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| China Mieville, Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon 1) »New Crobuzon was a city unconvinced by gravity. Aerostats oozed from cloud to cloud above it like slugs on cabbages. Militia-pods streaked through the heart of the city to its outlands, the cables that held them twanging and vibrating like guitar strings hundreds of feet in the air. Wyrmen clawed their way above the city leaving trails of defecation and profanity. Pigeons shared the air with jackdaws and hawks and sparrows and escaped parakeets. Flying ants and wasps, bees and bluebottles, butterflies and mosquitoes fought airborne war against a thousand predators, aspises and dheri that snapped at them on the wing. Golems thrown together by drunken students beat mindlessly through the sky on clumsy wings made of leather or paper or fruit-rind, falling apart as they flew.« Fantasy iz sveta, kje živi čudo ras, kjer se parni pogon meša z elektriko in čarovništvom, kjer je vse čudno in ravno takrat, ko se na to navadiš, postane še čudnejše. Knjiga, napisana po sistemu: »zakaj bi porabil 200 besed za opis, če jih lahko 2000,« in ki je zaradi tega presneto dolga. Knjiga, v kateri se nadpovprečnokrat pojavi beseda »poignant« v raznoraznih oblikah. Knjiga brez srečnih koncev. Dobro branje. |
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| »She paused, the enormity of it all sinking in at last. “I’m seeing the World Wide Web! I’m seeing the whole thing.” She shook her head in wonder. “Sweet!” Kuroda’s voice: “Amazing. Amazing.” “It is amazing,” Caitlin continued, and she could feel her cheeks starting to hurt from smiling so much, “and ... and ... my God, it’s...” She paused, for it was the first time she’d ever thought this about anything, but it was, it so totally was: “It’s beautiful!”« Slepo dekle in svetovni splet, ki začne razmišljati sam zase. Sicer zanimiv koncept, izvedba pa je strašno pravljična – vse stvari se izidejo idealno, vse je pripravljeno vnaprej, vsi so srečni (no, razen tistih nekaj deset tisoč Kitajcev, ki umrejo v epidemiji). Sicer OK, ampak si po mojem mnenju nikakor ne zasluži nominacije za Hugoja. Menda bosta nastala še dva dela. |
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| China Mieville, The Scar (New Crobuzon 2) »Centuries-old pagodas tottered on the decks of ancient oarships, and cement monoliths rose like extra smokestacks on paddlers stolen from southern seas. The streets between the buildings were tight. They passed over the converted vessels on bridges, between mazes and plazas and what might have been mansions. Parklands crawled across clippers, above armories in deeply hidden decks. Decktop houses were cracked and strained from the boats’ constant motion.« Drugi del Crobuzonske trilogije. Ta se dogaja na morju, razen tega pa so koncepti enaki, kakor v prvem delu – psevdoznanost, čarovništvo, množica ras, čudežna bitja iz globin in drugih dimenzij. Za prebrat, če ti je bil všeč prvi del. |
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| Catherynne Valente, Palimpsest »They do not run on time: rather, the commuters of Palimpsest have learned their habits, the times of day and night when they prefer to eat and drink, their mating seasons, their gathering places. In days of old, great safaris were held to catch the great trains in their inexorable passage from place to place, and women grappled with them with hooks and tridents in order to arrive punctually at a desk in the depths of the city.« Uf, to je pa delo, ki se ga težko opiše. Mesto, katerega zemljevidi obstajajo na koži nekaterih ljudi (ali pa morda celo mesto obstaja v teh zemljevidih, kdo bi vedel) in katerega zemljevidi se prenašajo s seksom, a pri tem vsakdo dobi nov delček zemljevida. Mesto, v katerega se da priti le v sanjah in le po seksu z nekom, ki ima zemljevid že na sebi. Zgodba o štirih ljudeh, ki so hkrati prišli prvič v mesto in so zato neločljivo povezani, pa čeprav se ne poznajo. Le če se uspejo srečati v fizičnem svetu, se bodo lahko za vedno preselili v Palimpsest. Knjiga o teh štirih osebah, o njihovem trudu, da bi našli drug drugega in o tem, kaj vse žrtvujejo, da bi se lahko za vedno preselili v sanje. Hkrati pa tudi krasna fantastična pripoved o fantazijskem svetu, kjer je vse mogoče, med drugim tudi to, da je vozni red vlakov odvisen od njihovih ženitvenih navad. Krasno pisanje, pa čeprav dolgo časa ne veš, kaj hudiča sploh bereš. |
Berem: China Mieville, Iron Council
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