Moderan by David R. Bunch

 Moderan is back!

Moderan, the SF world of the future populated by men that are a combination flesh and futuristic metal forever seeking war, conquest and total domination. And the great war of Moderan is on the way. This New York Review Books edition of David R. Bunch’s classic interconnected short stories is due to be published this August, the first time the book will be made available since its original publication back in 1971, My review here will serve as a preview as to what readers can look forward to.

Moderan men live in Srongholds. Moderan men live and breathe war - if they are not at war, Moderan men are forever setting plans for war.

Moderan men flowed from the pen of Missouri born and bred New Wave SF author David R. Bunch (1925-2000), the oddest duck in the fringe literary pond of odd ducks. Bunch found American culture with its obsession with progress via technology a repugnant nightmare. The smiling, smooth-talking, upbeat, success driven prototypical American male of the 1950s was for him the scum of the scum, a threat to nature and a violation of human decency.

As far as Bunch was concerned, the Golden Age of Science Fiction with its rocket ships and up, up and away philosophy producing such works as Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers was, to put it bluntly, shit on a stick.

To provide a taste of the author’s vision, I’ll focus on one story from the collection that’s vintage Moderan: Incident in Moderan.

The tale is told in the first-person from the perspective of one of the Moderan men who is sitting on a chair outside his Stronghold, bored stiff since his side voted for a temporary ceasefire to let the damaged enemy rebuild so they can get back to blasting. He’s quick to tell us their brief letup has nothing to do with fair play or love thy neighbor, no, no, no – its about having a bigger and better war and thus greater quantities of hate and better chances to win honors. After all, he goes on, his own fort, Stronghold 10, is FIRST IN WAR, FIRST IN HATE, AND FIRST IN THE FEARS OF THE ENEMY (author’s capitals).

What strikes me with these Moderan men is that they might be part human, part metal (making them nearly indestructible) but it is the weakest human parts: a capacity for boredom combined with an unrelenting desire to hate and destroy while instilling fear in others. And to have these human traits made next to invincible through technological innovation in metal parts. Now that’s dangerous!

At that moment, Moderan man catches sight of a “piece of movement,” a mutant form roaming around on the homeless plastic (in Moderan the ground is covered in plastic). The thing approaches Moderan man. We read: “When he stood before me, I felt disturbed. Strangely I felt somehow guilty, and ashamed, that he was so bent and twisted and mushy-looking with flesh. Oh, why can’t they all be hard and shining with metal, and clean, like we Stronghold masters are, with a very minimum of flesh-strip holding them in shape? It makes for such a well-ordered and hate-happy life, the way we masters are in Moderan, so shiny and steellike in our glory, with our flesh-strips few and played down and new-metal alloy the bulk of our bodily splendor. But I suppose there must always be lower forms, insects for us to stride on.”

I’m quite confident readers will clearly detect the condescension of Moderan man. More metal = greatness and superiority; more flesh = weakness and inferiority. Likewise, I’m sure an observant reader will pick up the odd cadence and meshing of words. This is uniquely David R. Bunch – he wanted his future world Moderan men to have their own vocabulary and way of speaking – not as developed or nearly as sophisticated as Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange, but the language in Moderan is distinctly his own creation.

It had been nearly fifty years since the publication of Moderan. Has our culture and society moved in the direction of Moderan man? Are you familiar with the latest developments within the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI)? How much is your life currently intertwined with technology? Is your computer an extension of you or are you an extension of your computer?

And how free are we from our own versions of condescension? Case in point: I recall reading how one world leader said immigrants from lands south of his border were not humans but animals. Sounds like Moderan might be judged by some as an ideal to be pursued.