Sembra esserci un bell'affresco in mostra dietro la trama, un affresco di cui qua e là si scorge qualcosa, ma che resta sullo sfondo, coperto da un ombra fastidiosa. La trama appunto.
A kind of 'Civil servant' is dispatched to a watery world to track down illegal technology. While there he is sucked down into a backwoods bayou of superstition, folklore & murder spiced with local tensions and erotic storms.
Overarching the 'Bureaucrat' and his mission is a swath of interstellar civilization hinted at in mundane bits, ordinary words and glimpses painted onto the reader's mind in thousands of little meaningful dots until you gradually realize you are walking through a deeply textured universe filled with histories.
I first saw this book in the early nineties, but the cover art turned me off-- A man floating in a ocean surrounded by fishes. It didn't make sense to me. Then a second incarnation a little later had a picture of a man in a business suit standing atop a drowned building in the middle of a flooded city. The picture merely implied a weird Apocalyptic tale but not much more.
The cover art for this latest incarnation of the story FINALLY hits the spot. The Artist captured the sense of what the Story is about. This is Cover art that finally made me buy the book.
A last point-- This Story moves at a sedate pace. I never bothered with the book in my earlier years because it had no space battles or massive action tracts. It's a detective story touching upon a deeper conspiracy. . .and because it's a Detective story, it moves at a personal level.
This book is a treat for the intelligent, mature reader on a long Summer Weekend.
...Continua
