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The Machine
Beth lives alone on a desolate housing estate near the sea. She came here to rebuild her life following her husband’s return from the war. His memories haunted him but a machine promised salvation. It could record memories, preserving a life that existed before the nightmares.
Now the machines are gone. The government declared them too controversial, the side-effects too harmful. But within Beth’s flat is an ever-whirring black box. She knows that memories can be put back, that she can rebuild her husband piece by piece.
Now the machines are gone. The government declared them too controversial, the side-effects too harmful. But within Beth’s flat is an ever-whirring black box. She knows that memories can be put back, that she can rebuild her husband piece by piece.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
March 3, 2019
The limits of rebuilding a person's memories and what this means to who we are/were/can be again? are explored in James Smythe's The Machine. Smythe's idiosyncratic storytelling draws attention to the artificiality of its own construction. Is this good or bad, or does it reflect the artificiality of the machine that the protagonist has put her faith in? These distinctions call into question whether the created or recreated person is anything more than a shell that the machine has filled in with its programming. What miracle is this machine (always referred to this way rather than any other name describing what it does) capable of creating? This review is mostly made up of questions. I think that reflects the directions that the narrative falteringly drives toward. I doubt this is for everyone; however, one thing I'm not questioning is the power of Smythe's story.
October 16, 2013
This is a work of brilliant, unsettling writing, but ultimately unsatisfying. The pacing is some of the best I've read. The idea is solid and the place - a council estate in that most suburban of settings, the Isle of Wight - was perfect, managing to be both mundane and dreary, and desperate and terrifying: a world of casual cruelty and violence that felt absolutely real with an ending that was not a surprise, but was shocking nonetheless. The writing in general is consistently excellent, so why was I left so unsatisfied by this novel? I think the crux is that I was never fully engaged with any of the characters. I never really clicked with Beth, or any of the - very much more peripheral - supporting cast. The characters are well drawn, but they all lack humanity: there's something machine-like about all of them. Maybe that was deliberate, the author trying to capture a failure of human feeling in his post-climate change world? If so, it didn't work for me. There's an essential coldness at the core of this book, a lack of a pulse that is sorely needed. How can you care what happens to characters you can't feel anything for?
That lack of humanity left a hole at the heart of the story that even a sterling plot couldn't fill. The story is strange and dark and pretty horrible for the most part, and while it seems to give a lot of detail about the characters, it's very plot led and the plot is... OK. A little predictable. There's an overemphasis on detail that's common in SF so it must be popular with the intended readership. I could live without it myself; I'd far rather know more about the people.
That lack of humanity left a hole at the heart of the story that even a sterling plot couldn't fill. The story is strange and dark and pretty horrible for the most part, and while it seems to give a lot of detail about the characters, it's very plot led and the plot is... OK. A little predictable. There's an overemphasis on detail that's common in SF so it must be popular with the intended readership. I could live without it myself; I'd far rather know more about the people.
September 11, 2013
Beth lives in a remote village by the sea, a desolate place where she can rebuild her life following the return of her husband after the war. Vic is haunted by his memories and turns to a machine to take his nightmares away, but it takes everything away; now Beth is determined to rebuild him.
Dubbed as Frankenstein for the 21st century, The Machine is a wonderfully dark and complex novel that really deserves more attention. I normally get annoyed when novels are compared to Frankenstein; how can any novel truly compare? The Machine was a different story; I wasn’t expecting it to compare to Frankenstein, I was more interested with the dark and complex nature of this book. The novel reminds me more of the British TV show Black Mirror; there are two episodes in particular, the episode where all memories are recorded for instant playback (1×3) and the one where a woman loses her husband and turns to a service that continues his online life (2×1). The show is considered “a hybrid of The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected which taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world� and is designed to be thought provoking. In fact The Machine feels right at home with the style of that show.
Imagine if you can record all your memories and then wipe the ones that cause pain? Would removing some memories change a person completely? What if that machine wipes every memory and leaves the person catatonic? What are the moral implications of playing with someone’s memories? How should the government regulate scientific advances like this? If you could, would you try to rebuild a loved one? There are just so many questions to answer and The Machine does a great job of creating more. Don’t expect answers, this book is all about giving you questions.
I love a novel that gets you questioning life and philosophy. James Smythe masterfully does what so many try to do, it’s so refreshing to read something like this but it makes me sad that this book isn’t getting more attention. I feel the need to read every James Smythe book I can get my hands on in the desire to experience this feeling again. Science Fiction is a genre that really can explore humanity and morality and Smythe reminds the readers that it’s possible. In the 60s and 70s it felt like all Sci-Fi novels had a message and we have exchanged that for entertainment. Not that there is anything wrong with entertaining the reader but you can do that while exploring philosophical ideas.
There is so much I want to say about this book and the majority of it is positive but I won’t, I think everyone should read this book and experience it for themselves. The plot is compelling and James Smythe writes like a master of his craft. The Machine has already secured a place in my “best books of 2013� list and I want to read more of his books, just to have this experience again. Go out now and get your copy of The Machine.
This review originally appeared on my blog;
Dubbed as Frankenstein for the 21st century, The Machine is a wonderfully dark and complex novel that really deserves more attention. I normally get annoyed when novels are compared to Frankenstein; how can any novel truly compare? The Machine was a different story; I wasn’t expecting it to compare to Frankenstein, I was more interested with the dark and complex nature of this book. The novel reminds me more of the British TV show Black Mirror; there are two episodes in particular, the episode where all memories are recorded for instant playback (1×3) and the one where a woman loses her husband and turns to a service that continues his online life (2×1). The show is considered “a hybrid of The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected which taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world� and is designed to be thought provoking. In fact The Machine feels right at home with the style of that show.
Imagine if you can record all your memories and then wipe the ones that cause pain? Would removing some memories change a person completely? What if that machine wipes every memory and leaves the person catatonic? What are the moral implications of playing with someone’s memories? How should the government regulate scientific advances like this? If you could, would you try to rebuild a loved one? There are just so many questions to answer and The Machine does a great job of creating more. Don’t expect answers, this book is all about giving you questions.
I love a novel that gets you questioning life and philosophy. James Smythe masterfully does what so many try to do, it’s so refreshing to read something like this but it makes me sad that this book isn’t getting more attention. I feel the need to read every James Smythe book I can get my hands on in the desire to experience this feeling again. Science Fiction is a genre that really can explore humanity and morality and Smythe reminds the readers that it’s possible. In the 60s and 70s it felt like all Sci-Fi novels had a message and we have exchanged that for entertainment. Not that there is anything wrong with entertaining the reader but you can do that while exploring philosophical ideas.
There is so much I want to say about this book and the majority of it is positive but I won’t, I think everyone should read this book and experience it for themselves. The plot is compelling and James Smythe writes like a master of his craft. The Machine has already secured a place in my “best books of 2013� list and I want to read more of his books, just to have this experience again. Go out now and get your copy of The Machine.
This review originally appeared on my blog;
February 12, 2018
I couldn't resist the first few pages of this novel, in which a woman called Beth takes delivery of a massive piece of technology that's only ever referred to as 'the Machine'. At first, we don't understand what Beth is doing with the Machine; the answer is something we must slowly piece together. In an uncanny echo of a book I finished just a couple of days before starting this one (Adam Sternbergh's ), the Machine can extract a person's memories, obliterating their ability to recall a particular event or experience, even a person. Vic, Beth's husband, was a soldier who experienced PTSD on his return from war. The Machine promised to cure him, but instead it left him little more than a shell. For some time, it is equally unclear whether Vic is actually alive or dead, but one fact emerges: Beth is planning to use her illegally-obtained, now-outlawed Machine to 'bring him back' in some form.
