Review: Spread The Word
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 4, 2013
Michael Bunker's Archipelago Series is not merely fanfiction extending the Silo Universe. It is an ode to literature, a homage paid to illustrious writers. The whole collection, page after page, paragraph after paragraph, line after line, word after word, reads like a metaphor, an allegory. It is an underground masterpiece written by an author with a mission, a message: whether they do it with a quill, a pen, a type-writer or a computer, creators need to keep on putting out BOOKS. It is actually a matter of Life and Death. And whether readers read them on paper or screens, whether they prefer novels, poetry, short stories, plays, essays or even comics, they need to carry on reading.Reading Wool had reminded me of my "Magic Trio" of writers, the ones who have always meant the most to me, namely George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Ray Bradbury. Michael Bunker has REVIVED them too, as well as many other thinkers, through multiple references all along the narrative. I tried to do the same here and pay a homage to Bunker as well. That's why I came up with the idea of the Magic Trio sending Michael a message from Heaven. Most of the words are originally theirs, not mine:"I always thought that if you wanted a vision of the future, you only had to imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. Sadly, from what I can gather from up here, I was right... Bunker has the merit of going against the grain and try to wake people's consciences. Which is no small task, but if Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear. What I admired the most in Michael's work is that he placed the act of reading and writing itself at the center, making it the object, the subject and the vessel of the narrative. All the more to criticize the Powers that be. And that's only right: political chaos is connected with the decay of language... One can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end."George Orwell"People living underground in the Silo, like numbed termites, must think maybe this world is another planet's hell. Here's a society that precipitated its own downfall because of scientifical "advances". And I've always believed that technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. Just when you think it will free you, it's actually doing the opposite. If I'm not mistaken, the author himself has chosen to live with less technology than most of his peers. His thoughts will not please everybody down there, but facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."Aldous Huxley"The soldiers of Samizdat read books, write books, and distribute books. Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future. Nobody knows it better than the Silo leaders, who constantly work on people not remembering what Life used to be like "before". How better to achieve that goal than by destroying words? Without words, there is no thought, and vice-versa. Words are the catalyst, the turning point. They are almost the main character. That's the message sent to readers worldwide: there are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. Michael Bunker is a Samizdat soldier, always reading, always writing, because he knows deep down that you fail only if you stop writing."Ray BradburyReading The Archipelago Series is a political act in itself, perpetuating the fight of literary activists.Max Zaoui