Terminal Boredom: Stories

Written by Izumi Suzuki

Narrated by Cindy Kay

The first English language publication of the work of Izumi Suzuki, a legend of Japanese science fiction and a countercultural icon.



At turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki's singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.



Translated by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O'Horan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781666102840

Reviews for Terminal Boredom

[ranjr-562000 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I acquired this one after I saw a review on a booktube channel. I did like this book, but the author’s writing style is very spare and bland. However, I can’t help but think this might be due to this work being a translation. On the other hand, the sci-fi ideas present are interesting but not the primary focus of these stories. They center on characters that are profoundly emotionally dysfunctional. The common theme among them seems to be that of a failure to emotionally connect with other human beings (be they from Earth or not). The titular story Terminal Boredom was not a favorite, but I really liked the idea that the nonhumanoid aliens are truly alien with completely nonhuman psychology and mind, matching their squid-like bodies.

[M]en came to dominate society through violence and cunning, and thereafter they made nothing but war. They seemed to find their raison d’être in conflicts both great and small. War found its way even into everyday life, and so were born ‘traffic wars’ and ‘admissions wars’. Such terms became so common that the word ‘war’ lost all meaning. [pg.2]

As for the individual stories within this book, Night Picnic is my favorite, and The Old Seaside Club is reminiscent of that one Black Mirror episode Welcome to San Junipero at least to me. Women and Women could have become a typical YA dystopia tale of young love save for Suzuki’s emotionally damaged heroine. I enjoyed the somewhat grim ending to that one. It’s what would happen in YA if the heroine decided to accept the dystopia as normal and good. It finishes with the selfish lament of a citizen of a doomed society (the heroine): […] I have no intention of sacrificing my life for some underground resistance movement. But who knows, it might come to that someday. […] Someday, surely someday . . . something will happen. [pg.34]

You May Dream had a great premise, those in suspended animation due to overpopulation can access the dreams of volunteers (often friends and family) to continue to “live”. However, by the halfway point the story already felt too long. The rest are worth reading though in the least for the ideas/an idea that they feature. Likewise, Forgotten explored a great idea of an alien offshoot of humans that can live forever but 99.9% of the time choose to die.

For them, dying before they’d fulfilled their potential, before they’d attained either absolute despair or the resolve to die, must have been truly tragic. [pg.168-169]

I tend to grasp onto the larger ideas featured within these stories and the actual focus on the personal level of the characters was not where my interest in the story typically lay though sometimes this primary drive of the stories did break through to me.

I had this one crazy experience smoking pot. It felt like I was being reborn alongside the birth of the universe. Even when I was aware of talking to someone, five minutes felt like a hundred years. It’s rare to get an experience like that. Usually, I just get hungry and sleepy. [pg. 134]

I liked this book and could recommend it to someone looking for sci-fi that aims for much smaller person-on-person interactions and dysfunction against a background or using an idea common to typical science fiction.

Favorite Quote:

‘But this is a good song. Do you know it? Apparently, Eva Braun used to sing it when she smoked because Hitler hated cigarettes.’

‘Large-scale con-artists like him often have a spartan side to them. I also have an extremely stoic side to me. Don’t laugh,’ he said. [pgs. 135-136]

[vive_livre · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5

Somewhat interesting short stories that have an light sci-fi feel to them. Set in some future time when people didn't find watching television boring.

The stories I felt notable from this collection were "Woman and Woman", "Forgotten" and "Terminal Boredom". They all manage to feel both (paradoxically) contemporary and slightly dated.

These are stories from the 70's and 80's but translated into English in 2021.

They aren't all great but the vibe resonates with our age.

[tommcgreevy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jagged. That is the word that comes foremost to mind. Jagged, painful stories within lives not worth living. Caustic, and eerily beautiful too. Drugs might be able to mask this hurt, but they would not be able to heal it. Nothing could but death itself. All unique stories. All scraping the edges of their containers - finger nail screeches on chalk boards.