan's inhumane slaughter of cetaceans, or maybe it was just meant to make the Western powers who use this technology that much more horrid.
In this world, a terrorist nuke destroyed Sarajevo, and the response from the nuclear powers was not: "Holy shit, we need to curb this right now!" Instead, it was ".... hmm, that actually wasn't so bad. I mean, the rest of Europe is still basically fine...."
With nuclear weapons back on the table, the world quickly goes to a more hellish handbasket. India and Pakistan nuke each other back to the pre-nuclear age, but they still have enough guns to be killing each other, and this barely slows the Western powers down.
As you might expect from the title, Genocidal Organ is a very grim and cynical novel.
Captain Clavis Shepherd is an American intelligence officer. More precisely, he is a Special Forces assassin, sent to kill people to make the world a better place. All of his missions involve targeting bad guys responsible for assorted genocides and atrocities, of which there are no shortages. Somehow, none of this killing actually reduces the number of genocides and atrocities. In fact, all over the world, even in formerly stable and peaceful countries, civil wars and genocides are erupting with abruptness and seemingly from nowhere.
That’s why, as I sat there in the truck driving toward our target, I had no way of telling you which of the forces in this country were right and which were mistaken. I was just another dumb ’Murkin, worldview molded and bent into shape by a diet of CNN and talk shows. Everything I knew about the world I learned from a monitor in my home while I ate my Domino’s Pizza. All I knew was that in the last millennium there had been lots of wars, lots of terrorist attacks, lots of different ideological conflicts, and that these all happened for lots of different reasons. People had different motives, and the nature of warfare was constantly changing and developing.
The only thing that remained constant was the pizza.
It had existed before I was born and would probably still be doing a brisk trade when I died, whenever that would be. In a world where Domino’s was my only constant, it was hard to grasp the full mutability of all the variables of the world.
This, I suppose, was Washington’s new White Man’s Burden—to be born in America, land of the unchanging pizza chain and shopping mall, and to send people like me out into the big bad outside world to go and kill Mr. Johnny Foreigner for this-and-that reason. Whatever. I wouldn’t like to be in the position of making those sorts of decisions. Give me the Empire of the Rising Pizza Dough any day of the week.
Give me my life.
And why not? Just like Williams, I had relinquished the unwelcome responsibility of having to decide things for myself. No buck stops with me. It gets passed up the chain to … who knows?
Captain Shepherd engages a lot of these sorts of deep thoughts as he drives to his next engagement, and I sensed we were hearing the voice of the author here. Much of the book almost reads as a satirical anti-American screed. The protagonist is a self-aware but morally unreflective American enforcing the Pax Americana, and as things get worse and worse, he spends lots of time wondering why and reflecting on all the bad shit he's seen, but without questioning his place in it.
Eventually we learn that another American, named John Paul, is always seen in the area in the days before another civil war erupts. He appears to be a mesmerizing Wormtongue, capturing the ear of national leaders, respected elders, people who would never lead their people down the path of violence... until suddenly college professors are butchering their former students and entire countries are fielding armies of child soldiers, whom Captain Shepherd and his crew dutifully mow down on their quest to stop John Paul and make the world safe for democracy and Domino's Pizza.
Japanese science fiction is definitely a different flavor. In fact I detected shades of similarity with other Japanese literature I have read, even of the non-fantastical variety. Japanese writers appear to pay much more attention to minute details of scenery, sensations, emotional reactions, and interior monologues. So it is that even in a dystopian novel about a Special Forces assassin who spends much of the book stacking up bodies like cordwood, you often find yourself inside his head, navel-gazing about his purpose in life and why things are the way they are, even though he never actually exerts any agency of his own until the end. Which perhaps is the point.
I found this book interesting for its perspective and its relentlessly cynical, grimdark politics. But while somewhat thought-provoking, it really didn't have all that much to say. The "grammar of genocide" is an interesting concept (the protagonist even name-checks the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), but mostly this book felt rushed and frenetic, bloody and cynical, with a bitter and entirely appropriate ending. Perhaps some of the fault lies in the translation, but I liked it but didn't love it.
August 25, 2019
Really, really good (3.5)--
Project Itoh's Genocidal Organ is sadly, sadly underrated—or rather simply not known—outside Japan. It's got suspense, philosophical dialogues/monologues, great characters, a really convincing portrayal of a near-future dystopian world (dominated by pax Americana—at least seemingly so—with crazily heightened security measures against terrorism at the cost of citizens' privacy), the cool technological devices (that are also convincingly real). In short, this is a scifi with depth—or at the risk of waxing lyrical, one of the best the scifi genre has to offer. It blows The Three-Body Problem out of the water, easily, and yet it's unjustly little known (at least according to the US Amazon site).