The story has an unremitting dark, bleak flavour. Beth lives on a run-down estate where the heat is constantly oppressive and feral children hurl virulent abuse at strangers. Her life alone, her life with Vic, time spent with her clingy friend Laura: all are terribly depressing. This is a horrifyingly dull vision of the future in which advances in technology have brought only misery; constant discomfort is the new normal. If I'd had any idea how dreary and dispiriting The Machine would turn out to be, I might have left it alone; it was certainly not the most inspiring thing to read while bed-bound with flu! Despite all that, I doubt this will be the last experience I have with James Smythe's work. The edition I read ended with a tantalising extract from his 2012 novel , and I couldn't help but be intrigued all over again.
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The story has an unremitting dark, bleak flavour. Beth lives on a run-down estate where the heat is constantly oppressive and feral children hurl virulent abuse at strangers. Her life alone, her life with Vic, time spent with her clingy friend Laura: all are terribly depressing. This is a horrifyingly dull vision of the future in which advances in technology have brought only misery; constant discomfort is the new normal. If I'd had any idea how dreary and dispiriting The Machine would turn out to be, I might have left it alone; it was certainly not the most inspiring thing to read while bed-bound with flu! Despite all that, I doubt this will be the last experience I have with James Smythe's work. The edition I read ended with a tantalising extract from his 2012 novel , and I couldn't help but be intrigued all over again.
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January 28, 2017
Having loved and so much I was really excited to get this book. Unfortunately it didn't measure up.
The Machine is about a situation in the near future when people's memories can be removed and/or rewritten via a machine. This is used for people who have been through trauma as well as dementia patients. The thing they discover later on, though, is that there's an unintended consequence that leaves the patient Vacant.
Beth's husband is one of the vacant. He came back from war with a Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD. In desperation they tried this experimental procedure, which completely destroyed Vic's mind and left him in a care facility. Beth illegally buys a machine on the internet and sets out to replace his memories with the original recordings they made as the memories were removed.
The story was interesting enough that I never wanted to ditch it, mostly because it was a quick read, but I "it was okay" is as good as this one gets for me. Yes, it was okay, I just had really high hopes. Now if only he'll put out the third book in the Explorer series.
The Machine is about a situation in the near future when people's memories can be removed and/or rewritten via a machine. This is used for people who have been through trauma as well as dementia patients. The thing they discover later on, though, is that there's an unintended consequence that leaves the patient Vacant.
Beth's husband is one of the vacant. He came back from war with a Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD. In desperation they tried this experimental procedure, which completely destroyed Vic's mind and left him in a care facility. Beth illegally buys a machine on the internet and sets out to replace his memories with the original recordings they made as the memories were removed.
The story was interesting enough that I never wanted to ditch it, mostly because it was a quick read, but I "it was okay" is as good as this one gets for me. Yes, it was okay, I just had really high hopes. Now if only he'll put out the third book in the Explorer series.
February 4, 2021
I don't really know what I was expecting going in to this but it sure was more psychology than I thought and not extremely thrilling but I enjoyed it a lot more because of it. It was a very interesting twist on the "Frankenstein" story its inspired by and I really enjoyed what James Smythe did with the story
March 10, 2015
PURGE, COMMIT, REPLENISH.
Beth is taking delivery of a Machine. A Machine that holds the key to getting her husband back. When he returned from the war a changed man, the new technology promised to take away his memories, take away the horrors that woke him in the night. But years later the machines are banned, their side-effects too severe to be of any use. Beth has read the forums and she knows there is a possibility that she can rebuild her husband from the files that were purged.
The themes of The Machine are the sort of questions that keep me awake at night. What makes us sentient? Are we more than just biological hard-drives plugged into complex hardware? Once you take away memories and experiences, even if they are bad, are we left with the same person? I‘ve been reading a few books that have picked up on these questions recently, but this pushes them to their limits.
Beyond the existential questions, there are some wonderful snippets of everyday life, such as the delivery of the cumbersome machine at the start and the dilemma of how to get it through the doors and up the stairs. Beth is a teacher, but she is plagued by a group of boys on the streets of her estate. Many of us recognise that fear when walking past kids of a certain age these days. So unpredictable, so easy to provoke unintentionally. The setting is a not too distant future where global warming seems to have struck; long periods of stiflingly hot weather with monsoon-esque rains, flooding the streets. The image of flooded Britain will remind us of many a scene we’ve seen in the news of the past few years.
The machine itself has an ominous presence. Its constant thrum follows Beth throughout the story, a constant reminder of her actions. Its lack of futuristic sleekness contributes to the reality; that she could have gone for a newer model but instead she has a hulking mass of a machine, reminiscent of all our older, discarded technology. Although there is a horrific few moments when she is cleaning the unlocked touchscreen�
Some scenes also touch on the actions of those so often forgotten; carers. There are some emotionally difficult moments where Beth must take care of Vic. They are humiliating and heartbreaking in their necessity, but an everyday occurrence for so many carers, both professional and those taking care of their loved ones.
I used to find lack of speech-marks hard going, but with familiarity they have become easier. Here, they offer an almost dreamlike quality. The question over what is spoken aloud or not becomes quite relevant as the book goes on. There’s a prevailing sadness throughout, accompanied by the kind of loneliness that comes from keeping secrets. Beth is isolated both mentally and physically, by the estate she lives on which is in turn on an island. It took me a while to realise she lived on the Isle of Wight; instead I was imagining an island formed from the flooding of Portsmouth. Her only friend is devoutly Christian, perhaps the person least likely to accept her actions, considering religious objections to science as well as the moral implications.
The Machine isn’t being marketed as science fiction but it serves up the best of what the genre has to offer; contemplating how far science should go and the meaning of existence. I can imagine some readers may object to the ending. At first it might appear inconsistent, but the brain fills in gaps for us as we read and our assumptions are not always correct.
Beth is taking delivery of a Machine. A Machine that holds the key to getting her husband back. When he returned from the war a changed man, the new technology promised to take away his memories, take away the horrors that woke him in the night. But years later the machines are banned, their side-effects too severe to be of any use. Beth has read the forums and she knows there is a possibility that she can rebuild her husband from the files that were purged.
The themes of The Machine are the sort of questions that keep me awake at night. What makes us sentient? Are we more than just biological hard-drives plugged into complex hardware? Once you take away memories and experiences, even if they are bad, are we left with the same person? I‘ve been reading a few books that have picked up on these questions recently, but this pushes them to their limits.
Beyond the existential questions, there are some wonderful snippets of everyday life, such as the delivery of the cumbersome machine at the start and the dilemma of how to get it through the doors and up the stairs. Beth is a teacher, but she is plagued by a group of boys on the streets of her estate. Many of us recognise that fear when walking past kids of a certain age these days. So unpredictable, so easy to provoke unintentionally. The setting is a not too distant future where global warming seems to have struck; long periods of stiflingly hot weather with monsoon-esque rains, flooding the streets. The image of flooded Britain will remind us of many a scene we’ve seen in the news of the past few years.
The machine itself has an ominous presence. Its constant thrum follows Beth throughout the story, a constant reminder of her actions. Its lack of futuristic sleekness contributes to the reality; that she could have gone for a newer model but instead she has a hulking mass of a machine, reminiscent of all our older, discarded technology. Although there is a horrific few moments when she is cleaning the unlocked touchscreen�
Some scenes also touch on the actions of those so often forgotten; carers. There are some emotionally difficult moments where Beth must take care of Vic. They are humiliating and heartbreaking in their necessity, but an everyday occurrence for so many carers, both professional and those taking care of their loved ones.
I used to find lack of speech-marks hard going, but with familiarity they have become easier. Here, they offer an almost dreamlike quality. The question over what is spoken aloud or not becomes quite relevant as the book goes on. There’s a prevailing sadness throughout, accompanied by the kind of loneliness that comes from keeping secrets. Beth is isolated both mentally and physically, by the estate she lives on which is in turn on an island. It took me a while to realise she lived on the Isle of Wight; instead I was imagining an island formed from the flooding of Portsmouth. Her only friend is devoutly Christian, perhaps the person least likely to accept her actions, considering religious objections to science as well as the moral implications.
