The Land Across

The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 10 Mar 2013
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6347

Antonin Scriabin10 Mar 2013, 00:34
http://upcoming4.me/news/book-news/gene-wolfe-the-land-across-cover-art-and-synopsis-reveal#.UThFLk3ZXxc.twitter Looks like we have a release date, synopsis, and cover art. So excited! Looks like something of a change for Wolfe, I am very intrigued. My two favorite writers have new novels coming out in the fall / winter. 2013 will be a good year!
Gwern Branwen10 Mar 2013, 03:33

↳ in reply to Antonin Scriabin

3 quoted lines
On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 7:34 PM, Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote: Looks like we have a release date, synopsis, and cover art.
Synopsis:
2 quoted lines
A novel of the fantastic set in an imagined country in Europe An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work, but they are not in some ways as threatening as the brute forces of bureaucracy and corruption in that country. Is our hero in fact a spy for the CIA? Or is he an innocent citizen caught in a Kafkaesque trap? Gene Wolfe keeps us guessing until the very end, and after.
I'm not sure why, but for some reason I thought that The Land Across was going to involve time travel or dinosaurs!
gwern http://www.gwern.net
Gerry Quinn10 Mar 2013, 13:52

↳ in reply to Gwern Branwen

From: Gwern Branwen
4 quoted lines
Synopsis:
A novel of the fantastic set in an imagined country in Europe An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work, but they are not in some ways as threatening as the brute forces of bureaucracy and corruption in that country. Is our hero in fact a spy for the CIA? Or is he an innocent citizen caught in a Kafkaesque trap? Gene Wolfe keeps us guessing until the very end, and after.
I'm not sure why, but for some reason I thought that The Land Across was going to involve time travel or dinosaurs!
At least he can plausibly argue that cellphones, internet etc. are not available to the public in this setting. This is not a criticism of Wolfe — he has been criticised for ignoring such things in Home Fires but in truth perfect communication is a plot-wrecker. I suspect few novelists/scriptwriters etc. like what cellphones do to their mise en scene. - Gerry Quinn

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