The only quibble I have about this book is pacing. It felt a little slow in places, especially the India section. Seeing John Paul get away AGAIN was a bit too much at that point, but of course, your mileage may vary.
And the author wrote this in TEN DAYS during remission of the cancer he'd been fighting for years. Unbelievable talent. Highly recommended to any sci-fi lovers. Moving on to his next and last work, Harmony.
Project Itoh's Genocidal Organ is sadly, sadly underrated—or rather simply not known—outside Japan. It's got suspense, philosophical dialogues/monologues, great characters, a really convincing portrayal of a near-future dystopian world (dominated by pax Americana—at least seemingly so—with crazily heightened security measures against terrorism at the cost of citizens' privacy), the cool technological devices (that are also convincingly real). In short, this is a scifi with depth—or at the risk of waxing lyrical, one of the best the scifi genre has to offer. It blows The Three-Body Problem out of the water, easily, and yet it's unjustly little known (at least according to the US Amazon site).
The only quibble I have about this book is pacing. It felt a little slow in places, especially the India section. Seeing John Paul get away AGAIN was a bit too much at that point, but of course, your mileage may vary.
And the author wrote this in TEN DAYS during remission of the cancer he'd been fighting for years. Unbelievable talent. Highly recommended to any sci-fi lovers. Moving on to his next and last work, Harmony.
March 25, 2016
Man, I SO wanted to love this book. Itoh's Harmony and Guns of the Patriots was so much better.
He's incredible at inventing modern military tech and semi-realistic story worlds with great dystopian societies, but this book about a futuristic elite soldier ends in philosophic meandering.
After an intense, future-tech dispatch, the first person narrator quickly loses himself in endless rants about society, war, nations, warfare and peace. After pages and pages of philo-talk, the author remembers he's actually writing a story and puts the main character into a new country. The antagonist is lame and talkative, the suspense and story beats are missing.
If you dig future philosophy blabbering from a Japanese point of view, you may like this book. If you dig cool characters and story, skip it.
He's incredible at inventing modern military tech and semi-realistic story worlds with great dystopian societies, but this book about a futuristic elite soldier ends in philosophic meandering.
After an intense, future-tech dispatch, the first person narrator quickly loses himself in endless rants about society, war, nations, warfare and peace. After pages and pages of philo-talk, the author remembers he's actually writing a story and puts the main character into a new country. The antagonist is lame and talkative, the suspense and story beats are missing.
If you dig future philosophy blabbering from a Japanese point of view, you may like this book. If you dig cool characters and story, skip it.
October 4, 2012
Crudo y violento pudieran ser dos palabras que describen a este libro, y es de esperarse puesto que es sobre guerras, sobre los involucrados en ellas, tanto los que trabajan para que estas inicien como aquellos que tienen que en algún momento jalar el gatillo, aunque también puede ser descrito como introspectivo o incluso un poco filosófico, ¿para qué jalar el gatillo? o más bien ¿por qué?, es un acto de supervivencia (¿ellos o yo?), es un acto que se ordenó (mi misión es matar y ganar la guerra), o es una decisión propia (yo decidí matar al enemigo), en realidad gran parte del libro no es sobre el acto de la guerra en sí, no es sobre el protagonista en una batalla, al menos no externa, no contra el enemigo, sino contra su mismo infierno, el que lleva todos los días en su mente, donde están los recuerdos de las personas que han tenido que morir porque él activó el gatillo, y de los cuales, de ningún modo pudo disculparse de sus actos.
Es un libro más o menos pesado, con muchos capítulos que son mas partes totalmente introspectivas, pero que sin embargo, las ideas que plantean hacen que se disfrute bastante.
Bastante recomendable, sobre todo a aquellos que les gusta la sensibilidad que ponen los autores japoneses sobre todos los temas.
P.d. Puntos extras por poner referencias a Monty Python
Es un libro más o menos pesado, con muchos capítulos que son mas partes totalmente introspectivas, pero que sin embargo, las ideas que plantean hacen que se disfrute bastante.
Bastante recomendable, sobre todo a aquellos que les gusta la sensibilidad que ponen los autores japoneses sobre todos los temas.
P.d. Puntos extras por poner referencias a Monty Python
August 3, 2014
This was the second time to read this book.
News from Ukraine, Gaza and Japanese TV program which keep mentioning successful Japanese people in the world reminded me of this novel.
The "grammar of genocide" seems convincing for me now.
News from Ukraine, Gaza and Japanese TV program which keep mentioning successful Japanese people in the world reminded me of this novel.
The "grammar of genocide" seems convincing for me now.
January 18, 2022
Καλογραμμένο sci fi με βαθιές υπαρξιστικές αλλά και, γενικότερα, φιλοσοφικές αναλύσεις και προβληματισμούς πάνω στη φύση του ανθρώπου, του εαυτού και της ελεύθερης βούλησης.
