A Year in the Linear City

The city is, literally, linear. One street, Broadway, runs through the middle, lined on either side by the huge buildings that make up the city. It's borders are neatly marked off, on one side by a wide, deep river, on the other by the railroad tracks that bring everything the city dwellers need. When a person dies, if they are lucky, the Fisherwives take him over the other side of the river, where the cooler temperatures and gentler feel bespeak of heaven, or, if they were not lucky enough, the Yardbulls would come, and take them to the wrong side of the tracks. The flickering flames, the heat, all make one think of hell.

This is the world in which our main character, Deigo, lives. His father is dying, and fears the coming of the Yardbulls for his body. When Deigo was a tot, his father, mother and he were boating down the river. The boat capsized, and Diego clung to his father. His father could not save his wife, and when he saw the Fisherwives come for her, he began a life long regret, a hatred of himself and his son.

A Cosmogonic fictioneer, Diego takes great pleasure from inventing futuristic things, such as people talking over wires. He is, in many ways, an optimistic character, and a foil for the setting in which he lives.

The world setting is very creepy. Underneath the city lives a great city beast, whose scales are considered incredibly valuable good luck charms to the members of Diego's borough. When the scales are ripped away, the beast bleeds. Also, the skies are filled with Fisherwives and Yardbulls, who hover expectantly, every once in awhile diving into the city to carry off the dead. Combined with the nearness of the symbolic heaven and hell, it lends the novel a surreal darkness. There is also a lack of things -- the people who live here depend on the train to bring supplies, but it doesn't always bring sufficient amounts. Things are never invented, and rarely are they fixed. Also, things such as drug use are accepted. This lends a shabbiness to the world, making it an even bleaker picture. If it wasn't for the positiveness of Deigo and his lover, Volusia, reading this would make one's spirits sink, so clearly is the sett! ing wrought.

All these strange facets, such as the Yardbulls, and the fact that all the boroughs are part of one gigantic city, laid out in a straight line demarked by river and railroad are almost too fantastical. Di Filippo makes these aspects work marvelously, to create a truly lovely bit of Cosmogonic fiction.

4 out of 5 wings
Cindy Lynn Speer, GWN Reviewer
12/04/2003
Ps Publishing
http://www.pspublisging.co.uk\par ">http://www.pspublisging.co.uk">http://www.pspublisging.co.uk

Fantasy
Trade
April 2002
80 pages
$14.95 US
ISBN 1 902880 36 6