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The Raw Shark Texts

by Steven Hall

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
2,6401175,486 (3.72)1 / 136
This genre-bending national bestseller is "a horror-dystopic-philosophical mash-up, drawing comparisons to Borges, The Matrix and Jaws" (The New York Times Magazine).   Eric Sanderson wakes up in a house he doesn't recognize, unable to remember anything of his life. A note instructs him to call a Dr. Randle, who informs him that he is undergoing yet another episode of memory loss, and that for the last two years--since the tragic death of his great love, Clio, while vacationing in Greece--he's been suffering from an acute dissociative disorder. But there may be more to the story, or it may be a different story altogether.   With the help of allies found on the fringes of society, Eric embarks on an edge-of-your-seat journey to uncover the truth about himself and escape the predatory forces that threaten to consume him. Moving with the pace and momentum of a superb thriller, exploring ideas about language and information, as well as identity, this is ultimately a novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love.   "Paced like a thriller, it reads like a deluge . . . Herman Melville meets Michael Crichton, or Thomas Pynchon meets Douglas Adams." --San Francisco Chronicle   "Rousingly inventive." --The Washington Post   "Unforgettable fiction." --Playboy   "A thriller that will haunt you." --GQ   "Sharp and clear . . . Writing on the edge of the form." --Los Angeles Times   "Huge fun, and I gleefully recommend it." --Audrey Niffenegger, international-bestselling author of The Time Traveler's Wife   "Fast, sexy, intriguing, intelligent." --Toby Litt… (more)
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» See also 136 mentions

English (106)  French (3)  Finnish (3)  Dutch (2)  German (1)  Spanish (1)  Italian (1)  All languages (117)
Showing 1-5 of 106 (next | show all)
This is my second read of this book. I want to love it, and for a long way through, I do. Then it all falls apart in the third act. I’ll likely read it again in a few years, after the specifics fade from my memories. ( )
  dogboi | Sep 16, 2023 |
The back cover and inside jacket of this novel are both filled with glowing reviews. One of them read "The most original reading experience of the year...A novel that genuinely isn't like anything you have ever read before." Consequently, I opened this book with high expectations which unfortunately weren't met. As far as the originality goes, I'd have to say, that simply isn't the case. The book in many ways, reminded me of the work of Jasper Fjorde or Haruki Murakami. And the end was right out of Jaws. That being said, it was an interesting and enjoyable read. Just not as good as I expected. ( )
  kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 |
Cute idea. ( )
  markm2315 | Jul 1, 2023 |
i really really liked this book, full-blown nerd-head explosion, until the last third, where it turned into a retelling of someone else's story. then i was just bored. too bad. ( )
  J.Flux | Aug 13, 2022 |
I'm in 2 minds about this book. There were a few sections where I felt I had little idea what was going on, or what the author was getting at; but when it was good it was REALLY good. There are some amazing ideas here, along with memorable characters and a great premise and style that reminded me at time of John Dies At The End and The Matrix. ( )
  whatmeworry | Apr 9, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 106 (next | show all)
The Raw Shark Texts manages to reach the loftiest goal of speculative fiction: making its outlandish situations illuminate real human emotion. When the second Sanderson begins to share his previous incarnation's affecting grief over his lost love Clio, the concept of a memory-eating shark takes on additional layers of significance.

Comparisons with The Matrix, Fight Club and Memento have been thrown around, and it's telling that all these action-thrillers were on the big screen. The prose is often self-important and less brilliant than the situations it describes, and many of the story elements dogmatically adhere to Hollywood conventions. But Hall borrows a number of effective techniques from film. A metaphysical book such as this easily could have become dense and inaccessible, but Hall's unrelenting focus on visual storytelling keeps it lucid.

