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9th out of 10 books
—
4 voters
The Fixed Stars: Thirty-Seven Emblems for the Perilous Season
by
Brian Conn
A fable-like tale of a small community afflicted by a mysterious plague
Juxtaposing barbarity and whimsy, Brian Conn’s The Fixed Stars is a novel that has the tenor of a contemporary fable with nearly the same dreamlike logic.
At the novel’s heart are the John’s Day celebration and the interactions of a small community dealing with a mystery disease. Routinely citizens are q...more
Juxtaposing barbarity and whimsy, Brian Conn’s The Fixed Stars is a novel that has the tenor of a contemporary fable with nearly the same dreamlike logic.
At the novel’s heart are the John’s Day celebration and the interactions of a small community dealing with a mystery disease. Routinely citizens are q...more
Paperback, 312 pages
Published
March 16th 2010
by Fiction Collective 2
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In an obscure future, cataclysm and plague has forced the society to retreat into the past. Now, on the eve of John's Day, a rambling cast tell their various stories. I would call The Fixed Stars a fever-dream, but that there's no fever in itindeed, no heat at all. Composed of loosely-connected scifi-/fantasy-slanted vignettes in varying styles (including an inset play) and formats, it's a boldy strange book. Some of the individual vignettes are promising, even meaningful, but the book as a who...more
On the jacket notes of this book it states that the author Brian Conn studies mathematics at Rhode Island. Conn has mentioned elsewhere that he ceased studying mathematics just after this was written, but the connection puts me in mind of another mathematician known for a convoluted and surreal fantasy, Lewis Carroll.
Conn's "wonderland" draws its inspiration from the tradition of pastoral post-apocalyptic worlds and other trappings of science fiction, but he is anything but content to rest with...more
Conn's "wonderland" draws its inspiration from the tradition of pastoral post-apocalyptic worlds and other trappings of science fiction, but he is anything but content to rest with...more
This is a truly stunning debut. It's an hallucinogenic head/road trip through a 'post-capitalism' future, a world where new industries have grown such as breeding spiders for their specific threads. It's tragic and funny and at times utterly repugnant and ghastly and not a word is out of place. It sits somewhere strange between Delaney's Dhalgren, Ben Marcus' The Age of Wire and String and a Grimm's fairy tale after they'd eaten faaaar too many magic mushrooms. But what is particularly stunning,...more
I'm surprised more people haven't read this book, it's a good one. I talk more about it here:
http://www.5cense.com/12/re-conn-ponz...
http://www.5cense.com/12/re-conn-ponz...
Aug 20, 2010
tish
marked it as to-read
review forthcoming at The Nervous Breakdown
Apr 21, 2013
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Brian Conn's work has appeared in Sybil's Garage and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. He is a graduate of the 2004 Clarion West Writers Workshop and is currently a student in the MFA program at Brown University. He lives in Providence.
More about Brian Conn...
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