The Machine isn’t being marketed as science fiction but it serves up the best of what the genre has to offer; contemplating how far science should go and the meaning of existence. I can imagine some readers may object to the ending. At first it might appear inconsistent, but the brain fills in gaps for us as we read and our assumptions are not always correct.
May 2, 2018
Is it possible to reprogramme a brain that has been damaged by dementia or post traumatic stress disorder? This modern Gothic tale, with its echoes of Frankenstein, is a chilling warning of might go wrong when we attempt to 'play God' with the mind. The claustrophobic and ominous background of a society breaking down through the effects of global warming helps to make this an emotionally charged reading experience. The shock ending will make you want to read this novel again to revise your conclusions.
(Reviewed on Whichbook.net)
(Reviewed on Whichbook.net)
September 27, 2014
Like so many novels published throughout the year, the release of James Smythe’s The Machine has come and gone without much discussion. Of the six and a half reviews* I found in my three minute skim of the internet, all were lavish in their praise of the novel, noting that this was Smythe’s best books and one of the best novels of 2013.
And I agree. While I can’t say with any certainty that it’s Smythe’s best book � I haven’t read his three other novels � The Machine is one of the strongest novels I’ve read this year. It’s the sort of book that should be featuring, ad nauseam, on all the major awards list next year. But other than the Clarke Award and possibly the BSFA, the book is unlikely to get much award love.
If I was the ranting type I’d go on and on and on about how the lack of buzz for books like The Machine is precisely why Science Fiction as a genre is floundering. But I’m not sure I really believe that. Yes, there’s a case to be made that the current crop of writers still haven’t escaped the gravitational pull of Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein. But the fact is that while books like The Machine might come and go, making only the smallest of ripples, they still get published. And for me, above all, that’s what’s important. That there’s still a market for books that don’t fall into the well worn groove of third person omniscient and linear narratives and deal with difficult, uncomfortable issues.
The Machine is written in present tense. It doesn’t use quotation marks for dialogue. It deals with issues of memory loss and identity and the friction between science and faith. The setting is bleak � a future Britain that’s suffering from the effects of global warming. And it’s unrelenting. Claustrophobic. Your stuck in the head of the main character, Beth, privy to her obsessive need to give her husband, currently in a vegetative state, back his memories.
Take the following paragraph:
"The class are almost completely silent as they watch the video: there’s a naked woman, comedic in all other respects (unfit, flabby, unattractive), climbs a fence, to the top of her kitchen extension, and then scrambles, sobbing, to her roof to escape the flood; but, mercifully, none of the class laugh. The bodies of dogs and cats in the street, floating down. The dead being dredged out onto boats. When the video ends there’s only minutes until their first class and they leave quietly. Beth goes to lunch and sits alone, on a table at the far end. She sees Laura, who makes a beeline for her. Laura doesn’t ask to sit next to Beth � and why would she? They’re not children � but Beth finds it strange, how relaxed Laura is immediately. She starts talking about her life, how she argued with her boyfriend the previous night."
As Niall Harrison puts it, it’s that switch between the ‘startling nuggets of information� � the flood � and the ‘mundane� � sitting down to have lunch with Laura � that defines the style and intent of this novel. As Beth burrows further into the rabbit hole, that intense focus somehow narrows further. This should be off putting, close to unreadable, and yet Smythe somehow pulls it off. It’s because you feel for Beth. Her anger and frustration, her desperate desire to use The Machine to re-create her husband like he was before he went off to war, before he was shot in the head, before he came back to her wounded both physically and psychologically, before he became a test subject for The Machine. You want her to succeed. You want her to find some sort of peace in a world that’s going through a gradual apocalypse. You can’t turn away.
But more then just sympathy for Beth, the world she lives in feels more then just a cobbled together thought experiment. It feels real. This sense that life will go on, the mundane will still occupy most of our lives, even while everything goes to hell. And while the Sfnal mechanics of The Machine is never fully explained � at times it feel more organic then mechanical, the idea that it’s actually alive � this doesn’t undercut or undermine the stark reality of Beth’s
claustrophobic environment.
In a perfect world, there would be buzz for this book. We would be talking about the themes, about Smythe’s deliberate narrative choices, about the fractious relationship between Beth and Laura, Beth and her husband, Beth and the community. And maybe if the book appears on peoples end of year lists or gets nominated for the odd award next year there’s a chance at a second dip. But whatever the case I’m just glad that complicated Science Fiction novels like these still get published.
I’m not sure whether I’ll have time to dip into Smythe’s backlist but I’ll certainly be looking forward to whatever he writes next
* The half refers to Niall Harrison’s brief thoughts on the Strange Horizon blog.
And I agree. While I can’t say with any certainty that it’s Smythe’s best book � I haven’t read his three other novels � The Machine is one of the strongest novels I’ve read this year. It’s the sort of book that should be featuring, ad nauseam, on all the major awards list next year. But other than the Clarke Award and possibly the BSFA, the book is unlikely to get much award love.
If I was the ranting type I’d go on and on and on about how the lack of buzz for books like The Machine is precisely why Science Fiction as a genre is floundering. But I’m not sure I really believe that. Yes, there’s a case to be made that the current crop of writers still haven’t escaped the gravitational pull of Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein. But the fact is that while books like The Machine might come and go, making only the smallest of ripples, they still get published. And for me, above all, that’s what’s important. That there’s still a market for books that don’t fall into the well worn groove of third person omniscient and linear narratives and deal with difficult, uncomfortable issues.
The Machine is written in present tense. It doesn’t use quotation marks for dialogue. It deals with issues of memory loss and identity and the friction between science and faith. The setting is bleak � a future Britain that’s suffering from the effects of global warming. And it’s unrelenting. Claustrophobic. Your stuck in the head of the main character, Beth, privy to her obsessive need to give her husband, currently in a vegetative state, back his memories.
Take the following paragraph:
"The class are almost completely silent as they watch the video: there’s a naked woman, comedic in all other respects (unfit, flabby, unattractive), climbs a fence, to the top of her kitchen extension, and then scrambles, sobbing, to her roof to escape the flood; but, mercifully, none of the class laugh. The bodies of dogs and cats in the street, floating down. The dead being dredged out onto boats. When the video ends there’s only minutes until their first class and they leave quietly. Beth goes to lunch and sits alone, on a table at the far end. She sees Laura, who makes a beeline for her. Laura doesn’t ask to sit next to Beth � and why would she? They’re not children � but Beth finds it strange, how relaxed Laura is immediately. She starts talking about her life, how she argued with her boyfriend the previous night."
As Niall Harrison puts it, it’s that switch between the ‘startling nuggets of information� � the flood � and the ‘mundane� � sitting down to have lunch with Laura � that defines the style and intent of this novel. As Beth burrows further into the rabbit hole, that intense focus somehow narrows further. This should be off putting, close to unreadable, and yet Smythe somehow pulls it off. It’s because you feel for Beth. Her anger and frustration, her desperate desire to use The Machine to re-create her husband like he was before he went off to war, before he was shot in the head, before he came back to her wounded both physically and psychologically, before he became a test subject for The Machine. You want her to succeed. You want her to find some sort of peace in a world that’s going through a gradual apocalypse. You can’t turn away.
But more then just sympathy for Beth, the world she lives in feels more then just a cobbled together thought experiment. It feels real. This sense that life will go on, the mundane will still occupy most of our lives, even while everything goes to hell. And while the Sfnal mechanics of The Machine is never fully explained � at times it feel more organic then mechanical, the idea that it’s actually alive � this doesn’t undercut or undermine the stark reality of Beth’s
claustrophobic environment.
