"XX" by Rian Hughes

 

It's big and bold, like really BIG and bold, and it has gone where no man has gone before... quite literally.  

I've always been a sucker when it comes to postmodern ergodic literature. Experimental works such as Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts, J. J. Abrams's S. — to mention a few. That's the reason why I didn't hesitate when I saw it on Amazon even though it's a mammoth of a book, closing in on 1000 pages. When it arrived, I couldn't pull my eyes away from it: the layout, the design, the texts, however quirky and surreal they were. I was simply in love. 

In simple words [NO SPOILERS HERE], XX is about a signal of extraterrestrial origin that gets picked up by Earth, the attempts of decoding it, and the ramifications that follow.

The book, however, isn’t about mankind’s first contact with the third kind, but rather about the impact of such an encounter on humans politically and socially, which stresses issues of racism, refugees, immigrants, and gender. That’s how the book is so relevant and real to the modern reader, despite its over-the-top indulgence in fantasy.

Overall, the plot is linear, not in the sense of moving from point A to Z per se. There are subplots, and hordes of articles and wiki pages and interviews and letters and drawings and musical notations in between. But if you exclude all that, you'll get a nice story and a very deep one that manages to reduce the whole of human existence into a simple theme — ideas. In this regard, Rian Hughes is the Hideo Kojima of the written word. The guy introduces you to a new idea, then another, then another. Reading XX felt like playing Death Stranding or watching Inception. It was a breath of fresh air.

The characters are likable, in a way, but they aren't that striking, especially when I was about two-thirds through. They felt kinda flat and their interactions seemed inane and mannered. [SPOILER ALERT: No. I'm not talking about the AIs or the aliens or even Dana]. I'm talking about our human companions, Jack, Harriet, and Nixon. That's one of the many reasons why I shelved the book before managing to finish it.

The prose is purple. It's heavy. It's technical. And it doesn't flow naturally. But Hughes doesn't leave his readers behind. He tends to wrap up the key ideas occasionally in a manner that is meaningful, poetic, and reductive. 

Summary: 

XX showcases the excruciating amount of hard work and thought behind it. It's a grand tribute and a love letter to ideas, to the written word, to books. However, the book starts with a promise but fails to deliver. It's the kind of book that I'd recommend for a niche audience of die-hard sci-fi fans. Don't get me wrong. It's a great book, but it could've been a hell of a great book if it was edited properly.