I took a big pile of unread books up to Vermont with me over the Thanksgiving Holiday, and read, read, read.
Jamestown, Matthew Sharpe.
A retelling of the story of the Jamestown colony, thrust forward into a post-apocalyptic future. Captain John Smith, John Rolfe and the other colonists drive an armored bus down 95 from a wrecked Manhattan, narrowly escaping the collapse of the Chrysler Building. Pocahontas, Powhatan and the rest of the Native American population are people from all over the US who have resettled Virgina after the war. Told in rough epistolary form, a series of wireless e-mails between Rolfe and Pocahontas.
If writing were jumping ability, Sharpe would have some serious hops. English in his hands is in turns comical, moving, or even terrifying.
The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall
It’s one of those openers that agents constantly say they have no interest in reading: the narrator wakes up without any idea who he is. Raw Shark Texts is Figure 72 in the ongoing proof that you can break any of the rules as long as you’re good enough. The narrator is under pursuit by the dread Ludovician shark, most ravenous of all conceptual fish. Shark Texts has almost as much fun with typography as House of Leaves - there’s even a flipbook, illustrated with words, at the climax of the story. For all its games with words and ideas, Shark Texts is ultimately a beautiful story of love and loss.
Acacia, Book One: The War with the Mein, David Anthony Durham
Two extraordinary experimental novels, then a really good traditional epic fantasy. This was quite a transition for me, reading Acacia after the Jamestown and Raw Shark Texts. Acacia’s a sterling example of the form, with intriguing novelty and surprising turns. I’m glad I didn’t wait for the remainder of the series to come out.
Rumo, Walter Moers
Bizarre and wonderful. All of the characters in Rumo are different forms of mythical animals in the land of Zamonia; the main characters are Wolpertings - bipedal sword-wielding attack dogs, essentially - and a Shark Grub. The story follows Rumo the Wolperting from early puppyhood into his first great adventure as an adult. Even in translation from the German, one of most plain fun reads I’ve had in a long time.
Moers is a writer and cartoonist; his illustrations are as entertaining as his text. I’ve already ordered all of his other books.
Halting State, Charles Stross
Stross is one of the most imaginative hard-sf writers around. In Halting State, he’s focused on the near future. Lately he’s blogged about the unlikelihood of human space exploration, so I’m not surprised to see him writing Mundane SF, and making the near future as fascinating, mind-bending, and vital.
Halting State’s written in rotating second person, which may be a first. Stross has the chops to make it work, but I’m not sure that second person adds value here.
