<I>Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.</I> 

This was an utterly fascinating collection of short stories. If I had not already been aware that the author had been dead for more than 30 years before starting this collection, I would have had no problem believing the stories were recently written. Suzuki's speculative sci-fi here uses futuristic, unsettling backgrounds to then focus on the human condition. Using the unfamiliar to emphasize the familiar: everything is different and nothing ever changes.   

The focus here is definitely on introspection over action and the best way I could describe most of the stories is a meditation on apathy, nostalgia, and the trap one's place in society sets. These are exactly the kinds of stories you would expect from a young Japanese woman, who lived outside of societal expectations, writing in the 60s and 70s as part of the counterculture of a deeply traditional country like Japan. 

Each of these stories I found to be both strange and poignant. At the end of each one I was eager to read the next, but definitely felt that each story required contemplation before starting the next. This is a collection that will stay with you and I am deeply hopeful we will soon be seeing more of Suzuki's work in English.

“Terminal Boredom”, by Izumi Suzuki, is a collection of seven short stories, written in Japan, in the 1970s.. This English translation, around 30 years later, was made possible because of a group of translators, namely Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O’Horan. It is also worth mentioning that, despite this being Suzuki’s English debut, she is recognized as a star of science-fiction writing in Japan. 

While on the surface it’s clearly a science fiction collection, I personally felt that Suzuki was using science fiction themes and settings to point out deeper societal issues like drug addition, alienation from society, mental health issues, and toxic relationships. The reading experience felt to me like watching a season of “Black Mirror”, where the science fiction aspect is within reach, and the issues explored are very relevant to our world today, which considering these stories were written 30 years ago is very impressive. The writing itself felt very detached, which looking back at, feels like it was used as a great tool to point out the coldness and alienation of the characters in this collection. 

My favorite stories from the collection were “Women and Women”, a story set in a dystopian world where due to lack of resources, men are no longer considered “citizens” of the world and are locked in restriction zone camps; “You May Dream”, a story set again in a different dystopian world where due to overpopulation, citizens are randomly chosen to become cryogenically frozen and can chose to appear in another person’s dream so their memory doesn’t fade from the world; “That Old Seaside Club”, a story about a rehab resort from a different planet where people can go recharge when life on Earth is too overwhelming; and the title story, “Terminal Boredom”, a story in which the alienation from society and overuse of screen devices to stimulate the brain have shocking consequences. 

I definitely recommend this collection to those who like their fiction a bit on the darker side. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Verso Books for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review. Watch out for this one coming out in April 2021.

A collection of short stories with a sci-fi slant. I didn't find the premises of most of the stories compelling which made them quite hard to get through. There were some interesting character moments in there but I felt that they were letdown by the world-building.

I’m going to enjoy spending time with this collection when the book is published. The stories have a delightful snap to them and the translation is a lovely vernacular pleasure to read. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a setting for the font and spacing in the e-arc that would allow me to read the book easily and I’ll plan to come back with a more thorough review once I have the book in hand as I trust Verso and can tell that I will enjoy the book more with better formatting. Four stars is my placeholder in situations like this.

I would like to thank the publisher for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love reading short stories, especially from Japan. These stories were an interesting introduction to Japanese science fiction. My favourite were: " Women and Women" and "Night Picnic".
They had plenty of fantastical elements and darkness which unfortunately wasn't enough for me to enjoy them. Some of the themes of this novel were : dystopia, gender, loneliness and drug abuse.
I feel that this collection of stories will be appreciated a lot by lovers of science-fiction literature.

