Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy (Public Works Trilogy) (original 1997; edition 2004)

An irritating mix of hippy-dippy and Ayn Rand - couldn't be bothered to finish it. ( )

It's hard to summarise this wilfully chaotic, amusingly energetic book. On the surface we get a near future consipracy thriller starring: one Harry Gant, a dreamer billionaire who is addicted to building the worlds highest skyscrapers, his ex-wife who is investigating some Gant industries suspicous deaths and her two sidekicks: Ayn Rand (yes the author) and a one armed 181 year old civil war veteran. But then we also get stuff about mutant sewer sharks, eco pirates marauding around in Howard Hughes's old submarine, a racist plague and ironic homicides.

Yes it is the ideas that make this book, there are so many characters and subplots and fun asides that I found it hard to worry about the so so but admittedly amusing plot. Unfortunately this chaos does makes it a hard book to read for long periods, which doesn't make it a bad book just an very odd one. There is a lot here and Ruff doesn't seem to want to keep a tight rein on any of it (Note it's quite different from his two later books I have read)

Also he does spend quite a while taking the mickey out of Ann Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which was still amusing even though I have never read it.. Of course Ayn Rand fans and fanatical capitalists may want to skip this one.

Overall recommend for lovers of the weird. ( )

ZB5

After an eight-year hiatus (his 1988 novel, Fool on the Hill, became an underground hit), Ruff proves himself still capable of wild-eyed flights of fancy as he pits altruists against antihuman robots in an updated version of Atlas Shrugged above and below the streets of Manhattan. In the year 2023, visionary zillionaire industrialist Harry Gant is building a new Tower of Babel, uptown; his crusading ex-wife Joan is on a search-and-destroy effort in the city sewers, seeking a mutant Jaws-like shark named Meisterbrau; eco-terrorist Philo Dufresne, one of the few blacks remaining after the race-specific pandemic of '04, leads the brilliant, eccentric crew of the submarine Yabba-Dabba-Doo on a nonviolent attack against a Gant-owned ship to save Antarctica; Anderson Teaneck, Wall Street takeover specialist, also with a bead on Gant Industries, is murdered, perhaps by one of his servant robots--who are all carefully programmed, supposedly, to be harmless. Joan has a close encounter with Meisterbrau that leaves them intact but the East River in flames, then is enlisted to solve the Teaneck mystery, a mission that takes her into the heart of a plot hatched by a psychopath and his creation, an artificial brain sheltered in a bunker under Disneyland. Joan also ends up with the querulous companionship of Ayn Rand, reduced to a holograph on a hurricane lamp. Philo and crew, meanwhile, are threatened by the vengeful scheme of a Gant subordinate, as they willingly enter a trap to save what may be the world's last lemurs. Several torpedoes, robot assaults, philosophical debates, and an earthquake later, all is again reasonably right with the world. A careening riot to read, even with all of its zestful improbabilities: Ruffs second novel can only enhance his reputation as a fantasy writer with imagination to burn.
(Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1996) ( )

This book was not what I expected.

I ordered this book because I looked up any author associated with science fiction/fantasy & comedy. When I got it I saw a quote from Thomas Pynchon [probably my favorite author that I almost never read] on the front & references to Ayn Rand [an author I feel i should read but probably never will] on the back & wondered what I had got myself into.

There is a similarity in plot style between this book & a Pynchon book, but some significant differences in writing style, though not quite as good as Pynchon Matt Ruff is infinitely easier to read. Of course a book should be judged on it's own merits & not how it compares to another writer, so no more of that.

The story was intricate & nicely convoluted, but was true to itself. By which I mean that while the novel was essentially absurd Ruff never broke the rules of his created universe, never stressed my suspended disbelief and allowed me to accept & enjoy the wackiness. Wackiness including, among other things, a mutant shark, an electric Ayn Rand, an evil supercomputer in Disney World, blimps, an advanced submarine crewed with eco-terrorists, a not as advanced submarine crewed with feminists, a sea battle worthy of Hunt for Red October including both submarines, a blimp, a sub-hunter, and some whales, some free love, a ridiculously old Civil War Veteran, some other less old Veterans, a series of ironic murders, etc.

What's more the characters peopling this book felt real to me, making the absurd that much more acceptable, and this is doubly impressive considering that only a few characters were really fully fleshed out. This worked because the non central characters were not shallowly fleshed out, he gives the beginnings of a fully developed character & let's you take it the rest of the way if you wish. Personally I love it when a writer holds back a little on the description & let's the reader take a creative role in reading the book.

I also have to thank Ruff for giving me a full synopsis of Atlas Shrugged allowing me to put off reading it all the longer.

[I'm about to start talking about things that occur in later parts of the novel so you might want to stop reading]

The most powerful theme in the book was definitely that of the genocide of the black race & it's subsequent replacement with "electric negroes." As a white suburbanite with no strong bonds with anyone black this was especially compelling & caused a great deal of self examination. This would be one hell of a downer if Ruff didn't also include redemption in his story. When some of the only surviving members of the black race & friends plug a compendium of the entire history of Africa & it's peoples into a potential A.I. it creates a super-intelligence calling itself the eye of Africa which leads an army of disabled veterans [veterans of the wars fought over Africa's resources after the genocide, many of whom were injured by African survivors, this is where the redemption comes in] in a fight against the super-computer living in Disney World that had created the original virus targeting black people. The Electric Ayn Rand, the butt of many a joke throughout the novel & eventually found out to be a tool of the Disney super-computer, manages to redeem herself by resisting her intended purpose. Even Meisterbrau the mutant shark, killer of many an innocent, helps out in a bizarre way at the end.

All told a book well worth reading, though, as I have just found out, difficult to describe. ( )