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Susurrus on Mars
This novella-length collection of Erehwynan Idylls offers readers an indulgent and weird agglomeration of randy boys and revelations, as the embodiment of a small breeze--actually the gene-spliced child of the gods Zephyros and Ares--flirts and seduces fleshlings on a terraformed future Mars. Hal Duncan's acclaimed style is both alethic and erudite and offers a fresh telling of philosophical musings and classic Greek mythology for 21st century readers.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2017
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123 people want to read
About the author
Hal Duncan
77 books132 followersHal Duncan is the author of Vellum, which was a finalist for both the William H. Crawford Award and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. He is a member of the Glasgow SF Writers’ Circle. He lives in the West End of Glasgow.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 2, 2022
We should rec it to Guantanamo teams as a new form of torture. Everyone would confess instantly to skip such reads, methinks.
Ouch. Now, this is quite a steamroller of consciousness. A scarcely comprehensible one.
Q:
METIS, SUSURRUS MURMURS through the open French window of Renart’s study, primal Titan of cunning, was glurped down as a fly by Zeus, the king of gods fraught with a prophecy that any sprat got on her would be grander than the father, fraught that he himself might sire a usurper sharp to do to Zeus what Zeus had done to Kronos—maybe even what Kronos had done to Uranus before. Which is to say, scythe the primogenitor’s bollocks off and hurl them to the leaping dolphins of the sea, to the spume from whence scalloped Aphrodite sprang—not as some Botticelli damsel, but as a spindrift passion crashing over rock, a naked beauty left crouched, shedding kelp as she rises, looking up to the whorl of scattered gulls, transforming to doves in the gaze of her pearl eyes. (c)
Q:
Zeus surrendered his lightning on the Aeropagus the day the Furies let Orestes live, kept only his thunder for two thousand years of petulant denial, stomping off to Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca to steal an empty throne, play wizard behind the veil, until eventually Athena strode into his office, put him over her knee and spanked the unjovial boor back to the honey-fed towhead brat he once was, Zeus Velchanos of Minoan Crete, a long-haired youth sat in a tree with a cockerel in his lap.All this from the swallowing of a fly! says Susurrus.Renart is having none of it, paying no mind at all to the godling’s rustle of pages on his desk. Wisdom in a fly is the last notion he can credit right now; flies are fuckwittery on wings... (c)
Q:
A SHRUB OR small tree of yellowish-white wood called Commiphora myrrha grows her thick trunk to around five metres tall cursed by Aphrodite for scorning her suitors to fall in lust with her father Cinyras of Cyprus back when her name was Myrrha from a Semitic root meaning bitter because she was so wrought and despairing to the point of suicide her trunk swollen to store water as succulent as she is short to suffer drought for long stints of her nine months trudge through the palms of swelteringArabia the fields of Panchaea and all because her nurse halted her hanging and hairless throughout with flaky bark of silvery blue-grey whitish or ruddy hue peeling papery to a photosynthetic green underbark Myrrha coerced the woman with threats of successful suicide to help her consummate incestuous desire during the Festival of Ceres when no women were to be touched by men for nine days as she produces numerous knotted spiny branches and orthogonal branchlets stiff and spreading each ending in a spine as sharp as her father’s sword she fled from all the way to Sabaea with him hot on her heels on her twigs sparse single leaves small and even minute at times on petioles short or long from a millimetre to a centimetre arranged irregular or alternate often tri-foliolate pinnately compound with two tiny leaflets at the base of the main where the nurse found Cinyras drunk in his bed and offered a maiden keen to step in for his wife a girl of Myrrha’s age she said when he asked of leaves grey-green and chartaceous with three or four weak main veins slightly tooth-letted at the apex lateral smooth as the touch of her sneaking into his bed in utter darkness for a fistful of nights maybe six to forty millimetres long and three to twenty millimetres wide and as variable in shape as in size maybe spathulate lanceolate or elliptic maybe attenuate cuneate rounded or truncate at the base maybe apically rounded or acute as the desire to know her identity that led Cinyras to light a lamp one night to find that in autumn the leaves turn yellow before they fall to their knees in Sabaea where the gods took pity pity on her clustered panicles of tiny inconspicuous flowers dioecious with male flowers usually precocious three to four millimetres long and on a very short stalk a four-toothed calyx at its base her smooth brown ovate fruit two to four millimetres long she wept on her knees an aromatic oleoresin yellowish clear or opaque from bark that was split once after her metamorphosis to deliver Adonis sweet as her sap used with natron by the Egyptians in embalming used as medicine or perfume or incense used in the Ketoret during the time of the Tabernacle and the First and Second Temple periods offered on the altar of incense and brought by the Magi as a gift for the infant Yeshua (c)
And so on it goes. Writing for the sake of writing.