October 1, 2017
“年輕人常常認為，世界上存在著絕對與純粹的自由。年輕人必須要先經歷過，並且歌頌這種虛偽的自由。這樣他們在長大成人後，面臨必須自己做決定的情況時，才能切身體會到，自己選擇的自由，才是更自由的自由。"
《虐殺器官》 p. 154
這本小說探索著科技的進步的對人的自由的影響，在這樣的思索中也帶領著我們思索自由的意義。
自由就像是貨幣，當我們選擇某件事情的同時，我們同時也放棄了選擇其他事物的自由。真正的自由是有能力進行選擇的判斷，並且以之執行。
然而複雜的是，當我們享受著自由的同時，世界上有其他人，可能因我們的享受而附上了他們自由的代價。自由從來就不是免費的，自由總是是要靠其他的自由進行交易的，只是有時候，付上代價的不是自己，我們只是選擇視而不見。
《虐殺器官》 p. 154
這本小說探索著科技的進步的對人的自由的影響，在這樣的思索中也帶領著我們思索自由的意義。
自由就像是貨幣，當我們選擇某件事情的同時，我們同時也放棄了選擇其他事物的自由。真正的自由是有能力進行選擇的判斷，並且以之執行。
然而複雜的是，當我們享受著自由的同時，世界上有其他人，可能因我們的享受而附上了他們自由的代價。自由從來就不是免費的，自由總是是要靠其他的自由進行交易的，只是有時候，付上代價的不是自己，我們只是選擇視而不見。
November 30, 2021
An interesting read for sure. Loved the sci-fi yet modern feel to it, but couldn’t fully connect with the main character. The grammar of genocide is such an interesting plot device and gives me a lot to think about, especially towards the end when we first see how it affects people in the early stages of its implementation. Dark subject matter at times but still applicable to our world now.
April 9, 2024
Idk... Like, I liked it sort of... But it was also kinda cringe. The MC was such an edge lord and a lot of the writing was equally edgy. How many ways can a book talk about children soldiers getting their bodies shredded up? Apparently a lot! There's so many asides during the action where the MC just starts thinking about some odd quirk about society or how damaged he is.
When the book leans into whacky tech though the books cool! The meat technology powered by harvested dolphins?! Cool as hell. Sadly there's not much of that in this book. The book has ideas it just doesn't explore them enough or explores the boring parts of them (to me).
When the book leans into whacky tech though the books cool! The meat technology powered by harvested dolphins?! Cool as hell. Sadly there's not much of that in this book. The book has ideas it just doesn't explore them enough or explores the boring parts of them (to me).
August 19, 2019
Reads like Metal Gear Solid fanfiction in the best way possible
October 10, 2019
One of the best SF I've ever read - will definitely revisit. (I read it in Chinese but want to read in English and potentially Japanese someday).
June 16, 2025
its an outstanding fictional work. all thought I can't decide witch i like more ,the book or the movie.
May 11, 2024
This book is a lot of bullshit with some interesting world building.
September 28, 2016
A lot more philosophy about the effect of language and evolution than I had been expected or would have preferred, but I still really liked this book. The concept was pretty fascinating and original, and even when it did kind of run off into the main character waxing philosophically about the meaning of life, I didn't get bored.
Be very interested to see how the film ends up being. I imagine it will focus a lot more on the military/action parts (as well it should), but hopefully it keeps a lot of the core ideas.
Be very interested to see how the film ends up being. I imagine it will focus a lot more on the military/action parts (as well it should), but hopefully it keeps a lot of the core ideas.
August 27, 2016
A U.S. Special Forces operative chases a man who seems able to trigger bloody civil wars in previously stable countries around the world, after Sarajevo has been nuked and the private sector has taken on large parts of the military’s job. Gore and heartbreak ensue. Speculation about how conscience develops and deep structure in language (is that still a thing in linguistics?) combined with a harsh look at consumerism and the U.S. role in the world.
July 29, 2015
Bought this just because Itoh's other work was on my to-read list. Wow, was I happily surprised that the thematic matter just happened to be some of my favorites!
-linguistics
-freedom
-crime and punishment
Glad I got it!
-linguistics
-freedom
-crime and punishment
Glad I got it!
April 10, 2016
Please read this.
It is fantastic.
SO potent.
Like Little Brother, you will like this I think.
It is fantastic.
SO potent.
Like Little Brother, you will like this I think.
July 11, 2014
Excellent read, a combination war novel/philosophical discussion/linguistics study of life and death in the surveillance state created by the US in the post-9/11 world.
May 3, 2023
Nightmarish. I was torn on the airport commando prose for most of the book but the last 20 pages really clicked the satire into place.
January 17, 2025
Como concepto, este libro es perfecto.
Como práctica, resulta inconsistente.
