Terminal Boredom: Stories

In these short stories, Suzuki explores themes of gender, power, and society, often with a darkly playful and punky tone. The stories feature characters who are trapped in ghettoized isolation, women who enjoy the fruits of a queer matriarchal utopia, a bickering couple who emigrate to a world without war, and a tragic and warped mirroring of Suzuki's own final days. The fantastical elements are always grounded in the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 20 April 2021
Publisher: Verso Books

In a world where men are confined to ghettoized isolation, women revel in the benefits of a queer matriarchal utopia until a boy escapes, violently disrupting a young woman's perception of the world. Two old friends indulge in cocktails on a holiday resort planet, where everything appears to be perfect. However, a quarrelsome couple embarks on an emigration to a world that has devised an ingenious solution to avoid war, only to carry their disputes and something far more destructive with them.

In the title story, Suzuki presents a tragic and distorted reflection of her own final days, as the tyranny of enforced screen time and the mechanization of labor lead to a devastating psychic collapse. Suzuki's distinctive approach to speculative fiction would resonate in countless later works, spanning from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. These darkly playful and punky stories seamlessly blend fantastical elements with the universal pettiness of gender-based strife and the gritty realities of life on the lower rungs, regardless of the planet that serves as the ladder to success.

Weight: 198g
Dimension: 130 x 197 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781788739887