The Seep

This is exactly how I like my alien invasion and/or “we reached the most advanced tech y’all” (that’s probably not a thing but idk how else to explain it haha) stories. It’s a brand new world where nothing is impossible, yet we still have people feeling miserable and having existential crisis. **** I looooved this book and want to call it weird, but I find nothing weird anymore, because we’re living in a mad world already, you know.

This was ... weird. In a good way. Imagine an alien entity invading earth and bringing the end of capitalism. Everyone is suddenly aware that everyone is the same. People can modify their bodies. People can become whatever and whoever they want. What I liked about that is how this alien form isn't something remotely similar to what we know of living beings - contrary to what happens a lot in sci fi movies where aliens are just humans but a bit different (or insects or whatever, just close to something we know). At the end of this book, I still don't know what The Seep (what this alien being is called) really is. People get high on it, people use it as tech, it's conscious but learning - I don't know. And this is what makes this book sometimes feel like a fever dream. Everything's weird, but in the end, the book isn't about aliens. It is about a trans woman whose wife decided to become a baby again and who leaves her behind. It's about this woman seeking meaning in a world where nothing is fixed anymore, where everyone is immortal, everything easily changes. It's a story about the meaning of bodies, memories, humanity. And this is what makes the book really interesting because it offers a lot of thoughts in this topic that made me reflect my own perspective. It was also kind of funny how similar the people react to this change of their world to how people reacted to Covid - this panic but also resigned acceptance, this nostalgia, this carrying on with the life. And strangely, this made this book seem realistic. Minus some people having antlers. Weird in a good way,