Gilles Messier

Nine short stories divided in three groups, four short essays to introduce them, some interesting pictures(a bit difficult to see in the e-book), taken by the author or found in historical archives. And also historical notes and very synthetic bibliographical references for the quotations that the author inserts at the end or at the beginning of the stories. This is the book.
The author gives to the reader his key to read the stories: they are “speculative fiction”, and also are an example of “literary materialism”. In facts, the author writes his stories to demonstrate a thesis and builds his plots starting from objects, as results of human activity.
I like very much novels starting from objects, but I do not like to find a thesis at the end of them.
Anyway, the book is easy to read. The stories refer to the second World War, to the discovery of the nuclear energy, to the conquest of space. They follow a very simple and succesful scheme: the main character reverses its role, from victim to torturer and vice versa, or from torturer to saver. The change is not always aware. So we read the story of a doctor that saves a boy from death using the techniques he had learned working with nazist doctors, before the war. And also we meet an anti-nuclear activist who has her life saved by radiotherapy.
I think the author is right: We live in complex times, we have to face contradictions and paradoxes. Sometimes it’s really difficult to understand which side we are on.
But that’s why author’s positivism sounds so ingenuous : in his opinion science is good, technology is good, we are going toward progress. We know that things are more complicated and the stories, in spite of Messier's aim, show exactly this. Technology is not neutral , mankind is not going happily towards a wonderful future.… (altro)