Como argumento, cualquier parecido con la realidad es pura coincidencia.
Como práctica, resulta inconsistente.
Como argumento, cualquier parecido con la realidad es pura coincidencia.
March 7, 2020
I don't really know where to start... It was really different than what I usually read, and I don't know if that's just because I don't read much military-focused fiction or because it wasn't written in English originally, so it would have been written to the style/customs/culture of the original language. I can't say how much liberty the translator took when 'converting' the book, so I don't really want to claim that Itoh said certain things because maybe he didn't, maybe it's the translator putting those words and themes in.
That said, you can't read this translation of it and not talk about themes. As relevant as all the things the book talked about were, it was taken to such an obvious point as to be kind of irritating. Other characters would make a comment and the narrator would go 'oh yeah that's because Americans are shitty and we do X all the time'. And the narrating character was an American. So this feels sort of like a none too subtle jab at America, both as a country and as a political statement. And the narrator being American made it feel so much less believable. Because he was so aware of the ridiculousness and the atrocity, and analyzed all these things to death for pages on end, but still did them. His inner thoughts were simply endless permutations of what other people said to or around him, to the point that they could say one thing, he would internally disagree, they would say something else, and suddenly he agreed with them (accompanied with a page long explanation of why), only to later think about the issue himself again and come to yet another position about it. Maybe that wish-washiness was part of the point, but holy crap was it ever annoying.
Which leads to the fact that the narrator himself seemed to have no personality because of the fact that he kept changing his own opinions so much. Again, maybe part of the point, but it was very distracting and I never got into him as a character because there was no character there to get into. The plot was the same. Things happened, intense things, sometimes even interesting things, but so what? Every writer's toolkit I have ever used always says that events need to be related, A causes B causes C and so on, or else it's just a collection of events that happen. While the events in this book were related, it felt so tangential at times, or was left so unexplained, that I didn't know why the army guys were going to these places half the time.
Which did mean that I never knew what to expect. But there needs to be a balance there, between surprise and predictability. The next events have to seem possible. I just went along with this book really because I had no idea what to expect, and not in the good way--I had no idea where this book was supposed to be taking me or why, and I was getting cynical, snide, blank faced social commentary along the way. The themes addressed are by no means wrong or even exaggerated, but I had a headache when I finished from how many times I was beat over the head which each of the numerous themes addressed.
The tech was really neat, living bioflesh and nanotechnology (though the bioflesh seems a heavy metaphor for animal/environmental exploitation), but it could have been explained better. The tech and the setting were both rather neglected, to the point that you didn't really know where the scenes were taking place or what the objects being described looked like. The narrator, having lived that kind of life so long, wouldn't have to describe them to himself of course, but there are some liberties you can take within first person narration that allows you as an author to describe things despite that.
The concept of the grammar of genocide was also really neat. I don't know how realistic it is, but it was made fairly believable within the context of the book. I say fairly because, like everything else, it wasn't described all that well. Even with the narrator and his nemesis having chapter long discussions about how the grammar works, it's never put into concrete words or instructions, left to vague metaphors and similes. His nemesis has a bad habit of talking in circles and I feel like a lot of open strings and asked questions were left unanswered because of that.
It's books like these that made me wish I could read the native language--to see how much liberty the translator has taken with the text.
Why am I giving it 3 stars instead of the 2 I would normally give from a review like this? I can't totally say. The execution was far from excellent, but I don't want to judge the "actual" book based on its translation. The concept was intriguing, and there were unique elements in the book that I probably would never come across in mainstream American fiction. As much as I complain about the book, it wasn't crap. It was just okay. There was a lot I didn't like about it, but it was also very different from my usual and in that way it was kind of nice.
That said, you can't read this translation of it and not talk about themes. As relevant as all the things the book talked about were, it was taken to such an obvious point as to be kind of irritating. Other characters would make a comment and the narrator would go 'oh yeah that's because Americans are shitty and we do X all the time'. And the narrating character was an American. So this feels sort of like a none too subtle jab at America, both as a country and as a political statement. And the narrator being American made it feel so much less believable. Because he was so aware of the ridiculousness and the atrocity, and analyzed all these things to death for pages on end, but still did them. His inner thoughts were simply endless permutations of what other people said to or around him, to the point that they could say one thing, he would internally disagree, they would say something else, and suddenly he agreed with them (accompanied with a page long explanation of why), only to later think about the issue himself again and come to yet another position about it. Maybe that wish-washiness was part of the point, but holy crap was it ever annoying.
Which leads to the fact that the narrator himself seemed to have no personality because of the fact that he kept changing his own opinions so much. Again, maybe part of the point, but it was very distracting and I never got into him as a character because there was no character there to get into. The plot was the same. Things happened, intense things, sometimes even interesting things, but so what? Every writer's toolkit I have ever used always says that events need to be related, A causes B causes C and so on, or else it's just a collection of events that happen. While the events in this book were related, it felt so tangential at times, or was left so unexplained, that I didn't know why the army guys were going to these places half the time.
