oatmilk_alex reviewed The Seep by Chana Porter
Review of 'The Seep' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
Wait I love sci-fi, this was so much fun! Read in one sitting :)
Hardcover, 203 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 2020 by Soho Press.
A blend of searing social commentary and speculative fiction, Chana Porter’s fresh, pointed debut is perfect for fans of Jeff VanderMeer and Carmen Maria Machado.
Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.
Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.
Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In …
A blend of searing social commentary and speculative fiction, Chana Porter’s fresh, pointed debut is perfect for fans of Jeff VanderMeer and Carmen Maria Machado.
Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.
Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.
Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind. A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on.
Wait I love sci-fi, this was so much fun! Read in one sitting :)
Humanity has been finally united, thanks to the psychedelic transcendence brought by our new alien friends, the collective trip-inducing hivemind goop known as The Seep. War is over, poverty is over, capitalism is over, colonialism is over, no one can tolerate exploitation when they're acutely aware of the feelings of everybody else and all the animals and plants and each individual body cell. Art flourishes, new and strange occupations flourish, property is collective and abundant in every regard, endless possibilities open up before ourselves. Guided by the new, hyperempathetic Seep tech, people are modifying their bodies to be furries and cyborgs and anything else they want. Other animals ascend to linguistic sentience and we can talk to them now. Some people opt to live chill lives crafting or Seeping out to cool art shows, others take to exploring the boundaries of identity and personhood itself.
No catch, really. No hidden …
Humanity has been finally united, thanks to the psychedelic transcendence brought by our new alien friends, the collective trip-inducing hivemind goop known as The Seep. War is over, poverty is over, capitalism is over, colonialism is over, no one can tolerate exploitation when they're acutely aware of the feelings of everybody else and all the animals and plants and each individual body cell. Art flourishes, new and strange occupations flourish, property is collective and abundant in every regard, endless possibilities open up before ourselves. Guided by the new, hyperempathetic Seep tech, people are modifying their bodies to be furries and cyborgs and anything else they want. Other animals ascend to linguistic sentience and we can talk to them now. Some people opt to live chill lives crafting or Seeping out to cool art shows, others take to exploring the boundaries of identity and personhood itself.
No catch, really. No hidden dystopia because things are too good. No subtext that wanting things to be better is dangerous. Things are really better. No one in the world disagrees that the Seep made life much better. Well the Seep refusers at the Compound do, but their choice is respected and they're left alone.
Oh and everyone is irrefutably aware of our eternally reborn immortal souls so the weight of mortality, too, is solved forever.
---
"The Seep" by Chana Porter asks the question, what if you're still depressed anyway.
---
What if you know, not through faith but through direct experience, that our immortal souls are immortal, yet you're still grieving. What if you're still grieving after years and you blocked away everyone and you're living in paradise but your living room is a rotting mess and you can't be bothered to even try. What if you can't enjoy any of this shiny new world because your lesbian girlfriend enjoyed it in a way that took her beyond your reach and the saccharine voice of The Seep only adds to the wound. What if everyone is happy and you want to shoot something. someone? yourself? you found a gun...
---
Short, focused novel in the style currently trending. Takes directions I wouldn't expect. Main character is trans and in the world portrayed that almost doesn't matter, except it then does. I like this one quite a bit.
Content warning minor spoilers
This short novel is about "the softest invasion" of earth, by an alien lifeform called The Seep that infiltrates the drinking water and causes humans to hear each other's thoughts, feel joy and peace, gain immortality, and also be able to magically transform themselves and the world around them. The Seep loves humans (like an overprotective parent) and wants to help humans create a perfect world (whatever that means).
But, if anything, this soft-but-creepy invasion by the Seep is more of a backdrop to the narrator Trina's own grief, and her anger about changes in the world. The arc of the book is mostly a very personal one focused inwardly on the narrator; the climax of the book, even as it is very explicitly a confrontation with The Seep itself is ultimately an internal and emotional one.