In a perfect world, there would be buzz for this book. We would be talking about the themes, about Smythe’s deliberate narrative choices, about the fractious relationship between Beth and Laura, Beth and her husband, Beth and the community. And maybe if the book appears on peoples end of year lists or gets nominated for the odd award next year there’s a chance at a second dip. But whatever the case I’m just glad that complicated Science Fiction novels like these still get published.
I’m not sure whether I’ll have time to dip into Smythe’s backlist but I’ll certainly be looking forward to whatever he writes next
* The half refers to Niall Harrison’s brief thoughts on the Strange Horizon blog.
May 23, 2014
There are two novels here, bumping against and getting in the way of each other, the one great and the other not so good. The great novel is a quite wonderful dystopia focusing on a UK ravaged by climate change, with the focus on deteriorating social cohesiveness and increasing anarchy as a result.
The not-so-great novel is a muddled psychological study of the impact of technology on human relations, which quickly devolves into a rather icky horror story that skips over the science in favour of lurid thrills and scares.
Given that the world depicted by Smythe is so constrained by the problems of climate change and crumbling social order, I found it difficult to comprehend how such a society could develop a technology as advanced as the Machine. Or what purpose it could serve.
And what is this war that the protagonist returns from so ravaged by? I think Iraq is mentioned vaguely at one point � it might have made more sense if the war had been of galactic origin, to be honest, with maybe the Machine a spoil of this interstellar conflict.
And what exactly does the Machine do? I am still unsure, having finished the novel. A lot of reviews point to Frankenstein as an exemplar, but this is much more a zombie novel. I thought the bits alluding to a separate consciousness or dimensionality of the Machine, such as when Beth peers inside its workings and only sees endless darkness, was an attempt to elevate the novel to Lovecraftian mystery, but this is so disconnected from the main narrative that it hardly registers.
I also did not understand Beth’s connection to her abusive husband, and why she would want to resurrect him in the first place. Of course, the meta-ending throws everything that has transpired into question (this is not a spoiler, actually), but it turns out to be far more of a cop-out than the hard-boiled ending demanded by the initial rather straightforward narrative.
Ultimately this is a curious blend of Ballardian dystopic ennui and Stephen King gross-out horror that does not quite gel, and is quite emotionless to boot, and consequently more heavy-handed and distasteful than effective and fashionably depraved.
Still, Smythe is clearly a talented and adventurous writer, and I will definitely be on the lookout for some of his earlier books to see how he has evolved and transformed.
P.S. I forgot to add what I found to be my biggest gripe with this book actually: and that is the lack of speech marks. Sure, for some writers like Cormac McCarthy it has become a legitimate affectation, but leaving out speech marks simply because you think it is cool and post-modern is just not on. I do not think writers have any idea how difficult and weird it makes the reading experience for readers. Especially in a thriller-type plot like The Machine, where you want to be racing along, I found myself jumping out of the narrative repeatedly as I tried to figure out the reported speech. Speech marks are there for a perfectly legitimate reason. So unless you are a better writer than Cormac McCarthy (who uses ellipses anyway), please please use them!
The not-so-great novel is a muddled psychological study of the impact of technology on human relations, which quickly devolves into a rather icky horror story that skips over the science in favour of lurid thrills and scares.
Given that the world depicted by Smythe is so constrained by the problems of climate change and crumbling social order, I found it difficult to comprehend how such a society could develop a technology as advanced as the Machine. Or what purpose it could serve.
And what is this war that the protagonist returns from so ravaged by? I think Iraq is mentioned vaguely at one point � it might have made more sense if the war had been of galactic origin, to be honest, with maybe the Machine a spoil of this interstellar conflict.
And what exactly does the Machine do? I am still unsure, having finished the novel. A lot of reviews point to Frankenstein as an exemplar, but this is much more a zombie novel. I thought the bits alluding to a separate consciousness or dimensionality of the Machine, such as when Beth peers inside its workings and only sees endless darkness, was an attempt to elevate the novel to Lovecraftian mystery, but this is so disconnected from the main narrative that it hardly registers.
I also did not understand Beth’s connection to her abusive husband, and why she would want to resurrect him in the first place. Of course, the meta-ending throws everything that has transpired into question (this is not a spoiler, actually), but it turns out to be far more of a cop-out than the hard-boiled ending demanded by the initial rather straightforward narrative.
Ultimately this is a curious blend of Ballardian dystopic ennui and Stephen King gross-out horror that does not quite gel, and is quite emotionless to boot, and consequently more heavy-handed and distasteful than effective and fashionably depraved.
Still, Smythe is clearly a talented and adventurous writer, and I will definitely be on the lookout for some of his earlier books to see how he has evolved and transformed.
P.S. I forgot to add what I found to be my biggest gripe with this book actually: and that is the lack of speech marks. Sure, for some writers like Cormac McCarthy it has become a legitimate affectation, but leaving out speech marks simply because you think it is cool and post-modern is just not on. I do not think writers have any idea how difficult and weird it makes the reading experience for readers. Especially in a thriller-type plot like The Machine, where you want to be racing along, I found myself jumping out of the narrative repeatedly as I tried to figure out the reported speech. Speech marks are there for a perfectly legitimate reason. So unless you are a better writer than Cormac McCarthy (who uses ellipses anyway), please please use them!
August 4, 2013
This review first appeared on
The Machine was my first foray into the work of James Smythe, and as such I didn't know what to expect. What I discovered was one of the most interesting, compelling and affecting novels I've read in some time.
Beth lost her husband Vic to the Machine, a device designed to remove selective traumatic memories from his time in some unknown war. Instead it stripped him of everything that made him human, leaving him vacant, a shell. Now it's the only think that can bring him back.
It's not a happy tale, let's make that clear right now. There's a fog of despair that seeps into every aspect of the plot, from Beth's guilt and pain of loss, to the flood ruined, globally-warmed near-future in which she lives. There's very little happiness in the world. And that's like cat-nip to this reviewer. Smythe could have set the story at any time or place, and Beth's struggle would still have been touching, but the fact that the state of the world at large directly reflects Beth's own personal plight resonates strongly. Her quest to bring back her husband is the only slight glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak and friendless world.
The plot is insular, as well. It rarely strays from Beth's quiet life at home in her unloved flat or the school where she is overworked and under-appreciated. This too is mirrored by the setting, with Beth living on a version of the Isle of Wight that resembles a slum more than a holiday resort, cut off from the rest of the world by swelling water.
And that's what The Machine is about. Distorted reflections. Beth may get her husband back, but will it ever truly be him? Or just some copy, close but never quite right. Hollow. Broken.
It's a surprisingly brutal story as well. Not so much with violence - though it does feature towards the end � but with the harsh truths of life. Beth's role as Vic's carer is detailed with no holds barred. We experience everything it involves, from cleaning him after he has soiled himself, to how she views him, this vacant shell that she used to love. It's intimate and personal, and Smythe never holds back.
It's a credit to Smythe's writing that he can address these tough themes - from global-warming to street gangs, from care work and social responsibility to religion and the nature of the soul � in such a frank and emotional way, yet keep the book so readable. And it really is: I devoured the 328 page novel in a couple of days, compelled to discover more Beth and Vic, more about the world they inhabit, and, most of all, more about the Machine.
Ah yes, the Machine. I love it when authors create a character from inanimate objects or buildings, and Smythe did a great job with the Machine (never referred to as anything other than the Machine). It's a constant presence, huge and over-bearing in Beth's spare room, humming and whirring, radiating its presence, never allowing you to forget that it is there. The source of Beth's pain, but also her only comfort. There's something so ominous about it, something intangible, something... alive.
The Machine by James Smythe is a dark, dreamlike (or maybe that should be nightmarish) delight to read. There's something ineffable about it, yet so grounded in reality. Smythe is undoubtedly a talented author, and I look forward to appreciating his work again soon.
