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Engine Summer
In the drowsy tranquility of Little Belaire, the Truthful Speakers lead lives of peaceful self-sufficiency ignoring the depopulated wilderness beyond their narrow borders. It is a society untouched by pain or violence and the self-destroying 'Angels' of the past are barely remembered. But when Rush That Speaks leaves his home on a pilgrimage of self-enlightenment, he finds a landscape haunted by myths and memories. The overgrown ruins reflect a world outside that is stranger than his people ever dreamed...
254 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1979
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6700 people want to read
About the author
John Crowley
130 books839 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
John Crowley was born in Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942; his father was then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel (The Deep) in 1975, and his 15th volume of fiction (Endless Things) in 2007. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
His first published novels were science fiction: The Deep (1975) and Beasts (1976). Engine Summer (1979) was nominated for the 1980 American Book Award; it appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels.
In 1981 came Little, Big, which Ursula Le Guin described as a book that “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy.”
In 1980 Crowley embarked on an ambitious four-volume novel, Ægypt, comprising The Solitudes (originally published as Ægypt), Love & Sleep, Dæmonomania, and Endless Things, published in May 2007. This series and Little, Big were cited when Crowley received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.
He is also the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant. His recent novels are The Translator, recipient of the Premio Flaianno (Italy), and Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which contains an entire imaginary novel by the poet. A novella, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, appeared in 2002. A museum-quality 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, featuring the art of Peter Milton and a critical introduction by Harold Bloom, is in preparation.
Note: The John Crowley who wrote Sans épines, la rose: Tony Blair, un modèle pour l'Europe? is a different author with the same name. (website)
John Crowley was born in Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942; his father was then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel (The Deep) in 1975, and his 15th volume of fiction (Endless Things) in 2007. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
His first published novels were science fiction: The Deep (1975) and Beasts (1976). Engine Summer (1979) was nominated for the 1980 American Book Award; it appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels.
In 1981 came Little, Big, which Ursula Le Guin described as a book that “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy.”
In 1980 Crowley embarked on an ambitious four-volume novel, Ægypt, comprising The Solitudes (originally published as Ægypt), Love & Sleep, Dæmonomania, and Endless Things, published in May 2007. This series and Little, Big were cited when Crowley received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.
He is also the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant. His recent novels are The Translator, recipient of the Premio Flaianno (Italy), and Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which contains an entire imaginary novel by the poet. A novella, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, appeared in 2002. A museum-quality 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, featuring the art of Peter Milton and a critical introduction by Harold Bloom, is in preparation.
Note: The John Crowley who wrote Sans épines, la rose: Tony Blair, un modèle pour l'Europe? is a different author with the same name. (website)
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July 23, 2025
A highly unusual book, especially in the genre. It's easy to tell you some of the things this book wasn't (for me). It wasn't exciting or compelling. It wasn't emotionally engaging.
So what was it that dragged four stars from my tightly clutched fist?
Much of the book reads like a minute dissection of an LSD trip minus the visuals. And that's not immediately a recommendation either...
What made 'Engine Summer' for me was the gentle literary beauty of the thing. That combined with the imagination and mystery. I wasn't compelled, but I was certainly intrigued from start to finish. The writing is spectacularly beautiful without being overdone - Crowley has a subtle touch. Whether the philosophical/spiritual insights and revelations are deep or shallow I can't say, but the writing gave them a gravitas that made them seem as vital and obvious as that thing you understood with sudden and perfect clarity in the moment before you woke and it escaped you...
I think as many people might set this book aside in exasperation as may read it through to the end, but there's definitely something worthwhile here for many readers.
Quotes:
“The better you tell an old story, the more you are talking about right now.”
“I learned, as the raft moved and I slid through the day, as the day slid through me, to let the task be master: which is only not to choose to do anything but what has chosen me to be done.”
“Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from a kiss. First there is the kiss; then you step back, and the eyes fill up your vision, then the eyes are framed in the face as you step further away; the face then is part of a body, and then the body is framed in a doorway, then the doorway framed in the trees beside it. The path grows longer and the door smaller, the trees fill up your sight and the door is lost, then the path is lost in the woods and the woods lost in the hills. Yet somewhere in the center still is the kiss. That's what time is like.”
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...
So what was it that dragged four stars from my tightly clutched fist?
Much of the book reads like a minute dissection of an LSD trip minus the visuals. And that's not immediately a recommendation either...
What made 'Engine Summer' for me was the gentle literary beauty of the thing. That combined with the imagination and mystery. I wasn't compelled, but I was certainly intrigued from start to finish. The writing is spectacularly beautiful without being overdone - Crowley has a subtle touch. Whether the philosophical/spiritual insights and revelations are deep or shallow I can't say, but the writing gave them a gravitas that made them seem as vital and obvious as that thing you understood with sudden and perfect clarity in the moment before you woke and it escaped you...
I think as many people might set this book aside in exasperation as may read it through to the end, but there's definitely something worthwhile here for many readers.
Quotes:
“The better you tell an old story, the more you are talking about right now.”
“I learned, as the raft moved and I slid through the day, as the day slid through me, to let the task be master: which is only not to choose to do anything but what has chosen me to be done.”
“Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from a kiss. First there is the kiss; then you step back, and the eyes fill up your vision, then the eyes are framed in the face as you step further away; the face then is part of a body, and then the body is framed in a doorway, then the doorway framed in the trees beside it. The path grows longer and the door smaller, the trees fill up your sight and the door is lost, then the path is lost in the woods and the woods lost in the hills. Yet somewhere in the center still is the kiss. That's what time is like.”
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Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #prizes
...
June 12, 2012
Fey, muted, beautiful. The story of Rush-that-speaks is a bildungsroman that will haunt you long after you have read the last page. The story follows the charming and inquisitive Rush as he grows up in his enclave of 'True Speakers', one of the few groups of humanity left after an apocalypse has destroyed most of civilization. It then follows him as he ventures out into the world to see what strangeness it may offer and in the hopes of finding his lost love.
Don't expect to find the mutant zombies or flesh-eating reavers of many other post-apocalyptic stories. Instead prepare to see with Rush the melancholy remnants of our society, given new strangeness and wonder when viewed through his eyes. Tied to this are the strange people we meet; those who survived the cataclysm and continued to live their lives, forever changed by the harsh reality of the end of civilization.
The ways in which these groups choose to meet the challenges presented by this world mark each of them in significant ways, and as Rush witnesses these things he is changed by them, becoming both more, and less, than he was when he started his journey.
This is one of my very favourites by Crowley (I seem to prefer his early work to his later) and I highly recommend it to any and all.
Edit: June 12/12 Upon reflection I think I have to give this one five stars.
Don't expect to find the mutant zombies or flesh-eating reavers of many other post-apocalyptic stories. Instead prepare to see with Rush the melancholy remnants of our society, given new strangeness and wonder when viewed through his eyes. Tied to this are the strange people we meet; those who survived the cataclysm and continued to live their lives, forever changed by the harsh reality of the end of civilization.
The ways in which these groups choose to meet the challenges presented by this world mark each of them in significant ways, and as Rush witnesses these things he is changed by them, becoming both more, and less, than he was when he started his journey.
This is one of my very favourites by Crowley (I seem to prefer his early work to his later) and I highly recommend it to any and all.
Edit: June 12/12 Upon reflection I think I have to give this one five stars.
May 1, 2025
My usual word associations for science fiction, especially regarding prose, are dry, factual, impersonal, straightforward. John Crowley turns these assumptions of mine on their head, offering a text that excells in the whimsical, lyrical, mysterious, introspective. I find the choice of style appropriate, as the novel deals with a post-apocalyptic Earth - a popular setting, usually dealing with the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic events leading to the death of civilization as we know it. Engine Summer is focused instead on the long term effects and paints a society more than a thousand years into the future, where technology and science have been replaced by myth and tribal relationships. The prose of the novel reflects this by a style reminding me of ancient Greek or Scandinavian epics.
