Terraform, October 22, 2015
Reviewed by Eric Kimminau
“Blue Monday” by Laurie Penny with its lesbian angst and streaming animal video trauma is a story of “Miss Lehman” (sounds like Lemon) who met and fell in love with Jackie at the local coffee shop. Three weeks later, Jackie moves in with her cat, Pocket, which Miss Lehman says she hates, but truly loves. Miss Lehman works at a streaming video company that streams live action animal video, puppies, cats, pigs, whatever makes people happy. When Jackie breaks off the relationship and moves out (but leaves Pocket) after Miss Lehman has a sudden, angry outburst over the noises being made by her “hippie neighbors,” Miss Lehman stumbles upon a new video genre, “sad cat” which is then co-opted by her company, 4chan, for the “Sad Pocket” cat channel. After a short time of depression, Miss Lehman engages the hippies next door to stage a fake break-in to steal Pocket back while also trying to woo Jackie into returning. During the break in, the lead hippie suffers a life threatening allergy attack and when he is almost near death, Miss Lehman breaks free of her self-imposed bonds to rescue the suffering Pocket rescuer. The whole story had a depressed, PETA angst, goth, anti-internet technology tone with excessive F-bombs to add to the flair. I guess the streaming internet technology is supposed to imply this is almost science fiction. I found it trite and monotonously boring. Maybe that was the intent and if so it succeeded.
Eric Kimminau is a BBS geek turned IT professional still looking for a modern company with a conscience.