Enigmatic, Elegaic, Extraordinary

It’s called “Tales From The Loop”. It has taken several forms: an art book, a role-playing game, and now a TV miniseries of eight episodes available on Amazon Prime Video.

It’s a world that has emerged from the imagination of Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag. A world that merges a rural landscape with elements of small-town Swedish life in the 1980s and the detritus of yet-to-be invented technology.

You can get some idea of the shape of the landscape and the artist’s inspirations for it from this short film that was made in 2015 for the Kickstarter project to produce the English versions of his books.

While waiting for my copy of the book to arrive at the local bookshop, I thought I would take a look at the TV miniseries. The trailer certainly looked intriguing – and it had the added bonus of having Jonathan Pryce in one of the roles.

I saw the first episode and was instantly hooked. This is my kind of Science Fiction – the miniseries is really eight interlinked tales that explore different facets of the human condition.  They reminded me of the writings of Ray Bradbury; in particular those of growing up in a small town, where the fantastical is glimpsed out of the corner of the eye: Dandelion Wine, and of the tale of growing old: I Sing The Body Electric.

Highly recommended.