As in: stringing pretty words together to form nonsensical wordstrings. Scenic and likely epic but not making a lick of sense.
While this is supposedly a poetic experiment, I do like my poetry making sense.
Ouch. Now, this is quite a steamroller of consciousness. A scarcely comprehensible one.
Q:
METIS, SUSURRUS MURMURS through the open French window of Renart’s study, primal Titan of cunning, was glurped down as a fly by Zeus, the king of gods fraught with a prophecy that any sprat got on her would be grander than the father, fraught that he himself might sire a usurper sharp to do to Zeus what Zeus had done to Kronos—maybe even what Kronos had done to Uranus before. Which is to say, scythe the primogenitor’s bollocks off and hurl them to the leaping dolphins of the sea, to the spume from whence scalloped Aphrodite sprang—not as some Botticelli damsel, but as a spindrift passion crashing over rock, a naked beauty left crouched, shedding kelp as she rises, looking up to the whorl of scattered gulls, transforming to doves in the gaze of her pearl eyes. (c)
Q:
Zeus surrendered his lightning on the Aeropagus the day the Furies let Orestes live, kept only his thunder for two thousand years of petulant denial, stomping off to Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca to steal an empty throne, play wizard behind the veil, until eventually Athena strode into his office, put him over her knee and spanked the unjovial boor back to the honey-fed towhead brat he once was, Zeus Velchanos of Minoan Crete, a long-haired youth sat in a tree with a cockerel in his lap.All this from the swallowing of a fly! says Susurrus.Renart is having none of it, paying no mind at all to the godling’s rustle of pages on his desk. Wisdom in a fly is the last notion he can credit right now; flies are fuckwittery on wings... (c)
Q:
A SHRUB OR small tree of yellowish-white wood called Commiphora myrrha grows her thick trunk to around five metres tall cursed by Aphrodite for scorning her suitors to fall in lust with her father Cinyras of Cyprus back when her name was Myrrha from a Semitic root meaning bitter because she was so wrought and despairing to the point of suicide her trunk swollen to store water as succulent as she is short to suffer drought for long stints of her nine months trudge through the palms of swelteringArabia the fields of Panchaea and all because her nurse halted her hanging and hairless throughout with flaky bark of silvery blue-grey whitish or ruddy hue peeling papery to a photosynthetic green underbark Myrrha coerced the woman with threats of successful suicide to help her consummate incestuous desire during the Festival of Ceres when no women were to be touched by men for nine days as she produces numerous knotted spiny branches and orthogonal branchlets stiff and spreading each ending in a spine as sharp as her father’s sword she fled from all the way to Sabaea with him hot on her heels on her twigs sparse single leaves small and even minute at times on petioles short or long from a millimetre to a centimetre arranged irregular or alternate often tri-foliolate pinnately compound with two tiny leaflets at the base of the main where the nurse found Cinyras drunk in his bed and offered a maiden keen to step in for his wife a girl of Myrrha’s age she said when he asked of leaves grey-green and chartaceous with three or four weak main veins slightly tooth-letted at the apex lateral smooth as the touch of her sneaking into his bed in utter darkness for a fistful of nights maybe six to forty millimetres long and three to twenty millimetres wide and as variable in shape as in size maybe spathulate lanceolate or elliptic maybe attenuate cuneate rounded or truncate at the base maybe apically rounded or acute as the desire to know her identity that led Cinyras to light a lamp one night to find that in autumn the leaves turn yellow before they fall to their knees in Sabaea where the gods took pity pity on her clustered panicles of tiny inconspicuous flowers dioecious with male flowers usually precocious three to four millimetres long and on a very short stalk a four-toothed calyx at its base her smooth brown ovate fruit two to four millimetres long she wept on her knees an aromatic oleoresin yellowish clear or opaque from bark that was split once after her metamorphosis to deliver Adonis sweet as her sap used with natron by the Egyptians in embalming used as medicine or perfume or incense used in the Ketoret during the time of the Tabernacle and the First and Second Temple periods offered on the altar of incense and brought by the Magi as a gift for the infant Yeshua (c)
And so on it goes. Writing for the sake of writing.
