Review: WHERE THE ROCK SPLITS THE SKY by Philip Webb

Space Western?  Sort of.  The latest from Philip Webb, WHERE THE ROCK SPLITS THE SKY, takes place in a very foreign post-apocalyptic world here on Earth.  In fact, the story starts in the beloved art community of Marfa, Texas.  But it’s not the Marfa we’re famliar with.  It looks a lot more like the old West.  Technology doesn’t work.  And Megan has never known the world her father grew up with.  What she knows is closer to Little House on the Prairie.  Then again, she hasn’t seen her father in quite a while, since he went into The Zone, on a mission that Megan doesn’t yet understand.  When an outlaw gang comes to town, guns blazing, Megan makes a run for it, taking along her longtime friend Luis and her horse, Cisco.

Chicken House, March 2014.

The Zone is a tricky place.  Something about the Visitors’ arrival — an arrival which split the moon in half and stopped the sun from turning, putting Megan’s wold in constant daylight — has left this part of the American West with seemingly magical properties.  It can cause hallucinations.  It can stir up dust storms that aren’t really dust storms.  It can abduct an entire town and then return it, floating in the middle of nowhere, with only one resident to tell the tale.  That resident being Kelly, a girl who has no memory of life since the Visitors’ arrival.

With their posse increased by one, Megan, Luis, and Kelly are on their own mission, using the skills Megan’s father taught her, to navigate the zone in order to find him.  And, if her instincts are correct, she might be able to find something — or someone — else as well.  She might be able to make the world right again.  Whatever that means.

WHERE THE ROCK SPLITS THE SKY is a must-read for sci fi readers looking for something completely different, and for adventure seekers who love both westerns and tough chicks.  This is the kind of story that sticks with you, where the setting is as much of a character as the people, and with some seriously fascinating mythology.  I can’t wait to see what’s next from Philip Webb.