Which did mean that I never knew what to expect. But there needs to be a balance there, between surprise and predictability. The next events have to seem possible. I just went along with this book really because I had no idea what to expect, and not in the good way--I had no idea where this book was supposed to be taking me or why, and I was getting cynical, snide, blank faced social commentary along the way. The themes addressed are by no means wrong or even exaggerated, but I had a headache when I finished from how many times I was beat over the head which each of the numerous themes addressed.
The tech was really neat, living bioflesh and nanotechnology (though the bioflesh seems a heavy metaphor for animal/environmental exploitation), but it could have been explained better. The tech and the setting were both rather neglected, to the point that you didn't really know where the scenes were taking place or what the objects being described looked like. The narrator, having lived that kind of life so long, wouldn't have to describe them to himself of course, but there are some liberties you can take within first person narration that allows you as an author to describe things despite that.
The concept of the grammar of genocide was also really neat. I don't know how realistic it is, but it was made fairly believable within the context of the book. I say fairly because, like everything else, it wasn't described all that well. Even with the narrator and his nemesis having chapter long discussions about how the grammar works, it's never put into concrete words or instructions, left to vague metaphors and similes. His nemesis has a bad habit of talking in circles and I feel like a lot of open strings and asked questions were left unanswered because of that.
It's books like these that made me wish I could read the native language--to see how much liberty the translator has taken with the text.
Why am I giving it 3 stars instead of the 2 I would normally give from a review like this? I can't totally say. The execution was far from excellent, but I don't want to judge the "actual" book based on its translation. The concept was intriguing, and there were unique elements in the book that I probably would never come across in mainstream American fiction. As much as I complain about the book, it wasn't crap. It was just okay. There was a lot I didn't like about it, but it was also very different from my usual and in that way it was kind of nice.
June 30, 2025
Este libro ha sido una grata sorpresa. Desconocía por completo de que iba cuando lo compré y lo recomiendo mucho.
Sin entrar en spoilers, me ha encantado como intercala el protagonista sus pensamientos recurrentes de la vida personal con la brutalidad descarnada de su profesión. Hace reflexionar sobre las motivaciones que tenemos, sobre si somos realmente libres y sobre la fragilidad del valor de la vida humana. Sobre las montañas de miseria que mantienen a occidente en una falsa sensación de seguridad. Muestra el autoengaño de entregar libertad por seguridad.
Entrando en spoilers, la idea de un sistema de lenguaje que manifieste lentamente genocidios es tan terrorífica como cercana a la realidad. Existen patrones comunes en los distintos genocidios, y todo parte de la palabra. De hecho, en Ruanda fue más relevante en el desarrollo del genocidio una cadena de radio que cualquier arma. Somos animales sociales que, si se retuerce de forma siniestra nuestra defensa del grupo al que pertenecemos, se puede desarrollar odio al "otro", al "ajeno a mi".
¿Esto implica que seamos máquinas que matan si nos lo configuran en la mente? Esa es la pregunta del libro, explicita con los debates internos y entre los personajes como en la representación de máquinas hechas de carne, con una difusa o ambigua diferencia entre la carne mecanizada y nosotros. Considero que el libre albedrío depende de conocer los hilos que nos pueden mover.
Por otro lado están los problemas de acostumbrarse a ver muerte. Día a día viendo asesinatos, cuerpos despedazados de todas las edades, gente hecha papilla o polvo, montañas de huesos quemados. Quieras o no, esas imágenes nos llegan por una guerra u otra. Es una forma de normalizar una brutalidad que debería ser excepcional. Es una forma de terminar ignorando esos crímenes porque nos hacen sentir que no podemos hacer nada y porque tenemos netflix.
Este es un punto clave del libro. Volver el mundo un infierno donde se juega al futbol con cabezas o donde se queman vivos a bebés para mantener la producción de smartphones. El holocausto mensual a cambio del nuevo Happy Meal. La guerra continua que cimienta con huesos y sangre un estado de falsa paz. En el libro se presentan 3 caminos al descubrir la verdad: ignorar y tapar la realidad, que continúe fluyendo la sangre y la coca cola porque "como no puedo hacer nada para mejorar la situación, contribuiré en que siga empeorando"; desvelar esta realidad para que, de querer continuar esta sangría que mantiene al imperio funcionando, todos compartan la culpa, forzando a un cambio en el sistema; y, ante la pasividad e incapacidad de lograr cambiar el sistema, dejar que se autodestruya por sus pecados usando las mismas herramientas que crean la miseria por todo el mundo.
El camino elegido para enfrentar los males del mundo resuena con los senderos que se han recorrido para manejar la culpa y el perdón propios.
