A Short, Sharp Shock (Hardcover)

Short, it certainly is, coming in at just 150 pages (plus 30 identical chapter title illustration pages). Sharp? Yes, I guess so, in the keen, striking, intelligent or even witty sense. And how about the shock? Well our mysterious and amnesic wanderer Thel certainly encounters plenty of these in his travels.

KSR has populated his spineworld (a kind of negative manifestation of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld) with some of the most bizarre and evocative creations that the sci-fi/fantasy genre has ever spawned. From seaweed-folk to tree-people and the enigmatic facewomen, from people of rock/clay, to the profoundly disturbing eroticism of the Queen of Desire, all of the strange inhabitants conjured forth by KSR are players in a series of increasingly sumptious and dream-like tableaux (the almost Dali-esque homes of the shell-people being my personal favourite).

Many human archetypes are here - companion, lover, provider, bully, mage. Traditional characterisation is kept to a minimum though - and rightfully so; to do otherwise would have diluted this novel's impact.

I devoured this book in a flurry of page-turning and many of its images will stay with me for a long time. I certainly got a few flashes of realisation long after reading certain chapters.

Someone compared this to Iain Bank's (marvellous) "The Bridge". On a very superficial level I can appreciate that parallel being drawn, however, to me, Short Sharp Shock felt like a more profound and satisfying version of Coelho's "The Alchemist".

So what fundamental truths did I pick up from SSS?

....... no. Sorry. To share them with you would be perhaps to prejudice your enjoyment of this book, but, if you have an open mind and appreciate challenging works, enjoy it you certainly will!

Not everything that makes no sense hides worthwhile philosophy. This book is an emperor with no clothes.

Throughout the novel the reader is asked what makes us human and what makes us unique individuals? Is it our genetic make up? Our dreams? Our memories? Our biochemical construction? Our capacity to love? And, interestingly, is it our connection to the past, to our ancestors?

I finished this book in a day but I thought the novel was just long enough for Kim Stanley Robinson to cover all the points he wanted to, especially when you consider how intricately detailed each scene is described. If it were longer one could get bored, and his intent wasn't to create a rich fantasy world to escape to and to explore, but to create a world in which to explore questions of existentialism. There are, however, a number of inconsistencies in the narrative, I would be interested in finding out if they are deliberate literary devices or oversights stemming from impatience in going to press.