This week’s weird fiction.
Review: “A Redress for Andromeda”, Caitlín R. Kiernan, 2000.
I seem to recall, but am too lazy to verify, that I once heard Kiernan say on the Coode Street Podcast say that she wishes she could dispense with plot all together in her stories.
This story goes a long way in that direction.
It’s long on atmosphere and poetic prose. Kiernan does what I’ve long wished modern poets would do more of: use the beauty that can be wrought from scientific concepts and terminology. Specifically, she uses the language of geology and paleontology, the academic specialties she was trained in.
The story starts with Tara, a marine biologist, driving on Halloween night to an isolated house
where the land ends and the unsleeping, omnivorous Pacific has chewed the edge of the continent ragged.
On the porch are 111 lit jack-o’-lanterns, one for each year of the mansion’s existence. Continue reading ““A Redress for Andromeda””