The Seep is a neat alien overall and was a lot of fun to read, especially as most of what we see of it is not some on page monster but instead is only visible through the changed interactions of other humans. And, I like a book complaining about capitalism as much as the next person, but it was also refreshing to have this book magically wave past such problems into some further future with its own issues.
The fact that humans are able to suddenly understand each other's feelings and suffering via the Seep turns the world into a (terrifying?) neverending therapy processing session. Some of this reminds me of the vibes of Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor, where Cordelia goes back to Beta Colony and is constantly harassed about therapy until she escapes. I think The Seep's patience and implacability also remind me some of the Oankali in Lilith's Brood, where they hold all the cards and think they know best for humans.
The main character is a butch trans woman who laments the wild clothing and appearance changes that the rest of the world goes through, feeling lost about how to be butch and what feels comfortable for her in these new spaces. And maybe this is spot on for Trina herself, who is mostly just angry about change as a character trait, but at one point there's a line: "She’d fought and kicked and clawed to have her insides match her outsides, and now people changed their faces as easily as getting a haircut." Mostly this was jarring to me because universally most trans folks I know would be overjoyed for others to more easily be able to change their bodies.
Overall, this had some really neat ideas, wrapped up with a good emotional arc, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I read this because it's on the Otherwise Award's 2020 Honor List: otherwiseaward.org/award/2020-otherwise-award/2020-honor-list
I really enjoyed this queer sci-fi novella – about the softest alien invasion of Earth by The Seep, a hive mind species that merges with nearly every life form on earth, including most of humanity creating a seeming utopia – but I was very frustrated by it all the same. Everything I liked best about it – The Seep itself, the Seep-related technology and the way humans interface with and utilize it – only came in tantalizing glimpses and all-too-brief descriptions. On one hand, I appreciate how The Seep and its (their?) technology are technically secondary to the story itself, which is the journey of a trans woman who loses her wife and, secondarily, their shared community to divergent paths in the Seepified world. However none of that would’ve happened without The Seep, so the fact that we get so tormentingly little of it left me feeling unfulfilled by the …
I really enjoyed this queer sci-fi novella – about the softest alien invasion of Earth by The Seep, a hive mind species that merges with nearly every life form on earth, including most of humanity creating a seeming utopia – but I was very frustrated by it all the same. Everything I liked best about it – The Seep itself, the Seep-related technology and the way humans interface with and utilize it – only came in tantalizing glimpses and all-too-brief descriptions. On one hand, I appreciate how The Seep and its (their?) technology are technically secondary to the story itself, which is the journey of a trans woman who loses her wife and, secondarily, their shared community to divergent paths in the Seepified world. However none of that would’ve happened without The Seep, so the fact that we get so tormentingly little of it left me feeling unfulfilled by the story. Had this novella been part of a collection of stories or ongoing series set in this world, meaning I’d learn more about The Seep and Seeptech with each tale, that would’ve made this story able to stand on its own better for me. Nevertheless, it’s fascinating, poignant, and beautifully written, and I will gladly read more of Chana Porter’s work in the future.
A benevolent alien invasion creates a new and radical human utopia; It allows us to reshape reality and ourselves through mere thought. You want to change anything about your life, what's arround you, who you are... you just think it.
Tina finds herself grieving when her wife leaves to re-experience life reborn again as a baby. As she sinks into depression, alienated from the world around her as it continues its giddy high. She starts to explore how concepts of purpose and authenticity work in a world where dreams are made literal reality and how that fits in with her own identity as a trans woman.
I found this a powerful and original exploration of identity in utopia in a way that many other stories would simply undercut as "a sinister truth behind a world too good to be true." Instead, it's about finding yourself through grief and finding new …
Chana Porter's The Seep takes place after an alien invasion that, instead of bringing war and destruction, makes people kinder, more caring and thoughtful. Earth has become a utopia, free of capitalism. Everyone has the ability to be whoever or whatever they feel they need to be, and they are kept happy and soothed. But there's an air of toxic positivity and superficial spirituality, too. The protagonist, Trina, sees through it and struggles with her conflicting, unsatisfied feelings. When her wife Deeba decides to make the ultimate Seep modification, Trina is left to deal with her grief.