There's a time in some years, after the first frosts, when the sun gets hot again, and summer returns for a time. Winter is coming; you know that from the way the mornings smell, the way the leaves, half-turned to color, are dry and poised to drop. But summer goes on, a small false summer, all the more precious for being small and false. In Little Belaire, we called this time -- for some reason nobody now knows -- engine summer.
The passage suggests the coming of winter, the probable dissolution of the last pockets of humanity populating the world.
Rush That Speaks is the hero of the saga, and in keeping with the traditions of these old tales, he is on a hero's quest - one of self-discovery, of understanding the world around him and of finding out his destiny in it. Growing up in a tightly knit community of people that call themselves truthful speakers ( we really mean what we say, and we say what we really mean ) he has an early fascination for saints and holiness. More than keepers of tradition and storytellers, the saints are the source of wisdom, of knowledge and emancipation. Rush channels his natural curiosity into the search for answers, sometimes to questions he is not yet aware that exist. A poignant and understated love affair marks his early years in the tribal maze, with the departure of his girlfriend giving him the final impulse out of the safety of the nest.
This nest, Little Bellaire, struck me as very rigid in its class system and in its traditions. The reasons are not made immediately clear, and I would recommend patience, as the science stuff, the disclosures, are left for the very last chapters in the novel. Basically, everybody is expected to follow a predestined path in life, one that would ensure survival of the tribe and peace. Rush That Speaks strikes me as the avatar of non-conformism, of the rebel who cannot accept dogma blindly and needs to reason the "why" of the things around him.
Path is like a snake, it curls around the whole of Little Belaire with its head in the middle and the tip of its tail by Buckle cord's door, but only someone who knows Little Belaire can see where it runs. To someone else, it would seem to run off in all directions. So when you run along Path, and here is something that looks to be Path, but you find it is only rooms interlocking in a little maze that has no exits but back to Path -- that's a snake's-hand. It runs off the snake of Path like a set of little fingers. It's also called a snake's-hand because a snake has no hands, and likewise there is only one Path. But a snake's-hand is also more: my story is a Path, too, I hope; and so it must have its snake's-hands. Sometimes the snake's-hands in a story are the best part, if the story is a long one.
His elders warn him that his chosen path is a dangerous, potentially unhappy one :
"Remember, Rush, there's no one who would not rather be happy than be a saint."
This sadness will accompany Rush on his epic journey through an abandoned North American continent, where only the big highways remain to mark a heavily forested landscape hiding the puny remains of our modern civilization. Rush will meet various characters along the way, most important of these being Blink - a Buddhist philosopher / saint, hoarding the last books salvaged from the past, some scavengers among the ruins of ancient suburbs and hypermarkets, and most importantly - his former girlfriend, now a member of a different tribe, one that seems to mix a flower-power attitude with some Sapphic mystery rituals that involve drugs and a secret deity. The chapter where Rush is finally accepted into this community was the most confusing part of the novel for me, but by the end of the journey I got a satisfying explanation of said events. So I guess it was a job well done on the part of the author presenting science as mythology.
The book is full of symbols and metaphors: at one point Rush goes to literally live inside a huge head. These small details, and the beautiful language / imagery raised the story for me from three to four stars, as I found the plot OK, but not all that original. Originality is overrated anyway, it's how you tell the story and how you connect with the audience that counts. Here's the way Crowley puts it:
The better you tell an old story, the more you are talking about right now.
And I love how he gets philosophical about the nature of time without getting into astronomy or the theory of relativity:
That it could ever be like that again -- well, it's like smiling over the sadnesses of your youth, and being glad they're all quite past [...] Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from a kiss. First there is the kiss; then you step back, and the eyes fill up your vision, then the eyes are framed in the face as you step further away; the face then is part of a body, and then the body is framed in a doorway, then the doorway framed in the trees beside it. The path grows longer and the door smaller, the trees fill up your sight and the door is lost, then the path is lost in the woods and the woods lost in the hills. Yet somewhere in the center still is the kiss. That's what time is like.
