If there is a better book than Alif The Unseen by G. Willow Wilson that showcases the nebulous nature of genre definitions and the trend towards the mélange of tropes so prevalent these days in genre fiction, then I can’t think of it. Mixing fantasy, mythology, cyberpunk and techno-thriller devices, Wilson has sculpted a world with mechanism both seen and concealed that is as much a mirror of our world today as it is a conflation of the modern and the ancient, the secular and religious, or the western and the Arab worlds.
Alif The Unseen is not the crossover as John Dodds sees it but a blending of the best of fantasy and science-fiction – after all, as this reviewer sees it, magic is simply that which we don’t comprehend. The mysticism of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights and Islam in particular, is mirrored by the anarchic cyberpunk elements as characters rooted in both systems team up and face off. Their respective knowledge and ignorance provides a balance to the book and grounds every character even as the world gets more fantastical and the computer work more technical.
Alif, the protagonist of Alif The Unseen, is the pre-eminent gray hat (hacker) in The City. Like all Muslim children of The City and the Middle East, he has been raised with some knowledge of the Quran and the Thousand and One Arabian Nights, but he is far from being erudite about either or even studious in his prayer. Instead, Alif is more interested in girls, fantasy novels and hanging out online. All three lead Alif, his friends and what comes to be a ragtag band of adventurers worthy of Sindbad into trouble after a girl he meets online gives him a copy of the Alf Yeom (Thousand and One Days).
Presentient as the greats of science and speculative fiction authors always appear to be, Wilson has written a book of the times but one that has also foretold developments that would shape our world to come. These include the Arab spring, mass electronic surveillance and more. Of course, Alif The Unseen was beaten to the punch 20 years ago when Snow Crash was written by Neal Stephenson. Yes Snow Crash has aged (still an awesome book in this reviewer’s opinion), however both it and Alif The Unseen are about the power of knowledge and its transmission through language and how that has changed with the digital world.
Not only are the comparisons to Neal Stephenson apt, but so are those to Neil Gaiman given Wilson’s incorporation of mythology and religion into her work. Where American Gods incorporated the gods of the old world and the coming of the new, Alif The Unseen includes the djinn that inhabit the Thousand and One Arabian Nights. It’s a refreshing change from the Euro-centric fantasy that dominates the industry. Wilson’s experience in the Middle East really comes to the fore when she’s describing The City and setting the scene, probably her greatest strength is her ability to draw on her memories and experiences to shape the world using every sense. When Alif is sitting on the rooftop watching his neighbors hang their laundry as the muezzin (crier) can be heard in the distance chanting the call to prayer you are transported there – the heat of the rooftop radiates into your skin, the dry desert air fills your nostrils with the bellicose scents of the market and the taste of change is ever-present even during the most mundane of scenes.
Alif The Unseen is recommended so highly and by so many, this reviewer included, because it’s no one thing. For every reader it will be something else, yet always entertaining. If you want to travel there is no better book for it. Should you seek adventure, be it fantastical or futuristic, it’s all there for you. This book will transport the reader to a world like our own but so different, so intriguing that one can’t but help to be carried away until you’re left wanting to read more.
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Review by: Gregory Pellechi
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