Book Review: Dreck by Cliff Jones Jr.

 

Dreck by Cliff Jones Jr.     

133 pages, Paperback 

June 13, 2023 by Fractured Mirror Publishing

One of the best things about punk rock fandom, is that punk rockers have always felt that they were one step from their favorite bands. The fans are the creators have very little separation.  Cyberpunk happened in part because creators like John Shirley were wearing dog collars to the punk shows he was playing at and at the Science Fiction conventions he read at.  

Philip K. Dick barely saw punk in his life, but many of his fans think of punk. Cyberpunk, hopepunk as an actual punk rocker my whole life I generally roll my eyes when yet another genre picks up the punk tag. As the author of punk rock-themed horror I have to point out that my books have actual punks, I know I may be a hypocrite here. Aynhoo here we have an author who defines his work as Dreampunk/ surrealist.

Cliff Jones Jr. is an author whose inspiration comes straight off the pink beam as like many of us one of his favorite writers is one Philly K. Dick.  That is how we met each other.  I really enjoy Cliff’s company and talking with him. I was nervous I might not like the book my pet peeve about punk as genre tag aside I LOVED this book.

Dreck has enough weird concepts in the slim 131 pages to out idea science fiction novels with triple the page count. For those of us looking for modern works of SF that have that pink beam feeling of a story just a few beats away from reality, this is a great novel to dig into. Smart glasses that learn you and create ghostly algorithms, Virtual hyperrealities, intense dreams, and higher realms of thought to combine modern technology with surrealist spiritual musings. The narrative is carefully crafted to give a neurodivergent view of the spectrum, at least that is the sense I got.

There is a sense that Flip and the characters in this novel are constantly slipping inches from everyone else’s reality and the technology that is weaponized to learn us and exploit us through capitalism is ever-present. I wondered if the insect on the cover of represented tiny things crawling on us leaving little bites. There is a trade-off to all the knowledge the internet puts at our touch, the Faustian deal is the vast knowledge we have access to is used against us.

Was this the mission statement of Dreck, at least it seemed so to me. If I made it sound preachy or depressing it is not.  The book is fun, routinely hilarious, and made me laugh multiple times. Each chapter has little pieces of art that I believe are meant to represent the big data system learning about the characters. That of course is at the heart of the concept.

“Lots of Companies pay MeFirst, but not for that.  And not just private companies but political groups, government agencies…they pay for your information…”

Wayne frowned. He felt more comfortable ignoring this obvious downside to Big Data. He’d have to tamp down his enthusiasm around Flip, ever the idealistic hacktivist. The guy knew his stuff, but he was kind of a buzzkill.”

MeFirst is a fictional technology but it works like most of the real stuff.  Data collection meant to figure out what we need to buy, is the abyss staring back at us. It could be played for horror, and you are having fun so much of this zooms past without a thought to consequences.I love that about effective Sci-fi satire.
 
In the second half of the book, the technology is escalated with second-sight lenses/ glasses that project data in ghost memories.  Is it the technology or are people losing their minds?

“Second Sight is a scam,” Laila snapped back at her. There are no ghosts! It is all in the lenses. They show you shadows and then give you a shock just to keep you scared, well I am not falling for it anymore.”

Dreck blurs the lines. “Dreck: Part Drug, part nanotech, part biological material…all the taste and appearance of black strap molasses.”  It may be that I know Cliff is a PKD  fan but there sly easter egg-ish references to a fictional Phil. I am not complaining this is a feature, not a bug. I would say Dreck: Part Surreal, Part humor, part science fictional material… all the taste and appearance of a PKD nightmare all wrapped into a unique and modern voice. Is it dreampunk? If Cliff says so I can live with the label because I was a big fan of this novel.