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  • Palimpsest See large image

    Palimpsest (Paperback) By (author) Catherynne Valente

    02

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    Short Description for PalimpsestFrom the author of "The Orphan's Tales" comes an erotic and exotic tale of four lost souls mapping a fantastical city.
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  • Great concept, poorly realised2

    Sholto Spradbury I discovered this author looking for something in the 'new weird' mould of China Mieville and Jeff Vandermeer, and certainly Palimpsest is original and highly imaginative, but I didn't enjoy it as much as her previous work, The Orphan's Tales.
    The premise of a sexually-transmitted dream-city is intriguing, and the story delivers plenty of grungy eroticism and surreal juxtapositions, but it all seemed a little bit cursory, and I was left unsatisfied. The real-world characters are suitably dysfunctional outsiders, and while they don't lack for depth or detail, I found them unsympathetic and even a little distasteful. The account of the city itself cleaves to an aesthetic dominated by railways, logophilia and anthropomorphised beasts, but it lacks the meatiness of New Crobuzon or Ambergris.
    Many people drool over Valente's 'lush' prose, while others find it too baroque. Personally I think her dense, formal and imagistic style more suited to poems and fairy tales than the sustained engagement required of a novel. In any case she is a young writer with plenty to offer, but comparisons with the likes of Calvino and Winterson are laughable hyperbole. by Sholto Spradbury

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