Stonefish

Scott Jones defies genre expectations all the way round. This cyberpunk, dys- or I guess u-topian (depending on how you feel about it), weird fiction, horror, crypto zoological mystery should maybe not work...but it does and beautifully at that.
As one might expect from Scott there are certainly religious and mystical overtones (I particularly enjoy the parallel to Christ carrying his cross upon his back late in the novel) as well. With clever references to the present day, our protagonist (a journalist by trade) goes on the hunt for a missing tech mogul in a world teetering both on the edge of climate collapse and transformative consciousness, in the midst of another mysterious crisis featuring strange phenomena robbing people of their show more senses.
I would describe or summarize some of what's encountered along the way, but repeatedly the very nature and substance of reality is called into question. As the, intertextually referenced, Matrix advertising campaign told us in the 90s, one can't be told what this story is. Or at least, can't be without robbing you of the journey and experience (unless, like me, you are completely okay with spoilers).
While reading it, I kept thinking something about Stonefish reminded me of Murakam's 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' and I've struggled to think of why. Other than some very superficial trappings, they don't on the surface seem similar enough to have evoked that in me. But I can't help feel they share some DNA. Maybe its the birth and death of worlds, questions about the nature of reality, but one entirely internal and one very external. show less

This book stares into the face of cosmic horror. The cosmos blinks first.

(This is a repeat of my Amazon review!)

Reviewed in Canada on February 11, 2021

An investigative journalist who searches for what he thought was a scoop, and which quickly unfolds to become so much more than he bargained for.

When the journalist, Den, finds Gregor, the reclusive tech mogul everyone has been looking for, the book shifts gears and starts to really dig into the slow dread it's built up to this point The interaction between the two of them, as well as some other entities, is powerfully written and compelling.

I won't give too much away, but the progression of ideas Den and Gregor discuss, coupled with the unsettling implications of what those ideas could show more mean in reality... this is the kind of work that walks right up to what other cosmic horror stories might leave vague. And then it talks with what it finds on the other side. And builds things with them.

Jones deftly avoids being only an 'ideas' book, of characters just talking and philosophizing. He takes those conversations and extrapolates some truly terrifying realities. Often, this means that this book is excellent and compelling, but also difficult, as you let the ideas and implications roll around in your head. That said, the difficulty didn't reduce the momentum I brought to reading it, which only built up more to the intense conclusion of the story.

The book is also a challenge, because there were parts of me that wanted to join the chat with Den and Gregor, wanting to offer another idea or interpretation. I can't remember the last time I wanted to debate a book, or at least a book that I was also loving the whole way through.

Jones has written a novel that melds so many of it's inspirations into a wholly new thing. It is both a novel, literally, and it is a novel interpretation of the concepts. I'm glad I read it. You should read it too! show less