Book Review: The Song My Enemies Sing by James Reich

The Song my Enemies Sing by James Reich

Paperback, 236 pages

Published December 2018 by Anti-Oedipus Press

In the fifties through the swinging seventies, science fiction was going through some massive upheaval. While the early golden age was known for pew-pew lazer gun battles and space opera the new wave rejected that. While the mainstream think of Flash Gordan and your Star Treks and Wars the speculative fiction world was producing novels that challenged social conventions, traditions and even perceptions. One reason I was excited about reading Reich's novel is I knew he like myself had studied and read deeply in the genre of the past. We had spoken for Dickheads and I had read a bit of his non-fiction.

You see I LOVE retro out of date Science Fiction. It is easy to point to the science. Take the John Carter books or Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. We have robots on Mars and they have shown their are no canals, or cities dead or otherwise.It is easy to get a little sad that the progress of science has made the Mars of science fiction a thing of the past. on pages 209-10 writing about Mars Reich reaches heights of descriptive prose "...Mars was an Egypt of Amber ghosts, and colonized by Ants."

In the Song My Enemies Sing James Reich challenges that notion and in doing so challenges the entire genre Science Fiction with one of the most exciting novels I have read in some time. Many of the novels most captivating moments are set on Mars, not the one in our solar system but the preserved in the amber of the imagination of the past. You see that is another amazing element of retro sci-fi. When Philip K Dick sat down to write Martian Time-Slip, for example, he was sitting in an Oakland shack in 1962 dreaming about the future. Bradbury saw it from the fifties, all these writers were working from that moment in time.

Part of the genius of this novel is Reich doesn't appear to let his 21st-century existence take away from his experience tell a story that is like a bubble out of time. That is the first and most important element of what makes this novel amazing. Second is the Character of Ray Spector a drug using science fiction writer who was clearly a play on the man himself PKD. This is obvious on page 51 "He was about to become, briefly, quite rich; a fleeting presence on the reel of American life before the wax melted from his wings, and his cottage in Oakland would be littered with Benzedrine inhalers, unpaid bills, and rejected manuscripts."

The story has many settings and characters. At times it travels back and forth in space and time. Using beautiful and lyrical prose some of the best moments transport you to the Australian outback and a post-apocalyptic California. It will introduce you to vivid characters like Black Panther activist Eli Jones and Martian colonists. Look if you need me to I can list just some of the weird elements. This has monkeys who survive the end of the world in a barren California, Grey Aliens, Mars colonies drug using pulp writers and space-traveling Black Panther party activists. those things are all there tied together by elegant prose and ideas that challenge science fiction in 2019 by playing with the same toolkit as the classics. It makes this novel so strange and powerful.

It might not be for everyone but if you love the genre I think there is a good chance you will dig this one too. During the war in Vietnam, a general was famously quoted as saying they had to burn down a village to save it. Did Reich destroy Science Fiction or honor it? I think he honored it. This book challenges modern science fiction embracing the traditions of the past. Many modern novels get compared to Ballard, Brunner, Leguin or Dick, but few embody those traditions like the Songs My Enemies Sing. It is a masterpiece. I don't say that lightly.