Johnny Mnemonic

Known for being a complete hater of short stories (how can you reach the depth of plot and character development in a short story!) I was reluctant to read one but time constraints forced me to take a look at one. Sadly, my opinion on short stories was only reinforced after reading Johnny Mnemonic. Johnny Mnemonic is about a data carrier who through cybernetic alterations to his head, is able to store cyber information in his head. He makes a decent living with his job of carrying sensitive information for wealthy or underworld figures, until he has a tussle with Ralfi, who is overdue on his pay. The short story was not only a hard read but it was also almost unreadable as the style of narrative and the abruptness and rush feel of a short story resulted in what I call a mess.

The story itself had a premise that was easily understandable (when you reread sentences about two or three times) but because it is a short story, the author has no space to explain certain details the story. Things such as “the meeting was set for Drome at 2300 but I rode the tube three stops past the closest platform and walked back”. This one sentence can easily explain as to the nature of my confusion. What is Drome? Is it a club (which it was)? Is it a restaurant? What is a magnetic dog sister? What is a tube? All these different details about the story was never truly explained and left me wanting to know more. But sadly, as this is a short story, I will never get to know more than just glancing cursory details because the story is not long enough to support small details about the world. In my opinion, he should have written an engrossing novel instead of a short story (especially in the sci-fi genre).

                The style of narrative also added to the confusion. It seemed that the author purposely gave small details as a narrative technique. Whether this was because the target audiences of this short story are supposed to be sci-fi buffs but it made it infinitely harder to understand due to the sheer amount of unexplained details.