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Rotten Row
Rotten Row is the worst place we've made. Humankind can travel to the stars - but only those content to be flung as a data stream through space, flitting from male to female, dark to fair, one random discard body to the next. Those who go are the Upshot, rare individuals subject to their own rigid laws. And then there's Rotten Row. Outcasts in breach of all codes, in Rotten Row people design their own bodies and sell them on for re-use after. Outlandish furred and feathered, winged and hooved and worse. duLaine is an artist, but all art is about identity. Where one blurs into the other beyond physical limits and legal restraint, what is art worth and how can anyone be certain who they are?
- GenresScience Fiction
139 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
3 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Chaz Brenchley
115 books79 followersChaz Brenchley has been making a living as a writer since he was eighteen. He is the author of nine thrillers, most recently Shelter, and two major fantasy series: The Books of Outremer, based on the world of the Crusades, and Selling Water by the River, set in an alternate Ottoman Istanbul. A winner of the British Fantasy Award, he has also published three books for children and more than 500 short stories in various genres. His time as Crimewriter-in-Residence at the St Peter's Riverside Sculpture Project in Sunderland resulted in the collection Blood Waters. He is a prizewinning ex-poet, and has been writer in residence at the University of Northumbria, as well as tutoring their MA in Creative Writing. His novel Dead of Light is currently in development with an independent film company; Shelter has been optioned by Granada TV. He was Northern Writer of the Year 2000, and lives in Newcastle upon Tyne with a quantum cat and a famous teddy bear.
Also known as author Daniel Fox.
Also known as author Daniel Fox.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 10, 2014
Rotten Row refers to this place unlike any other that is this bizarre tourist destination that gives new definition to people watching and freak show while combining the sentiments from "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" and "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" along with the mother of all identity crises wrapped up in some really beautiful prose.
Rotten Row takes place in a world where people not only can travel to other planets, but they can abandon their bodies and upload their mind/souls/self into a new body, but it is an one way trip since they can never return to their original bodies. For these people, the Upshot, it's a way to travel, to experience fully other peoples and cultures, and is a sort of way to escape aging. It becomes a fascinating study of identity, that part of the person that is not physical that maintains a sense of self in the transfer from body to body, that of how the body shapes the identity when there is no choice in the body the self is transferred into, whether male or female, physical features, and adjusting to a different body. When the body is so easily disposable, identity is the only continuity, and there are strict laws and regulations to protect identity.
Rotten Row disregards these kind of laws and concerns. On the surface, it is a place that allows people to manipulate and build their bodies to their imagination's delight and what they can afford. There is a continuum of normal human bodies to slight modifications where they are still recognizable to the extreme, where they barely look human. They can become the make-believe creatures in myth and fantasy and whatever combinations they can come up with. Tourists can come and gawk before returning home.
This is the story of a tourist who is also an artist who wants to fully immerse himself in this world to create art that truly captures the experience of Rotten Row. Think method actor, he wants to get in to the minds of these people and really experience their existence, without actually becoming them. He meets a centaur girl who agrees to be hired as a guide to take him around Rotten Row. His need for experience take him deeper into the workings of Rotten Row, seeing and understanding more than the usual tourist, threatening his sense of self, and he doesn't back away from taking the plunge for the sake of art.
This is not a typical scifi adventure, it's very much an introspective look at identity and what defines self, even the nature of art. The scifi elements are there, and the protagonist muses and thinks a lot on these issues, pretty fitting for an artist. I found it completely fascinating and worth reading because Brenchley writes so beautifully and coherently. These ideas aren't grandstanding diatribes but really explore and think through concepts, just thought provoking. I've read his urban fantasy books, Desdaemona and Pandaemonium, and noticed his lyrical writing style, but he really lets his writing shine in this book. A lot of works in fantasy and science fiction could be described as well written or even eloquent, but his is just gorgeous. Definitely a different kind of read, with the different ideas explored and the writing style that is not typical for this genre.
