Dark Constellations

February 25, 2019
This wild anthropological ride blends political satire, psychedelic sexuality, and cyberpunk themes through three intertwining stories. Spanning the history of three separate eras of Argentina and surrounding areas, the novel connects 19th-century Niklas Bruun’s explorations into hallucinogenic plant Crissia pallida; the emergence of the internet, anarchistic hackers, and the global economy in 1980s; and a near-future ambitious project from the Argentinian Ministry of Genetics that seeks to transform humanity at a base level through the use of mass surveillance. Though the collected text offers lengthy (and often mocking) commentary on the concerning direction of global politics, each story comes across as wildly disconnected despite an attempt at interconnectivity. With each character’s circumstances throughout history given an evocative and flowery description, the bigger message is often bogged down and left to the reader to parse through with long-forgotten context. Even for readers with fluency in anthropology and shadow politics, this book will bewilder and leave plenty open to question.

Justine Eyre's breathless delivery of this genre-bending novel, especially its unvarying cadence, can quickly become monotonous for the listener. The three interconnected stories in this second work by the award-winning Argentine author are set in different time periods--the age of exploration, the nineteenth century; the beginning of the digital age, the 1980s; and the near future, when privacy is all but nonexistent. Yet all take place in a fecund landscape in which plants and animals are as sentient as humans. It is such an unusual work--incorporating such popular literary trends as eco-sci-fi, magical realism, and cyberpunk--that the listener might very well overlook the shortcomings of the narration. While not for everyone, this audiobook will no doubt find its audience. D.G.P. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine