• Elyse M Grasso@historians.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    @pluralistic@mamot.fr That cover is lying: It clearly indicates that the title is “In the Land of Simplicity” which, according to the info provided by the publisher, is false. (Sort of the opposite of the equally annoying covers that hide words like ‘of’ and ‘and’, which as a former librarian I find equally annoying)

    Fair warning about the story, possibly.

  • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
    1·
    1 year ago

    Simplicity is set in the not-so-distant future, in which the US has dissolved and its major centers have been refashioned as “Administrative and Security Territories” - a fancy way of saying “walled corporate autocracies.” Lucius Pasternak is an anthropology grad student in the NYC AST, a trans-man getting by as best as he can, minimizing how much he sells out, which is not enough to make his bosses treat him with respect, but is more than his friends can stomach.

    2/

    • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Pasternak’s fortunes improve when he gets a big, juicy assignment: to embed with a Catskills community of weirdo sex-hippies who supply the most coveted organic produce in the NYC AST. They’ve been cloistered in an old summer camp since the 1970s, and when civilization collapsed, it barely touched them. Pasternak’s mission is to chronicle the community and its strange ways for a billionaire’s vanity-project museum of New York State.

      3/

      • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
        1·
        1 year ago

        The meat of the action is set in Simplicity, the Catskills home of the Spiritual Association of Peers, where Pasternak struggles to gain the support and trust of the community, working their gardens by day and, eventually, attending their orgy/free-for-all nightly rituals, where the community members work out their tension and aggression through a mix of wild sex and punch-ups.

        4/

        • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          But no matter how diligently Pasternak tries to fit in, he still finds himself at the community’s margins, unable to win over their trust. Then, just as he starts to make some progress, members of the community start going missing, turning up horribly mutilated. The horror of this is compounded by the erotic, nightmarish visions that have haunted Pasternak since his arrival in Simplicity, of a many-tentacled, many-mawed, many-vulvaed monster.

          5/

          • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
            1·
            1 year ago

            Pasternak’s bosses abruptly recall him to the NYC AST, and that’s when he learns the true nature of his mission to Simplicity, and the story moves into a thrilling, action-packed final act with an extremely satisfying conclusion.

            This is such a tight little tale, speedily told in that way of the best graphic novels, which cram so much expressivity and atmosphere into the visual storytelling.

            6/