Rotten Row takes place in a world where people not only can travel to other planets, but they can abandon their bodies and upload their mind/souls/self into a new body, but it is an one way trip since they can never return to their original bodies. For these people, the Upshot, it's a way to travel, to experience fully other peoples and cultures, and is a sort of way to escape aging. It becomes a fascinating study of identity, that part of the person that is not physical that maintains a sense of self in the transfer from body to body, that of how the body shapes the identity when there is no choice in the body the self is transferred into, whether male or female, physical features, and adjusting to a different body. When the body is so easily disposable, identity is the only continuity, and there are strict laws and regulations to protect identity.
Rotten Row disregards these kind of laws and concerns. On the surface, it is a place that allows people to manipulate and build their bodies to their imagination's delight and what they can afford. There is a continuum of normal human bodies to slight modifications where they are still recognizable to the extreme, where they barely look human. They can become the make-believe creatures in myth and fantasy and whatever combinations they can come up with. Tourists can come and gawk before returning home.
This is the story of a tourist who is also an artist who wants to fully immerse himself in this world to create art that truly captures the experience of Rotten Row. Think method actor, he wants to get in to the minds of these people and really experience their existence, without actually becoming them. He meets a centaur girl who agrees to be hired as a guide to take him around Rotten Row. His need for experience take him deeper into the workings of Rotten Row, seeing and understanding more than the usual tourist, threatening his sense of self, and he doesn't back away from taking the plunge for the sake of art.
This is not a typical scifi adventure, it's very much an introspective look at identity and what defines self, even the nature of art. The scifi elements are there, and the protagonist muses and thinks a lot on these issues, pretty fitting for an artist. I found it completely fascinating and worth reading because Brenchley writes so beautifully and coherently. These ideas aren't grandstanding diatribes but really explore and think through concepts, just thought provoking. I've read his urban fantasy books, Desdaemona and Pandaemonium, and noticed his lyrical writing style, but he really lets his writing shine in this book. A lot of works in fantasy and science fiction could be described as well written or even eloquent, but his is just gorgeous. Definitely a different kind of read, with the different ideas explored and the writing style that is not typical for this genre.
July 28, 2013
In the far future, the wealthy and bold -- or the foolhardy -- can planet-hop by means the mysterious Chutes. The Upshot, as they call themselves, leave one body behind and find themselves at their destination in a brand-new body, one chosen randomly, which means they change gender, appearance, genetic heritage as they travel. On the huge orbital station called Rotten Row, however, the rules are different. If you have the cash, you can order up any identity you want.
This novella is more a meditation on identity and art than the more ordinary kinds of SF. Beautifully written, and crafted by a master stylist.
This novella is more a meditation on identity and art than the more ordinary kinds of SF. Beautifully written, and crafted by a master stylist.
Read
March 23, 2025Across the human worlds, most people are downsiders, putting up with the place and the bodies into which they were born, but there also exists a community of the Upshot, their minds flung to planets and forms they didn't begin with. The destination world, you can choose; the body, never. Sex, skin colour, once key to identity, can change each time; all you're guaranteed is that it will be baseline human.
And then, as transgressive to the Upshot as the Upshot are to downsiders, there's Rotten Row, a scandalous backwater of genetic experimentation, self-made (or at least, self-planned) freaks in an unending parade of becoming. We travel there with duLaine, who is a little too insistent about being an artist, not a tourist or a pervert, and follow as his immersive methods become a little too much so. It's an exploration of identity, obviously, but also of inequality, lust, social norms, art and involvement, poseurs versus creatives and whether there's really a distinction... Its gene-splicers and space station bazaars may echo classic cyberpunk, but there's at least as much of Decadents and Symbolists in this society of birdmen and giants; if the prose only got a little more carried away with itself, it could easily have been turn of the millennium slipstream, something I'd have read back to back with The Etched City. Really, its only weakness is its belated turn from travelogue to plot; in a short book, it ends up feeling rushed, and the life or death clim(b)ax is quite the least interesting scene here. Other than that, an insidious delight.
Though do bear in mind that the shorter summary would be 'stupid sexy centaurs'.