One final quote, that will mark my departure from the realm of Engine Summer, hopefully only to return soon for another Crowley book:
Blink told me once that in ancient times they said a thing was holy if it made you hold your tongue. We said a thing was holy if it made you laugh. That's all.
There's a time in some years, after the first frosts, when the sun gets hot again, and summer returns for a time. Winter is coming; you know that from the way the mornings smell, the way the leaves, half-turned to color, are dry and poised to drop. But summer goes on, a small false summer, all the more precious for being small and false. In Little Belaire, we called this time -- for some reason nobody now knows -- engine summer.
The passage suggests the coming of winter, the probable dissolution of the last pockets of humanity populating the world.
Rush That Speaks is the hero of the saga, and in keeping with the traditions of these old tales, he is on a hero's quest - one of self-discovery, of understanding the world around him and of finding out his destiny in it. Growing up in a tightly knit community of people that call themselves truthful speakers ( we really mean what we say, and we say what we really mean ) he has an early fascination for saints and holiness. More than keepers of tradition and storytellers, the saints are the source of wisdom, of knowledge and emancipation. Rush channels his natural curiosity into the search for answers, sometimes to questions he is not yet aware that exist. A poignant and understated love affair marks his early years in the tribal maze, with the departure of his girlfriend giving him the final impulse out of the safety of the nest.
This nest, Little Bellaire, struck me as very rigid in its class system and in its traditions. The reasons are not made immediately clear, and I would recommend patience, as the science stuff, the disclosures, are left for the very last chapters in the novel. Basically, everybody is expected to follow a predestined path in life, one that would ensure survival of the tribe and peace. Rush That Speaks strikes me as the avatar of non-conformism, of the rebel who cannot accept dogma blindly and needs to reason the "why" of the things around him.
Path is like a snake, it curls around the whole of Little Belaire with its head in the middle and the tip of its tail by Buckle cord's door, but only someone who knows Little Belaire can see where it runs. To someone else, it would seem to run off in all directions. So when you run along Path, and here is something that looks to be Path, but you find it is only rooms interlocking in a little maze that has no exits but back to Path -- that's a snake's-hand. It runs off the snake of Path like a set of little fingers. It's also called a snake's-hand because a snake has no hands, and likewise there is only one Path. But a snake's-hand is also more: my story is a Path, too, I hope; and so it must have its snake's-hands. Sometimes the snake's-hands in a story are the best part, if the story is a long one.
His elders warn him that his chosen path is a dangerous, potentially unhappy one :
"Remember, Rush, there's no one who would not rather be happy than be a saint."
This sadness will accompany Rush on his epic journey through an abandoned North American continent, where only the big highways remain to mark a heavily forested landscape hiding the puny remains of our modern civilization. Rush will meet various characters along the way, most important of these being Blink - a Buddhist philosopher / saint, hoarding the last books salvaged from the past, some scavengers among the ruins of ancient suburbs and hypermarkets, and most importantly - his former girlfriend, now a member of a different tribe, one that seems to mix a flower-power attitude with some Sapphic mystery rituals that involve drugs and a secret deity. The chapter where Rush is finally accepted into this community was the most confusing part of the novel for me, but by the end of the journey I got a satisfying explanation of said events. So I guess it was a job well done on the part of the author presenting science as mythology.
The book is full of symbols and metaphors: at one point Rush goes to literally live inside a huge head. These small details, and the beautiful language / imagery raised the story for me from three to four stars, as I found the plot OK, but not all that original. Originality is overrated anyway, it's how you tell the story and how you connect with the audience that counts. Here's the way Crowley puts it:
The better you tell an old story, the more you are talking about right now.
