When you read a title like "Terminal Boredom", you can't help but wonder, a little, if the title is also a description of the contents. In this case... yeah. A bit.

"Terminal Boredom" is a book that would greatly benefit from an introduction (and maybe the published version will have one - my version is a ARC and thus subject to change). Otherwise, all you have is seven odd sci fi stories that seem a bit out of date.

As far as the internet has told me, Izumi Suzuki was an actress and model born in 1949. Her husband, a saxophonist, died in 1978, and she committed suicide in 1986.

You can see dark themes in this short story collection, as well - dystopias, drug use, falling out of love, relationships (romantic or otherwise) that have a dark, unpleasant side. People never seem to quite connect, either with each other, or with themselves. And while the sci fi nature of these stories is obvious from the very first page, the focus is on the inner lives of characters, or the lack thereof.

Stylistically, the stories are mostly advanced through dialogues and sometimes it was only in trying to explain the plot to others that I realized that there was a plot at all. Characters drift. They don't happen to things - things happen to them. They rarely seem to have agency, and that made this a difficult read for me.

In "Women and Women", women have taken over the world. Men have become weaker, and they have been shut in prisons, and are blamed for the world's ills. Technology is going to shit, but technology was killing the planet. All relationships are either lesbian relationships, or highly forbidden. One girl sees a clandestine boy on the street and befriends him and even sleeps with him, but her grandmother finds out and denounces him, so he's taken away. That is all - I couldn't tell if this was a criticism of feminism and a reinforcement of the idea that only men can do engineering and scientific jobs, or if there was no such intent at all.

"You May Dream" is a story in which people are put into forced cryogenic sleep, maybe never to wake up, but their consciousness can be taken to the dreams of others. The main character agrees to have a friend live in her dreams, but they turn out to dislike each other.

"Night Picnic" seems gratuitously odd, until you realize why. Time is weird. People are weird. The characters are trying to imitate human lives, based on things they've read and seen, even if that society seems far in the past for humanity. They have no context for anything they research, to the point where the son considers dating the daughter because books tell him he should be dating and there's nobody else around. Perhaps my copy of the book isn't edited yet, because this story has sentences like, "Fulgurous eyes and hair of gold had she" or "The girl atop a gentle hill stood she". I can't tell if this is Izumi Suzuki's style and she decided to be very odd to fit with the tone of the story, or if the translation process isn't finished yet.

In "That Old Seaside Club", people go to a resort where everything is great, life is pleasant, and many things forgotten. There seem to be glitches, and repeats of prior experiences, and it's all easily explained by the end.

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is the one most overtly about drug abuse and the effect drugs have on people and on those around them. The sci fi element is almost reduced to a metaphor, as a character finds herself losing years of her life and becoming old before her time because of abuse.

"Forgotten" is a story about an interplanetary affair, clashing cultures and humanity's way of colonizing others, which is really making this sound more exciting than it is - the lack of emotional connection between the main character and her alien lover, the way she never seems to decide for herself, make this one of the weaker stories of the volume for me.

And finally, "Terminal Boredom", which gives its name to the volume - in a dystopian, tv-obsessed society, young people find themselves lacking stimulation to such an extent that they forget even to eat.

While interesting in concept, the stories all seem to lack something in realization - a bit of fleshing out, perhaps. A more poignant description of emotional reactions, where the point of the story seems to hang on them, and of the worlds, where they seem interesting.

It would be interesting to find out how these stories were received when they were published, and what the Japanese sci fi scene was like, since some of the interest here might lie in knowing about the stories, rather than just the stories themselves. But, alas, the version I have offers nothing of the sort.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Verso for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Terminal Boredom is old. Like, reading the stories, especially the first one, you just get the feeling that it’s a few decades old. Understandable, really, since it’s the first translation of the author to english. It has old scifi tropes, fear of nuclear war and the end of mankind and alien civilizations and all that, but it’s still easy to see how those themes still continue to work today as well. The author, in most of the stories, also deals a lot with identity and gender, even if they get quite confusing sometimes.

