Gray Matters

This is the fourth book by Hjortsberg that I have read, and I realize they are all quite different. Falling Angel is mystery/horror noir; Manana is also a mystery and quite noirish as well, but Falling Angel deserves a genre of its own, so Manana is still quite different. Nevermore is--well, I read that long before I started reviewing everything I read on LibraryThing, so all I can remember is that it wasn't like Falling Angel and I didn't like it that much. Gray Matters, his second novel, from 1971, is a science fiction. After a slightly slow start, it draws you in and doesn't let go for its 159 pages. God, how I love short books! It takes place in the near future, when everyone's brains have been removed and placed in a depository show more where they are tended by machines. The story focuses on a few of the brains--a movie star, an astronaut, a boy killed in a plane crash, and a sculptor, who find various ways to escape the confines of their daily lives--which, guided by the machines and other brains acting as auditors, are supposed to be striving for obedience and perfection so they can move up the hierarchy and eventually be reborn. But that makes it sound like a rather philosophical treatise rather than a book filled with action and sex, which tend to dominate. While it isn't completely satisfying, it is all very entertaining and has some great moments. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys far out science fiction (or brain in a vat stories!) show less

It's often astounding to me when I read a bk that's totally obscure to me & an author that I've never heard of & then I see that there're 5 editions - as is the case here. I have a chamber orchestra called HiTEC & one the Systems that we Manage is called "Brain-In-A-Vat" - so everytime I run across a brain-in-a-vat image or whatnot I'm especially interested. This novel is the 'ultimate' brain-in-a-vat novel since it centers around a future in wch EVERYONE (at least so it seems at 1st) is a brain-in-a-vat - stored in underground depositories & still conscious post-separation-from-body. I was fascinated to see where the author was going to go w/ this, w/ how he'd use it as a metphor, etc.. SO, at 1st, I was teetering on giving this a 5. show more Then it slid down to a 4 - wch it barely stayed at by the end of the bk. Still, it stayed sufficiently fascinating. W/o going into spoilers, I can say that my disappointment was w/ the philosophy of it all not being sufficiently 'transcendental' for me - & i mean that somewhat ironically in relation to the plot. show less

This is a chilling futuristic tale of disembodied brains existing in a lab. Once read, you'll never forget the stories of Skeets Kalbfleischer and Obu Itubi.