The premise: Lore is the daughter of one of the world's most powerful and wealthy families, but when she's kidnapped, she becomes a nobody. Naked, beaten, and left for dead, she finds help and solace in a woman named Spanner, an expert data pirate who can give Lore exactly what she needs: a new life, a new identity, and a place to hide from the police, her family, and her kidnappers. But all of this comes at a price, which Lore is forced to pay over and over and over again. Told from three threads, we meet Lore as a child growing up with her family, the post-kidnapping Lore who's rescued by Spanner and the life that follows, and then finally the Lore who's trying to hard to make a new, respectable life for herself while still hiding from her own past and her own fears. But the past keeps nipping at Lore's heels, and she soon finds she can't hide forever . . .

My Rating

Worth the Cash: this is no action-packed, fast read. Like the title suggest, it's meant to be read slowly, to be absorbed, so that the reader can fully live and experience Lore's life, all three perspectives on it. It might feel a little too slow, a little too dull at the start, but Griffith does a wonderful job focusing on the scientific element of water treatment, and the relationships Lore experiences are painful and real and you want her to succeed. The payoff at the end is worth it, but Griffith takes her time getting there, make no mistake about that. Fans of soft SF and feminist SF can't miss this book. If you do, well, it's your loss.

The full review, which does include spoilers, may be found at my new, improved! journal. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)

REVIEW: Nicola Griffith's SLOW RIVER

Happy Reading! ( )

Slow River is British writer Nicola Griffith's second science fiction novel, first published in 1995. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Lambda Literary Award in 1996. Her first novel, Ammonite explored the notions of gender and sexual identity and also won the Lambda Literary Award as well as the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. So we are talking about a sound writer with a poet’s sensibility for language who tells a good story. One of the roots of her writing has stated in interviews is the grief and rage over her sisters' deaths (one was killed during a police chase).

Nicola also uses her experience of being a lesbian to shape the themes and events in these two books. Click on to her site if you want to know more about her http://www.nicolagriffith.com/. This is not an unusual theme in SF. As a genre it is very open to exploring sexuality in all its forms say as in the Culture novels of Ian M Banks or in several of Ursula K. Le Guin's novels.

We start the story with the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful families naked, hurt and running in fear in the deep of the night. Her family are rich from biotechnology- the use of bacteria in waste disposal, water purification etc. And we are in the near future of a surveillance society with DNA finger tip electronic money economy.

A stranger (another woman and no angel) offers help. The story then splits three ways. We go into the past to follow why Lore’s childhood and family history lead her to her abandonment in the streets. It moves into the future to follow the consequence of her getting a job in a bio water purification plant whilst the middle strand explores the consequences of accepting the stranger’s help.

Nicola Griffith's changes tense according to which story line is being follow so for the childhood she uses 3rd person so we are observers and when at the Plant she uses 1st person so we are directly involved in the action. The focus of the story also changes according to the level. So when exploring her family life it’s the consequences of any teenage whine that your mum and dad fuck you up. In the help from the stranger story line we explore the criminal world of this imagined future and a less then perfect relationship. And the last story line is action driven as it becomes clear that the plant is in serious danger from internal and external forces. And it’s not clear who is friend and who is foe. This last section has a lot of very realistic detail…as does the lesbian sex. In the final chapters each of the story lines merges and gives twists you don’t see coming.

So Slow River is a feminist, lesbian SF novel with cyberpunk/ biopunk leanings. And shame on you if you went yuck as you will miss a cracking good read. Highly Recommended.
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i'm reading this now. i was looking for a sci fi book written by a woman and/or with a female lead character. this one has received a nebula award and there was a copy in the book store, so i am reading it. so far it's an interesting story about characters as well as about science. it's a little bleak.

I thought this was a well-written novel. I was expecting something edgy and cyberpunky, and instead got a nicely paced character-driven near-future story of abuse, dependence, recovery, and taking control of one's own life.

The protagonist Lore is a compelling character, with hidden secrets that are revealed gradually, a young woman who has grown up in a cold, wealthy family with plenty of dark complications of their own. Following a bloody escape from kidnappers Lore goes into hiding, trying to establish a new identity and find her real self. I could empathize with Lore, even though she looks at and responds to the world around her in a way that is totally foreign to me.

The narrative structure is a bit complicated, with four different overlapping storylines: Lore as a child, the kidnapping and escape, Lore with Spanner (whom Lore eventually joins in a series of progressively worse criminal activities), and Lore post-Spanner. The author jumped from first-person to third-person and past to present tense when she switched storylines; I found this more jarring than helpful.

The technology part of the story if fairly minimal: there are a couple of pervasive changes in everyday life and technology serves as a vehicle for one chunk of Spanner's criminal activity. Somewhat to my surprise I'd have to say that the most interesting parts of the story were the sections that talked Lore's experience working in a sewage processing plant.

This book is not for the prudish. There is lots of sex, most of it lesbian and none of it loving. And ancillary drug use, prostitution, and pornography.

The ending felt a little sudden, but drew the story to a satisfying conclusion without being cheap. ( )

Our heroine (who is a lesbian in the matter-of-fact SF way with no angst and no coming out) is a down-and-out heir to a biotech company who spends a lot of time prostituting herself and working at a futuristic sewage treatment plant. I know, my description does not do it justice -- it won a Nebula, okay? The characterization is excellent and believable (Lore is way cooler than Aud, Griffith's favorite heroine), and the book does cool things with person/tense and non-linear storytelling. Not quite as compelling as Ammonite, but better-written. Really really good. Read it now. ( )