Normal A Novel

'The thing about the future is that it keeps happening without you.' A clinical and plausibly nightmarish vision of the future in the near-future, where intelligence reigns, data is power, and surveillance rushes along to inevitable absoluteness. The 'abyss gaze' is an interesting concept; it is the consequence of the meeting of the limited human mind with infinite contingencies and information flow, madness brought about by the terrifying loss of agency. Those living on the edge who plan and bring about the future can no longer comprehend or withstand what they see, or do not see, coming. A story of destabilising realities is set up within the structure-heavy paradigms and languages of bureaucracy and academic research, creating a riveting and chilling ironic contrast. This is dystopia writ small, the state of the world is felt only through the tremors of the glass walls of a mental institution for their best and brightest scientists and strategists. The resulting echo effect, where everything is implied and conveyed with a sense of belatedness, effectively maximises the sense of powerless felt by its characters and the atmosphere of dread characterising the novel, alleviated only by small victories. Ellis' writing expertly conveys the fracturing of experience, the off-kilter feeling of not being there and being mere steps away from losing it.

The story is about a futurist who is sent to what amounts to a retirement home for spies and theorists who have become broken by all the horrible things they see in the world. The retirement home is completely cut off from the rest of the world, with no phones and no internet. The story he tells in this setting is great, but the best part is definitely watching Warren passionately describe his own ideal disconnected retreat from our world of distractions.

"All communication becomes dangerous" (56)Normal is a fun novella with a terrific premise. Every so often futurists go insane when they look too deeply into the future, a condition Ellis dubs "abyss gaze" (15). A facility called Normal (!) treats them, and that's the setting. Into Normal enters our freshly mad protagonist, who quickly stumbles into a locked room mystery. This little book has many pleasures, all familiar to anyone who's read Warren Ellis. There's a lot of humor, often darkly tinged ("phones are half-trained demons always ready to betray you." (26)). There are plenty of intriguing ideas, like a scientist who cultivates her gut flora to expand her intelligence. And there's just sweet writing:The speaker was a man from the north of England, by his accent, with a face like a mallet and skin like a map of Yorkshire scratched out in gin-broken veins... But a grin split if like a spade through clay. (18)Several major issues hue Normal. The book is very concerned with digital surveillance, flagged early on: "all communication since Windhoek seemed fraught with danger" (10) . It's a dark meditation on where social media, robotics, and mobile are headed. There's a subplot involving the sociology of futurism, as Ellis posits a divide between those working for art and nonprofits versus those wedded to finance and security agencies. As a futurist, I enjoyed the portrayal of the field, plus the speculation in futuristic ideas. Ellis knows the topic well, sketching out a group of people who take real and lonely risks in dwelling in years to come. "It's like we're the sin-eaters for the entire fucking culture, looking at the end of human civilization because it's supposed that somebody should. I'm fine, by the way." (62) Ellis even references a classic Bruce Sterling line ("The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky") with this amplification:That's the future, Adam fuckling whateveryournameis. City-states rammed with aging people huddling up against hospitals and looking up in terror for the big storm that will come and go and leave them floating facedown in thirteen feet of shit. And I can't do anything about it. (61)Personally, I haven't seen the professional tension between non-profit and security futurists, but there is certainly a difference. Before I go further, let me throw up spoiler shields, since the plot does advance.(view spoiler)[The conclusion does solve the mystery, adding a fascinating drone-based concept. Otherwise it falls short. Characters don't grow very much. Insanity falls away as a theme. Adam's suicide attempt is surprising, and not well prepared (hide spoiler)] Overall, a very entertaining read.