And then, as transgressive to the Upshot as the Upshot are to downsiders, there's Rotten Row, a scandalous backwater of genetic experimentation, self-made (or at least, self-planned) freaks in an unending parade of becoming. We travel there with duLaine, who is a little too insistent about being an artist, not a tourist or a pervert, and follow as his immersive methods become a little too much so. It's an exploration of identity, obviously, but also of inequality, lust, social norms, art and involvement, poseurs versus creatives and whether there's really a distinction... Its gene-splicers and space station bazaars may echo classic cyberpunk, but there's at least as much of Decadents and Symbolists in this society of birdmen and giants; if the prose only got a little more carried away with itself, it could easily have been turn of the millennium slipstream, something I'd have read back to back with The Etched City. Really, its only weakness is its belated turn from travelogue to plot; in a short book, it ends up feeling rushed, and the life or death clim(b)ax is quite the least interesting scene here. Other than that, an insidious delight.
Though do bear in mind that the shorter summary would be 'stupid sexy centaurs'.
February 26, 2019
Speculative fiction set in a world where the mainstream culture is obsessed, even paranoid, about identity. I liked the way the main themes and differences between this world and ours were introduced slowly, so you had time to figure out what was important, and what made Rotten Row so very different.
January 28, 2024
A very cool dystopian tale about changing bodies like dirty clothes. The prose is incredibly dense and rich at first, but once you find your footing...the pace picks up and you're sucked into a world that would give David Cronenberg a hard on...
Read
December 15, 2019This was one of those books where it felt like absolutely nothing happened.
November 29, 2011
While the setting is interesting (a science fiction world where people can shed bodies for new ones, which can be shaped and sculpted like artwork), the book prefers to let its milieu be the main character instead of the people who do stuff. While that might be interesting, if the protagonist were experiencing the world's many aspects via a road story (it sets out to be this at the beginning, but ultimately abandons the notion), it decides to take a different course.
This novella stops cold far too often, while the author fills us in on various elements pertaining to the interesting world. Often, these have little of merit or substance to do with the actual characters and their stories. This made it a real chore for me to slog through, one I almost abandoned (and probably should have). Not my cup of tea, which is a shame. The author has some nice descriptive ability and a decent ear for dialogue. Too bad the slim story is made to feel somewhat shallower than it actually is.
This novella stops cold far too often, while the author fills us in on various elements pertaining to the interesting world. Often, these have little of merit or substance to do with the actual characters and their stories. This made it a real chore for me to slog through, one I almost abandoned (and probably should have). Not my cup of tea, which is a shame. The author has some nice descriptive ability and a decent ear for dialogue. Too bad the slim story is made to feel somewhat shallower than it actually is.
February 3, 2024
A real treat
I loved Rotten Row. Much of Science Fiction uses the (quite impossible) technology that moves us between the stars to, well, just move us between the stars. What Chaz does it to take that technology and show how human ingenuity can drive the story, create new tensions and opportunities for the human drive to be individual.
Every character here has their own agenda, but you will have to reach the startling denouement to realise it. Things laid out in the open, in the mind of the pretentious artistic narrator, are revealed as layers of deception, not only in the devious natures of the chimeras he is enthralled by, but in his own reaction to their plots.
A lovely read
I loved Rotten Row. Much of Science Fiction uses the (quite impossible) technology that moves us between the stars to, well, just move us between the stars. What Chaz does it to take that technology and show how human ingenuity can drive the story, create new tensions and opportunities for the human drive to be individual.
Every character here has their own agenda, but you will have to reach the startling denouement to realise it. Things laid out in the open, in the mind of the pretentious artistic narrator, are revealed as layers of deception, not only in the devious natures of the chimeras he is enthralled by, but in his own reaction to their plots.
A lovely read
August 19, 2013
I really liked Rotten Row. I loved the concept of digitally transmitting our memories, personalities, and skills from one body to another - provokes some interesting thoughts about the nature of the soul.
That said, I thought Rotten Row got off to a slow start. I'm glad I kept pushing and read until our protagonist got onto the Row and into the plot arch.
That said, I thought Rotten Row got off to a slow start. I'm glad I kept pushing and read until our protagonist got onto the Row and into the plot arch.
January 2, 2014
It sorts of reminds me of those good old Hard SF books....very provocative idea and how it would affect humanity, good plot to wrap the idea in, and an unexpected ending to put the cherry on the top. Short, to the point, thought provoking and utterly enjoyable :)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews