It suddenly occurs to me that I have skipped Things from the Flood and I am OK with that. Maybe some other time. This is Simon Stalenhag’s third narrative art book, The Electric State (2019). It is maybe my favorite of the four I’ve read to date.

Where Tales from the Loop is a sort of series of memoir-like, nostalgia-filled vignettes that build a world, this is more narrative forward. The worldbuilding is still important, though. There are lots of evocative moments that serve the world rather than the narrative. Compared to The Labyrinth, where the world seems distinctly secondary (more on that tomorrow). This world is on the verge of collapse after a war that was mainly fought with big robot drones. The virtual reality drone-piloting tech was also used for civilian purposes, and then the machines gained a kind of sentience and, well, there’s a lot of VR thralls and VR mummies out there. But society still functions in some way.

The protagonist and her robot are traveling with a purpose, but for the most part the book is a road trip tale. The final climax, which, when it comes, seems horribly melancholy, even manages to end on a hopeful, if ambiguous note. I’m keen to see this one transform into the new RPG. The movie, not so much.

Good light throughout. I’d expect nothing less from Stalenhag at this point, honestly. His narrative constructions are getting better. There is a really cool sequence of paintings that imply a terrible kind of movement that I’m still impressed by. He builds on this in The Labyrinth in cool ways.