Louis Armand

Science fiction, for all its association with wild technology and alien cultures, has always concerned itself with the state of the world as it is now, using future possibilities as a lens through which to examine current issues. Louis Armand is clearly fascinated by the way our world is shaped and the way we shape our place within it; in addition to his previous novels, he has written or curated essays on literate technologies, on the avant-garde in a post-structuralist world, on pornography and bodily existence. So it makes sense that in his latest novel, Cairo, Armand has turned to cyberpunk, the dirtier, angrier child of science fiction, to examine questions of the environment, perception, identity, and time.

The new Meanjin, edited by Sophie Cunningham, is exciting to behold. With its varied font, though, it runs the risk of being like Federation Square: striking to look at but difficult to negotiate. The small, faint font made this issue taxing to read. Perhaps younger readers, targeted by some of the content (such as the serialisation of a graphic history), will have less difficulty.