Nicola Griffith

What kept me engaged at the beginning of Slow River was all the detail about waste-water treatment methods! Yes, I am a huge nerd. It was only more towards the end that Lore's three selves---childhood, her time with Spanner, and the time after Spanner---really started to come together so that I wasn't frustrated to be left hanging at the end of each (short) section, and started to fall for Lore herself. The way everything comes together at the end---"like the confluence of three rivers"---is just wonderful.

Tense switching usually irritates me, but in Slow River I almost didn't notice and it actually succeeded in helping the mental transition between sections of the story. If you're a writer, this is the book to study.

Please note that this book is pretty much all about abuse. There is hinted (and eventually, dealt with head-on) child sexual abuse, rape/"date" rape/all kinds of messed up consent, an abusive partner, forced sex work, suicide and attempted suicide, etc.... I'm sure I'm forgetting things. Not a very happy book. But it has an optimistic ending, which is important to me.

This was interesting to read right after I finished Trouble and Her Friends, another queer sci fi novel. In Trouble, the criminals are lovable scamps; in Slow River, living outside the law has serious consequences even when no one gets caught. Spanner's image of herself as a quirky, essentially good Robin Hood who lives by her wits has many cracks and flaws.

The other similarity between the two books, of course, is that Lore is a lesbian, and so are many of the major and minor characters, and that's NOT one of the traumas---there is no homophobia at all. (There also isn't any visible racism, though there is an intense ableist scene.) On the other hand, in Trouble and Her Friends, homophobia and racism and sexism haven't truly changed, they've just adapted to new contexts with new twists. I thought a lot about the contrasts between these two visions of institutional discrimination, and while Trouble's is probably more realistic, Slow River's is still an interesting change of pace. It certainly makes you think.… (mais)

The writing style and prose are simplistic and the plotting speeds ahead extremely quickly. A supernatural/metaphysical element is unconvincing and eye-roll inducing when it makes one of its occasional appearances. A threat of serial killers targeting MS patients on a cross country crime wave headed for the protagonist is, while unlikely and by-the-numbers-spare, at least something. The protagonist spends the whole of this short book in a state of bitterness and unpleasantness. Not much to recommend here for me.… (mais)

Back in 2018, when I was finally able to get around to reading the first book in this series, I wrapped up that endeavor being impressed by the effort that Ms. Griffith had put into the novel, but had to admit that I more respected the work than loved it.

Flashing forward to 2024, I find myself in much the same boat. Hild is a great character, and I do love the way that Griffith writes about the landscape and environment of the England of the period as a character in and of itself. However, it does appear to be that now Dr. Griffith (she has picked up a doctorate in medieval history in the interim) is undertaking the endeavor of writing her own chronicle of England, and I'm not sure that I'm signing up for that in the long run. Here's the thing: Originally billed as the "Light of the World" series, Hild's story is now being billed as the "Hild Sequence," and a sequence sounds significantly longer than a trilogy. While I applaud Griffith's ambition, a lot of people have come up with ambitious writing programs that they were/are unable to conclude.

Realizing that this all sounds like damning with faint praise, I do expect to be looking at the follow-on books.… (mais)