The Land Across

Gwern Branwen · 10 Mar 2013, 03:33 · from 2013-March.txt.gz

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From: gwern0 at gmail.com (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2013 22:33:27 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Land Across
In-Reply-To: <CAM0v-i6iMNP1sMUb=_grcy5iVkBBX3+FyOT7FLpvydM8U6W_9w at mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAM0v-i6iMNP1sMUb=_grcy5iVkBBX3+FyOT7FLpvydM8U6W_9w at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMwO0gwX6mQxLFNPNb_Xe=9ExjUqad7tuvMtNCSVXmWTW5zUng at mail.gmail.com>

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:

> 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

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