Galaxy's Edge Issue 42 by Mike Resnick

Author:Mike Resnick [Resnick, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, science fiction magazine, short stories
Publisher: Arc Manor
Published: 2019-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse

by K. Eason

DAW (hardcover)

October 2019

ISBN: 978-0756415297

Praise aplenty has been heaped upon this novel even before its release, and one can’t help wondering if it’s all hype or well-deserved. Obviously, from the title and the packaging, the intention is to play upon our expectations. Is it an sf novel disguised as a fantasy? Is it a fairytale with trappings of science-fictional lingo and lore? Is its wit playfully well-intentioned or an arrogant stab at sff readers who like their marvels neatly labeled and neatly contained like the peas in a plastic tray for a frozen dinner?

Even more important: does it hang together as novel, or is its structure an excuse to play with the conventions of several literary forms and mix them all up? Or appeal to the fans of Adams, Pratchett, Holt and Wong combined? Or is it, as we used to say a half century ago, its own thing?

Whatever it is, count me in. The praise is not unfounded.

At bottom (and top as well), what counts to me more than categories and cleverness and wit and humor and more-hipster-than-thou-ness is a good story, and all that entails. It doesn’t always have to make sense. It doesn’t even have to always be well written, though K. Eason is an outstanding writer; her years in the trenches teaching freshman comp have served her well. What it needs above all is to be a good story, and at that Rory Thorne succeeds admirably.

Rory Thorne, princess, heir (at least for a while) to an interplanetary conglomerate, is gifted/cursed to see and hear the truth past every utterance of vanity, blandishment, passive-aggression and just outright bald-faced lying. She has also re-charted the Hero(ine)’s Journey to points heretofore considered too outrageous to be countenanced by any major publisher in the field.

And here it is, put out by DAW, a publisher considered, rightly or wrongly, a purveyor of more sober and traditional brands of sf and fantasy. To cynical bibliophiles of the twenty-first century: miracles still happen. DAW is a class(y) act.

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse is a fairytale hidden within a high fantasy epic stuffed into an interplanetary romance inserted into a rite of passage adventure. Along with her other gifts, Eason knows that a little goes a long way, and keeps this shimmering journey to a manageable 408 pages. Cleverness for its own sake can be a U.N.-prosecutable offense against readership, but Eason bravely traces that thin line without stumbling over into realms of excess, even when she delivers a sentence like: “Rory strangled a laugh in the back of her throat and stuffed it into a dark corner where its body would never be found.” We sure as heck don’t need that line to advance the story, but it’s fun to have around.

The realities of modern publishing dictate that no book will be published if it can’t be sequeled to infinity. For once, we may be grateful for mindless corporatism, for it promises that Eason, and Rory, may have a few more multiverses to destroy in their futures.

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