Sin entrar en spoilers, me ha encantado como intercala el protagonista sus pensamientos recurrentes de la vida personal con la brutalidad descarnada de su profesión. Hace reflexionar sobre las motivaciones que tenemos, sobre si somos realmente libres y sobre la fragilidad del valor de la vida humana. Sobre las montañas de miseria que mantienen a occidente en una falsa sensación de seguridad. Muestra el autoengaño de entregar libertad por seguridad.
Entrando en spoilers, la idea de un sistema de lenguaje que manifieste lentamente genocidios es tan terrorífica como cercana a la realidad. Existen patrones comunes en los distintos genocidios, y todo parte de la palabra. De hecho, en Ruanda fue más relevante en el desarrollo del genocidio una cadena de radio que cualquier arma. Somos animales sociales que, si se retuerce de forma siniestra nuestra defensa del grupo al que pertenecemos, se puede desarrollar odio al "otro", al "ajeno a mi".
¿Esto implica que seamos máquinas que matan si nos lo configuran en la mente? Esa es la pregunta del libro, explicita con los debates internos y entre los personajes como en la representación de máquinas hechas de carne, con una difusa o ambigua diferencia entre la carne mecanizada y nosotros. Considero que el libre albedrío depende de conocer los hilos que nos pueden mover.
Por otro lado están los problemas de acostumbrarse a ver muerte. Día a día viendo asesinatos, cuerpos despedazados de todas las edades, gente hecha papilla o polvo, montañas de huesos quemados. Quieras o no, esas imágenes nos llegan por una guerra u otra. Es una forma de normalizar una brutalidad que debería ser excepcional. Es una forma de terminar ignorando esos crímenes porque nos hacen sentir que no podemos hacer nada y porque tenemos netflix.
Este es un punto clave del libro. Volver el mundo un infierno donde se juega al futbol con cabezas o donde se queman vivos a bebés para mantener la producción de smartphones. El holocausto mensual a cambio del nuevo Happy Meal. La guerra continua que cimienta con huesos y sangre un estado de falsa paz. En el libro se presentan 3 caminos al descubrir la verdad: ignorar y tapar la realidad, que continúe fluyendo la sangre y la coca cola porque "como no puedo hacer nada para mejorar la situación, contribuiré en que siga empeorando"; desvelar esta realidad para que, de querer continuar esta sangría que mantiene al imperio funcionando, todos compartan la culpa, forzando a un cambio en el sistema; y, ante la pasividad e incapacidad de lograr cambiar el sistema, dejar que se autodestruya por sus pecados usando las mismas herramientas que crean la miseria por todo el mundo.
El camino elegido para enfrentar los males del mundo resuena con los senderos que se han recorrido para manejar la culpa y el perdón propios.
March 7, 2021
"Genocidal Organ" is Project Itoh's debut novel, and it's a peculiar one to read. On the face if it, it's a bombastic military sci-fi/techno-thriller that promises loads of thrills where the stakes are always high.
We follow super-special soldier Clavis Shepherd on his globe-trotting adventure. Clavis is at the heels of the mysterious American named John Paul. John Paul has been spotted in a number of 3rd world countries, who were nice and stable at the time of his arrival. Once he goes away, though, those countries always seem to erupt in violence and strife. What exactly is John Paul's power? How is he able to turn the population against one another, and allies into bitter enemies willing to murder each other without remorse?
While superficially this promises to be an action-packed, Bond-like action-fest, in reality it's quite the opposite. The plot is in most cases an excuse for Itoh to go into lengthy lectures or discourses on a specific topic. The characters are only superficially developed in terms of their past, and the action scenes are described only in the broadest of strokes. Most of the time, the characters spent their time in either monologues or dialogues, philosophizing and exchanging views on a wide variety of contemporary topics. These include, but aren't limited to, race, religion, class divides, military-industrial complex, power of propaganda, ethics, morality, self-realization, religion and spirituality, geo-politics, surveillance states, privacy, personal freedom, evolution, psychology, economy, ... you name it. Sooner or later, some character will have to say something on one of these topics, even if the situation is wildly inappropriate.
Imagine if James Bond met the villain of the day, and during their final battle they stop the shooting a few times to have a detailed discussion about what it means to be human, and the pitfalls of the loss of personal freedom in an ever-increasing surveillance state.
It can be quite jarring, especially if you're picturing it like a movie - in which case it's hilarious. It's 250+ pages of food for thought, as they say. In that sense, it almost reads like a collection of essays disguised in the form of a sci-fi novel.
Personally, I enjoyed it, because the points Project Itoh presents are very interesting, and quite relevant, perhaps even more so today than when the novel was written. But, because of its peculiar form, I can't recommend this novel to the casual reader. Peruse at your own risk.
