Each time I have read this book over the years, new images are revealed of the post-apocalyptic dream city, Bellona. Now, as a published author, I am even more drawn to Kid, the poetic drifter.
I particularly relate to the mysterious notebook found by the fire late at night at the Hippie commune. Whoever lost it, has written on only one side of each page. The first thing Kid finds written inside is, “to wound the autumnal city...”, which is exactly how the mythic and symbolic novel Dhalgren begins.
How much of what happens is the direct result of what Kid writes, reads, or has already written in the mysterious notebook is open for interpretation. I enjoy the ambiguity, since it mirrors the mystery of Bellona itself.
Nebula Award Finalist: Reality unravels in a Midwestern town in this sci-fi epic by the acclaimed author of Babel-17. Includes a foreword by William Gibson.
A young half–Native American known as the Kid has hitchhiked from Mexico to the midwestern city Bellona—only something is wrong there . . . In Bellona, the shattered city, a nameless cataclysm has left reality unhinged. Into this desperate metropolis steps the Kid, his fist wrapped in razor-sharp knives, to write, to love, to wound.
So begins Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany’s masterwork, which in 1975 opened a new door for what science fiction could mean.…
This fun-filled piece of pulp sci-fi is a perfect example of the recursive sci-fi genre.
Mike de Wolf, the friend of a popular author, is present as the author’s publisher pressures him to finish a novel he has received the advance money for. The author mentions Mike would be a perfect example of the villain, the Admiral of a Spanish fleet sent to rid the Caribbean of English pirates.
Mike leaves the room and accidentally electrocutes himself in the bathroom, only to find himself still living as the villain of the swashbuckling romance. What follows could be unbelievable, but is so full of realistic period action and the logical reactions and comments of Mike to the typewriter he hears in the sky, that it works quite well.
Before virtual reality, there was a typewriter in the sky--used by one Horace Hackett, writer, in a rollicking adventure that is considered a true masterpiece of fantasy literature. A musician friend of Hackett's finds himself thrust into a swashbuckling tale--as the villain. Using all his wits, he must devise a way to avoid the destiny which befalls every villain ever written about by Hackett--sure death.
One thread of this complex story involves Tengo, who is asked to rewrite a rough manuscript called Air Chrysalis.
In the process of molding it into a best selling sensation, Tengo comes to believe it is not fiction, but reality. Despite its magical and mythical content, Tengo is drawn into this world and the novel gets weirder and weirder from there. The ending leaves threads unconnected, but I loved it because of its faults.
Did Murakami himself have the outline of Air Chrysalis and then decide to turn it into a novel? Is 1Q84 the sequel to Air Chrysalis that Tengo begins when he finishes his rewrite? Murakami never mentions what that novel is, but it is important enough for Tengo to take with him when he escapes from 1Q84.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her.
She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.
As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course…
Refuge for the Khymera is a first contact story, a tale of imagination versus reality. Martin Godfrey is a science fiction writer, familiar with those figments of the imagination, born outside the quarantine of everyday consciousness, called chimera. He has given them refuge in his novels. How can it hurt? He has let them wander through his daydreams. But chimera seldom come alone. They are difficult to control or contain. They can change your life if you are not careful. When Martin returns from a sci-fi convention with a real alien Khymera hiding in his car, reality strikes with a vengeance. He gives her refuge in his home, while trying to continue his daily routines and seeking his own refuge in the creation of a new novel.