I was really looking forward to this book but as a Kindle reader (I was offered the option of a Kindle download to read it) the formatting issues made this basically impossible to read. It would be unfair to review it. If that could be changed, it would be wonderful. I'll no doubt buy a copy when it's in the shops, but it's a shame not to be able to review it now.

written in the 70s and 80s these stories feel like prototypic sci-fi. suzuki's breadth is remarkable: she tackles sexuality and the performativity of family and gender roles. she comments on immigration and colonisation and identity. there's psychological turmoil that manifests itself as substance abuse and suicide. the stories feel dark and eerily poignant for today's day and age - police violence, celebrities with political power - it's all there.

i often struggle with short story collections - it feels like the story ends just as you're catching on. when elaborate worldbuilding is on the menu this should be especially so. but, while each story manufactures a different reality, there's enough subtelty for intrigue and enough clarity to quickly understand which notion of modern reality suzuki's playing with. here, the form of the short story facilitates a huge range of social critique.

for a first translation of izumi suzuki's writing, the length of the collection is satisfying. there's enough there to get a good sense of her work but i felt content when i'd finished.

When you read a title like "Terminal Boredom", you can't help but wonder, a little, if the title is also a description of the contents. In this case... yeah. A bit.

"Terminal Boredom" is a book that would greatly benefit from an introduction (and maybe the published version will have one - my version is a ARC and thus subject to change). Otherwise, all you have is seven odd sci fi stories that seem a bit out of date.

As far as the internet has told me, Izumi Suzuki was an actress and model born in 1949. Her husband, a saxophonist, died in 1978, and she committed suicide in 1986.

You can see dark themes in this short story collection, as well - dystopias, drug use, falling out of love, relationships (romantic or otherwise) that have a dark, unpleasant side. People never seem to quite connect, either with each other, or with themselves. And while the sci fi nature of these stories is obvious from the very first page, the focus is on the inner lives of characters, or the lack thereof.

Stylistically, the stories are mostly advanced through dialogues and sometimes it was only in trying to explain the plot to others that I realized that there was a plot at all. Characters drift. They don't happen to things - things happen to them. They rarely seem to have agency, and that made this a difficult read for me.

In "Women and Women", women have taken over the world. Men have become weaker, and they have been shut in prisons, and are blamed for the world's ills. Technology is going to shit, but technology was killing the planet. All relationships are either lesbian relationships, or highly forbidden. One girl sees a clandestine boy on the street and befriends him and even sleeps with him, but her grandmother finds out and denounces him, so he's taken away. That is all - I couldn't tell if this was a criticism of feminism and a reinforcement of the idea that only men can do engineering and scientific jobs, or if there was no such intent at all.

"You May Dream" is a story in which people are put into forced cryogenic sleep, maybe never to wake up, but their consciousness can be taken to the dreams of others. The main character agrees to have a friend live in her dreams, but they turn out to dislike each other.

"Night Picnic" seems gratuitously odd, until you realize why. Time is weird. People are weird. The characters are trying to imitate human lives, based on things they've read and seen, even if that society seems far in the past for humanity. They have no context for anything they research, to the point where the son considers dating the daughter because books tell him he should be dating and there's nobody else around. Perhaps my copy of the book isn't edited yet, because this story has sentences like, "Fulgurous eyes and hair of gold had she" or "The girl atop a gentle hill stood she". I can't tell if this is Izumi Suzuki's style and she decided to be very odd to fit with the tone of the story, or if the translation process isn't finished yet.

In "That Old Seaside Club", people go to a resort where everything is great, life is pleasant, and many things forgotten. There seem to be glitches, and repeats of prior experiences, and it's all easily explained by the end.

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is the one most overtly about drug abuse and the effect drugs have on people and on those around them. The sci fi element is almost reduced to a metaphor, as a character finds herself losing years of her life and becoming old before her time because of abuse.

"Forgotten" is a story about an interplanetary affair, clashing cultures and humanity's way of colonizing others, which is really making this sound more exciting than it is - the lack of emotional connection between the main character and her alien lover, the way she never seems to decide for herself, make this one of the weaker stories of the volume for me.

And finally, "Terminal Boredom", which gives its name to the volume - in a dystopian, tv-obsessed society, young people find themselves lacking stimulation to such an extent that they forget even to eat.

While interesting in concept, the stories all seem to lack something in realization - a bit of fleshing out, perhaps. A more poignant description of emotional reactions, where the point of the story seems to hang on them, and of the worlds, where they seem interesting.