As in: stringing pretty words together to form nonsensical wordstrings. Scenic and likely epic but not making a lick of sense.
While this is supposedly a poetic experiment, I do like my poetry making sense.
January 15, 2018
This is the kind of short novel where you simply have to surrender to the lyricism of the author’s voice. And which seems that much longer, given how many times I had to resort to a dictionary and/or encyclopaedia to parse Duncan’s playful erudition (his particular take on the New Weird always tries to get a rise out of the reader, in both senses of the word.)
In this instance, Duncan pays affectionate tribute to Ray Bradbury (‘dark they were and golden-eyed) and Samuel R. Delany (K. Leslie Steiner Avenue is a not especially subtle hint.) I was also reminded quite strongly of Desolation Road by Ian McDonald and Cowboys and Angels by Paul McAuley.
What is so interesting is that botany takes centre stage here: not only is this a key factor in terraforming, with Susurrus, of course, taking place in the ‘town-state’ of Erehwyna (Delany again) on a future terraformed Mars, but it is a key element of Greek mythology.
And here we get detailed vignettes about all the flowers/plants/trees that were central to so many Greek myths (there is perhaps a larger and more crude play on flower children/hippies, given Duncan’s penchant for polymorphous perversity.)
The story, such as it is, focuses on the wonderfully-named Jaq Cartier (Barsoom anyone?) and his complicated relationship with Puk Massinger, both teenagers, and his adult sister Ana. Jaq’s mentor Renart elevates the sexual/sensual shenanigans by debating Duncan’s conceit of ‘pataphysics’, which is a weird combination of metaphysics and ordinary physics.
And overseeing it all is Susurrus him(it?)self, a sentient breeze that was the offspring of Ares and Zephyros:
“Susurrus is a different kind of flirt though, fickle as a godling of wind can only be but light and warm as one father, bold as the other. And his is a different kind of love, one that has lasted near as long as this world has now and stayed as fresh somehow, even in his flightiness. It is Susurrus makes her sigh for those days, even though he makes them all sigh.”
In this instance, Duncan pays affectionate tribute to Ray Bradbury (‘dark they were and golden-eyed) and Samuel R. Delany (K. Leslie Steiner Avenue is a not especially subtle hint.) I was also reminded quite strongly of Desolation Road by Ian McDonald and Cowboys and Angels by Paul McAuley.
What is so interesting is that botany takes centre stage here: not only is this a key factor in terraforming, with Susurrus, of course, taking place in the ‘town-state’ of Erehwyna (Delany again) on a future terraformed Mars, but it is a key element of Greek mythology.
And here we get detailed vignettes about all the flowers/plants/trees that were central to so many Greek myths (there is perhaps a larger and more crude play on flower children/hippies, given Duncan’s penchant for polymorphous perversity.)
The story, such as it is, focuses on the wonderfully-named Jaq Cartier (Barsoom anyone?) and his complicated relationship with Puk Massinger, both teenagers, and his adult sister Ana. Jaq’s mentor Renart elevates the sexual/sensual shenanigans by debating Duncan’s conceit of ‘pataphysics’, which is a weird combination of metaphysics and ordinary physics.
