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A work of play
This Neal Stephenson dude likes to go large. Enormous books, with vast casts of characters, containing epic and sprawling storylines that tackle thorny and fundamental philosophical problems—all done in an irreverent and humorous way. Of all his fiction that I’ve read so far, Quicksilver seems the apotheosis of these tendencies, especially given that its lumbering… Read more
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The source
Reading the second volume of Rebellion’s sumptuous collected Nemesis The Warlock has been a real pleasure. It hasn’t been a revelatory experience, in the way that reading the first volume was, as I have already been reminded what Nemesis is like, how good it is, and how mind-blowing its art. The majority of Nemesis The… Read more
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A joy
One of the leading South American festivals of electronic and experimental music, I gather, is Novas Frequências, held somewhere in Brazil (the website for the 10th edition, held last year, doesn’t seem to specify!) The festival’s curator, Chico Dub, also curated a series of compilations between 2013 and 2016, ten volumes under the rubric of… Read more
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Indulging in the immediate future
In Red Moon Kim Stanley Robinson turns his attention to the Earth’s satellite in much the same way that he has turned his attention to Mars and Antarctica, among other places. That is to say, with knowledge, rigour, and an unerring instinct for where the stories are. In many ways Robinson’s work can bridge a… Read more
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Mystery abides
First-person narratives often use the grammatical device of the first-person pronoun to solicit the reader’s close identification with the narrator, without letting go of the privileges pertaining to a distanced, omniscient point-of-view. Such stories usually fail to elicit the immersion they are aiming at for me—which is not to say that I don’t enjoy them,… Read more
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Difficult questions
Josienne Clarke has a vocal style. Some of its appurtenances, such as its precise diction, its half-rounded vowels, its purity of tone, and its inevitable but particular phrasing, signal an allegiance to British folk music traditions, but there is a large and important difference between working ‘in’ a style, and ‘having’ a style. Nobody sings… Read more
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