We follow super-special soldier Clavis Shepherd on his globe-trotting adventure. Clavis is at the heels of the mysterious American named John Paul. John Paul has been spotted in a number of 3rd world countries, who were nice and stable at the time of his arrival. Once he goes away, though, those countries always seem to erupt in violence and strife. What exactly is John Paul's power? How is he able to turn the population against one another, and allies into bitter enemies willing to murder each other without remorse?
While superficially this promises to be an action-packed, Bond-like action-fest, in reality it's quite the opposite. The plot is in most cases an excuse for Itoh to go into lengthy lectures or discourses on a specific topic. The characters are only superficially developed in terms of their past, and the action scenes are described only in the broadest of strokes. Most of the time, the characters spent their time in either monologues or dialogues, philosophizing and exchanging views on a wide variety of contemporary topics. These include, but aren't limited to, race, religion, class divides, military-industrial complex, power of propaganda, ethics, morality, self-realization, religion and spirituality, geo-politics, surveillance states, privacy, personal freedom, evolution, psychology, economy, ... you name it. Sooner or later, some character will have to say something on one of these topics, even if the situation is wildly inappropriate.
Imagine if James Bond met the villain of the day, and during their final battle they stop the shooting a few times to have a detailed discussion about what it means to be human, and the pitfalls of the loss of personal freedom in an ever-increasing surveillance state.
It can be quite jarring, especially if you're picturing it like a movie - in which case it's hilarious. It's 250+ pages of food for thought, as they say. In that sense, it almost reads like a collection of essays disguised in the form of a sci-fi novel.
Personally, I enjoyed it, because the points Project Itoh presents are very interesting, and quite relevant, perhaps even more so today than when the novel was written. But, because of its peculiar form, I can't recommend this novel to the casual reader. Peruse at your own risk.
May 25, 2018
Clavis Shephard is a US Intelligence Agent... or more accurately, a government assassin, sent into trouble spots to kill those people making the world less safe. Lately, one target's keeped popping up on his missions over and over again, an American named John Paul that they manage to just keep missing... it's unclear why, but somehow when John Paul begins working with a country, they descend into genocidal chaos soon afterwards. Slowly the man moves up and up the priority list, until Shepherd finds his primary mission is to capture John Paul and figure out how and why he's doing what he's doing.
Most of this book would probably be classified as military SF, exploring the near future and mostly the missions of a military intelligence asset and the technology that supports him, although there's a bigger SFnal idea at the core of it that makes me like it more than I typically enjoy such works. Though I didn't like it as much as one of Itoh's other works, Harmony, it does have a similar vibe to it, too.
It's a dark book though, just on the face of it, and so it might not be for everyone... I mean, genocide's in the title, and the book doesn't shy away from vivid images associated with that term, including gory descriptions of victims, sometimes child victims. I'm personally able, in situations like that, to not visualize if I don't want to, but I could see how it might extremely disturb people. The idea at the center of it is also disturbing, but it's a horror of a more intellectual level.
Characters are a little on the weak side, we get some depth into a few of them but they don't particularly stand out except as a means to occasionally make points about society or human nature. But I enjoyed those points (or at least exploring the ideas of them, even if I didn't always agree). In terms of plot and storytelling, the book does a decent job of keeping things going and believable, ratcheting up the ideas slowly... up until the ending, where I felt it fell apart more than a little, the motivations seemed to veer into less believable territory and it almost felt like the author had come up with their ending in advance and just sort of pushed it a little too far to get there.
While I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone, or even most people, I enjoyed checking it out. I probably would have rated it (or at least rounded it to) 4 stars if the ending worked a little better for me, as it is I'd put it at 3.
Most of this book would probably be classified as military SF, exploring the near future and mostly the missions of a military intelligence asset and the technology that supports him, although there's a bigger SFnal idea at the core of it that makes me like it more than I typically enjoy such works. Though I didn't like it as much as one of Itoh's other works, Harmony, it does have a similar vibe to it, too.
It's a dark book though, just on the face of it, and so it might not be for everyone... I mean, genocide's in the title, and the book doesn't shy away from vivid images associated with that term, including gory descriptions of victims, sometimes child victims. I'm personally able, in situations like that, to not visualize if I don't want to, but I could see how it might extremely disturb people. The idea at the center of it is also disturbing, but it's a horror of a more intellectual level.
Characters are a little on the weak side, we get some depth into a few of them but they don't particularly stand out except as a means to occasionally make points about society or human nature. But I enjoyed those points (or at least exploring the ideas of them, even if I didn't always agree). In terms of plot and storytelling, the book does a decent job of keeping things going and believable, ratcheting up the ideas slowly... up until the ending, where I felt it fell apart more than a little, the motivations seemed to veer into less believable territory and it almost felt like the author had come up with their ending in advance and just sort of pushed it a little too far to get there.
