From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Serbian speculative fictionist Zivkovic's latest novel to be released in the U.S. (after 2006's Seven Touches of Music) isn't so much a literary work to be read as it is one to be reveled in. Like a great work of abstract art, this surrealistic novel—about five women who contend with fate in very different ways—is layered with subtle symbolism and nuance, and should be savored slowly so that the profound, and sometimes disturbing, existential underpinnings can be duly discerned. Featuring story lines about a schoolgirl who can see into other people's dreams, an institutionalized woman with the ability to know the future, a world-weary fortune teller who stumbles across true divination, a skier who's offered unconventional wisdom on a mountaintop and an elderly woman who loses her will to live when her alarm clock breaks, this montage of stories is as enlightening as it is entrancing. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Simply stated, Zoran Zivkovic is one of the most visionary and talented speculative fiction novelists in the world." —The New York Review of Science Fiction
"Ethereal and intelligent . . . Zivkovic writes novels that slot together fables in delicate layers and books that subtly re-define reality." —The Agony Column
"Each story by itself is a masterpiece in short fiction but the whole, ah the whole!" —Ideomancer
"Zivkovic's stories are deceptively simple and beautifully written. . . . [N]ew readers will be likely to look for all [the mosaic novels in Zivkovic's Impossible Stories cycle]." —The Seacoast
"Confirms Zivkovic's status as a master. The book's chief flaw is that there is simply not enough of it, leaving us wanting more." —Fantasy Book Spot
Book Description
Five women in various stages of life—all connected by a mysterious, obscuring mist—face the deterministic trap of fate in this mosaic novel. A freshman at a girl’s boarding school gains the strange ability to share other people’s dreams, whereas a young woman in a straitjacket desperately tries to select a very particular future from among countless possibilities. A middle-aged skier refuses to be a puppet on a string, while a mature fortune-teller experiences a faltering faith in her trade, and when an elderly woman’s precious alarm clock suddenly breaks, she suffers a vivid and troubling encounter with her past. An enticing mix of the ordinary with the surreal and the mundane with the sublime, these tales quietly twist trusted concepts.
About the Author
Zoran Zivkovic is the author of The Book/The Writer, The Devil in Brisbane, The Fourth Circle, Hidden Camera, and Seven Touches of Music. He is the recipient of the World Fantasy and the Milos Crnjanski Awards, was a two-time finalist for the International Dublin Literary and the Yugoslavian NIN Awards, and has been named a Guest of Honor for EuroCon 2007. His work has been published in 17 countries, broadcast on BBC radio, produced for television, and optioned for film.
