Beautifully Written Fantasy & Science Fiction discussion
This topic is about
Silently and Very Fast
Silently and Very Fast
>
New Weird and Blurred Lines
date
newest »
newest »
I was supposed to be saving this until I'd finished 2001, but that one is slow going and I got excited, so I just read the first 13%. Loving it so far, the writing is definitely exceptional."My hearth is broken." Brilliant.
Rich wrote: "I was supposed to be saving this until I'd finished 2001, but that one is slow going and I got excited, so I just read the first 13%. Loving it so far, the writing is definitely exceptional."My h..."
Yes. That line delighted me as well.
Still working my way through - although it's a short book it feel very densely packed and I feel like I have to really take my time over it. I'm sure I'll finish it and feel like I need to go back over it.
Rich wrote: "Still working my way through - although it's a short book it feel very densely packed and I feel like I have to really take my time over it. I'm sure I'll finish it and feel like I need to go back ..."I'm definitely going to reread this one a few times, I think. It's inspired me to start a new writing project.
Ok, I just finished this. It will take a while to digest but it certainly fits the title of the group! I'd definitely recommend it to anyone even slightly interested. You spend a lot of it in the dark, since it is all from the AI's point of view, and you have to stick with it while it pans out into something greater - though it doesn't make itself entirely transparent even by the final words. It isn't a long book though of course, and the journey itself is enjoyable, emotional, and thought provoking.If I had the time, I'd love to sit and go through this slowly with a group, analysing the symbolism and discussing the finer details. It's not often you find a book worthy of that level of attention.
Just finished it and I want to say thank you, Beautifully Written Fantasy & Science Fiction-group! "Silently and Very Fast" was my introduction to Valente's work and I'm in awe. The novella impressed me on an intellectual and stylistic level, but I also found it to be very moving - a combination you don't find often enough.
Robobobo wrote: "Just finished it and I want to say thank you, Beautifully Written Fantasy & Science Fiction-group! "Silently and Very Fast" was my introduction to Valente's work and I'm in awe. The novella impr..."
This right here is why this group exists! Hooray!
I seem to be in the terrible habit of reading these books in the very last days before the deadline. I shall try to do better in the future.For the most part, dense and intellectually rigorous sci-fi isn't really my cup of tea, so I'm not sure I would have felt compelled to seek out more of Valente's work if this had been the first thing of hers I'd read. I'm a much bigger fan of lyrical fantasy, so I liked the Orphan's Tales books better (I've read both now).
I wasn't familiar with the Mesopotamian myth that she starts out with here, so I was perplexed by that until I started recognizing the other stories. I think that Valente's use of these narratives is quite clever. I agree that it would take another read-through to piece together the different concepts she's juggling... but I have to return it to the library.
My library only had this novella in the anthology The Melancholy of Mechagirl, which is a collection of Valente's stories and poems with a Japanese influence. I haven't read all of them yet, but so far I'm finding the short stories to be a little strange and/or disturbing for my personal tastes, while on the other hand I'm really loving the poems.
Strange and disturbing is right up my alley. That's one of the reasons I like her work so much.
But she should! I don't know if it's because she's describing a mutable dreamspace or because she's playing around with how a machine intelligence might try to process thoughts, but her style works very well for this story.