And overseeing it all is Susurrus him(it?)self, a sentient breeze that was the offspring of Ares and Zephyros:
“Susurrus is a different kind of flirt though, fickle as a godling of wind can only be but light and warm as one father, bold as the other. And his is a different kind of love, one that has lasted near as long as this world has now and stayed as fresh somehow, even in his flightiness. It is Susurrus makes her sigh for those days, even though he makes them all sigh.”
April 28, 2018
As an obsessive reader of Duncan, I always find reviews of his work unfulfilling and unworthy. Frankly, I think reviewers focus on the wrong thing. The first thing you need to know about Hal Duncan's writing is that it is emotional. You'll read reviews extolling his erudition, intellectualism and linguistic cunning, and that's all massively true--but it's only the surface. Dig a bit, I mean really sit down and read, and you'll find his work hits your soul. It's no less true of Susurrus on Mars, though it's not immediately evident through the sexual (and not) frolics of the the two main characters, Jaq and Puk. Joying their way through a summer courtship writ eternal through classical allusion, the lovers wander through an idyllic setting on a climate-controlled and terra-formed Mars that's better than Earth on its best day: the sun shines; the rain, when it falls, is soft, light, unthreatening; and the flora is as green as the lovers (Jaq might be slightly older, but still reeks of youth; Puk isn't yet old enough to be independent of his sister's care). This is all very much in the way of idylls. And yet underpinning this halcyon glory is a sense of inevitable loss: the florae were all once mortals metamorphosed either as reward or punishment or just rotten luck, and almost all of their mythological substrates having them pining for something--a lover, a child, their beauty, their humanity. We see a possible dissolution of Jaq and Puk's relationship when Jaq thoughtlessly ribs Puk about a dead mouse; and Puk is only on Mars in the first place because his parents were killed in a terrorist incident on Earth, leaving him, in effect, an orphan. It's a necessary juxtaposition, because of course, I am even in Arcadia, and the idyllic is only idyllic because we know it's fleeting, momentary. But that moment can stretch to an infinity when captured--like the figures on Grecian urns, frozen eternally in action....
I realize this has now become less a review and more an analysis. It's easily done with work of such depth (and believe, this isn't even the deepest of his works: see also Vellum and its sequel Ink if you *really* want to get your analysis rocks off.) I've probably done nothing to convince you that Duncan's work is emotional, but it *is* emotional, even if it's not the first thing other reviewers pick up on. Yes, there is some tasty language (and by that I mean gourmet, not offensive) but that shouldn't distract you. There is insight here, from the seven Heathen virtues as a moderating of the traditional Christian virtues to the discussion of objectivity and subjectivity that Renart has with Ana, a discussion from which comes my favourite line of the book: "With the first red ochre hand print, the Paleolithic cave ceased to be just a cave, became the inside of our heads turned out." And this is what I mean by the emotional--that line made sense even before I got to the end of it, and it settled in a place that isn't impressed by 'alethic' style, but *is* touched when someone shows a bit of understanding about the human race. Duncan's work does that, even if no one else will tell you. That's why you should read this book.
I realize this has now become less a review and more an analysis. It's easily done with work of such depth (and believe, this isn't even the deepest of his works: see also Vellum and its sequel Ink if you *really* want to get your analysis rocks off.) I've probably done nothing to convince you that Duncan's work is emotional, but it *is* emotional, even if it's not the first thing other reviewers pick up on. Yes, there is some tasty language (and by that I mean gourmet, not offensive) but that shouldn't distract you. There is insight here, from the seven Heathen virtues as a moderating of the traditional Christian virtues to the discussion of objectivity and subjectivity that Renart has with Ana, a discussion from which comes my favourite line of the book: "With the first red ochre hand print, the Paleolithic cave ceased to be just a cave, became the inside of our heads turned out." And this is what I mean by the emotional--that line made sense even before I got to the end of it, and it settled in a place that isn't impressed by 'alethic' style, but *is* touched when someone shows a bit of understanding about the human race. Duncan's work does that, even if no one else will tell you. That's why you should read this book.
