Reality and Contagion

by M. Maponi

Reality and Contagion is a collection of fourteen high concept short stories mined straight out of the author's imagination, neatly packaged and sent to your door in a nice format for immediate consumption.

Prepare to travel to distant planets and observe a future where humanity is not quite whole. Witness a man spiraling into madness as the thing in the basement grows. Escape Sinnamara's sunlight and follow a melancholic search in Tokyo's gut-like metro tunnels.

From science fiction to horror, from magical realism to the new weird, this is the collection for true lovers of speculative fiction.

Genres: Science Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

Published March 16, 2022

About the author

Imaginative writer - in the sense he writes to imagine a way out of his responsibilities. M specializes in genre fiction in all formats: scifi, fantasy, new weird, horror and magical realism are his current best pics in a growing list of favorites.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/m_maponi

Reviews

[Massimiliano Barberio]

Reality and Contagion brings forth its duality from the very title. Reality is touched, even tailored by Contagion. Sometimes Reality is Contagion; our perception of what is real is heavily influenced by something we do not always recognize, like a shadow catched in the corner of our sight. This book catches the uneasiness of a feeling such as this and makes it the core of its narrative experience. A travel in Japan becomes a twisted experience, roaming a surreal and strange land; the signs of a coakroach infestation parrots the syntoms of a deep shattering of ones mind. Sometimes the reader cannot recognize the alien realities depicted in the short stories, but will be able to perceive the Contagion as familiar as a mirror image. (in “Human Heritage”, in “The Western Demon”, in “Made in my Image”.)

Most of the collection’s short stories show how normalcy and reality are not always conjoined. At times we are indentify with Reality like Mark, the protagonist of “A Path to Sinnamara”, who lives in a world of Contagion. On the other hand Reality is twisted through the lense of a point of view similarly as the protagonist of Acceptance contemplates the growth of a peculiar coakroach infestation. Sometimes we are the Contagion; in “The Western Demon” the protagonist roams through a claustrophobic perception of Tokyo, through trains described as “worms of singular tidiness”, yet the incipit of this story states clearly who is the stranger, putting the thoughts and words of the protagonist into a certain perspective.

There are two short stories that I particularly enjoyed: “A Path to Sinnamara” and “Death Lives in the Bronx”.
Sinnamara is a New Weird tale: normal people live in a world so disturbing to the point of being fascinating. An everyman as point of view fits perfectly the themes of the collection as a whole. Mark lives his microreality that we recognize at least contingently (the military operation, Mark’s reference to war videogames) but he lives in a world that recognizes him, that he recognizes, but that we readers see as distorted and alien. The "Others" are a mirage, an anomaly, a contagion for us, but those are part of the world around and beyond the asettic city of Sinnamara, inhabited by mysterious creatures whose goals and needs are unknown to the men and women of the military expedition reaching their gates. Yet the world has a deep and dangerous knowledge of those men and women.
My second favourite piece is “Death Lives in the Bronx”, especially for how it is thematically linked to the first short story: “And So God Said”. The twos are strongly different but share some thematic similarities. Both, at some point, depict somekind of interview with entities beyond our comprehension, but not beyond our world. It is hard to say whether they are the Contagion or if we are. The two beings, God and Death, are similarly distant, but they manifest themselves in two profoundly different ways. If the interview in “And So God Said” is formal and distant, and God’s words are enigmatic, the interview with Death in the latter short story is intimate and friendly. Death let us know glimpse of his job (and the jobs of his collegues scattered around the world), but there is no impending doom looming over the world or the protagonist, just the semblances of an ordinary man, invested with the duty of Charon. Yet he bears no power over the others and feels no resentement regarding the task bestowed upon him. The beautiful incipit is this short story in a nutshell: “Death lives on the third avenue, in a five-rooms apartment over an Italian bakery.” Probably my favourite opening line of the book.

Last but not least, I love a good prose, it is one of those things that can turn my opinion of a book around. The prose in Reality and Contagion may be functional, but is not a superficial style. The words are carefully chosen and the metaphors and similitudes are always descriptive enough to evoke that sense of dread, wonder or a good mixture of both.

Reality and Contagion is an excellent debut written in a nuanced and thoughtful manner. The only thing that saddens me a bit is how many good authors Italy is losing, because its publishing industry won’t value them their worth.

5/5

[Simone Lupi]

Dopo aver letto Consulenza Blues, non potevo non leggere anche questa raccolta, pubbicata qualche anno prima. La qualità della scrittura è buona allo stesso modo (benché nella raccolta più recente si possano trovare alcuni racconti più sperimentali nello stile), così come molto simili sono le vibes di fondo, la weirdness promessa dalla presentazione. A differenza di Consulenza Blues, più unitario dal punto di vista tematico, in Realtà e Contagio si spazia di più tra diversi temi: ricorrono quelli della morte, dell'estinzione della specie, della religione (Dio, il paradiso e gli angeli, ma sempre reinterpretati in chiave horror e weird), mentre altri racconti avrebbero potuto tranquillamente trovarsi nell'altra raccolta tanto è forte la continuità (ad es. Conta spinale). Procedo a elencare i miei preferiti:

- E così, Dio disse
- Che ne diresti della Terra?
- Morte vive nel Bronx
- La gente di Schrödinger

Menzione speciale per Buon bonobo brillante, che non so dire se mi sia piaciuto o no, so solo che mi ha angosciato e che adesso penserò sempre a quel bonobo (di solito è buon segno, quando fa così).
Comunque, temo di non saper spiegare cosa mi piace di questi racconti: è più facile individuare i motivi per cui una cosa non piace, mentre in quelle che piacciono c'è sempre qualcosa che non si riesce a inquadrare. Leggeteli!

