The comforting eyes of man's best friend turn to accusing harbingers of environmental apocalypse in "The Dogs in the Trees," the lead-off story in The Sovereignties of Invention, a disquieting collection of stories by Matthew Battles (Library: An Unquiet History) that evoke digital evolution and hauntingly portend the death of nature. Those dogs set a mood of unease that each subsequent tale stokes with exquisite prose and innovative "what ifs?" A purveyor of elegant dread à la Paul Bowles, Battles writes about isolated characters, information machines that become black holes and dirty, immortal unicorns. With an artisan's approach to language and inventive plots that nearly all end with a look into the abyss, Battles's dystopian stories are chillingly enticing.
Though a few stories sag a bit under their overambitious plots, Battles's best are clear-eyed brief fables of apprehension. Often the stories contain a magical device or happening brought on by the same desires for information and control that fuel our own rapid technological advances; then the "magic" reveals its destructive nature. In "Camera Lucida," a family discovers a camera in their seaside cottage that takes pictures from other, mysterious places. In "Time Capsules," the hero finds that magical pills that buy time cost something else more dearly.
Battles, a program fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has clearly thought through the rapid way humans are disconnecting from the natural world. His bitingly clever stories offer a glimpse into that dystopia that lingers long after the reading. --Cherie Ann Parker, freelance journalist and book critic