The Secret City by Carol Emshwiller
209 pages
Published 2007
Read from August 15 to August 16
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
I like to talk as if I'm familiar with the history and development of speculative fiction, but of course I'm not, really. I read a few books and a couple Wikipedia articles, and I carry on as if that gives me the right to write about movements and genre fashions and milestones. But when you quiz me on it, it becomes obvious I really don't know much of anything.
I picked up this book because it was slender and looked like a quick read, something that might help me pad out my numbers, which have been suffering lately. It wasn't until I read the blurb material (halfway through reading the book last night) that I learned, in the words of the author bio, that Emshwiller was "a key figure in science fiction's New Wave movement" -- a movement I certainly love to blather on about, as if I knew anything about it. Oh well, bit by bit I'm eroding my ignorance. Now if only I'd wait until after I knew some things before I talked about them.
About this book. It wasn't as poetic as all the sales pitch propaganda led me to believe, but the prose was quietly confident, telling the simple story with winsome directness. The story was meat and potatoes sci-fi, but sometimes that's nothing to sniff at. A modest success all around. Now I'm intrigued at the thought of tracking down Emshwiller's "key" older works.
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