Engine Summer

Still the speculative fiction the novel I love the most. I re-read it every few years and I never tire of it, and never will, I think. Like the crystal that records the tale, it has many facets, impossible to appreciate all at once, or in a single reading. Crowley's writing, here as in Little, Big, is flawless. But it's his particular vision of how the world is transformed and what that says about being human that I fell and remain in love with. If you don't share a sense of longing for its poignant and melancholy beauty and a wonder at the aliveness of that vision, this book won't be for you.

I almost want to go back and re-read this one immediately because there are a lot of revelations at the end that completely change how you understand the rest of the book. This book is going to haunt me for a long time.

It is set in a post-apocalyptic future, where some disaster has wiped out most of humanity. The story is narrated by Rush That Speaks in his old age, being interviewed about his youth. He grew up in a communal society, where people struggle to understand the lives of the humans who came before, who they call Angels. They still have some discarded Angel technology and artifacts, which they revere but do not understand (one character spends most of his life in a quest to understand "crostic words"). The human society was show more clearly far more advanced than ours, and there are elements of magic too - the people don't have to grow food, but can survive by smoking stuff they harvest from weird trees that were left by aliens.

As a teenager, Rush That Speaks goes on a quest, hoping to become a Saint. In his travels he learns different ways of understanding the world: in his native culture, he was a truthspeaker. He encounters other people who see the world in terms of dark and light instead of truth. He encounters scavengers who see the world in utilitarian terms. All along, he is trying to understand the world, and trying to form a relationship with Once a Day, a girl he played with as a child. His pursuit of her is part of his quest to understand the world.

All along, the reader gets more and more hints about how the world came to be how it is. It takes some sleuthing to piece them all together, and I'm sure I missed a lot of it along the way because I couldn't see how it was relevant.

The book can be mysterious and confusing, and sometimes as a reader you feel a bit unmoored and it's hard to follow what's happening, but it's still compelling. Rush That Speaks and his fellow people have a childlike wonder and innocence that makes the novel sparkle, even in the dark parts.

It all comes into sharp focus at the end, so if you're feeling lost, stick with it because it does all eventually make sense.

I love John Crowley's books. With this one, just like all of his others, I feel like I'm not quite smart enough to totally appreciate everything he's doing, and I might need two or three readings to fully appreciate it, but it's well worth two or three readings. show less

Fey, muted, beautiful. The story of Rush-that-speaks is a bildungsroman that will haunt you long after you have read the last page. The story follows the charming and inquisitive Rush as he grows up in his enclave of 'True Speakers', one of the few groups of humanity left after an apocalypse has destroyed most of civilization. It then follows him as he ventures out into the world to see what strangeness it may offer and in the hopes of finding his lost love.

Don't expect to find the mutant zombies or flesh-eating reavers of many other post-apocalyptic stories. Instead prepare to see with Rush the melancholy remnants of our society, given new strangeness and wonder when viewed through his eyes. Tied to this are the strange people we meet; show more those who survived the cataclysm and continued to live their lives, forever changed by the harsh reality of the end of civilization.

The ways in which these groups choose to meet the challenges presented by this world mark each of them in significant ways, and as Rush witnesses these things he is changed by them, becoming both more, and less, than he was when he started his journey.

This is one of my very favourites by Crowley (I seem to prefer his early work to his later) and I highly recommend it to any and all.

Edit: June 12/12 Upon reflection I think I have to give this one five stars. show less

There are some books that are bigger on the inside than on the outside. They may be small, but are so densely layered that they feel like they're opening onto infinite space, and when you finish reading you're dazed, like you've woken up from a vivid dream to find your waking life transformed.
Engine Summer is such a book, a deceptively slim novella set in a far-future world, which is at once a picaresque tale of love and adventure, and a dreamily gorgeous story about the nature of time, identity, consciousness, and the stories that make us really live.

You should read it.

‘Engine Summer’ is an odd and oblique little sci-fi novel from 1980. I think I must have found it on a list of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, as that is a favourite sub-genre of mine. Within that sub-genre, I would liken it to [b:Riddley Walker|776573|Riddley Walker|Russell Hoban|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1383166398s/776573.jpg|762606] and [b:The Slynx|310722|The Slynx|Tatyana Tolstaya|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320532928s/310722.jpg|3535], as it uses changed language to create atmosphere and evoke the new world. The linguistic shift is less significant than in [b:Riddley Walker|776573|Riddley Walker|Russell Hoban|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1383166398s/776573.jpg|762606], but still takes some getting used to. It show more took me about fifty pages to get into the novel. Quite unusually for its sub-genre, the narrative is very peaceful and relaxed. It follows Rush that Speaks through his childhood and on a journey (nonspecific quest?) that he undertakes. There is much discussion of the myths and stories of this changed world, which hint at then more explicitly describe how things came to be this way. I was pleased to find that this calm stability was apparently thanks to a conspiracy of women, led by a trans woman, who foresaw society’s immanent collapse and prepared for it. Although such background was intriguing, though, the actual events of the book were not really enough to keep me interested. I liked the twist at the end, but it seemed a minor payoff for the rambling of the previous 180 pages. There were some interesting subtexts about the relationship between humanity and nature, however these were not explored in any depth. Overall, a gentle, underwhelming novel. show less

A good early novel from a writer who was clearly just discovering his skills. The novel is not perfect, but its strengths are always enough to pull the reader along to the next bend in the road. These strengths include an engaging protagonist with enough dark corners to keep a reader interested, an enduring infatuation with so little justification that it remains plausible, and a world seen only through the eyes of one character, and not developed past his gaze.

Not a perfect novel indeed, but in an era where authors seem to think their readers are buying on page count it's nice to see a novel with a sense of restraint and purpose. This is not a guidebook to some imaginary land, it's a simple story with few nice twists and a well-made show more turn a the end.

Quite a pleasant read - and you can't ask for more than that, really. show less

I really liked this. It had some pretty cool ideas for post-apocalypse societies, but I'll admit, I liked the truthful speakers the best. I got a little bored and distracted at Dr. Boots' List, which is a shame, because it ties in really well with the main story. I hope I didn't miss anything because of it. I very much liked the idea of Path, and the Filing System, and I was intrigued by the League of women. Quite interesting!