The world-building and the storytelling is superb. I don't always do well with fiction on audiobook, which is how I took in this story, but I was hanging on every word. The premise was so cool, executed wonderfully, and brought up a lot of things to think about. I was reminded of the …
This was a great read that explored the ideas of what culture would look like if the hippies won. I loved the hyper focus on one woman's story and how she explored this new way of life as she grieved the "passing on" of her wife. I felt the focus at the micro level rather than the macro was an interesting structural decision that really paid off in its execution as we learned about the full extent of the world through the limited lens of the jaded protagonist. However if you like alien invasion books, this probably isn't the one for you. This is a book about grief and dealing with one's place in the world with an alien invasion backdrop. Don't go into this expecting a full exploration of the "soft invasion."
I have complicated feelings about the themes of the book, which could be boiled down to the …
This was a great read that explored the ideas of what culture would look like if the hippies won. I loved the hyper focus on one woman's story and how she explored this new way of life as she grieved the "passing on" of her wife. I felt the focus at the micro level rather than the macro was an interesting structural decision that really paid off in its execution as we learned about the full extent of the world through the limited lens of the jaded protagonist. However if you like alien invasion books, this probably isn't the one for you. This is a book about grief and dealing with one's place in the world with an alien invasion backdrop. Don't go into this expecting a full exploration of the "soft invasion."
I have complicated feelings about the themes of the book, which could be boiled down to the fact that there is value in the preservation of "historical" ideals such as gender, race, age, and sexuality, especially in a post gender, race, age, and sexuality world. That in a society where no one is left in need, we are still benefit from the lessons that were learned in hardship rather than leaving those lessons behind since we have finally achieved true harmony in the universe. I ultimately agree with this overall theme, but I couldn't help but feel that there were undertones of "kids these days" sentimentality that would really make me pause to consider what message the author was trying to portray. Those who might be considered "progressive" in the book are painted to be the ones out of touch while the the traditionalists who often speak about the good ole days (before the world was literally living in paradise) were the ones painted as rational and down to earth. Sometimes I agreed with this sentiment (blackface is bad and should always be considered bad y'all). And sometimes I didn't (your community taking an active interest in your wellbeing is actually good probably).
The writing was fantastic, surreal, and dreamy. The side characters were hit or miss, being written as one note lovable/hateable while the main character has consistent ideals but oddly inconsistent behaviors. The pacing of the book was good considering how short it is, and while there is a loose plot, it takes a backseat to the social commentary which I think works in the books favor. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and it definitely lends itself to a reread.
Just read this one in less than an hour and a half. Amazing, like nothing I've read. A bizarre utopian dystopia. My brain is like... too full to do it justice right now. I hope we never get to a point where people we love want to become babies again.
Really quite remarkable and special.
It’s rare that a book so immediately sucks me in from the first sentence of the synopsis. Gosh, did it deliver!
My only wish is that it were longer. I’d love to be able to observe a post-Seep world more closely, or even have the Compound explored in more detail.
This is not a perfect, flawless book and sometimes it is quite heavy handed in its parodies, and I suspect would make some of my friends roll their eyes. But I do not care. It is deeply imaginative, and made me shake my head at myself when sometimes it held up a mirror with a wry knowing smirk. And in the end it was deeply sweet.
Super fast, fun read. Dark, but good
Reading The Seep meant spending a rainy evening in a fantasy world where a benevolent alien invasion has granted us the ability to overcome many of our limitations. But then the protagonist watches their partner go on a path they can't follow, and they begin to pick at the cracks in the veneer of perfection so many of their fellow humans now project. Every page felt like a surprise. I laughed, I cried... I can't recommend this more.
The weirdest, funniest, sweetest page-turner of a book I've read in years