SH Comments
Reged: Feb 16 2004
Posts: 1056
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This thread is for comments about Crossing Borders, by Tom Doyle.
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Lodestone
New user
Reged: Jul 21 2004
Posts: 13
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Well, I said I was going to be more positive this time. Having made the vow, I was quite terrified that this week I'd be presented with tripe that I'd have to compliment through bared teeth.
But, naturally, the SH team haven't let me down. This is probably the best story I've yet read on Strange Horizons. There's a lot I could compliment--he ease of the prose; the strength of character despite their brief appearances; the combination of beauty and brutality--but what I find most wonderrful is this:
Doyle takes a mind-numbingly mundane stock Sci Fi situation--two major powers in a fragile truce, one old and the other a new upstart--and gives it new life. The sex and violence too--an old trick.
I can't put my finger on how Doyle manages it, but somehow this story came across as totally fresh for me. Perhaps it's the strength of the concept of these "border crossers", although I don't tend to like concept-hinging stories most of the time. Perhaps it's the presentation of total anarchy in the sedate setting. Most likely it's everything I've mentioned and everything else.
Anyway, I really really like this. Cheers.
A mystery: I'm the first to comment on this thread, as shown by that big bold 0 in the Replies column until now. So why have 18 people viewed the thread? The workings of the human mind will always bemuse us :-D
(edit to replace broken m-dash code)
Edited by Lodestone (Mon Aug 09 2004 11:20 AM)
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Dawn B
Regular reader
Reged: Mar 31 2004
Posts: 32
Loc: Bay Area, California
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Wow... interesting story. Brutal and dark and erotic. Good character voice.
Dawn
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Tom Doyle
New user
Reged: Aug 09 2004
Posts: 6
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Just want to say thanks for the nice comments again while the story is still up on the main page. Thanks! Tom Doyle
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tweedledee
Unregistered
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Post deleted by kelli
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JoanneMerriam
Regular reader
Reged: Oct 07 2004
Posts: 93
Loc: Concord, NH
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I thought I wasn't going to like this - I'm usually bored by sex-for-shock, which is where I thought this was going - and then it turned into something entirely different and wonderful. Thanks for the excellent read, Tom.
--------------------
see how moonlight's sharp music breaks all of your windows
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Adam Dray
Unregistered
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Hi, Tom!
I finally got the time to read some of your stories. Two so far. I love your voice and all the twisted ideas and allusions in your writing.
In this story and in "The Floating Otherworld," I am stricken by the stark detachment of the characters.
Robynne seems to float along on autopilot, doing things that normally evoke strong emotions for people, but without every really bonding to anyone or anything. "They took her switch, and slashed at her with it." Do you play with the meaning of "switch" here? She has a switch for her emotions and it's always in the off position. The next section ("the world was a beautiful place and then it was like a switch being thrown") seems to suggest so. Robynne isn't exactly a border crosser. She has made borders meaningless. The part of a person that makes such distinctions meaningful is absent in her. Her body feels but her mind does not.
Nolan in "The Floating Otherworld" seems detached in another way. It's as if he can't connect because of the cultural barrier, because of the alienness around him. "You're not really here either." His repeatedly failed attempts at sexual connection make it worse. It's "unrequited love." But how can he connect to the dead, anyway? I guess, by the end, Nolan has made a connection with Kaguya but it still seems detached somehow. I don't know if this is your intention or an artifact of your style.
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