It would be interesting to find out how these stories were received when they were published, and what the Japanese sci fi scene was like, since some of the interest here might lie in knowing about the stories, rather than just the stories themselves. But, alas, the version I have offers nothing of the sort.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Verso for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Terminal Boredom is old. Like, reading the stories, especially the first one, you just get the feeling that it’s a few decades old. Understandable, really, since it’s the first translation of the author to english. It has old scifi tropes, fear of nuclear war and the end of mankind and alien civilizations and all that, but it’s still easy to see how those themes still continue to work today as well. The author, in most of the stories, also deals a lot with identity and gender, even if they get quite confusing sometimes.

The quality of the stories varies. I quite enjoyed the second (“I want too keep on living. Forever. And that’s how it’s going to be. I’ll become a lone eye somewhere, floating without consciousness” is my favorite quote from the book!) and the fourth ones, but some of the others were a pain to get through, especially the first one - it felt very cis and very weird. But well, everything in this book is weird. Each story has a different scifi/bizarre event/plot/world, but despite the initial confusion when you start a new chapter, since everything changes, the more you read the more you understand, until the whole picture is somewhat clearer by the end of the story.

The different details Izumi Suzuki could create and slowly hint to, showing gradually to the reader, are the main positive points of this book, for me. Since the characters don’t repeat in each chapter, and some of them aren’t even named, I feel like they’re not really supposed to be the focus at all - only the whole mood of the book (the name is quite fitting, it all felt like a monotonous, hot Sunday afternoon) and the bizarre worlds and futures the author came up with.

Since I’ve never read the original, I can’t comment on the quality of the translation, but I felt like the whole book had a nice flow, and the stories, despite their differences, had a common mood to them that made this collection quite good.

I thought the stories will well written and extremely unique.  I have not read a lot of experimental and speculative fiction and found this to be an enlightening and intensely thought provoking group of stories.  I liked the nod to science fiction and the sheer bizarre world that the interplanetary elements created.  Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

How could someone not like these stories? They are odd and unsettling which is exactly what you’d want and expect upon choosing this collection to read. It’s speculative sci-fi so you definitely get the weird and trippy you came for. The atmosphere created throughout each of the stories makes the book feel very cohesive. As I read I was overwhelmed with an out of body, dreamy experience which sometimes left me feeling empty but always left me wanting more. These stories were written decades ago but they are still very timely and unique enough to stand out from others like them. 

So thankful to those who took the time to translate these works of art - Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O'Horan.

RIP Izumi Suzuki <3

Thank you to the translators, Verso Books, and #NetGallery an eARC of #TerminalBoredom for an honest review. Review will be posted on NetGallery, Goodreads, Facebook and Instagram.

You have to make allowances for foreign SF, especially if you're American and the author is Japanese.  It's a whole different mindset, combined with the foreign culture, history, and POV.  These stories read like cliches today (e.g., a world with only women but wait, there are a few sickly men kept underground for breeding purposes), but in 1970's Japan I'm sure they were something new.  If you like Kobo Abe's SF, here you go.

A very interesting book, with a few way out view on the future.. I kept reading it through the night.

Terminal Boredom

[Blurb goes here]

I have to say that I enjoyed this book from start to finish. There is this naivetë quality to the stories that you can only find in Japanese novels. I could go into detail, retelling what I liked of each story, but I hate spoilers. All I can say is that, if you want to read something different and weird —in a good way—, you'll have a great time reading Terminal Boredom.

Disconcerting short stories with a speculative fiction flair. Given that this was the first work by Suzuki that has been translated into English, I wish that there had been a foreward to put the stories in more context--when I started reading, I didn't realize that the works in this collection were written decades ago! The themes of alienation, crumbling social structures and relationships, and ubiquitous technology designed for distraction are fascinating. The pacing of the stories is a little odd, and I often felt like I was suspended in negative space, waiting for something to happen. They are also ambiguous in the extreme, which was good in cases of ambiguous endings but bad in cases where I was not sure what was going on (in a way that probably wasn't intentional).

