2012 Reading #1: Feral Cell by Richard Bowes
1. Feral Cell by Richard Bowes.
After I read Rick's story "I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said" when it was published in F&SF, I wrote him a little fan email. In his response he mentioned that the story was in part autobiographical, and that the narrator's reference to a novel he was working on was a reference to this novel. (Whether you read this novel or not, you should read the short story at the link above. It's excellent.) This novel seems sort of personal too, at least, a little more so than the Warchild/Goblin Market duology. It's about a world in which those who are close to death, particularly those suffering from cancer, can cross into another world that overlaps this one, and how the interaction between the two has begun to create instabilities of climate and governance. It reads sort of like a dream (or, at times, like a nightmare), as the protagonist, Robert Leal, slips between realities and, incidentally, away from people and connections. A lovely, lonely, melancholy book.
After I read Rick's story "I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said" when it was published in F&SF, I wrote him a little fan email. In his response he mentioned that the story was in part autobiographical, and that the narrator's reference to a novel he was working on was a reference to this novel. (Whether you read this novel or not, you should read the short story at the link above. It's excellent.) This novel seems sort of personal too, at least, a little more so than the Warchild/Goblin Market duology. It's about a world in which those who are close to death, particularly those suffering from cancer, can cross into another world that overlaps this one, and how the interaction between the two has begun to create instabilities of climate and governance. It reads sort of like a dream (or, at times, like a nightmare), as the protagonist, Robert Leal, slips between realities and, incidentally, away from people and connections. A lovely, lonely, melancholy book.