ZlodeyVolk
The Lurker at the Keyboard
Wow. Just wow.
Literature® is the best new work of speculative fiction I have read since the 20th Century.
Witness a world in which literature, as we know it, has been outlawed. It doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter when; it has happened, and that's that. And those who continue to read literature for its own sake clearly are criminals.
Enter Billy Stringer—a sports journalist, working for what might be the last printed newspaper left standing. He's paid to write but he likes to read, and he has been given a choice: toe the line or suffer the consequences …
Given the premise, comparisons between Literature® and Fahrenheit 451 are inevitable. They're also misleading, because Guillermo Stitch has not written a world in which works of fiction are being hunted to extinction. Rather, he has created a world in which fiction has literally been deconstructed, re-imagined, and re-purposed, with the intention to re-wire the average person's brain and keep Industry's metaphorical wheels turning, thereby.
But to get to this world, you have to see past the surface. Put aside your preconceptions, and don't just look at the words. Let Billy Stringer's story draw you in—
Because draw you in it does. The prose is lean; the dialogues 'sound' authentic; and the pacing is quick, rather than headlong: it holds a reader's attention without feeling like a First-Person Shooter. Literature® is, moreover, laced with enough scalpel-sharp wit and dark humour that you'll never notice the satire sliding into your awareness until it's too late to feel any real discomfort.
Obviously Literature® is not going to appeal to everyone. For those who read for reasons other than distraction, though, Stitch's novella might be as a breath of fresh air.
Literature® is available on Amazon UK and Amazon.com.
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