Reading the back cover, you might have the impression that Sewer, Gas,Electric should be a challenging complex work of brilliance. Each chapter begins wiht an applicable quote from some interesting book: everything from Plato to Vonnegut to the Boy Scout Handbook. The characters, including an obnoxiously passionate hologram of Ayn Rand, are diverse, the universe surreal. This first impression led some internet reviewers to hope that Ruff's plan was to extole a grand philosophy using the story as a tool for the expression of this greater brilliance. Any such reader would be sorely disappointed. S,G,E is fun, original, and thoughtful. It's escapist candy for fans of sci-fi and creative writing, but it's not simplistic.
Matt Ruff is thought-provoking if not deeply analytical in his discussion of various lifestyles and political leanings, but the book doesn't answer it's own questions. Ruff deals with race relations in America by setting up a near future in which all black peoples have disappeared in a plague over a matter of days. Ruff portrays the response fo the rest of the world with little comment. This attitude can leave the reader stopping at various points to scream, "What are you trying to say?" But whenever I did this, I pictured Ruff, looking like my 11th grade English teacher, giving a sly smirk that says, "Do you really think I'm gonna answer that?"
So now, left only with my own sometimes disappointing intellect and a fast dwindling pile of books, I'm listening to "Sittin' on the dock o' the bay," my life basically unchanged after having read Sewer, Gas, and Electric. But I still really wish I had the other book by Matt Ruff.
