wow.

that should be my whole review. untainted by pictures and whatever nonsense i usually spew. this book is clean and taut and deserves a review untouched by nonsense and gimmicry.

and i will try to give this book what it deserves.

wow.

this is my second book by evenson, and the second to take place in a ruined, barren wasteland. his spare prose lends itself so well to this landscape. but "spare" doesn't mean there isn't anything going on here.

how can a book this short, with its ripped-from-the-twilight-zone ending be so full of tension and heartbreak and hope and philosophy and devastation? this thing showed me fear in a handful of dust, i tell ya.

it is more than the sum of its parts. it is more, for example, than a story of the failure of humanity.

it is more than a story of uncomplaining self-sacrifice to one's perceived role in this world.

it is way more than a detective story starring an amnesiac paralyzed from the waist down on a baffling mission to retrieve a metal cylinder from a compound located across a ruined city, carried by two inscrutable men. or are they men? the old definitions of things do not apply here.

there are some very clearly biblical themes here regarding knowledge and duty and obedience and towards the end, a character will more directly invoke the flood to great effect. evenson's dark mormonism is unleashed in its full spectrum here. not that he is still a mormon, but there is just something delicious about that phrase, to me, and i'm not gonna change it.

i'm going to say it here: qanik and qatik are my two newest favorite characters ever. an even deeper-through-the-cracked-looking-glass version of tweedledum and tweedledee, but their "comic relief" is the nervous-laughter variety:

"what happened to his head?" horkai finally asked. beside him, qatik patted one of his backpacks. "never know when you'll need a good head," he claimed.

they killed me.

this is one of those books that can only be discussed in hushed tones among people who have actually read it. no spoilers here, not from me. i am zipping my damn lips right now, and imploring you to give it a go. it is shudderlicious.