And I love how he gets philosophical about the nature of time without getting into astronomy or the theory of relativity:
That it could ever be like that again -- well, it's like smiling over the sadnesses of your youth, and being glad they're all quite past [...] Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from a kiss. First there is the kiss; then you step back, and the eyes fill up your vision, then the eyes are framed in the face as you step further away; the face then is part of a body, and then the body is framed in a doorway, then the doorway framed in the trees beside it. The path grows longer and the door smaller, the trees fill up your sight and the door is lost, then the path is lost in the woods and the woods lost in the hills. Yet somewhere in the center still is the kiss. That's what time is like.
One final quote, that will mark my departure from the realm of Engine Summer, hopefully only to return soon for another Crowley book:
Blink told me once that in ancient times they said a thing was holy if it made you hold your tongue. We said a thing was holy if it made you laugh. That's all.
February 6, 2009
There are some books that are bigger on the inside than on the outside. They may be small, but are so densely layered that they feel like they're opening onto infinite space, and when you finish reading you're dazed, like you've woken up from a vivid dream to find your waking life transformed.
Engine Summer is such a book, a deceptively slim novella set in a far-future world, which is at once a picaresque tale of love and adventure, and a dreamily gorgeous story about the nature of time, identity, consciousness, and the stories that make us really live.
You should read it.
Engine Summer is such a book, a deceptively slim novella set in a far-future world, which is at once a picaresque tale of love and adventure, and a dreamily gorgeous story about the nature of time, identity, consciousness, and the stories that make us really live.
You should read it.
May 28, 2020
In which industrial civilization collapsed some unspecified number of centuries ago in an event known as "the Storm," leaving a variety of different societies that seem to revolve around communion with nature (with the notable exception of the "avvengers" who scrounge about in modernity's leftovers) and non-violence and communalism. The parts of the story that focused on this were riveting. The question of how our descendants would look back at our lifestyle after some sort of epic catastrophe is one of the major draws of this kind of fiction, of course, and where this often takes the place in a kind of hyper-violent, hyper-individualistic milieu, Engine Summer draws the reader into a more pastoral, humane, even gentle setting, which is excellent, and goes hand-in-hand with Crowley's examinations of memory systems and story-telling and the self. I have the feeling, too, that this would only improve with a reread: characters are always posing riddles to one another and relying on myth and folktales to explain things, and knowing what you do at the end of the novel would make puzzling your way through these even more enjoyable.
It's too bad, then, that so much of this short, short book is taken up by a terribly stupid love story.
It's too bad, then, that so much of this short, short book is taken up by a terribly stupid love story.
February 13, 2022
Gentle, melancholy, and lyrical post-apocalytic tale, a lesser-known classic
Much like George R. Stewart's The Earth Abides (1949), this story of life after a global apocalypse is nothing like the brutal struggle to survive of many action-based survival stories. This tale is set quite long in the future, perhaps a millennium later, so the details of the Storm and old Civilization are completely garbled and have morphed into legends and oral traditions, similar to Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker (1980), but sans the completely invented vernacular dialect of debased English in which that story is written. Instead, Crowley suffuses his story with quiet, beautiful moments of observation of both nature and the surprisingly peaceful and gentle human remnants of the war in North America, who live quite a spiritual life. It's the story of Rush That Speaks, a young man who grows up wanting to become a saint (more like a wise-man) and explore the world via a spiritual walkabout.
He encounters a first an old man living in a tree (who keeps much of the knowledge of the ancient world but disavows being a saint), and then a community called Dr. Boot's List, which is just as strange and mysterious as the name suggests. They live a very different existence from his birthplace, and the people are very secretive about the spiritual transformation they get from receiving a letter from Dr. Boots. Opaque clues are dropped throughout the story as it's told in the first person as a series of recorded interviews with an unidentified person, but the final reveal at the end is profoundly moving, and really makes this book shine with significance. It was included in David Pringle's Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels : An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984 (1985), and is well deserving of that accolade, but I much preferred it to his bloated and quite tedious later World Fantasy Award Winner Little, Big (1981).
