Monday, April 23, 2018

Ten top anti-novels

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Reads blog he tagged ten top anti-novels, including:
Ice, by Anna Kavan

Anna Kavan was born Helen Ferguson, and published under that name for decades. In 1940, she dyed her hair and changed her name, and her writing style changed drastically, too. Ice was the last novel published in her lifetime, and achieved her greatest renown; it’s a post-apocalyptic story of a world being strangled by advancing glaciers, and at first, she struggled to see it published. While there’s a premise, there’s almost nothing by way of plot; the prose is dreamy and often trades in disturbing imagery, and the book has been claimed as an early feminist work exploring the repression and brutalization of women in a lyrical, symbolic way. You don’t so much read this book as let the words flow through you, forming, if not a narrative, then an impression of one.
Read about the other entries on the list.

Ice is among Sofia Samatar's five favorite "intensely strange, beautifully written, and transportive fantasies."

--Marshal Zeringue