Self-Reference ENGINE
『Self-Reference ENGINE』は、2013年の受賞作として記録される作品です。作品名と著者情報を基点に、受賞歴、刊行形態、公開書誌を照合し、受賞対象そのものに結びつく範囲で整理しました。
作品情報
受賞作『Self-Reference ENGINE』の書誌と作品情報を、掲載誌 ID を混入させずに整理しました。
Amazon JP/NDL/出版社系の公開書誌で紙書籍の ISBN を照合し、978 系 ISBN-13 から ISBN-10 を換算しました。日本の紙書籍として ASIN は ISBN-10 と同値で補完しています。 あらすじ・評価情報は受賞作単位で扱い、書誌識別子は単行本、文庫、短編集、または長編として確認できるものだけを採用しています。
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Haikasoru
- 発売日
- 2013-03-19
- ページ数
- 352ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 13.34 x 2.79 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781421549361
- ISBN-10
- 1421549360
- 価格
- 41067 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 洋書/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Anthologies
Science, surrealism, number theory, and more dead Sigmund Freuds than you can shake a stick at. This is not a novel. This is not a short story collection. This is Self-Reference ENGINE. Instructions for Use: Read chapters in order. Contemplate the dreams of twenty-two dead Freuds. Note your position in spacetime at all times (and spaces). Keep an eye out for a talking bobby sock named Bobby Socks. Beware the star-man Alpha Centauri. Remember that the chapter entitled “Japanese” is translated from the Japanese, but should be read in Japanese. Warning: if reading this book on the back of a catfish statue, the text may vanish at any moment, and you may forget that it ever existed. From the mind of Toh EnJoe comes Self-Reference ENGINE , a textual machine that combines the rigor of Stanislaw Lem with the imagination of Jorge Luis Borges. Do not operate heavy machinery for one hour after reading. This is not a novel. This is not a short story collection. This is Self-Reference ENGINE. Instructions for Use: Read chapters in order. Contemplate the dreams of twenty-two dead Freuds. Note your position in spacetime at all times (and spaces). Keep an eye out for a talking bobby sock named Bobby Socks. Beware the star-man Alpha Centauri. Remember that the chapter entitled “Japanese” is translated from the Japanese, but should be read in Japanese. Warning: if reading this book on the back of a catfish statue, the text may vanish at any moment, and you may forget that it ever existed. From the mind of Toh EnJoe comes Self-Reference ENGINE , a textual machine that combines the rigor of Stanislaw Lem with the imagination of Jorge Luis Borges. Do not operate heavy machinery for one hour after reading.
Toh EnJoe was born in Hokkaido in 1972. After completing a PhD at the University of Tokyo, he became a researcher in theoretical physics. In 2007 he won the Bungakukai Shinjinshō (Literary World Newcomer’s) Prize with “Of the Baseball.” That same year brought the publication of his book Self-Reference ENGINE , which caused a sensation in SF circles and which was ranked No. 2 on SF Magazine’s list of the best science fiction of the year. Since then, EnJoe has been one of those rare writers comfortable working in both “pure literature” and science fiction. In 2010 his novel U Yu Shi Tan won the Noma Prize for new authors. In 2011 his “This Is a Pen” was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, and he won Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Shouyou Prize. In January 2012, he won the Akutagawa Prize with “Doukeshi no Cho” (Butterflies of a Harlequin). His other works include Boy’s Surface and About Goto .
レビュー
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Best Science Fiction from Japan
Exquisite! Interrelated tales which hints towards the weird. Toh Enjoe has penned an assortment of gems which tickles your intelligence and appeals to deductive reasoning. One may compare the beauty of this book to the art of Hieronymus Bosch or even the movies of Andrei Tarkovsky - each time you experience it, it feels new. Sunrise books delivered it in crisp condition through BlueDart!
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A bit too clever for its own good
Yes, brilliant in its own way, but too much like reading a piece of software source code for my liking.
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Excellent
I remained thrilled throughout the reading of the entire book by the literary quality, the entertainment value, intellectual stimulation, playfulness, humor such as in a story about multiple Freuds, the real physics being explored in wild ways, the beauty of the language, the elegance of the concepts, and the cohesiveness. This is very innovative and smart, and I'm glad to see such a successful publisher take a chance on it, as it's not necessarily for the masses, though it won an award, which gave me a lot of hope for Sci Fi readers.
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A Hard Sci-Fi Book with unusual, futuristic, absurd, interesting elements... Highly Recommended.
A hard science-fiction work which can be included among the books of the same author that are difficult to read and maybe even more difficult to translate, as I understood from what I've seen regarding some of those. It contains about 20 texts close in structure to short stories. A mix of confusing stories that are written as if its narrator was like an indifferent human, a half-broken machine, or a machine lost in time, or just a machine, or not even a machine at all. If there is even a narrator at all in some of them. A work questioning the limits of the absurd and the limits of understanding through language, while challenging the structure of the literary text. Futuristic elements and universal themes, such as the passing of time or the construction of what humans call "reality", and their experience as a part of it, presenting existential questions. This book might not be for everyone and is not very accessible at times. But if you can handle the very erratic and confusing aspect of the narrative and stylistic structure, as well as the complex and multi-layered aspect of these stories, then I would clearly recommend giving it a try, whether you are interested in the concept or just in search of that type of experience. I took a very long-time to finish it (2 years, maybe) halting my progress from time to time, had headaches but I kept coming back to it one way or another. Congratulations to the translator, who had to work on these texts. Curious to see what it's like in Japanese.
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I like this book
First of all as a sci-fi fan, I like this book. Though this is very confusing, I realized that the very nature of the writing style is explained in the story itself. May be the reason I liked this book is because of the idea "What if the reality we are part of is programmable", and so you can't even trust the narrative simply because at some point the narration itself may have mutated (which seems to be the case few times). I don't think this should be the starting point in sci-fi novels, but one should read it at some point (at least if you are a sci-fi fan).
関連する文学賞
- フィリップ・K・ディック賞 第32回（2013年） ・特別賞