Highly Recommended.
JA
The Machine was my first foray into the work of James Smythe, and as such I didn't know what to expect. What I discovered was one of the most interesting, compelling and affecting novels I've read in some time.
Beth lost her husband Vic to the Machine, a device designed to remove selective traumatic memories from his time in some unknown war. Instead it stripped him of everything that made him human, leaving him vacant, a shell. Now it's the only think that can bring him back.
It's not a happy tale, let's make that clear right now. There's a fog of despair that seeps into every aspect of the plot, from Beth's guilt and pain of loss, to the flood ruined, globally-warmed near-future in which she lives. There's very little happiness in the world. And that's like cat-nip to this reviewer. Smythe could have set the story at any time or place, and Beth's struggle would still have been touching, but the fact that the state of the world at large directly reflects Beth's own personal plight resonates strongly. Her quest to bring back her husband is the only slight glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak and friendless world.
The plot is insular, as well. It rarely strays from Beth's quiet life at home in her unloved flat or the school where she is overworked and under-appreciated. This too is mirrored by the setting, with Beth living on a version of the Isle of Wight that resembles a slum more than a holiday resort, cut off from the rest of the world by swelling water.
And that's what The Machine is about. Distorted reflections. Beth may get her husband back, but will it ever truly be him? Or just some copy, close but never quite right. Hollow. Broken.
It's a surprisingly brutal story as well. Not so much with violence - though it does feature towards the end � but with the harsh truths of life. Beth's role as Vic's carer is detailed with no holds barred. We experience everything it involves, from cleaning him after he has soiled himself, to how she views him, this vacant shell that she used to love. It's intimate and personal, and Smythe never holds back.
It's a credit to Smythe's writing that he can address these tough themes - from global-warming to street gangs, from care work and social responsibility to religion and the nature of the soul � in such a frank and emotional way, yet keep the book so readable. And it really is: I devoured the 328 page novel in a couple of days, compelled to discover more Beth and Vic, more about the world they inhabit, and, most of all, more about the Machine.
Ah yes, the Machine. I love it when authors create a character from inanimate objects or buildings, and Smythe did a great job with the Machine (never referred to as anything other than the Machine). It's a constant presence, huge and over-bearing in Beth's spare room, humming and whirring, radiating its presence, never allowing you to forget that it is there. The source of Beth's pain, but also her only comfort. There's something so ominous about it, something intangible, something... alive.
The Machine by James Smythe is a dark, dreamlike (or maybe that should be nightmarish) delight to read. There's something ineffable about it, yet so grounded in reality. Smythe is undoubtedly a talented author, and I look forward to appreciating his work again soon.
Highly Recommended.
JA
July 25, 2013
When I read Smythe’s The Testimony last year, I admired the novel’s suppleness, but felt it didn’t quite commit to its premise: not quite global enough in its voices, a bit too generous to its characters towards the end. With The Machine, certainly a superior novel, I feel a bit like he’s gone too far in the other direction. The canvas is much smaller, and at its centre is a brutal blank novum, the titular Machine. It can edit peoples� memories; it has rendered Beth’s army husband a vegetable, but may yet be able to bring him back. Around this central relationship is shaded a worn near-future Britain, warmer, more authoritarian, less cohesive than the present: a nation that ruthlessly turns individuals back on themselves, sets them searching for their identities. Smythe’s chosen style is an obsessive pseudo-real-time claustrophobic present tense, a voice that juxtaposes mundane details of action with startling nuggets of information, and which naturalises, when they come, the descriptions of human indignities and wounds. Like The Testimony it is an exploration of the limits of human authority in the world, but it is more clearly a horror novel than its predecessor -- and a harsh and effective story for much of its length, but one that is in the end perhaps let down again slightly by its ending. This time around the last page felt to me like a release from the engrossing intensity of the previous three-hundred-odd pages, just a little too close to well, there is a moral after all for my taste. Before that, however, The Machine is one of the most convincing iterations of 21st-century British science fiction I’ve come across.
April 3, 2016
Breathtaking.
The ever mysterious machine, the love, the feeling of lost, the empty human.
Truly a wicked machine which might be awkward to say because it's 'just' a machine.
It was haunting throughout the whole story, standing there in the spare room,
with the humming sounds.
But yet, a machine which gave people hope in returning and gaining back what they lost and what they love. But then, it was what they hoped.
And that's what happened to Beth.
Figuring she could change things around, figuring she could do it on her own. Taking home a man which became an empty human. Trying to bring back what she had lost.
Or actually creating a fantasy.
I literally cried for Beth on the first half, getting into the alone emotions. Then literally cried for Vic on the second half because all the process was hurting him. And went with Beck till the end.
I was touched with the words Our Soldiers, Ruined For Their Countries, and the patients of dementia, Alzheimer and amnesia began to be affected by the machine and was left as it became, which might just be fiction but sounded so real.
I was disgusted by the way the machine made people puzzled, differentiating between it, reality and assumptions.
To Beth, she wasn't creating a monster, she was trying to create back a part of her life.
The story taught me on God's fate, to not trust people too much, and love.
'This is want I want, she will tell them. And she'll pray that they let her keep on talking, lying on the floor in agony, screaming the words out, thinking it all through.'
'This is what I want.'
The ever mysterious machine, the love, the feeling of lost, the empty human.
Truly a wicked machine which might be awkward to say because it's 'just' a machine.
It was haunting throughout the whole story, standing there in the spare room,
with the humming sounds.
But yet, a machine which gave people hope in returning and gaining back what they lost and what they love. But then, it was what they hoped.
And that's what happened to Beth.
Figuring she could change things around, figuring she could do it on her own. Taking home a man which became an empty human. Trying to bring back what she had lost.
Or actually creating a fantasy.
I literally cried for Beth on the first half, getting into the alone emotions. Then literally cried for Vic on the second half because all the process was hurting him. And went with Beck till the end.
I was touched with the words Our Soldiers, Ruined For Their Countries, and the patients of dementia, Alzheimer and amnesia began to be affected by the machine and was left as it became, which might just be fiction but sounded so real.
I was disgusted by the way the machine made people puzzled, differentiating between it, reality and assumptions.
To Beth, she wasn't creating a monster, she was trying to create back a part of her life.
The story taught me on God's fate, to not trust people too much, and love.
'This is want I want, she will tell them. And she'll pray that they let her keep on talking, lying on the floor in agony, screaming the words out, thinking it all through.'
'This is what I want.'
May 15, 2013
A disappointment, after "The Explorer" which I read earlier this year.
Plus points:
1. James Smythe's pacing is excellent. I would almost consider him to be Sci-Fi's answer to Stephen King. I read this in a day. One day. That's the fastest I've ever read 328 pages.
2. His descriptions of PTSD symptoms from a human perspective, rather than a clinical one, are very good; I have to infer that he did a lot of research on the subject.
Negatives:
1. The overall concept seems quite derivative of some films I've seen - some parts Primer, some parts Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, thrown in some Fight Club for good measure.
2. The synopsis mentions Frankenstein, but besides the appearance of an angry mob in the story, I don't see the similarity.
At the end of the day, the story could easily be adapted as a forgettable Dr Who Episodes. Which is a shame, because the author has potential. It's just not reflected in this book.
Plus points:
1. James Smythe's pacing is excellent. I would almost consider him to be Sci-Fi's answer to Stephen King. I read this in a day. One day. That's the fastest I've ever read 328 pages.
2. His descriptions of PTSD symptoms from a human perspective, rather than a clinical one, are very good; I have to infer that he did a lot of research on the subject.
Negatives:
1. The overall concept seems quite derivative of some films I've seen - some parts Primer, some parts Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, thrown in some Fight Club for good measure.
2. The synopsis mentions Frankenstein, but besides the appearance of an angry mob in the story, I don't see the similarity.
