Slow River

Highly original and beautifully told story in a futuristic world. Could not put it down! Will keep this one on my bookshelf to read again.

In SF, unlike its sister genre fantasy, there has been a history of dealing with issues of homosexuality in an unflinching, honest fashion (instead of fantasy's fey princes and twisted perverts) and while those issues have not really grasped mainstream SF, it's always been there, blatantly stated in Samuel Delany writings and others, lurking in Disch, in Ballard, from the sixties and seventies onward, incorporating sexuality matter of factly, almost explicitly so. There have been subgenres, of course, as there are in any major genre, but for the most part it's not really shocking or scandalous to see homosexuality represented in SF. And so awarding the Nebula to this novel both gladdens and confuses me. Gladdens, because it is a fine, tightly constructed novel, exploring its characters with a depth normally reserved for such masters as Margaret Atwood (when it comes to charactization and studies, at least). Confuses, because there is nothing really explicitly "groundbreaking" about it. The plot, while entertaining and thought provoking, breaks no real new ground, either by busting down nonexistent barriers regarding homosexuality in SF or providing a mindwarping new way of looking at the artiface of Story. The story itself, on the surface, is simple. Lore, a children born into a ridiculously wealthy family is kidnapped and tormented. Eventually she escapes and instead of going back to her family tries to live out among society, where she meets master scammer Scanner, among other people. Eventually she tries to form her own identity, working as the lowest employee on the type of thing her own family patented. The novel's structure is interesting, in that it jumps between Lore's childhood and her tightly sketched family (even the briefly glimpsed ones feel real, and even small moments resonate), then to her life with Scanner and then to the present day where she finally finishes the journey of finding herself. The fact that Lore is a lesbian is treated astonishingly well, there is no cliched "coming out" moment, she begins the story as a lesbian and that is just the way things are. People turned off by homosexuality probably should avoid this book, while I didn't find the scenes too explicit (certainly nowhere near pornographic, as some reviewers have tried to claim) and frankly they don't take up too many scenes in the novel itself, for some people, one scene may be one scene too many. And those people are entitled to their opinions and shouldn't read things that make them unhappy or uncomfortable. And this is a novel that deals with unpleasant things, and faces them boldly and obliquely, much like we do in real life. Slow River is a good book, perhaps even a great book. Does it deserve to stand up with past Nebula winners such as Dune or Ender's Game or A Time of Changes (and before you think that I'm biased toward SF written by white males, I thoroughly enjoyed Russ' The Female Man, so there) . . . I don't think so, but I also do

Left for dead by her kidnappers, Lore is found by the mysterious woman Spanner, who teaches her to survive by her wits and to live in the dark world of crime. The two become lovers, but Lore wants legitimacy and to heal from her various wounds (her past with her family, her weeks with the kidnappers), so she leaves, taking a new identity, and tries to fit in. Ultimately, Lore cannot run from her demons forever, and she must either choose to stay in the shadows or to face the truths of her past. Set in the not-so-distant future, "Slow River" weaves Lore's pasts and present together into an astonishingly compelling tale. At the heart of the book is the story of a young woman healing from abuse, and the science fiction aspects are simply the setting and enhancing details. "Slow River" is the type of book that transcends whatever genre in which it's placed: it's more than a science fiction story, more than a coming-of-age story, more than a lesbian love story, more than a story of healing from abuse. This is a book that makes one believe in the power of fiction.

I am a new Nicola Griffith convert. After reading a Blue Place and Stay, I searched for more of Griffith's works. I am not usually interested in sci-fi or futuristic novels. However, Griffith makes her characters interesting and her story-line not only complex and multi-dimensional but she also has a way of feeding you information in bits and pieces. This effect could be frustrating but her transition between first and third person works similar to meeting someone new for the first time and then learning more and more about them over time. Lore (the main character) begins as a privileged prodigy victim of a kidnaping to a twisted victim who in the end discovers her true better self. While the beginning was hard to get interested in (probably due to my aversion to science fiction)... once I got going I was hooked! Enjoy!

When I started reading Slow River I wasn't quite prepared to what I would find. My thoughts, at the moment, having previously read Griffith's Ammonite, were that it would be a good book, though far from great. To my fortunate surprise, the book is one of the best sci-fi works that I've ever read. Unlike the river in the title, it flows light speed fast, and departs from most of the sci-fi that is currently being done, in an extremely positive way. Griffith worries more about the people than the technology itself, even though the technology is fleshed out in sufficiently rich details, and ends up providing us with a beautiful insight on how feels, and how people go through, the process of being born again. Awesome.

"Slow River" is one of those books that I read again and again, wearing my copy to a dog-eared mess, giving other copies to friends, keeping in an easily accessible place so I can re-read a favorite passage or look up a memorable phrase.This book captivated me on so many levels that I'm hard put to say what I like best about it. Griffith's prose, like the "slow river" she describes in the opening chapter, is smooth and languid on the surface, but has hidden depths that slowly rise as the story continues. The structure of the story is excellent; the use of different tenses and points of view (Lore is always the viewpoint character, but sometimes first-person, sometimes third-person) is smooth and never confusing. Griffith's plot construction is first rate, allowing the characters to breathe and grow.The story itself is equally tantilizing. The glimpses we get of Lore's family are few, but telling; one senses that she is used to living a life of precision masked by glamour. When she loses these things, she loses her identity.Griffith's use of symbolism is frequent but never heavy-handed or overstated; it would be easy for the PIDA (a type of personal ID), for example, to become just another tired cliche. The symbols merely serve to underline important things about the characters, who come to the forefront, each an individual.In fact, it's hard for me to cite anything bad about this book. I suppose I could think of something if I tried, but Griffith has that rare knack of enveloping the reader in her story so completely that every time I read it, I forget about analyzing it and just sit back and enjoy the book.