No Henry James-like piling of subordinate clause on subordinate clause or long descriptions. Her sentences are unobtrusively long but unclotted. Koja is, at least in these novels, one of those literary writers who tends to write variations on the same story. The order I read them, Skin, The Cipher, Bad Brains, and Kink, was not their order of publication, and I skipped Strange Angels, so keep that in mind. From her appearance on the Lovecraft ezine podcast, she seems like a fun person, and her guest appearance at Arcana was finally a motive to seek out some of her short fiction, which I’ll be looking at in a future posting, and her early novels. Koja’s name has been lurking in mind since reading her story “The Neglected Garden” (1991) in its original magazine appearance.
Alas, things came up, and I’m not able to attend. Like the Bierce project, I did it in preparation of this year’s local Arcana convention.
Like the Ambrose Bierce reading project of a couple of years ago, I’ve spent the past four months reading Kathe Koja on and off. Nicholas powers the Funhole? No way.Essay: The Early Novels of Kathe Koja: The Cipher. I didn't suss out that he was the reason for the Funhole, I'm not smart enough to read the writing style easily. And I realize it could be my own failings. I did like that Nakota and Malcom got their just deserts in the end. Couldn't he have finished transforming and then died like in Kafka's "Metamorphosis"? Or jumped into the Funhole never to be seen again? But Nicholas seemed like such a nebbish, schmuck, loser, wuss, how could he possibly power something like the Funhole?Īnd then it cuts out without closure. Le Guin so I get the whole evil shadow-self trope. I've read "Wizard of Earth Sea" by Ursula K. and we get to "it was probably really him all along" which to me is one step up from "it was all a dream". Anybody else? Slogging through the purple prose, which seemed inspired at some points and pretentious at the end.
I enjoyed in a martyr-like way the constant worsening of the situation and Nakota's behavior.īut I am vexed by the ending. Having lived through the 90s post college in shitty roach infested studio with little furniture and living off of Lean Cuisines, and being somewhat aware of the desperate shitty fringe art scene, that part felt very realistic. Now I get why it's popular: great characters, lots of horror thrown in. After seeing this recommended so much and it was about $2.00 for Amazon Kindle, I read it.
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