At the end of the day, the story could easily be adapted as a forgettable Dr Who Episodes. Which is a shame, because the author has potential. It's just not reflected in this book.
November 24, 2013
What a dark, suffocating, creepy and claustrophobic novel. I wish more science-fiction would be this uncomfortable.
March 4, 2016
Excellent. A really dark story and beautifully written.
October 22, 2016
As promised, this is a cautionary examination of what makes us human: memory. As in all such stories ( is one I can recall), the depiction of how memory is erased and (re)installed is problematic, since our main frame of reference for this is how we do it on our electronic devices. But humans are not iPads, and surely we don’t store snapshots of our lives in neat digital files that can easily be obliterated or restored simply by talking about them. And yet it’s true that events � say, from childhood � exist in our memories mainly because parents, grandparents, uncles or aunts keep bringing them up at family gatherings. So I suppose how the Machine works isn’t a sticking point for me.
Neither is the outdatedness of the digital technology depicted: hard drives and touchscreens with nary a WiFi connection or gigabyte of cloud storage. That’s not, after all, the point, even if technology’s role in the story is front and center. In a dystopia, some inventions, ubiquitous though they are in our world, never get funded no matter how space-age the fictional world is. So global warming develops but social media doesn’t. There’s no Facebook, Twitter or Instagram in Panem or the brave new worlds of and � the worlds of high-tech teens. They don’t even carry devices.
I know it looks like I’m digressing from the review, but really, I am building up to a point. Actually, I’m doing exactly what Smythe does as his book unfolds: he takes the scenic route. In his dystopia, the population of Portsmouth, England, has been moved offshore after “the floods,� and Beth McAdams obtains an illicit Machine through an internet-forum connection somewhere in France. But she doesn’t use social media, and the kids she teaches don’t own devices. Such details are buried in 130 pages of dense paragraphs. That’s Part One of three.
The atmosphere is oppressive, thanks in part to the start-of-summer setting in that warmed-up world, reinforced by present-tense narration that places us squarely in the midst of it. After the opening chapter, where Beth interacts with the men who deliver the Machine, whole stretches abound in which she’s alone. A typical sentence will have her plugging in and unplugging the Machine, opening a bottle of water and gulping it down, contemplating the smell of petrichor, or opening the fridge and then drinking water and using the toilet before switching on the TV. I was reminded of the inner life of Offred in , but without Atwood’s poetics. The scene where Beth cleans her husband after he has soiled himself is particularly harrowing in its journalistic detail.
In retrospect, Beth is interacting with a lot of people in these chapters: the youths in her housing estate, the waiter at the Indian Palace, her colleague Laura, her husband Vic. But it’s interesting what Smythe achieves by leaving speech marks out of his characters� dialogues � it removes the human quality from their interactions. The literate world (writers as well as their readers) is divided over the necessity of speech marks in fiction, as author Lionel Shriver eloquently wrote in a 2008 Wall Street Journal . I’m on the side that thinks only pretentious writers leave them out, but I have to say the “hermetic worldview� that’s achieved, as Shriver calls it, is crucial here. So is the absence of pervasive, technology-driven social connection in a world that’s otherwise as high-tech, war-scarred and ecologically fragile as our own. Beth needs to be isolated.
So seamlessly does Smythe use surprisingly potent literary devices that you might miss the allusion he makes to Mary Shelley’s in his protagonists� names. Having to read prose closely for a living for many years, I find it utterly alien to skim whole paragraphs in the books I’m reading for pleasure today. But if you want to make it out of Smythe’s world in one piece, you might want to do the same –and it would be worth your while. It’s a book that should be finished once it’s begun, and discussed once you’ve finished. In the end, how the author’s modern Prometheus creates a monster won’t surprise you, but how he pulled you into Beth’s hermetic world just might.
Neither is the outdatedness of the digital technology depicted: hard drives and touchscreens with nary a WiFi connection or gigabyte of cloud storage. That’s not, after all, the point, even if technology’s role in the story is front and center. In a dystopia, some inventions, ubiquitous though they are in our world, never get funded no matter how space-age the fictional world is. So global warming develops but social media doesn’t. There’s no Facebook, Twitter or Instagram in Panem or the brave new worlds of and � the worlds of high-tech teens. They don’t even carry devices.
I know it looks like I’m digressing from the review, but really, I am building up to a point. Actually, I’m doing exactly what Smythe does as his book unfolds: he takes the scenic route. In his dystopia, the population of Portsmouth, England, has been moved offshore after “the floods,� and Beth McAdams obtains an illicit Machine through an internet-forum connection somewhere in France. But she doesn’t use social media, and the kids she teaches don’t own devices. Such details are buried in 130 pages of dense paragraphs. That’s Part One of three.
The atmosphere is oppressive, thanks in part to the start-of-summer setting in that warmed-up world, reinforced by present-tense narration that places us squarely in the midst of it. After the opening chapter, where Beth interacts with the men who deliver the Machine, whole stretches abound in which she’s alone. A typical sentence will have her plugging in and unplugging the Machine, opening a bottle of water and gulping it down, contemplating the smell of petrichor, or opening the fridge and then drinking water and using the toilet before switching on the TV. I was reminded of the inner life of Offred in , but without Atwood’s poetics. The scene where Beth cleans her husband after he has soiled himself is particularly harrowing in its journalistic detail.
In retrospect, Beth is interacting with a lot of people in these chapters: the youths in her housing estate, the waiter at the Indian Palace, her colleague Laura, her husband Vic. But it’s interesting what Smythe achieves by leaving speech marks out of his characters� dialogues � it removes the human quality from their interactions. The literate world (writers as well as their readers) is divided over the necessity of speech marks in fiction, as author Lionel Shriver eloquently wrote in a 2008 Wall Street Journal . I’m on the side that thinks only pretentious writers leave them out, but I have to say the “hermetic worldview� that’s achieved, as Shriver calls it, is crucial here. So is the absence of pervasive, technology-driven social connection in a world that’s otherwise as high-tech, war-scarred and ecologically fragile as our own. Beth needs to be isolated.
So seamlessly does Smythe use surprisingly potent literary devices that you might miss the allusion he makes to Mary Shelley’s in his protagonists� names. Having to read prose closely for a living for many years, I find it utterly alien to skim whole paragraphs in the books I’m reading for pleasure today. But if you want to make it out of Smythe’s world in one piece, you might want to do the same –and it would be worth your while. It’s a book that should be finished once it’s begun, and discussed once you’ve finished. In the end, how the author’s modern Prometheus creates a monster won’t surprise you, but how he pulled you into Beth’s hermetic world just might.
August 25, 2015
This is a refreshingly short novel at a time when genre novels are bulking up and threatening in many cases to be only the first volume of a proposed trilogy. It is also quite minimalist, and what I would describe as an ‘old fashioned novel�. It keeps the characters to a bare minimum which helps to focus on them and their role in the drama.
Beth is a teacher in a near future Britain scarred and flooded by the effects of climate change. Her husband, Vic, injured and traumatised by military service in Iran and subsequently subject to episodes of violence, was given the opportunity to try a revolutionary treatment in which a machine removes traumatic memories. The treatment (partly as a result of Beth’s actions) left him a near-vegetable, and he is being looked after in a care home. Now, Beth believes, having purchased one of the original machines, that she can return the memories he recorded back into his head and resurrect him, thus regaining her husband and absolving her guilt.
There are echoes of the Frankenstein mythos referenced within the novel, in some cases quite obviously. Victor is the name of Shelley’s legendary scientist in the original Frankenstein novel and Beth is no doubt a contraction of ‘Elizabeth�, the name of Victor Frankenstein’s doomed wife.
On the machine recordings, Vic tells his life story to, or at least is interviewed by a Doctor ‘Robert� which is the first name of the ship’s Captain in ‘Frankenstein� who finds the monster in the Arctic and narrates his sorry tale.
