Basic Reason for Beginning: Uhm, when I saw a review of it, I thought it sounded interesting. So I bought it. Also, there are ties to the Dutch in this (in a non-native speaker's book), so hey let me have my patriotic moment. I don't have many.
Basic Reason for Finishing: Uhm. It's a good book? I had some really picky issues with it, but the overall book is well worth reading, which I'm hoping I can convince you of by the end.
Texture: It's quite distinct for all three narratives. There's the almost-comfortable regular third person past tense, the slightly tenser present and the slightly itchy first person. But specific textures? Sorry... Not this time.

Full review here.

Book Rereadability: There're layers upon layers going on here, but, as fascinating as it would be to reread this with an intention to analyse the structure, I doubt I will. My issues are small(ish), few and personal, but they went deep.
Author Rereadability: I wouldn't say 'no' if I found something that sounded interesting, but I'm not dying to break my acquisition ban to get the rest of her works either.
Recommendation: This is near-future scifi. Personally I'd classify it as dystopian, ish, but... Not sure how accurate the label is. And it's fairly graphic at times. So if neither is your thing, this book won't be either. And... I'm stuck on the rest. ( )

A copy of this book was once lodged in the library of Ofwat, the English economic regulator of the water industry, because of its literary treatment of wastewater treatment. I can't think of any other novels that have sewage treatment as a key theme, let alone lesbian sf novels.

The UK paperback blurb says of the heroine, "She wakes naked and injured in a back alley of a strange city" - well, it's Hull, actually... ( )

Lore, daughter of a rich family who made their money making 'bugs' for purifying water, escapes from her kidnappers, and wakes naked and friendless.. She can't go home, because her family didn't pay her ransom ; she thinks she killed one of her kidnappers ; and she's come to realise she was nearly abused as a child. The story is told in some alternating timeframes - her chlldhood, immediately post-kidnapping, and now, several years later. In the now timeframe, she gets a job using a false identity in a water treatment facility, and must carefully use her knowledge to improve the plant's safety.
I've described it badly but I love this book. Science fiction, set in the future about 40-50 years or so, where Lore's relationships with women are not commented on as being out of the ordinary. Even knowing what was going to happen I kept reading past when I should have been asleep.

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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