#simon stalenhag

[racsow]

after seeing the godawful trailer, I did a reread of the Electric State and i cannot physically understand how the russo brothers did not "see potential" in the story

i'll admit, i underappreciated the writing on my first read! going over it again there is so much richness to the character building and the dread of the atmosphere. There's a vibe that I can only describe as desiccated americana and i love it. The world is rotten and dying, and there is really nothing left to do but go on for going on's sake.

anyway i'm doing a very large essay on Stålenhag's whole body of work, but the Electric State holds a special place in my heart as the first of his books I discovered and the most resonant to me, so i just had to share my thoughts right after the reread.

This is less about the artwork, which i could talk about for ages, and more just a general overview of the story themes specifically!

(Moderate general spoilers? i don't go into much detail, and it's not a story overly reliant on its plot twists anyway)

The hopelessness of The Electric State is rather unique among Simon Stålenhag's works - his other books, set in Sweden, are much more fondly nostalgic, though they of course offer strange horrors of their own - but of a much more physical, immediate level.

The Electric State is different. It takes place in an alternate 90s US even more drowned in consumerism and blind greed than our own. A civilization that is crumbling, not from nuclear war or global crises or meteors, but by its own hand, by capitalism driving itself into the ground. The perfect pleasure machine, the neurocaster headset, leaves people twitching, comatose creatures whose minds lie in vast Silicon Valley servers as their bodies are left to starve.

Michelle does not have the privilege of escapism. She is one of the few left to wander a silent world, an apocalypse without people to see it. She is privy to the horror of watching the inevitable trajectory of a world falling to its death, and feels only recognition that it's probably better this way.

Michelle is never sad about the end of America. She doesn't ever reminisce about how good things used to be, or how we should have "appreciated it while we had it." But she certainly does reminisce.

She has the memory of her foster parents, who derided the government "coddling neurine addicts" like Michelle's mother. She has the memory of her grandfather coughing himself to death in their tiny apartment, irradiated from his lifetime of underpaid work assembling gigantic war drones. She has the memory of her mother overdosing on a drug the government hooked her on during her service in the military. She has the memory of her first and only love, a love which the world hated, how it kept her alive in her foster home of Soest City, and how it was ripped from her by the pastor.

Unlike Stalenhag's other stories, there is no element of nostalgia or quiet undertone of hope. Only disgust for what came before, and quiet fear for what comes next.

The horror of the Convergence, the eldritch machine god hivemind, is not even very relevant to the story - if anything, it's a side plot. When Michelle faces actual danger, it's never from giant robot gods in the mist; it's from cops and hotel clerks, from doomsdayers hoarding guns and a FBI agent hunting her down. She lives in fear of other people, of people who say they want to protect her.

But when she sees the gigantic silent machines wandering through the mists of Oregon, she isn't afraid. It's almost peaceful. The Convergence is beyond understanding. It grew out of the servers where millions of minds seeking oblivion from the world went to escape, and they converged into something unknowably vast who wanders the world in a hundred million thoughtless bodies. It's otherworldly. It does not fear, it does not dream, it does not hope, it does not hate. Maybe that's better.

I was scared. But I also felt something else when that thing stepped out of the mist in front of our car. I can't think of a better word than awe. Like when you suddenly become aware that you've walked into the wrong part of the woods and come face-to-face with a gigantic wild animal. Beyond the grotesque, there was also something else - something majestic.

And in its wake, the citizens of Point Linden, hundreds of people linked together, their neurocasters connected to the oily god in the mist, floated across the ground in front of the car, and they looked almost happy. Calm and peaceful, they moved past the car and formed a single group again behind us, and soon disappeared into the mist again.

[olvaheiner]

The Electric State (2025)

[leresq]

Sigh. Is nothing sacred.

Tales from the Loop was amazing but this is the kind of thing that I don't think lends itself to a film adaptation. Especially not with Crisp Rat, especially especially not one with Crisp Rat directed by the Russos. Tonal change from the book is inevitable I fear.

[anchimayen]

I felt inspired to draw something a bit inspired by Simon Stålenhag, I really liked working in this style (however drawing cars is a real pain)

[the-critter-beast]

hate when this happens

[the-car-lover]

Last evening was like a Simon Stålenhag painting brought to life.

[pedroam-bang]

Simon Stalenhag - The Electric State (2017)

[victusinveritas]

[humanspinelbrainrot]

numbing the emotional turmoil this book wrought with funnny hahas

[bbl1te]

Electric state (netflix) and Electric state art book comparisons

Cat

VR addicts

Canoe

Big omnipresent structures

Ducks

Heart Billboard

what do you think?

[o-key]

Electric State what have they done to you

[racsow]

I need to get everything Simon Stalenhag has ever drawn framed (read: tattooed)

[tilbageidanmark]

I may have forgotten to turn off the oven, by Jocelin Carmes

[leresq]

Managing to be more VFX intensive than an Avengers movie is insane to me. How in the hell is that possible.

[unrepentant-stella-stan]

The only stuff that made it from the book into the movie are some of the aesthetics, Michelle's name, and her motivation to find her brother.

List of stuff down below of what the book had that the movie didn't have. Spoilers for people who haven't read the book. (Read the book it's great)

There is no AI.

All the robots are controlled by humans.

The USA had a civil war that was fought by drone pilots who wore older versions of Neurocasters which required them to use addictive drugs that also destroyed their ability to reproduce.

People who wear the Neurocasters too long meld into a digital hivemind.

Neurocasters keeps the mind alive as long as it is worn. It does not protect the body from harm.

Graphic description of someone's brain getting chunkified by an anti-matter round.

Michelle's bio parents didn't die in a car crash. Instead her father is unmentioned (if I recall correctly) and her mom was a veteran who died from a drug overdose after being abandoned by the government. (foster parents "died" due to the Neurocasters)

Michelle dyed her blonde hair black because she wanted to distance herself from the "popular" girls and to spite her foster mom (who Michelle beat over the head with a lunch tray after she mocked her for wanting to dye her hair). Kind of important to her character. They keep her blonde in the movie for some fucking reason.

Michelle had a girlfriend who broke up with her after a crazy priest converted her. Heartbreaking to read.

Michelle found her brother's body rotting away in a house while wearing a Neurocaster. Still alive and in control of Cosmo.

It is implied that she and him rowed out into the ocean in a kayak to be swallowed by the waves.

Cultist working for the hivemind hunting for her brother as well, possibly what Giancarlo Esposito's character was based on though I doubt it.

[woodtoc]

Hihihihiihi