The Electric State

Simon Stahlenhad is a special type of magic. His art has astounded people for decades. In this graphic novella we have Michelle, a young woman, perhaps even still a teenager. She is traveling through a desolate landscape with a robot she calls Skip. There are illustrations of Stahlenhag's machines on at least half of the pages. Full page illustrations and then perhaps a half page of text.

The war between humans and robots is over. There is almost nothing left but giant mechanical beasts littering the countryside. People are wandering, dazed, and catatonically under the influence of an invasive neural AI that infects their brains through a connected headset.

Michelle is driving west for an unstated reason. Her dialogue is flat matter-of-fact and toneless and the story is told completely without emotion. She has an address in a community out on the end of a peninsula. The bulk of the book is the tale of the journey.

Once there we see what she has been aiming for. No spoilers here but suddenly Michelle's narrative is alive with emotion. She knows that now she has to make a terrible decision that might have disastrous consequences.

The book only takes an hour or so to read but you'll need to add time just to sit and absorb the many illustrations of Stahlenhag's world. It's a tale of defeat and desperation that issues in a sudden burst of love and hope at the end. Love and hope that is hemmed in with the always present possibility of destruction.