It’s one of the most striking books covers I’ve ever seen.) Not sure if tumblr’s rules would allow it to be posted? It’s highly detailed line-art colored with pastels, showing various animals, dinosaurs, naked and partly deconstructed people, blobs of viscera, and geologic forms. (Oh: I should also mention the cover of the book, which features art by Mat Brown: it’s wild. It’s similar to a technique that I’ve noticed Cisco use in all his writing, the use of strikingly odd or even “wrong” imagery, which forces you to pay extra close attention, so when it resolves into meaning the writing achieves an extreme vividness. Eventually all is explained: the language of this place is fluid, and nobody can agree on how it’s spelled. When the name is mentioned again a while later it follows one spelling, and bit later, the other spelling, so here I am flipping back and forth, trying to figure out which is correct. I’m allergic to typos and so it sticks out instantly.
One of the very first things I notice is a wonderful trick, though it’s not apparent as a trick at first: the name of the city where this is taking place, a long and complex name which is mentioned twice in the book’s third paragraph, is spelled two different ways. I started it a few years ago and the sheer size of the thing defeated me this time I’m going to use some sneaky techniques to read it all. I’m fifty pages or so into Animal Money (LFP, 2015). It’s one of two Cisco novels I have yet to read, the other being The Wretch of the Sun. “Although unavailable for analysis the moment it happens, being struck a violent blow on the head is a very interesting experience.”
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