[D.M.]

Amazon Rating: ★★★★★
Book Rating: ★★★★★

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The Descriptive style and flow of this collection of short stories is just magic. I rarely come across such beautiful and wonderful prose. It's bliss.

It's been a long long time since I read a collection of short stories. When I first started reading I was always devouring them. Mostly golden age sci-fi stuff like Asimov, Clarke and van Vogt. This book could keep them company. More psychological than technical but still something about them reminded me of them, there's certainly a Vogt or Philip K Dick air about some of the stories. I would love to read more.

All stories are short and sweet. Some didn't really click for me personally (or I was too stupid to understand them) while overs blew me away. Overall the quality in idea, imagination and writing is top-notch.


And so God Said -★★★★★ - Really enjoyed the description of the interviewee as well as the fact it was an interview!
Cognitive Intrusion - ☆☆★★★
A Path to Sinnamara - ★★★★★
Spinal Count - ☆★★★★
Acceptance - ☆☆★★★
Made in my Image - ☆★★★★
Human Heritage - ☆★★★★
What about Earth - ★★★★★ - I Especially enjoyed this one.
Big beautiful bonobo - ☆★★★★
Death Lives in the Bronx - ★★★★★
No clothes in Heaven - ★★★★★
Schroedingers People - ★★★★★ -exceptional
Star dwellers - ☆★★★★
The Western demon - ☆★★★★


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My rating Systems:

Amazon Rating: (because they suck and will kill your book)
5 – Fantastic work. Anything from brilliant to highly likeable.
4 – A decent solid piece of writing with a lot going for it. I really dig your jive.
No rating if I don’t like it or think others won’t like it.

All other Book Rating Systems:
5 – Absolutely genius. I might want to marry you.
4 – Fantastic story. I loved it and will pick up your other work without hesitation.
3 – A good solid story. You had some good ideas here, (might be some bad ones too)
2 – I wasn’t into it. Some potential and missed opportunities.
1 – We need to talk.

[valerio]

An exquisite exercise in imagination and prose, never truly exceptional but always delightful to explore.

[Matilde]

È una raccolta che ho davvero apprezzato come lettura.
Sono molto brevi (ho letto la versione digitale, quindi non so quantificare in pagine) ed è stata una lettura adatta anche al periodo in cui l'ho scelta. Essendo tutti racconti separati, con trame e personaggi diversi è stato facile leggerla a pezzi. È una lettura che consiglio se cercate qualcosa da leggere anche in ritagli di tempo non molto ampi (una parte mi ha anche accompagnato in un viaggio in treno).

Recensione completa sul blog: https://writingcactus.wixsite.com/wri...

[Jessica D. Otto]

Una raccolta di racconti che ho apprezzato, anche se rappresenta una sorta di avventura fuori dalla mia comfort zone, perché il weird e il new weird sono generi che prendo con le pinze e che di norma non rientrano nelle mie corde. I racconti spaziano dal tema del divino all'esplorazione di altri mondi, ai tetri meandri della vita umana, lasciano un senso di smarrimento e disagio, spingono a farsi molte domande sulla realtà che ci circonda, anche se le risposte purtroppo sono poche.

[FatalTragedy]

In questa raccolta di racconti l'autore dà sfoggio della sua unica sensibilità, plasmandola sulle ossa del weird, del fantascientifico e dell'horror con un tocco di fantasy. Maponi dà forma a una creatura peculiare che si muove con intenzione sulle proprie gambe, tracciando sentieri personali nella selva mutevole della fiction speculativa, senza solcare le strade più ovvie battute in precedenza da troppi creatori. Tutti i racconti sono scritti come si deve e formulati con personalità, ma i miei personali preferiti sono "Conta Spinale", "Un sentiero per Sinnamara" e "Il demone del West". Se siete interessati nella letteratura di genere e preferite il formato racconto a quello del romanzo, troverete sicuramente qualcosa che soddisfi il vostro palato qui. Caldamente consigliato.

[Haya]

Una raccolta di racconti che ogni volta, alla fine, mi hanno portato a fermarmi per riflettere su ciò che era accaduto (in senso positivo, ovviamente).
I miei preferiti sono stati "Intrusione cognitiva", con il testo in sé che inizia a "glitchare", e "La Gente di Schrödinger". Quest'ultimo in particolare l'ho davvero amato, l'esplorazione della coscienza nelle IA era davvero affascinante.
Ho anche apprezzato la discesa nella pazzia de "Il demone del West".

Un'ottima lettura!