The book fully succeeds in exploring the tenuous hold we have on our sense of self, which is, after all, only "a concept wrapped in skin and chemicals."
added by sduff222 | editUSA Today, Eliot Schrefer (Apr 24, 2007)
 
The rest of Hall's ambitiously conceived but irritatingly self-serious novel concerns Sanderson's "Jaws"-like quest to put an end to the shark before it eats him, punctuated by a stock romantic plot and pictorial games that include a flip-book shark attack. Oddly, given all the textual high jinks, Hall's weakness for ending chapters on cliffhangers suggests that his book may actually wish it were a film.
added by sduff222 | editThe New Yorker (Apr 9, 2007)
 
Quirky even for metafiction--the novel includes abstract diagrams and flipbooks--Hall's debut can be confusing. But when he hits his stride, particularly during a climactic manversus-shark chase on the high seas, Texts is exhilarating. B+
added by sduff222 | editEntertainment Weekly, Karen Leigh (Apr 6, 2007)
 
Though Hall's prose is flabby and the plethora of text-based sight gags don't always work (a 50-page flipbook of a swimming shark, for instance), the end result is a fast-moving cyberpunk mashup of Jaws, Memento and sappy romance that's destined for the big screen.
added by sduff222 | editPublishers Weekly (Jan 15, 2007)
 
First things first, stay calm." So reads a cryptic letter early in The Raw Shark Texts, but it's difficult not to get worked up by Steven Hall's dizzying debut novel. Already the object of a bidding war among filmmakers, the book grabs readers with a series of set-ups reminiscent of everything from Jaws to Memento.
added by sduff222 | editKirkus Reviews (Jan 15, 2007)
 
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Dedication
For Stanley Hall
1927-1998
A gentleman and a scholar
First words
I was unconscious. I'd stopped breathing.
Quotations
"Since I've left home on this journey, I've thought a lot about this–how a big part of any life is about the hows and the whys of setting up machinery. It's building systems, devices, motors. Winding up the clockwork of direct debits, configuring newspaper deliveries and anniversaries and photographs and credit card repayments and anecdotes. Starting their engines, setting them in motion and sending them chugging off into the future to do their thing at regular or irregular intervals. When a person leaves or dies or ends, they leave an afterimage; their outline in the devices they've set up around them. The image fades to the winding down of springs, the slow running out of fuel as the machines of a life lived in certain ways in certain places and from certain angles are shut down or seize up or blink off one by one. It takes time. Sometimes, you come across the dusty lights or electrical hum of someone else's machine, maybe a long time after you ever expected to, still running, lonely in the dark. Still doing its thing for the person who started it up long, long after they've gone."
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Wikipedia in English (3)

This genre-bending national bestseller is "a horror-dystopic-philosophical mash-up, drawing comparisons to Borges, The Matrix and Jaws" (The New York Times Magazine).   Eric Sanderson wakes up in a house he doesn't recognize, unable to remember anything of his life. A note instructs him to call a Dr. Randle, who informs him that he is undergoing yet another episode of memory loss, and that for the last two years--since the tragic death of his great love, Clio, while vacationing in Greece--he's been suffering from an acute dissociative disorder. But there may be more to the story, or it may be a different story altogether.   With the help of allies found on the fringes of society, Eric embarks on an edge-of-your-seat journey to uncover the truth about himself and escape the predatory forces that threaten to consume him. Moving with the pace and momentum of a superb thriller, exploring ideas about language and information, as well as identity, this is ultimately a novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love.   "Paced like a thriller, it reads like a deluge . . . Herman Melville meets Michael Crichton, or Thomas Pynchon meets Douglas Adams." --San Francisco Chronicle   "Rousingly inventive." --The Washington Post   "Unforgettable fiction." --Playboy   "A thriller that will haunt you." --GQ   "Sharp and clear . . . Writing on the edge of the form." --Los Angeles Times   "Huge fun, and I gleefully recommend it." --Audrey Niffenegger, international-bestselling author of The Time Traveler's Wife   "Fast, sexy, intriguing, intelligent." --Toby Litt

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Canongate Books

3 editions of this book were published by Canongate Books.

Editions: 1841959022, 1847670245, 184767156X

Penguin Australia

An edition of this book was published by Penguin Australia.

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