BARSK

   BARSK: THE ELEPHANTS' GRAVEYARD, by Lawrence M Schoen, came out today, and though I'm decidedly unimportant enough to have received an advanced copy for review, I did preorder it for my Kindle where it insta-downloaded the moment it became available, which was actually yesterday instead of today, so... Maybe that's got to do with timezones or something, but that's advanced copy enough for me. Downside of that is, it's still only one or two hours early, and I still had to read it PDQ in order to get a same-day release-date review. Because it's IMPORTANT goshdarn it.

   And so I've read it already. And... wow. Dang wow.

   The full title, according to the copyright page, is Barsk: the elephants' graveyard: an anthropomorphic novel, which, yes, yes, book in the shape of a man and all that, but... I don't know what it is; I've always preferred my anthropomorphism in visual terms. Novels never really did it for me. Liked this one. Loved this one. Though I didn't survive 80 pages into Watership Down, or get a sixteenth of the way through any Redwalls, or an eighth of the way through... that one book that's like Redwall 'cept written by Avi, which book's name slips my mind though I vaguely recall it may have had something to do with pots and/or pans?* Didn't get through those, but I blasted through this one, and it's not a short book.

   It... I'm not sure how long it is. I mean, I read it in a day, obviously, but it took all day. It felt short, not in the bad way, but in the way like how every scene knows what it's doing and is important to the plot? To me, that's the greatest thing that a plot can be. I'm not sure how much I can say without spoilers, but, guess what, that's also a big turn-on for me in terms of plot.** More spoilery review tomorrow? If they even are those, I mean, it, like, gives away some pretty major humdingers as part of the book description on Amazon...

   Yeah, yeah, I can't talk much right now, as most of what I have to say touches on those themes. Also, freak it's midnight, I gotta get this thing up. For now, though? ... yeah I'll tell you tomorrow.

   UPDATE!: There are things I'd meant to get to but didn't have time to, and which don't fit into my spoilery discussion, so I'm fitting them here in the original post; though there's a full post's worth of content here, no wonder I didn't have enough time to write this up.

   We're at kind of a unique place in science fiction right now. Even the hardest of SFs is finding justifications for all the wide-eyed bizarrity that you saw from the formative period in science fiction: why not bat people on the moon; the science at the time certainly still allowed for it. Barsk certainly takes place in a "sufficiently advanced" setting, where we can deftly blend science fiction and fantasy and not even need to handwave anything away anymore.

   Niche markets occasionally sending a lungfish-like bold evolutionary step crossing over into the mainstream, sometimes-- usually especially popular in the original-niche-anyway market, with the mainstream reaction between indifference and dislike. The niche solely pointing to it and saying, "see? we're in the mainstream! our little subculture has been ratified!" Like how every good little Mormon boy and girl enjoyed "Meet the Mormons," with its zero percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (I may still be the last holdout to actually see the thing in the first place, and I've yet to read any reviews, but I've seen the kind of phenomenon before and all the earmarks are present.)

   That's fandom-looking-outward; things do spring up also in the mainstream, like litfic writers writing what certainly appears to be speculative fiction-- and of course there's never any danger of fresh "furry" content ceasing to pour in from the mainstream, usually from juvenilia but who knows.

Barsk, much like its own bend-blend of science fiction and fantasy, like the bend-blend of beast and man within, straddles and takes place in both mainstream SF and niche "furry" fiction. I... get... the... feeling, that this is one of those products, those certain shining gems that can only be produced at one certain point in human history, products which had exactly one window to get into the world and which managed to squeeze in against all odds. The kind of thing that wins awards, and maybe even spoken of in hushed reverence by fans. The kind of thing that goes on to influence later generations. Whether Barsk actually is going to go on to become all of those things, just, <<shrug>>, but, it's one of those things with that potential.

   *Perloo the Bold, apparently? Starts with a "p"... But I'm like 99% sure that the first scene is Perloo wearing pots and pans as (fake?) armor. It's been a little while.

   **I mentioned plot, but not characterization, above, and I guess this is an apology for that, though even down in this update section I can't find a place for it. To the footnotes it is, then. I didn't bring it up above, not only because I didn't have much time to publish, but because in my mind characterization and plot are one and the same, or should be. When we remember a character, how funny or amazing or flawed he or she is, it's not in a vacuum; I'm not sure if you can, but I certainly can't think of a character independent from the things that character does. The best books make the character stakes count, make us care for what the characters care for.