Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
A Short, Sharp Shock by Kim Stanley Robinson (1990)
Best known for his epic science fiction trilogy about the colonization of Mars (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars), the author here offers us something completely different. This is a short, surreal, dream-like, seemingly symbolic and allegorical fantasy. The protagonist narrowly escapes drowning and wakes up on an unknown shore with no memory of his past life. He encounters many strange beings (people with trees growing out of their shoulders; women with tiny faces where one eye should be) as he walks across a narrow but precipitous strip of land that seems to circle a world otherwise consisting entirely of ocean. He journeys with a woman known only as "the swimmer." They encounter many dangers, and undergo a strange transformation at the end of this brief novel. Mysterious and poetic, with vivid descriptions of the lands through which they walk (in almost any novel by this author, you get a lot of hiking), this was a compelling little book.
Best known for his epic science fiction trilogy about the colonization of Mars (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars), the author here offers us something completely different. This is a short, surreal, dream-like, seemingly symbolic and allegorical fantasy. The protagonist narrowly escapes drowning and wakes up on an unknown shore with no memory of his past life. He encounters many strange beings (people with trees growing out of their shoulders; women with tiny faces where one eye should be) as he walks across a narrow but precipitous strip of land that seems to circle a world otherwise consisting entirely of ocean. He journeys with a woman known only as "the swimmer." They encounter many dangers, and undergo a strange transformation at the end of this brief novel. Mysterious and poetic, with vivid descriptions of the lands through which they walk (in almost any novel by this author, you get a lot of hiking), this was a compelling little book.