My favorite stories were "Night Picnic" (a family of four is desperately trying to approximate normal life in a post-apocalyptic setting), "That Old Seaside Club" (everything is perfect here except this nagging feeling), and "Terminal Boredom" (no prospects, no jobs, no momentum, no feelings...?).

3.5/5

In expanding to international writers for sci-fi you get such a different interpretation of the drama which makes you appreciate it so much more,  Terminal Boredom provides multiple short stories with takes on society, the nuances of human life with the uncharted territories of the unknown future that awaits us. Each story takes its in path, transporting readers to a both familiar and unfamiliar world, indulging in our fantasies, our fears and the humanity that doesn’t get erased even if our societies and our technologies are.

"What do you mean, you’re ill?’
‘I’m a drug addict.’ He looks up at me after giving this blunt answer, trying to gauge my reaction.
I fight the muscles in my face, trying to keep from expressing anything."

This collection of sci-fi-infused short stories feels like it's trying to keep from expressing anything. I say 'sci-fi-infused', but I should probably say 'slightly sprayed with'. In most stories the sci-fi elements are window dressing, if that, and to me seem only there to ever so slightly up the weirdness quotient. Not a lot happens in this book - it's mostly young people lounging around listlessly, having endless conversations, conversations that come across stilted and forced (could be that's a translation thing). Now and then they mention someone like Mick Jagger, or a film like Blade Runner, kind of an old fartish idea of Stuff That Is Cool. Only really the last story, the eponymous "Terminal Boredom" uses science fiction to give it a sting, and fully works.

Not for me, this one.

It took years and years for someone (Verso Books) to publish a story collection written by Japanese icon actress-turned-writer Izumi Suzuki. This would be her first book translated into English, and Suzuki has been dead for more than 30 years. 

If you keep that fact in mind along with the chronological environment she wrote her sci-fi, feministic, space bound stories in - you would understand this (translation and publishing) should have been done a long time ago. However, if you mistakenly tuck into her stories as something contemporary (and that would be the fair mistake I made, because they are incredibly timely), you might come to the wrong conclusions.

That her work is not original - I had Matthew Baker on my mind, thinking that he did this whole drop you into the middle of fantasy stuff much better. (He did, but he wasn’t copied).
That the stories are just following the main trends in literature - feminism, end of the world as we know it, technological influence - that have been floating around long enough for everyone to pick them up and use them. (But she wrote decades ago).
That her story Terminal Boredom, featuring TV crazy population planning to install devices into their brain to get drugged by entertainment to eternal bliss - was definitely, oh so surely inspired by Infinite Jest. I mean look at the titles! (But. Izumi Suzuki killed herself in 1986. Infinite Jest was published in 1996. I wonder... if David Foster Wallace knew japanese?) 

See - perspective is everything. With all of the above in mind, I now find her stories progressive, authentic and futuristic. ‘Women and Women’ talks about the idea of female world domination (hello Naomi Alderman), ‘That Old Seaside Club’ is a take on psychotherapy/hypnotic sleep, ‘Forgotten’ has some serious Madame Bovary flashbacks for me - not ONLY because it has an Emma in it!.. The ideas are great. What I didn’t like was execution. Although the stories get progressively better - was that intended? - I think the first one should have been edited about a hundred times more, and the last one is still lacking. Short story is a brutal literary form - it does not allow for slow pace, accidental characters, lack of purpose and everlasting ambiguity. 

That I cannot blame on time.

Thank you @versobooks for giving me a copy to review.

I found this collection a bit uneven; the first story in particular did nothing for me (it felt simultaneously a bit offensive and like something I’ve read a thousand versions of already?) but it picked up a lot from there. All the stories have this lonely, ice-cold quality that creates such an unsettling atmosphere. The titular story was my favourite, reminding me a little of High-Rise by JG Ballard and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Not quite for me overall, but I could definitely see it working for others.

Interesting short stories that dove into all sorts of strange worlds. If you are into sci-fi you should enjoy this one. I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but I enjoyed most of these