After an August overflowing with birthdays, where I covered most of the ones I wanted to at four a week, this month looks to be much sparser and starts with just one. But what a one, and I’ll take the opportunity to talk about two of her stories of outsiders from one of the best collections of all-time.
Pat Cadigan (1953-09-10)
“Pretty Boy Crossover” (IAsfm, January 1986)
The Pretty Boy of this story has lost his boyfriend and fellow Pretty Boy, Bobby, to the digital world as the Corporations That Be have convinced Bobby to upload his consciousness, which makes him a sort of product of theirs. Pretty Boy is trying to be famous and popular and “in” while also missing Bobby and trying to decide if he wants to join him, should he be Pretty enough to be able to. Is Bobby really real anymore? Will he be? Eventually, Pretty Boy realizes a way in which he can claim a stake to self-hood and hold on to some power of his own.
This story takes the colorful energy of some 80s club scenes and turns it up to 11 with some science fictionalization that is beyond what we’ve got even now so that it would seem to be blatantly foregrounded, yet it’s mixed in to such an inherently tech milieu while the story is focused on people and their egos and confusion that it actually seems subtly part of the background. Either way, the protagonist’s effort to find some sort of place to stand is effectively portrayed.
“Angel” (IAsfm, May 1987)
“Angel” features another anonymous and lost narrator who has a friend but this one is present. It also features sexual matters that weren’t mainstream in the 80s (and at least one element that isn’t now). It’s also a strange sensory blend but, in this case, it’s a surreal fantasy feeling with the friend being “Angel” except that Angel is also one of the most distinctive aliens you’ll ever meet. He’s been exiled for an alien crime which is revealed before the end and is ironically tied to the protagonist. Angel can look human but isn’t and can speak but prefers telepathy. He doesn’t eat but can benefit when his friend does but really powers up on intense events of any kind because the universe doesn’t care about good or bad – only less or more. The two go through a city of dreadful night doing strange things with strange people while running from the malicious woman who had previously been bound with Angel. When Angel tries to work his overextended charms on a bartender and it fails, he and the narrator are beaten up for “faggots” and this causes them to fall into the clutches of the mystery woman. Matters reach quite a climax from there.
This is an extremely vivid, mesmerizing story full of Cadigan’s singular black humor, fresh imagery, and tough compassion which takes us through pain and death to find that sentience and love can be transcendent.
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