Bøker av Patrick Zelinski

In his second fiction, Patrick Zelinski returns to the same eccentric and bewildering world from Departure Notice.Instead of the dreary and cold town of Kirvost, we follow our protagonist to Inward Falls, the largest entertainment complex outside the Center. Whereas Kirvost is an unknown and unmarked place, Inward Falls is where almost everyone in the Center wishes to be, where dreams manifest and desires are fulfilled. However, admittance is limited to a wealthy and compliant minority, as well as the workers. Henry Abramowski is one of the latter, sent to Inward Falls to do a job, and mostly forbidden from the indulgences that the other visitors seek. As with Departure Notice, misdirection and confusion are centerstage. Rather than having their hand carefully held and guided through an easily deciphered landscape, readers should expect to barely maintain their grasp on the hem of a garment attached to a loose weather vane in a dust storm.

In his first fiction, Patrick Zelinski introduces us to his sometimes bizarre and always intriguing world.There is the Center, and there is that which is outside the Center.Everything in the latter is wholly dependent on the former, except the town of Kirvost, where this short ( 55 page) book takes place. Kirvost is an odd town, its not on any of the Center's maps, and most people in the Center don't know about it. The town manages to be almost entirely self-sufficient while existing in a climate almost entirely inhospitable to most forms of life. Despite the grim realities of a near-perpetual snowstorm, or perhaps because of them, the town is also jovial. Every character encountered is odd, as well as oddly happy.Our protagonist, Artyom Platonov, was sent to Kirvost in an official capacity, as a medical expert investigating reports of a new plague. Confusion and misdirection are central components of this work, and readers should expect to feel uneasy, cold, and suspicious, yet simultaneously untroubled and content.