![]() With beliefs, laws, superstitions, customs. “This is serious, I want to construct a society that works. Where Tolkien created Middle Earth as a vehicle for myth and language, Lytten wants to build a realistic working society. Tolkien doesn’t feature directly in the novel, but he does touch its edges a couple of times, which is a pleasing addition to proceedings. He’s not the first to do this, and it will delight Tolkien fans that Lytten is a small-time member of the Inklings. To say more would give the game away.Īs Arcadia opens, Henry Lytten, an Oxford professor, is a writing a fantasy novel. ![]() How does it do this? Pears, not traditionally a science fiction writer, employs some commonly used devices of the genre to create a mind-bending but wholly satisfying tale. ![]() I read Arcadia in paper format, forwards from page one, so I can’t verify the truth of this statement ( Pears explains in this interesting Q&A, how the book format is but a single narrative route through his creation), but I can confirm that story does fold back over on itself. So it is with Arcadia, a novel, if its app is to believed, that has chapters which can be read in any order. ![]() I don’t like structure to overshadow the substance of a novel, but I do find quirky or unusual constructions very appealing. I’ve, realised through writing these Literary SFF posts, that a novel’s structure is very important to me. Iain Pear’s Arcadia is a piece of precision literary engineering. ![]()
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