Bang Bang Bodhisattva

I don’t know if you like cyberpunk novels, but if you do, you don’t want to miss this one. Bang Bang Bodhisattva by Aubrey Wood is her first novel, and it packs a cyber-queer punch. Meaning, it’s really cyber, really queer, and really punk. It’s violent and streetwise, but has its tender-queer moments. If you can handle all that, you might enjoy this novel as much as I did.

The protagonist is a gender queer woman named Kiera who does odd tech jobs that she scores from the ‘net. One of her odd jobs is to do the electronic tech work for a private investigator and former cop. The story centers around a murder mystery–a multiple murder mystery–that Kiera solves with the PI. Through her association with the PI, she gets caught up in a web of murders for which she herself is held suspect.

The novel speculates on the place of cyborgs, androids, and technologically enhanced beings in human society. I won’t give the murder mystery away, but it ends with a twisty surprise that speculates on the possibility of rebirth through multiple technological transformations. Wood “queers” cyberpunk by equating cybernetic body enhancements to a “queering” of the transgender body.

There are gender queers of every description and persuasion. The main character, Keira, is one of a polyamorous “thruple”. Wood’s narration of queer relationships makes them feel believable and important. She writes queer lives as one who has been ‘in the life’ herself as a biracial transgender queer.

Shadowing the narrative is Wood’s curious interest in Buddhism, thus Bang Bang Bodhisattva. In one scene, Keira hides behind a lighted Buddha image, literally “taking refuge” in the Buddha. Keira seems to have particular fondness for Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. There are several discussions of Buddhist philosophy throughout the narrative, including the ultimate question on rebirth. But if you’re expecting a nice story with a Buddhist take on contemporary life, you’ll be in for quite a shock. The story is gritty and hard-hitting, full of crude slang, drug use and sexual innuendo at the edges of queer urban life. How Wood reconciles her interest in Buddhism with hard-core cyberpunk remains a bit of a mystery, as the novel does not try to resolve that tension.

The “cyber” in this cyberpunk novel is the near future of Web 4.0. It’s gone beyond the cyberpunk classics like Neuromancer and Snowcrash where the whole experience of ‘cyber’ was about ‘jacking in’ to the ‘net by going inside the computer, mentally, visually, neurologically. That was back in the 90s when the desktop computer/laptop was still a novelty, and the experience of the ‘net was limited to a rare few hackers. It was all pretty magical back then, but it’s utter boredom to us now.

Bang Bang Bodhisattva is the first contemporary cyberpunk novel I’ve read where digital technology is ubiquitous–it’s embedded everywhere, operates everywhere, in myriad forms. It’s implanted in eyes and ears, in building fixtures, roaming robots. Cybernetic enhancements and surgical transformations are commonplace. There is no “diving” into the net anymore. Instead, the ‘net surrounds you. It engulfs you with its barrage of social media messages, constant surveillance and disruptive advertising. It follows you everywhere you go, interacting with you, whatever you do. That allows for much more action, being continuously on the move, rather than sitting in front of a screen.

As a fan of cyberpunk myself, I enjoyed Wood’s imaginative use of cybernetic technology, and her ability to portray cyberpunk as relevant to queer and transgender lives. I consider this novel to be among the media forms that I would call “Buddhist Futurism”, speculating on the role of a Buddhist worldview in a high-tech society. The cyberpunk future is already here, as William Gibson says, it’s just not evenly distributed. In Wood’s novel, it is lived out on the dark urban edges of queer and transgender lives.

Copyright Aubrey Woods, 2023 Solaris, an imprint of Revolution Books, Oxford UK.