January 6, 2018
This is definitely a book I need to revisit. With a Greek myth and a botany dictionary... I looked up words which Merriam-Webster online advised was only in the unabridged dictionary and demanding to know where I'd read it 8-)
I enjoyed it, I think...
I enjoyed it, I think...
May 17, 2018
Full review to come...
May 30, 2022
4.9 If I could honestly
Somthing so dense and lyrical that somehow manages to feel so casual and natural in its relationships, its beyond bizarre.
Horny boys clad in pirate garb spliced with the greek myths of people transformed into plants.
Never been stimulated in quite so many ways simultaneously.
I could have done with a bit less of the botany lessons if I'm honest.
Martian society is interesting aswell as it's contrast to earth. I just wish we got more of it really, more of anything honestly, but these 120 pages already took some time to get through even once you've acclimated to picking as much up through context as you can. The ancient greek and future slang is worth the effort if you can stance the lack of any real narrative.
Cant say I've ever read anything like it although i really hope I do again.
Beauty for the sake of beauty, best read out loud.
Somthing so dense and lyrical that somehow manages to feel so casual and natural in its relationships, its beyond bizarre.
Horny boys clad in pirate garb spliced with the greek myths of people transformed into plants.
Never been stimulated in quite so many ways simultaneously.
I could have done with a bit less of the botany lessons if I'm honest.
Martian society is interesting aswell as it's contrast to earth. I just wish we got more of it really, more of anything honestly, but these 120 pages already took some time to get through even once you've acclimated to picking as much up through context as you can. The ancient greek and future slang is worth the effort if you can stance the lack of any real narrative.
Cant say I've ever read anything like it although i really hope I do again.
Beauty for the sake of beauty, best read out loud.
February 2, 2025
Susurrus on Mars is a sort of... lyrical, philosophical weird sci-fi novella, I guess? Two young men wander around a town on terraformed Mars, having little adventures and falling in love and being sort of generally dumb for each other. This is all told from the point of view of Susurrus, a Martian 'godling' of wind (son of Ares and Zephyros) who follows them around and keeps getting distracted by various plants along the way. The scenes of their romance (which are generally very idyllic and infused with some nice reflections on philosophy and art) are interspersed with descriptions of plants and the stories of their metamorphoses in Greek myth.
And I think I liked it overall! It's a very warm and intricate sort of book, and all the different parts fit together better than you'd think. Also, despite its short length, it's a pretty slow read -- Duncan's writing is tricksy and playful and sometimes very dense. Almost everything is a reference to something else, and language-wise Duncan plays a lot with dialect and archaism. Normally I find this sort of thing too self-indulgent, and Susurrus probably isn't entirely an exception, but also I feel like it works to an extent. It turns the reading experience into a sort of very slow gradual unfolding, which suits the book very well and feels rewarding and just generally sort of... pleasant?
I'm not convinced it needed to be this extreme, but Duncan is obviously smart, skilled, and confident enough as a writer to do whatever he wants, which is cool. It's a very erudite mosaic of a ton of things. A lot of the philosophy and references to other literature probably went over my head, but I did pick up on more than a bit of Whitman running through it (the way it treats eroticism and the idea of the body and its 'stances' as an extension of personality/soul among other things).
I think I'll be reading more Duncan in the future. I discovered him very recently when I read one of his short stories in an anthology, and I was intrigued by his writing -- it's very weird in a genuinely abrasive, off-putting sort of way initially, but also very skillfully done, and ended up becoming kind of enchanting and hypnotic the further I got into it. Susurrus was a similar experience. Duncan's whole thing is zesty and refreshing, very different from most contemporary books I've read.
