November 30, 2011 · 10:30 am

empty space again

Light & Nova Swing were about going inside something–maybe yourself–& not coming out again. Empty Space seems to be about going inside then coming back so changed you might as well have been (& indeed might well have been) something else all along. Several kinds of “going inside” are depicted. In some cases going inside is seen as a defeat, retreat or sudden loss of a handhold on the world; in others a transformational acceptance of weirdness, the existential value of which can’t be experienced or measured by the observer.

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6 Responses to empty space again

  1. Brendan
    December 2, 2011 at 5:38 am

    ‘Nova Swing’ was, partially, about going into SF/crime tropes, burrowing, trying to find a home and instead finding something that just wanted to feast on you. I still don’t know what ‘Light’ was about, really, except escape, and the impossibility of escape, but then everything you write is about that. I look forward to being equally stymied by ‘Empty Space’.

  2. Luke
    December 2, 2011 at 5:50 am

    Can not wait to dig into this one–is pub. date the same for the US?

  3. uzwi
    December 2, 2011 at 9:19 am

    Hi Luke. US publication will be later I expect. I’ll announce that here as soon as I know.

    Hi Brendan: “escape, and the impossibility of escape, but then everything you write is about that”. True enough. Escape is about crossing boundaries (“Everyone loves a mysterious country” –Egnaro) & Nova Swing was designed to take up the inside/outside motif (think of Aschemann & his quiet rants about having to keep watch on both the inward & outward borders) & pivot it into the third volume.

  4. Brendan
    December 2, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    This just in: Entertainment Weekly called Nova Swing a “Bukowskian matrix”. While there is nothing insulting about that, I think, it might be the least apt comparison I’ve ever heard. Unless there’s some other guy called Bukowski, or I really haven’t been paying attention.

  5. Luke
    December 2, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Hmmm. I will probably end up importing, then. I’ve been making my way through your novels in sporadic order (in between other novels) all year–Course of the Heart, part of Viriconium, Light, Signs of Life, the rest of Viriconium, Nova Swing–and the more I read, the more it feels like I’m experiencing aspects of one longer, continuous, evolving work. Which makes me very eager to see where ‘Empty Space’ takes things as soon as possible.

  6. uzwi
    December 2, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    Luke, if you’re reading in that way, Climbers might interest you too. It will be back in print from Gollancz soon, but meanwhile there are plenty of used copies available. I hope you find Empty Space as rewarding as the others.