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john shirley: black hole sun, won't you come? by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - April 29, 2001 |
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Cyberpunks' Patient Zero, first locus of the virus, certifiably virulent. In his difficult masterpiece Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson (1950), Graeco-Armenian magus George Gurdjieff shrewdly described them as "laboratories for manufacturing asylum candidates": occult societies that flourished in the vacuum created by the Enlightenment Project's collapse. The Tibetan custodians of Faith, Hope and Love had been massacred in the Younghusband expedition (1903-04), and now an alien discontinuity (the Age of Extremes) beckoned. Perceiving that society's moral compasses had run amok, Gurdjieff used science fiction symbols to transmit their sacred knowledge of Aletheia (Objective Conscience). One of Gurdjieff's symbolic grandsons, Timothy Leary, understood the importance of renewing initiatory traditions by contemporary cultural scripts: "the religions of the future will resemble science fiction" (1971). John Shirley's bold and edgy science fiction/horror novels continue Gurdjieff and Leary's skepticism in the uncompromising pursuit of authentic spiritual knowledge. No-one and no contemporary faddish belief system escapes: Shirley satirizes UFOlogy obsessions with Roswell and trans-dimensional entities in Silicon Embrace (Mark V. Ziesing, 1996), chronicles distinctive Goth vistas in Black Butterflies (Mark V. Ziesing, 1998), and confronts grisly taboos in the notorious New Noir (FC2/Black Ice Books, 1993) collection. Dracula In Love (Kensington Publishing Corporation, 1979), Transmaniacon (Kensington Publishing Corporation, 1979), City Come A-Walkin' (1980; Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001), The Brigade (Avon, 1981), and Cellars (Avon, 1982) established Shirley as both an inventive horror novelist and the first Cyberpunk, a status openly acknowledged by William Gibson, Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling. He would remain true to his small press roots and punk aesthetic, subtly infiltrating the mainstream via Blue Oyster Cult lyrics and writing the novel which ultimately was filmed as The Specialist (1994). Shirley's most intriguing counter-insurgency mission to hijack the mass mind was the first draft screenplay for The Crow (1994). Despite re-drafting and re-writes by others, Shirley's starkly vengeful Goth vision remained the film's brooding core. Like Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, Shirley had intuitively grasped his audience and their secret unspoken desires: the "artistically inclined, sensitive misfit who longs for completion in the Other . . . you want your personal revenge to emerge from the heart of Justice Itself, and, strangely, from the secret sanctuary of Love. It must be ineluctably right." Personal antinomianism and attacking the spiritual charlatanism that masquerades as liberation from dogma is an important subtext of Shirley's non-fiction essays. He is deeply critical of Postmodernist and Post-structuralist tendencies to deconstruct cultural artefacts, a trend which prevents people from re-experiencing their creative innocence. Although writers such as Mark Dery and Erik Davis have extensively documented the transition from the Industrial subculture to Cyberculture, Shirley is wary of theorists who equate the Internet with transcendent experiences and gnostic revelations. It should come as no surprise that Shirley studied in a Gurdjieff Work group spearheaded by noted scholar and professor Jacob Needleman. But few Seekers After Truth would have the genius to encode this esoteric and deeply moral worldview in an Aesthetic Existentialism worthy of Patti Smith, Lou Reed or The Ramones! To read John Shirley's writings is to apprehend Humanity's evolutionary legacy: one of de-humanizing violence and irrational fears. This is an area that Shirley has continued to mine, with the release of Wetbones (Leisure Books, 1999), Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories (Night Shade Books, 1999), Demons (Cemetery Dance Publications, 2000), The View From Hell (Subterranean, 2001), and Darkness Divided (Stealth Press, 2001). Shirly is both prolific and skilled at genre-hopping: his stories mutate the literary conventions of science fiction, horror and thriller stories. Most critics stop here, not perceiving the second part of the Solve et Coagula alchemical process - re-scripting and ultimately transcending personal pathologies. Shirley's morbid depiction of zombie-like everyday trance has the paradoxical goal of awakening inner Conscience - not society's rigid moral codes - but a fleeting taste of refined consciousness far more rare and fragile. |
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John Shirley John Shirley Message Board The Skeptical Believer: John Shirley Dark Echo Interview: John Shirley: Seeking Redemption Behind Blown Eyes: Stealth Trends Behind Blown Eyes: On Fight Club Behind Blown Eyes: Electronic Cowboys Behind Blown Eyes: On The Computers, The Internet, and Future Cataclysm Behind Blown Eyes: Raving New World Behind Blown Eyes: The Future Assists The Past: A Search for Authenticity Behind Blown Eyes: Dead Letter Orifice Behind Blown Eyes: Blurring Boundaries & Role Playing Games Mark/Space: Anachron Library: John Shirley Subconscious Of Our Times: John Shirley In Conversation With R.U. Sirius Mark V. Ziesling SF Eye and Eyeball Books Babbage Press Internet Movie Database: John Shirley Death Equinox '97: Guests Of Honor World Horror Convention Horror Writers' Association Mark Dery's Pyrotechnic Insanitorium The Cabinet of Dr. Casey SFF Net Stelarc Internet Movie Database: The Crow Internet Movie Database: The Specialist Internet Movie Database: Twists of Terror Internet Movie Database: Night of The Headless Horseman John Shirley Photo Disinformation Dossier on Death Equinox 1999 Disinformation Dossier on George Gurdjieff Disinformation Dossier on Marilyn Manson Disinformation Dossier on Philip K. Dick Disinformation Dossier on R.U. Sirius Disinformation Dossier on Survival Research Laboratories: Post-Apocalypse Now! Disinformation Dossier on William S. Burroughs Disinformation Dossier on Elaine Pagels & The Neuro-politics of Paradise |
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