And I think I liked it overall! It's a very warm and intricate sort of book, and all the different parts fit together better than you'd think. Also, despite its short length, it's a pretty slow read -- Duncan's writing is tricksy and playful and sometimes very dense. Almost everything is a reference to something else, and language-wise Duncan plays a lot with dialect and archaism. Normally I find this sort of thing too self-indulgent, and Susurrus probably isn't entirely an exception, but also I feel like it works to an extent. It turns the reading experience into a sort of very slow gradual unfolding, which suits the book very well and feels rewarding and just generally sort of... pleasant?
I'm not convinced it needed to be this extreme, but Duncan is obviously smart, skilled, and confident enough as a writer to do whatever he wants, which is cool. It's a very erudite mosaic of a ton of things. A lot of the philosophy and references to other literature probably went over my head, but I did pick up on more than a bit of Whitman running through it (the way it treats eroticism and the idea of the body and its 'stances' as an extension of personality/soul among other things).
I think I'll be reading more Duncan in the future. I discovered him very recently when I read one of his short stories in an anthology, and I was intrigued by his writing -- it's very weird in a genuinely abrasive, off-putting sort of way initially, but also very skillfully done, and ended up becoming kind of enchanting and hypnotic the further I got into it. Susurrus was a similar experience. Duncan's whole thing is zesty and refreshing, very different from most contemporary books I've read.
May 18, 2022
It was pleasure to met Jack and Puk one more time.
August 20, 2020
A gorgeous little novella. Fascinating structure: botanical manual to plantlife on terraformed Mars, Ovid-inspired reference for classical mythology as the titular wind god dances through the narrative, and a sweet, effervescent, summertime romance between two young dudes who are endearingly obsessed with each other. All elegantly woven together, reflecting on the other strands. Puk and Jaq are the main affair but their relationship is given context, colour and shade through the rest.
The language though! What are we looking at here? There's sci-fi tech babble alright, though never dropped in for its own sake. There's Gene Wolfe-style archaic English repurposed as that kind of sci-fi tech babble, meant for far-future alienation or evoking a bucolic ideal amidst the sci-fi elements. There's the Glaswegian slang and Joycean neologisms you see in some of Duncan's other work but raised to an ecstatic height, variously vulgar and sweetly tender as it's turned to, uh, higher and lower functions, or vice versa. It's dense but brilliantly executed, never less than charming.
And, as another review has pointed out, Susurrus on Mars is never distant or in love with its own artifice. The lightness of Duncan's writing is clear, the seemingly effortless play with complex philosophical notions or heavy subject matter (being a refugee, terrorism, loss of family, a particular sci-fi biphobia that's not reducible to a parable). Duncan makes it look easy without it coming off as trivial. It's an idyll, it's Arcadia, it won't last forever, it's beautiful and worth acknowledging and not less important for all that. Puk and Jaq's romance is the central thread but it's tempered by the calmer, slower-growing, later-in-life relationship between Puk's sister and Jaq's mentor.
Just a beautiful little piece.
The language though! What are we looking at here? There's sci-fi tech babble alright, though never dropped in for its own sake. There's Gene Wolfe-style archaic English repurposed as that kind of sci-fi tech babble, meant for far-future alienation or evoking a bucolic ideal amidst the sci-fi elements. There's the Glaswegian slang and Joycean neologisms you see in some of Duncan's other work but raised to an ecstatic height, variously vulgar and sweetly tender as it's turned to, uh, higher and lower functions, or vice versa. It's dense but brilliantly executed, never less than charming.
And, as another review has pointed out, Susurrus on Mars is never distant or in love with its own artifice. The lightness of Duncan's writing is clear, the seemingly effortless play with complex philosophical notions or heavy subject matter (being a refugee, terrorism, loss of family, a particular sci-fi biphobia that's not reducible to a parable). Duncan makes it look easy without it coming off as trivial. It's an idyll, it's Arcadia, it won't last forever, it's beautiful and worth acknowledging and not less important for all that. Puk and Jaq's romance is the central thread but it's tempered by the calmer, slower-growing, later-in-life relationship between Puk's sister and Jaq's mentor.
Just a beautiful little piece.
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