The Electric State

[The Electric State] feels like something brought back from a nightmare ... [Stålenhag's] Swedish books read joyous when they were happy, bittersweet (but rarely sorrowful) when they were not, and adventurous in between. But The Electric State is Stålenhag's American book. His vision of an alternate post-war, post-drought, post-human 1997 in the desert West and California. And it is haunting ... [The story] unwinds slowly, [Michelle's] past, the reasons for her trip, her relationship with the little, big-headed robot revealed bit by bit. On the opposite track, the history lesson becomes orders given to a mysterious man who's been following Michelle all the way to San Francisco. And when the two storylines cross, they do so in silence. Pictures only. Like snapshots from a horrifying past that never quite was ... And if you're anything like me, you'll take those images to bed with you for a long time and dream of Stålenhag's America — lost to sand, to drought, to war, to loneliness, and stalked always by the low, distant rumble of something terrible rising out of the earth and coming for you.

Simon Stålenhag’s The Electric State matches the notable Swedish artist’s futuristic digital paintings with an original story to produce an awe-inspiring vision of a species committing suicide, perhaps to be reborn as something new ... The paintings provide snapshots of this apocalyptic road trip and are the main event; the text illustrates the paintings far more than the other way around. It’s an interesting reading experience, as the artwork to an extent both takes over and provides a starting point for the reader’s imagination ... The result is bigger than the sum of its parts—paintings with narrative, postcards of the apocalypse ... There is very little in way of plot or characterization, and none of the plot questions appears to be answered; overall, the story is thin and even a bit flat. It seems to function similarly to the paintings, there to make an impression and evoke a purely emotional response, while providing some backstory for this dying world ... In the end, The Electric State is a striking and strangely compelling work of science fiction gothic. Providing a series of snapshots of an alternate Earth of yesteryear, it tells the story of how that world ended.

The book is dystopian '90s at its most bleak. It's the gloom of 'Twin Peaks' and the detached alienation of Nirvana’s 'Nevermind' with a plot that reads like 'The X-Files'-meets-'The Lawnmower Man' ... That mix of science fiction and real world pop-culture nostalgia is instantly compelling, but there are layers to The Electric State that take the story beyond surface value ... In a way, it is an extremely American story, bringing together themes like the intersection of war and technology; fire-and-brimstone religion and its effect on LGBT youth; families separated by great physical distance while still being a part of the same country ... It's a story that's not bogged down with details...