The quality of the stories varies. I quite enjoyed the second (“I want too keep on living. Forever. And that’s how it’s going to be. I’ll become a lone eye somewhere, floating without consciousness” is my favorite quote from the book!) and the fourth ones, but some of the others were a pain to get through, especially the first one - it felt very cis and very weird. But well, everything in this book is weird. Each story has a different scifi/bizarre event/plot/world, but despite the initial confusion when you start a new chapter, since everything changes, the more you read the more you understand, until the whole picture is somewhat clearer by the end of the story.

The different details Izumi Suzuki could create and slowly hint to, showing gradually to the reader, are the main positive points of this book, for me. Since the characters don’t repeat in each chapter, and some of them aren’t even named, I feel like they’re not really supposed to be the focus at all - only the whole mood of the book (the name is quite fitting, it all felt like a monotonous, hot Sunday afternoon) and the bizarre worlds and futures the author came up with.

Since I’ve never read the original, I can’t comment on the quality of the translation, but I felt like the whole book had a nice flow, and the stories, despite their differences, had a common mood to them that made this collection quite good.

I thought the stories will well written and extremely unique. I have not read a lot of experimental and speculative fiction and found this to be an enlightening and intensely thought provoking group of stories. I liked the nod to science fiction and the sheer bizarre world that the interplanetary elements created. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

How could someone not like these stories? They are odd and unsettling which is exactly what you’d want and expect upon choosing this collection to read. It’s speculative sci-fi so you definitely get the weird and trippy you came for. The atmosphere created throughout each of the stories makes the book feel very cohesive. As I read I was overwhelmed with an out of body, dreamy experience which sometimes left me feeling empty but always left me wanting more. These stories were written decades ago but they are still very timely and unique enough to stand out from others like them.

So thankful to those who took the time to translate these works of art - Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O'Horan.

RIP Izumi Suzuki <3

Thank you to the translators, Verso Books, and #NetGallery an eARC of #TerminalBoredom for an honest review. Review will be posted on NetGallery, Goodreads, Facebook and Instagram.

You have to make allowances for foreign SF, especially if you're American and the author is Japanese. It's a whole different mindset, combined with the foreign culture, history, and POV. These stories read like cliches today (e.g., a world with only women but wait, there are a few sickly men kept underground for breeding purposes), but in 1970's Japan I'm sure they were something new. If you like Kobo Abe's SF, here you go.

Terminal Boredom

[Blurb goes here]

I have to say that I enjoyed this book from start to finish. There is this naivetë quality to the stories that you can only find in Japanese novels. I could go into detail, retelling what I liked of each story, but I hate spoilers. All I can say is that, if you want to read something different and weird —in a good way—, you'll have a great time reading Terminal Boredom.

Disconcerting short stories with a speculative fiction flair. Given that this was the first work by Suzuki that has been translated into English, I wish that there had been a foreward to put the stories in more context--when I started reading, I didn't realize that the works in this collection were written decades ago! The themes of alienation, crumbling social structures and relationships, and ubiquitous technology designed for distraction are fascinating. The pacing of the stories is a little odd, and I often felt like I was suspended in negative space, waiting for something to happen. They are also ambiguous in the extreme, which was good in cases of ambiguous endings but bad in cases where I was not sure what was going on (in a way that probably wasn't intentional).

My favorite stories were "Night Picnic" (a family of four is desperately trying to approximate normal life in a post-apocalyptic setting), "That Old Seaside Club" (everything is perfect here except this nagging feeling), and "Terminal Boredom" (no prospects, no jobs, no momentum, no feelings...?).

3.5/5

In expanding to international writers for sci-fi you get such a different interpretation of the drama which makes you appreciate it so much more, Terminal Boredom provides multiple short stories with takes on society, the nuances of human life with the uncharted territories of the unknown future that awaits us. Each story takes its in path, transporting readers to a both familiar and unfamiliar world, indulging in our fantasies, our fears and the humanity that doesn’t get erased even if our societies and our technologies are.

"What do you mean, you’re ill?’
‘I’m a drug addict.’ He looks up at me after giving this blunt answer, trying to gauge my reaction.
I fight the muscles in my face, trying to keep from expressing anything."