While I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone, or even most people, I enjoyed checking it out. I probably would have rated it (or at least rounded it to) 4 stars if the ending worked a little better for me, as it is I'd put it at 3.
December 5, 2025
Novela de ciencia-ficción que sin duda ha inspirado (queriendo o no) a numerosos videojuegos y películas del 2000/2010, entre ellos las últimas iteraciones de la saga Metal Gear Solid.
Aunque de ciencia-ficción tiene poco, más bien lo clasificaria como distopia/actual o ciencia-realidad porque es un libro muy leíble ahora mismo, y eso que tiene casi 20 años: adelanta muchísimas cosas que ya son normalidad. Sin ir más lejos el control de la sociedad, la guerra del terror, líderes políticos populistas, la IA, etc. ¿Quizás deberíamos fijarnos más en los libros de ciencia-ficción actuales para saber hacia donde vamos como sociedad en una a dos décadas? En fin, tiene puntos flacos, como no ahondar lo suficiente en las escenas de acción, que están muy bien pero son cortas.
Muy recomendable si has jugado a la saga Metal Gear, realmente te imaginas a muchos personajes (no solo al prota) en el relato. Como libro en general, es bueno y entretenido, pero no te gustara demasiado si no has vivido una época en concreto de la era de los videojuegos. Creo que tiene un público específico.
Hubiera estado muy bien una secuela.
Aunque de ciencia-ficción tiene poco, más bien lo clasificaria como distopia/actual o ciencia-realidad porque es un libro muy leíble ahora mismo, y eso que tiene casi 20 años: adelanta muchísimas cosas que ya son normalidad. Sin ir más lejos el control de la sociedad, la guerra del terror, líderes políticos populistas, la IA, etc. ¿Quizás deberíamos fijarnos más en los libros de ciencia-ficción actuales para saber hacia donde vamos como sociedad en una a dos décadas? En fin, tiene puntos flacos, como no ahondar lo suficiente en las escenas de acción, que están muy bien pero son cortas.
Muy recomendable si has jugado a la saga Metal Gear, realmente te imaginas a muchos personajes (no solo al prota) en el relato. Como libro en general, es bueno y entretenido, pero no te gustara demasiado si no has vivido una época en concreto de la era de los videojuegos. Creo que tiene un público específico.
Hubiera estado muy bien una secuela.
October 14, 2017
Surprise! Depressed/sociopathic white man wants to burn it all down and kill everyone because of a broken heart. Ho hum. There is no difference between being a genocidal killer in the 3rd world and a member of a professional military, and boohoo the protagonist has mommy issues. Oh mommy Lucia punish me, I am a bad boy. So fucking whiny. The villain is a fucking blowhard. It is almost as if colonialism never happened. Interesting tech, but no real addressing of true aftermath of multiple tactical nuclear devices detonating in a conflict, Americans just eat pizza and watch tv, no richness, or consideration for the broader world. Oh, that genocidal war at the end will not be ideological. It will be racial, and there is no diving into the fault lines that exist in America that would define that war. We all start mustering armies and murdering each other after a congressional hearing. It was so so till he fucked it up in the end.. 2 stars for this shit.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 3, 2021
This is a bit outside my wheelhouse. It's got some good, satisfyingly big ideas in it, and a flair for the bon mot. There's also a stylistic clumsiness that can't all have arisen in translation. Itoh chooses a level of depravity that I don't go for: constant reference to child soldiers, child sex slaves, and extensively described gory deaths for everyone. Our protagonist, a government assassin who's about 80% soldier and 20% spy, ruminates for pages and pages on gory landscapes of death, and gets into improbably long philosophical debates with his enemies in the midst of combat. But the story, a bit ponderous though it is, holds together okay, and the premise is interesting.
December 6, 2021
This book combines all of Hideo Kojima's worst qualities as a writer (loving to have characters explain concepts to each other directly at great length, painfully obvious references) with a hilariously blatant contempt for America and American culture, which results in a novel that is not good exactly but very entertaining. You will eventually laugh every time enjoying Domino's Pizza is used as a punchline about how stupid and gross Americans are. The main character is Spec Ops assassin named Clavis with a masters in linguistics who loves Czech literature. Completely gonzo story with almost no facility with prose that nonetheless is a lot of fun to read.
July 3, 2025
Completely brutal book, but none of it feels overly edgy or gratuitous. After the first chapter I thought this was gonna be a hardcore war action sf book and almost put it down. However, every other chapter is so introspective and the parts with the characters just talking to each other stand out so much more than any of the action. I hate to judge SF on its eventual “accuracy”, but the surveillance state aspects of this book really ring true to me. The author continues adding new ideas and technologies into the story all the way until the very last second and it really shows just how much care went into to crafting this story.
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