There is a scene where a child is thrown from a cliff into the sea, which brings to mind a scene from the original Boris Karloff film. The murdered child’s name is William, who in ‘Frankenstein� was killed by the monster because he was Victor’s younger brother.
The roles however are not carried through as it is Beth who takes on the role of ‘the giver of life� to Victor, who is cast as the monster. Unless I am missing some additional subtext there is no good reason for this extensive connection to the Shelley novel.
Providing conflict is Beth’s new colleague at her school; Laura. In an unguarded moment Beth reveals her plans for Vic to Laura only to discover that Laura is a devout Christian fundamentalist who is vehemently opposed to Machine technology rebuilding someone’s soul as she sees it. Laura’s character seems not as well-developed as it may have been and it might have been an idea to have had some additional initial exposure and time with Beth to a) establish some other aspects of her personality and b) to allow her to get Beth into her confidence.
Some have criticised ‘The Machine� for its bleak background and unsympathetic characters. I would disagree, since Smythe has created a plausible version of a near-future UK in which climate change has seen the sea invading the land.
Beth’s character seems fairly well-rounded and one can not escape the fact that she lives alone in a flat on a sink estate in a town with no future. It is necessarily bleak. In its own way, this is a modern Gothic horror built around the central figure of the Machine itself, a huge and enigmatic presence which has moods demonstrated by its various hums, engine roars and physical vibrations. One gets the impression that the machine may be almost orchestrating events for its own purposes. It is reminiscent of Stephen Gregory’s ‘The Cormorant� in this respect.
The novel leads relentlessly and inevitably to its (perhaps a little too predictable) conclusion, but is no less satisfying for that. Smythe exhibits a welcome economy of writing which flies in the face of some of the more corpulent novels weighing down the bookshelves of genre readers. Let’s hope this is the start of a new trend.
Beth is a teacher in a near future Britain scarred and flooded by the effects of climate change. Her husband, Vic, injured and traumatised by military service in Iran and subsequently subject to episodes of violence, was given the opportunity to try a revolutionary treatment in which a machine removes traumatic memories. The treatment (partly as a result of Beth’s actions) left him a near-vegetable, and he is being looked after in a care home. Now, Beth believes, having purchased one of the original machines, that she can return the memories he recorded back into his head and resurrect him, thus regaining her husband and absolving her guilt.
There are echoes of the Frankenstein mythos referenced within the novel, in some cases quite obviously. Victor is the name of Shelley’s legendary scientist in the original Frankenstein novel and Beth is no doubt a contraction of ‘Elizabeth�, the name of Victor Frankenstein’s doomed wife.
On the machine recordings, Vic tells his life story to, or at least is interviewed by a Doctor ‘Robert� which is the first name of the ship’s Captain in ‘Frankenstein� who finds the monster in the Arctic and narrates his sorry tale.
There is a scene where a child is thrown from a cliff into the sea, which brings to mind a scene from the original Boris Karloff film. The murdered child’s name is William, who in ‘Frankenstein� was killed by the monster because he was Victor’s younger brother.
The roles however are not carried through as it is Beth who takes on the role of ‘the giver of life� to Victor, who is cast as the monster. Unless I am missing some additional subtext there is no good reason for this extensive connection to the Shelley novel.
Providing conflict is Beth’s new colleague at her school; Laura. In an unguarded moment Beth reveals her plans for Vic to Laura only to discover that Laura is a devout Christian fundamentalist who is vehemently opposed to Machine technology rebuilding someone’s soul as she sees it. Laura’s character seems not as well-developed as it may have been and it might have been an idea to have had some additional initial exposure and time with Beth to a) establish some other aspects of her personality and b) to allow her to get Beth into her confidence.
Some have criticised ‘The Machine� for its bleak background and unsympathetic characters. I would disagree, since Smythe has created a plausible version of a near-future UK in which climate change has seen the sea invading the land.
Beth’s character seems fairly well-rounded and one can not escape the fact that she lives alone in a flat on a sink estate in a town with no future. It is necessarily bleak. In its own way, this is a modern Gothic horror built around the central figure of the Machine itself, a huge and enigmatic presence which has moods demonstrated by its various hums, engine roars and physical vibrations. One gets the impression that the machine may be almost orchestrating events for its own purposes. It is reminiscent of Stephen Gregory’s ‘The Cormorant� in this respect.
The novel leads relentlessly and inevitably to its (perhaps a little too predictable) conclusion, but is no less satisfying for that. Smythe exhibits a welcome economy of writing which flies in the face of some of the more corpulent novels weighing down the bookshelves of genre readers. Let’s hope this is the start of a new trend.
July 15, 2015
I had a writing teacher once who said 'Never leave your characters alone. Without someone else, there's no interaction. No interaction, no conflict. No conflict, no story. If you have to have a character walking along the beach, alone with his thoughts, give him a dog.'
Smythe violates that rule to brillant effect here. The 'dog' here is the Machine of the title. It is described, but does not interact. The protagonist is left alone for long stretches. Giving this isolation something to focus on (the Machine) attenuates it some how, intensifies it, into a mood of deep uncertainty and dread. The fact that loneliness is her primary motivation intensifies this mood even more (to end her isolation, she isolates herself more and more). I can't explain how or why this dread works so well without giving away the ending, but it really does. I liked the subtlety of it.
It's a sad book, but in a tragic not pathetic way. 'Pathetic' here as in pathos, describes a story that is just contingently sad, but could have turned out differently. 'Tragic' describes a story that is essentially, necessarily sad, where no matter what turn the characters take, the road will still end, badly. The pathetic can work sometimes, but usually results in a feeling of 'why did I subject myself to this?'; it has a sadness that simply reinforces or adds to one's own. Tragedy is different. The impossibility of a happy ending provides a kind of catharsis, a sadness that releases or purges one's own, like a 'good cry'. That The Machine manages to be such a tragedy in the absence of any direct or immediately apparent conflict is quite a stylistic accomplishment.
I am definitely left curious about Smythe's other books.
If you read this, and you feel like it's dragging in the middle, stick it out. The climax builds up not the steadily rising heat of typical bestseller, but in a low slow burn that ends in an explosion of.... can't say. Hurry up and finish so we can talk about it.
Smythe violates that rule to brillant effect here. The 'dog' here is the Machine of the title. It is described, but does not interact. The protagonist is left alone for long stretches. Giving this isolation something to focus on (the Machine) attenuates it some how, intensifies it, into a mood of deep uncertainty and dread. The fact that loneliness is her primary motivation intensifies this mood even more (to end her isolation, she isolates herself more and more). I can't explain how or why this dread works so well without giving away the ending, but it really does. I liked the subtlety of it.
It's a sad book, but in a tragic not pathetic way. 'Pathetic' here as in pathos, describes a story that is just contingently sad, but could have turned out differently. 'Tragic' describes a story that is essentially, necessarily sad, where no matter what turn the characters take, the road will still end, badly. The pathetic can work sometimes, but usually results in a feeling of 'why did I subject myself to this?'; it has a sadness that simply reinforces or adds to one's own. Tragedy is different. The impossibility of a happy ending provides a kind of catharsis, a sadness that releases or purges one's own, like a 'good cry'. That The Machine manages to be such a tragedy in the absence of any direct or immediately apparent conflict is quite a stylistic accomplishment.
I am definitely left curious about Smythe's other books.
If you read this, and you feel like it's dragging in the middle, stick it out. The climax builds up not the steadily rising heat of typical bestseller, but in a low slow burn that ends in an explosion of.... can't say. Hurry up and finish so we can talk about it.
June 25, 2016
I don't want to say anything about the plot since anything beyond the publisher's blurb would be a spoiler - but, for once, the publisher has got it spot on: this really is a Frankenstein for now... but Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein with its epigraph from Milton's Paradise Lost, not the trashy film versions.
