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The Location Scout
by
Kevin Fanning (Goodreads Author)
You are a Location Scout for the Witness Protection Program. You constantly travel the world, identifying locations and helping people get to where they need to be. You know the entire planet like the back of you hand. So: what happens if you get lost?
The Location Scout is a story about choices and uncertainty and being lost and finding your way in the world.
The Location Scout is a story about choices and uncertainty and being lost and finding your way in the world.
chapbook
Published
2009
by Cold God Press
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Community Reviews
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First of all I am so excited that this is one long story. KF is such a super short-form writer, good at saying a million things with very few words. Now here he has given us a book, and it really is a book, this is really supposed to be printed and bound and in your hands. Now we have the opportunity to spend some time with the one narrator, and it is so fun.
Probably my favorite part of this was the easy supernatural/natural mix--to the point where I am not sure supernatural is even the right w...more
Probably my favorite part of this was the easy supernatural/natural mix--to the point where I am not sure supernatural is even the right w...more
This arrived in my mailbox at about 1:00 today, and because no one has reviewed it yet, I feel like one of the first to set eyes upon it - which makes me feel special, but really, I just live in the same states as kfan so I got it quicker.
Right now I've only read it once, but I intend to read it again and again and again. One of kfan's great qualities is how mysterious his prose can be, which is something The Location Scout embraces and runs with. Most of the time, I'm not entirely sure what's g...more
Right now I've only read it once, but I intend to read it again and again and again. One of kfan's great qualities is how mysterious his prose can be, which is something The Location Scout embraces and runs with. Most of the time, I'm not entirely sure what's g...more
Here's what I like about Kevin Fanning: he writes inventive, brilliant stories. Here's what I love about Kevin Fanning: he wants you to write stories, too. And this book combines both of these strengths; it invites you into storytelling at the same time that it tells a story far better than the one you could come up with on your own, and yet never makes you feel like it's not worth trying.
Let me take a step back.
(1) Many people here have commented about how the length and format of The Location...more
Let me take a step back.
(1) Many people here have commented about how the length and format of The Location...more
Mar 22, 2009
bendyroad
added it
A very arresting story. The second person narrative creates a sense of immediacy, and combines with short and point-formatted paragraphs and single lines to make me feel I'm running through it, flickering between scenes even before the story makes this explicit.
I'm still thinking about 5). Is this evolution? The fact that we've progressed to the stage that we don't understand our own motivation to live where we live or go where we go? Where our movements are Brownian or Chaotic to the extent th...more
I'm still thinking about 5). Is this evolution? The fact that we've progressed to the stage that we don't understand our own motivation to live where we live or go where we go? Where our movements are Brownian or Chaotic to the extent th...more
I brought this to the office and have taken to picking it up and rereading it on my lunch break. I think just about everyone by now knows that Kevin Fanning wrote pretty much my favorite thing ever written, and this story is very true to that piece. He is a master at saying so much in so few words, and evoking so many different emotions with such an economy of words. For instance, from this story:
You feel:
- hunger, nameless;
- a growing sense that resolve and resignation might be the same things;...more
You feel:
- hunger, nameless;
- a growing sense that resolve and resignation might be the same things;...more
the kind of thing that is written so well that you spend half of the time reading it thinking to yourself, "how did he know to add that sentence that just made it so perfect?"
Sometimes I play a game where I have to pick three people I know and live inside their head for a week. Kevin Fanning is always one of the three.
Provisional review, as I mean to read this again soon. I might hate it the third time!
The truth is that it gave me a little sting of panic out of a realisation that every moment of my life ongoing I am playing Could I Survive In This Town If I Had To Right Now? We always have to survive from this moment, using these resources. Even if the resources are people or places we love. It made me feel utterly alone, just for a second.
I also feel that I am hypersensitive to my surroundings, spending much...more
The truth is that it gave me a little sting of panic out of a realisation that every moment of my life ongoing I am playing Could I Survive In This Town If I Had To Right Now? We always have to survive from this moment, using these resources. Even if the resources are people or places we love. It made me feel utterly alone, just for a second.
I also feel that I am hypersensitive to my surroundings, spending much...more
I always thought I hated existential mindf*cks, but I now see I will have to reconsider my stance. This story is subtle but urgent, clever but never obnoxious, mysterious verging on noirish. I will definitely need to read it again soon; it certainly invites that. This didn't occur to me while reading it, but in retrospect I'm a bit reminded of Dan Chaon's exploration of identity and place in
Await Your Reply
, but this treatment is more interesting, more mysterious, not as manipulative, not as p...more
1 like · like · see review
It is so short, at first I was disappointed, but what its length really means is that you can return to it for multiple readings to figure out what you missed the first (second, third, tenth) time.
It's odd and fantastical.
It's odd and fantastical.
i'm a kevin fanning fan (kfanfan), but i think this one is my absolute favorite. i think about it frequently. there are works i devour in 48 hours and i really love every one of those seconds, and if someone comes over and wants to borrow something, i will shove it into their hands and say: "this, read this." and they'll ask: "why? what did you like about it?" and i can't remember anything other than the pleasure i experienced reading it. not the characters names or any small details or how it e...more
Mar 10, 2009
Punk
marked it as find-and-read
Meg's a big fan.
Excuse me, please, while I go live inside this book for a week.
I like Kevin Fanning's stories a lot because afterwards you're left with even more to think about. Something about that feels a very kind way to write.
One of the best things I've read all year. The story of a life lived unmoored, more or less at one's own will.
Dec 28, 2012
Ksenia Dmitrieff
marked it as to-read
Dec 12, 2012
Christopher Harrison
marked it as to-read
Jul 15, 2012
Maré Odomo
added it
Jul 04, 2011
Adriena
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May 13, 2011
Amanda
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Mar 16, 2011
Amiel
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Jan 20, 2011
Nathan
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Jan 15, 2011
Ashley
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Oct 30, 2010
Pauline
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Oct 14, 2010
Jennie
marked it as to-read
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Mar 28, 2009 08:02am