rclayton reviewed Self-Reference ENGINE by Toh EnJoe
Self-Reference Engine
Short stories, some of which are meditations on love and time-shifted assassinations, others of which are about warfare among sentient piles of information, and the remaining ones off by themselves (maybe, some could be about language). The table of contents is cryptically remapped as a directed graph, so it may be that some of the stories are linked, particularly the love and time-shifted assassination ones, and the sentient piles ones, although the chronology is an open question. The story about 22 Sigmund Freuds at a house demolition is certainly stand-alone, as is the one about Bobby Socks; the story about the box ritual could be part of the sentient piles because there’s another story with a box in that sequence. On the other hand, if you find another piece of a blob, you have a slightly larger blob.
Readers of Richard Brautigan or Donald Brathelme should be at home, although …
Short stories, some of which are meditations on love and time-shifted assassinations, others of which are about warfare among sentient piles of information, and the remaining ones off by themselves (maybe, some could be about language). The table of contents is cryptically remapped as a directed graph, so it may be that some of the stories are linked, particularly the love and time-shifted assassination ones, and the sentient piles ones, although the chronology is an open question. The story about 22 Sigmund Freuds at a house demolition is certainly stand-alone, as is the one about Bobby Socks; the story about the box ritual could be part of the sentient piles because there’s another story with a box in that sequence. On the other hand, if you find another piece of a blob, you have a slightly larger blob.
Readers of Richard Brautigan or Donald Brathelme should be at home, although these stories are more hard edged and less matter-of-fact. There’s geeky, dadish humor here and there, but not much irony (I took the theorizing straightforwardly). Overall a difficult read, unlikely to repay great effort, so don’t bear down too hard going in and it's likely to be pleasant coming out.