This is one of those very rare science fiction books that I actually enjoyed (and yes, I love fantasy. If you think they are interchangeable, we need to talk). And there’s a lot of science here – futuristic eco-friendly wastewater treatment is a major part of the plot – but the real story is about character growth, coping with and recovering from trauma, and relationships.Slow River has a fairly complicated structure, following its protagonist, Lore, through three different parts of her life in alternating threads. One storyline is about Lore’s privileged upbringing. Another follows her after surviving a kidnapping and near murder, as she hooks up with a scam artist who takes her in. And in the third story – none of this is a spoiler because in the book it all happens simultaneously – Lore has left the scam artist and is finally rebuilding her life, beginning with an entry-level job at a wastewater treatment plant. As it happens, Lore knows all about wastewater treatment, which is good because things at the plant are about to go wrong.Alternating between all these threads may sound chaotic, but it works well: there’s enough we don’t know to keep each story involving, and the distinct emotional arcs harmonize with one another. While there’s some technobabble, the focus stays on the characters, who are interesting and believable, and Griffith’s version of the near future doesn’t feel too far off. It is a positive version of the future in some ways – same-sex marriages are accepted, and the fact that Lore is attracted to women is a non-issue for her and everyone else in the book. There are some dystopian elements, mostly in the behavior of corporations, but Griffith comes down on the side of realism in these portrayals rather than going the over-the-top EvilCorp™ route.So I enjoyed this, and consider it a good book, though it wants to be literary fiction as well as sci-fi and I’m not convinced it quite achieves that; there is some depth to the characters, particularly Lore and her primary love interest, Spanner, but Griffith doesn’t take it to the next level. Also, Lore’s leaps of logic regarding the identity of the book’s “true villain” prove troubling. She never confronts this person, but concludes that s/he must be responsible for certain dastardly deeds because: 1) s/he, along with over a hundred other people, was a major contributor to a fake charity connected, through a chain of other people and corporations, to someone who may be a saboteur and 2) s/he is said to have been sexually abused as a child, and therefore must have control issues. QED.Oh well, I’m unlikely to go out of my way to recommend this to people, but I liked it and do think it deserves more attention than it has received. Three and a half stars.
Oh, where to begin with this one. I liked this book a lot, but I don't think it was good. Which is fine. Except I think the author was probably much more interested in the book being good versus enjoyable.Two summers ago, I think, I read Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge. I told several people about how the book was enjoyable but kind of ridiculously self-indulgent. It's a book that's supposed to be about virtual reality prisons that is actually about how awesome it is to have your super power be PROJECT MANAGEMENT. Here's the thing: Kelley Eskridge and Nicola Griffin are partners and Slow River is basically the exact same book. (In all fairness: Slow River was published about a decade before Solitaire, so if there was any filing of the serial numbers, it was on the part of Eskridge). So anyway, young woman from a globally affluent background and well-known family suffers a tragedy and is CAST OUT and relegated to a life among the plebes, but she is so brilliant and special and comes from such good breeding that she cannot help but shine, a diamond in the rough. In this book, the super power is being prodigiously good at sewage treatment management. Seriously, I'm not kidding. This is a book that is allegedly about stolen electronic identities but long, long passages are devoted to how to be a really bad-ass sewage treatment plant manager. I don't even know.But the structure of the book (three narratives happening at three different times in the main character's life, written in two POV and three tenses, which was a little much, but let's move on) provided suspense and I do give Eskridge and Griffin credit for one thing which keeps me reading their books -- they use speculative fiction to write lesbian characters in a theoretical near-future speculative world where sexual identity is a complete non-issue. The main character of Slow River is a lesbian, but it's the least complicated, non-angsty aspect of her personality. More time is spent angsting about her hair color.(Seriously. SEWAGE TREATMENT.)
Do You like book Slow River (1996)?
This is a deeply impressive novel. It is exquisitely crafted: the pace is measured, but sure; the metaphors are used delicately; and the control over perspective (shifting between first person, tight third person, and loose present-tense third person for the three different timelines) is both absolute and absolutely necessary to the emotional arc being told. It is a novel to mull over, savor.It is also an incredibly intense experience, or at least it was for me. I read it slowly partly so that I could admire Griffith's work, but mostly because reading it for more than half an hour at a time left me introspective and melancholy. There is a great deal of pain in the novel, and the carefully distanced prose makes it all the easier for the reader to fill in the blanks. For all the science fiction trappings (and they are many, from the cyberpunk-ish (but mostly irrelevant) identity hacking to the bioremediation science that furnishes much of the plot and much of the imagery) this story is about trauma, and surviving trauma, and then surviving your survival tactics. It's about ethics, and class, and identity, and monsters that come in human shape. It's vaguely dystopian without being political, and it's about corporate espionage while refusing to forget that corporations are anything but faceless.I can't say I loved the book; it was far too emotionally hard for that. It left me unsettled and totally drained, and I don't know that I would ever read it again. But I will certainly be picking up everything else Griffith ever writes.
—Phoenixfalls
A strange and enchanting book- however... NOT really sci-fi. It seems to be set in a future, but only just. Although, it was written in the 90s, so I should take that back because it seems almost contemporary. What I mean is there is no big sci-fi concept here. The protagonist is just operating in a near normal world; there are no aliens, no time-warps, no explosions, no thriller action. It is almost a quiet novel, but not quite because big events do occur: there is a kidnapping, prostitution, deception, violence, sexual abuse, chopping of limbs, and... water purification. The sci-fi concept- the macguffin- is water purification. Of which this novel explores deeply. But that’s not really important. The main issue is Lore (the heroine) finding herself. What this book is exceptional at is characterisation (and also plot, but the plot is chopped up and interwoven and develops slowly, until it climaxes in a huge rush at the end). Characterisation is king (or queen- there is precious little manhood here, and lots of lesbianism). Lore was a rich heiress but has to find her way on the streets- she eventually does after going through some deeply heavy shit- especially with her erstwhile partner Spanner- (a woman). Lore is sympathetic, Spanner isn’t. The novel seems to move slowly, with wonderfully evocative description, but actually covers huge ground, exploring 3 levels of Lore’s life: family and business life, Life with Spanner, life post Spanner. Her life up to age 20 is with the dysfunctional family her life with Spanner is full of depredation and struggle, and her life post Spanner is redemption. This is a novel which stays with you, aftershocks vibrating in your skull. It all seemed very real and exceptionally well drawn. I couldn’t recommend this to just anyone, you’d have to persevere with it and have a particular sensitivity to enjoy it. Half of the time reading this I didn’t really warm to it. It certainly picks up in the 2nd half. But after you have finished it you want to start again somehow. Deeply moving and strange.But definitely not a standard sci-fi.
—Si Barron
Hard to believe it's almost two decades since I read this, but Nicola Griffith's coming of age tale remains as relevant today as ever. The socially alienating effects of privilege lie at the heart of this near-future tale of a young woman cast adrift from her wealthy family by a kidnapping gone wrong, finding love, friendship and a sense of social justice in the process. Anyone expecting a post-cyberpunk mish-mash of martial arts and weapon enhanced mercenaries will be disappointed; Griffith presents the future as a not-quite dystopia inhabited by real people, making this one of the more prescient pieces of science fiction to emerge from the 1990s.
—Anthony Ryan