This collection of sci-fi-infused short stories feels like it's trying to keep from expressing anything. I say 'sci-fi-infused', but I should probably say 'slightly sprayed with'. In most stories the sci-fi elements are window dressing, if that, and to me seem only there to ever so slightly up the weirdness quotient. Not a lot happens in this book - it's mostly young people lounging around listlessly, having endless conversations, conversations that come across stilted and forced (could be that's a translation thing). Now and then they mention someone like Mick Jagger, or a film like Blade Runner, kind of an old fartish idea of Stuff That Is Cool. Only really the last story, the eponymous "Terminal Boredom" uses science fiction to give it a sting, and fully works.

Not for me, this one.

I found this collection a bit uneven; the first story in particular did nothing for me (it felt simultaneously a bit offensive and like something I’ve read a thousand versions of already?) but it picked up a lot from there. All the stories have this lonely, ice-cold quality that creates such an unsettling atmosphere. The titular story was my favourite, reminding me a little of High-Rise by JG Ballard and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Not quite for me overall, but I could definitely see it working for others.

Interesting short stories that dove into all sorts of strange worlds. If you are into sci-fi you should enjoy this one. I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but I enjoyed most of these

Disclaimer: I would like to thank the publisher, Verso Books, for providing a review copy of this book.

"Terminal Boredom" is a collection of seven short scifi stories written in the 70's and 80's by the actress, model, and author Izumi Suzuki and republished posthumously in 2021 in English. These stories lean towards the dystopian tendencies of Margaret Atwood, only they are not as cheerful as those by Atwood. Many of the stories are also reminiscent of Philip K. Dick, however, Dick's stories are more based in comfortably solid reality. All of the stories are enhanced with aspects of Japanese culture. In a few cases, it is useful to have an understanding of Japanese society and daily life to appreciate some of the nuances, but it is certainly not mandatory. In many cases the writing style follows the traditional Japanese artistic tendency of sketching the key points and leaving full details to the imagination of the connoisseur.

Each of the stories is poignant and memorable in different ways.

Some of the best science fiction proposes a situation and analyzes what it might mean to people involved. "The World of Women and Women" does this very well by asking the question "What might a Japanese society without men be like?" and then crafting a very understandable dystopian and human story.

"You May Dream" provides an interesting premise of overpopulation and creative dystopian methods of handling along with how this would affect the individual.

"Night Picnic" is a creative and imaginative story that keeps the reader guessing until the end. It may feel familiar to fans of Ray Bradbury in the portrayal of aliens.

Readers who have visited Yokohama may take interest in places mentioned in "That Old Seaside Club". However, as with Philip K. Dick stories, it soon becomes obvious that things are not what they seem to be.

Similarly, fans of Philip K. Dick should feel at home with "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". Drugs, reality, time, and relationships are all a blur in this story.

"Forgotten" may contain aliens, spaceships, drugs, and interstellar conquest, but the focus is on the personal Terran-Alien relationship of the main characters.

Of all of the stories in this collection, "Terminal Boredom" by far had the strongest emotional impact to me.

My initial impression of the collection is "dark and dystopian". However, I am appreciative of the chance to read the collection. I feel like I understand Japanese counterculture a bit better. I will keep an eye open for additional opportunities to read Izumi Suzuki and other Japanese scifi authors.

A Really, Really, Mixed But Mostly Interesting Bag

I was curious about this book because, as the blurb promised, Suzuki is a "legend of Japanese science fiction and a countercultural icon". A quick survey of her other books more or less confirmed this assessment.

Well, the first two stories in this collection, (one about a world without men and the other about voluntarily checking out), were slow and bland. I wondered when the special would start to happen. Then we hit the third story, "The Night Picnic", which is about the last, isolated, slightly deranged, surviving humans, lost in the cosmos, trying to act like traditional humans, based on old videos, books, and the like. It is laugh out loud funny and as edgy, irreverent, and twisty as you could possibly want. It just kept getting better as I read and it finished socko. So, O.K. I thought, now we're cooking.

After that, though, through three more stories, we dream, we travel, we talk and drink, we go to sleep and we wake up, and it's all slightly odd, and disjointed, and disorienting. A lot of it is literally about boredom, including terminal boredom, and it's pretty hard to make boredom interesting, much less exciting. I don't necessarily always "get" Suzuki's point, but I certainly get why she's so popular. This is as good an introduction as any.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)