Reviews and Comments

I have all of Simon Stålenhags earlier books and this one certainly also excites me with its retro-futuristic aesthetics and sci-fi’ish plot. Where I found the earliest books to have a less coherent narrative and the previous one, The Labyrinth to have a very sinister plot and characters we don’t get to know so well, the characters in Swedish Machines get more personal and the plot is more about the characters and their development than the weird abandoned machinery and aftermath of a technological disaster. I am not so much into the queer aspect of the story and I would personally have liked more focus on the weird technology.

When I first started reading this novel, I quickly noticed the similarity of central elements of the story to those of Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. At first, this frustrated me a bit. Partly because I could not quite remember the plot of the latter since I read it a long time ago and struggled comparing them. Partly, I could not help thinking, “did Murakami run of steam? Is this all he has left to offer; re-writing an older story of his?” My initial frustration with the story was soon put to shame. The story took an interesting twist which made it clear to me that this was definitely not the same story as Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Murakami introduces several interesting characters who play roles that still puzzle me and kept me reading more and more. I can still not say that I quite understand what the story was about (as with several of Murakami’s stories), but it was a great reading experience to me none the less.

I have had this book sitting on a bookshelf for something like 15 years without getting around to reading it. I finally brought it on vacation and read it quite quickly. It has some original ideas. I like how Niemi weaves the northern Swedish culture and language roots into the story and manages to do so quite well. I find the story a little messy in places and there are some of the more supernatural aspects I cannot quite decide what to think of. The plot has a seemingly supernatural side character whom I cannot figure out what to make of, and that bothers me a bit.

I like how the narrative changes perspective to another primary character in this volume. The story is an exciting development from the first novel. I can’t help but feel that Thompson’s writing style is not always to my taste. I think he tends to sometimes skip very hastily through some of the most crucial points of the story. This leaves me with a feeling of “is it really over just like that?”