This is an eerie and menacing story that is written with a light but very assured touch. The claustrophobic setting suits the grim plot perfectly, and the narrative itself is beautifully controlled - small things that we notice but don't dwell on come back to haunt us, and it's not until the shocking ending that everything falls perfectly into place.
It's not often that I'm surprised by a plot but this one really did creep up on me. Not that this is just an `all-about-the-twist' book - it's far denser than that. The intellectual probings about the relationships between man-machine, mind-body-soul, about the nature of love and how far it should go, give this an intellectual weight but one which never takes over from the understated emotions at play or the pure grip of the story.
This is a book which I finished in the small hours of the morning because I couldn't think about sleep until I'd finished it - and once I did, despite the satisfaction of a perfectly-tied-up story, I still wanted to re-read it immediately.
So this works beautifully on all levels: intellectual, emotional, literary. Read it - this is brilliant!
This is an eerie and menacing story that is written with a light but very assured touch. The claustrophobic setting suits the grim plot perfectly, and the narrative itself is beautifully controlled - small things that we notice but don't dwell on come back to haunt us, and it's not until the shocking ending that everything falls perfectly into place.
It's not often that I'm surprised by a plot but this one really did creep up on me. Not that this is just an `all-about-the-twist' book - it's far denser than that. The intellectual probings about the relationships between man-machine, mind-body-soul, about the nature of love and how far it should go, give this an intellectual weight but one which never takes over from the understated emotions at play or the pure grip of the story.
This is a book which I finished in the small hours of the morning because I couldn't think about sleep until I'd finished it - and once I did, despite the satisfaction of a perfectly-tied-up story, I still wanted to re-read it immediately.
So this works beautifully on all levels: intellectual, emotional, literary. Read it - this is brilliant!
October 20, 2015
I thought this was a brilliant book. It is intelligent, thoughtful and completely gripping.
I cannot really describe the plot without giving away too much, so I won't. The publishers' synopsis is right - this is a Frankenstein for the twenty-first century (it is set in the near future). It is a fantastic piece of storytelling: the rather deadpan prose is excellent, the narrative extremely well paced, the characters utterly convincing and the plot developments fascinating and unpredictable. James Smythe generates a brilliant air of menace both in the plot and setting, which builds slowly and gripped me completely. The book, as well as being a page-turning story, is a thoughtful look at the nature of memory, at what makes us the people we are and at what might happen if the fundamentals of our characters and memories are altered.
It is hard to give more of flavour of this book because I am wary of spoilers, but I warmly recommend it to anyone who likes a dark, unsettling but very intelligent and thought-provoking read which will keep you up late to finish it. It is one of the best things I have read for some time.
I cannot really describe the plot without giving away too much, so I won't. The publishers' synopsis is right - this is a Frankenstein for the twenty-first century (it is set in the near future). It is a fantastic piece of storytelling: the rather deadpan prose is excellent, the narrative extremely well paced, the characters utterly convincing and the plot developments fascinating and unpredictable. James Smythe generates a brilliant air of menace both in the plot and setting, which builds slowly and gripped me completely. The book, as well as being a page-turning story, is a thoughtful look at the nature of memory, at what makes us the people we are and at what might happen if the fundamentals of our characters and memories are altered.
It is hard to give more of flavour of this book because I am wary of spoilers, but I warmly recommend it to anyone who likes a dark, unsettling but very intelligent and thought-provoking read which will keep you up late to finish it. It is one of the best things I have read for some time.
August 6, 2024
While this book made me feel uncomfortable - the oppressive heat and feral children as one reviewer so aptly put it - I was left pretty dissatisfied.
The idea is there: A woman's husband was left crippled with PTSD after the war and this new technology, the machine, promises to restore him. The unintended consequence is that he's instead left a vacant shell, and her, alone, until she finds a way to reverse it.
But the execution didn't hold up. The characters are dry and flaky. The island setting feels half-empty and unfinished. There's a twist, but it feels predictable and almost lazy how it can't be accounted for or traced back later. It feels like a cop-out to say, "well she wiped it, so we don't know 🤷🏻♀�."
Finally, the lack of quotations around the dialogue drove me nuts. "It's a style choice," you could say. But it makes the reading experience feel cluttered and disjointed, like you're reading a draft that wasn't ready yet. It doesn't feel intentional, just messy.
The idea is there: A woman's husband was left crippled with PTSD after the war and this new technology, the machine, promises to restore him. The unintended consequence is that he's instead left a vacant shell, and her, alone, until she finds a way to reverse it.
But the execution didn't hold up. The characters are dry and flaky. The island setting feels half-empty and unfinished. There's a twist, but it feels predictable and almost lazy how it can't be accounted for or traced back later. It feels like a cop-out to say, "well she wiped it, so we don't know 🤷🏻♀�."
Finally, the lack of quotations around the dialogue drove me nuts. "It's a style choice," you could say. But it makes the reading experience feel cluttered and disjointed, like you're reading a draft that wasn't ready yet. It doesn't feel intentional, just messy.
March 29, 2015
I liked this book. It is ultimately about passion. About what people care about enough to do the things they might and do do.
The story centres around a medical procedure to help people remember and, more importantly, to help them forget. Having imagined the process and what could go wrong with it the story asks important questions about human identity. About what makes us who we are.
I enjoyed the book and finished it quickly, so why have i not given it 5 stars? I found some of the problems, overcome and not, contrived. Not what the author believed would happen, but there to make a point and be used. But I fully accept I could be wrong about that it it does not stop this bring, overall, a good read.
The story centres around a medical procedure to help people remember and, more importantly, to help them forget. Having imagined the process and what could go wrong with it the story asks important questions about human identity. About what makes us who we are.
I enjoyed the book and finished it quickly, so why have i not given it 5 stars? I found some of the problems, overcome and not, contrived. Not what the author believed would happen, but there to make a point and be used. But I fully accept I could be wrong about that it it does not stop this bring, overall, a good read.
August 25, 2013
Enjoyable, futuristic take on Frankenstein with a little Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind thrown in for good measure. Well-written but a tad on the predictable side. Impressive portrayals of the difficulties of returning from war, and also caring for a loved one who has been disabled. Not all questions adequately answered, but compelling enough from start to finish.
April 21, 2015
For some reason, the present tense just doesn't do it for me. I think was a good stab at a creepy story, but something just fell flat. I'm not saying I could have done better, and I think this author will only get better. But between the lack of a subplot to keep you turning the pages, the attempt at a twisty ending, and the very brief chapters, something got lost in translation.
October 15, 2015
Brilliantly written; dark and unsettling.
Left broken by the loss of her husband to The Machine, Beth struggles to confront the new reality of her life. She plots to fix what was broken, to bring her husband back, but as she gets ever closer to her goal the strain of her loss and ambiguous nature of her future begin to wear away at her fragile state of being.
Left broken by the loss of her husband to The Machine, Beth struggles to confront the new reality of her life. She plots to fix what was broken, to bring her husband back, but as she gets ever closer to her goal the strain of her loss and ambiguous nature of her future begin to wear away at her fragile state of being.
March 8, 2016
An absorbing read except for the last chapter? The characterisation and mood of setting were good but the background of the banning of the machines, their appearance and what climatic fate has befallen the planet could have been outlined in greater detail. However the sense of Isolation and Alienation were very good.
October 4, 2013
Like a heart-attack in slow motion, The Machine is a terrifying experience into the unknown reaches of human physiology and our need for love.
Full review at Adventures in SciFi Publishing:
Full review at Adventures in SciFi Publishing:
January 5, 2018
Clever and charismatic, this novel, which is set by the sea in a heated near future, is an intriguing and fulfilling puzzle!
March 11, 2015
I read this last year and although the subject matter made it an uncomfortable reading experience it has really stayed with me. Very unsettling. A dark and compelling read. Thoroughly recommended!
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