Much like George R. Stewart's The Earth Abides (1949), this story of life after a global apocalypse is nothing like the brutal struggle to survive of many action-based survival stories. This tale is set quite long in the future, perhaps a millennium later, so the details of the Storm and old Civilization are completely garbled and have morphed into legends and oral traditions, similar to Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker (1980), but sans the completely invented vernacular dialect of debased English in which that story is written. Instead, Crowley suffuses his story with quiet, beautiful moments of observation of both nature and the surprisingly peaceful and gentle human remnants of the war in North America, who live quite a spiritual life. It's the story of Rush That Speaks, a young man who grows up wanting to become a saint (more like a wise-man) and explore the world via a spiritual walkabout.
He encounters a first an old man living in a tree (who keeps much of the knowledge of the ancient world but disavows being a saint), and then a community called Dr. Boot's List, which is just as strange and mysterious as the name suggests. They live a very different existence from his birthplace, and the people are very secretive about the spiritual transformation they get from receiving a letter from Dr. Boots. Opaque clues are dropped throughout the story as it's told in the first person as a series of recorded interviews with an unidentified person, but the final reveal at the end is profoundly moving, and really makes this book shine with significance. It was included in David Pringle's Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels : An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984 (1985), and is well deserving of that accolade, but I much preferred it to his bloated and quite tedious later World Fantasy Award Winner Little, Big (1981).
March 1, 2020
Could it be that I'm just a little bit in love with John Crowley's writing? Well … most probably I am.
As with everything else by him that I've read so far: This book isn't for everyone. But I guess folks who got discouraged by the slowliness of his famous novel "Little, Big", but nevertheless enjoyed his poetic style should go for "Engine Summer". Here is much more going on in less than half the amount of pages and it still possess the same dreamlike quality that marks "Little, Big".
The story takes place in a postapocalyptic world (roughly 1000 years after the war that destroyed known societies) and follows Rush-that-Speaks' journey from his home enclave into the strange world outside to either become a saint or find his lost love who went away with a group of traders. Bit by bit he understands more about humanity's history as he encounters people who chose other ways of life than the community he was born into.
"Engine Summer" is a coming of age story that completely manages without zombies, tribal wars or other genre typical adversaries. It is a journey of the mind written in the awesome prose of one of the poets of speculative fiction, sprinkled with subtle hints for the reader to discover together with Rush along the way.
As with everything else by him that I've read so far: This book isn't for everyone. But I guess folks who got discouraged by the slowliness of his famous novel "Little, Big", but nevertheless enjoyed his poetic style should go for "Engine Summer". Here is much more going on in less than half the amount of pages and it still possess the same dreamlike quality that marks "Little, Big".
The story takes place in a postapocalyptic world (roughly 1000 years after the war that destroyed known societies) and follows Rush-that-Speaks' journey from his home enclave into the strange world outside to either become a saint or find his lost love who went away with a group of traders. Bit by bit he understands more about humanity's history as he encounters people who chose other ways of life than the community he was born into.
"Engine Summer" is a coming of age story that completely manages without zombies, tribal wars or other genre typical adversaries. It is a journey of the mind written in the awesome prose of one of the poets of speculative fiction, sprinkled with subtle hints for the reader to discover together with Rush along the way.
April 24, 2017
Of course it's lovely to find that something held up as amazing, like say Infinite Jest or Catch-22, is actually amazing, but there's something extra wonderful about finding a book quite randomly, that it seems nobody ever heard of, that is in that same bracket. I did that with The Red Tent (through a recommendation from a friend), and now I've done it with this book, which I picked up for £2.99 quite randomly at a little bookshop local to my wife's workplace.
This is proper old 70s scifi, and among veterans of that scene I'm given to understand that it's a cult classic. But I had no idea what to expect, and I was blown away. I've never seen an imagined world (in this case, a far-future Earth) detailed and thought out so well, and explained so beautifully. It feels fully realised, not created just for the benefit of the reader, and not over-explained for the benefit of the reader. In fact, you are often not sure what's happening. But Crowley seems to know so well himself, and keeps you engaged as you are wondering with such beautiful and real moments, that you trust he will make it good by the end, that you will understand as much as you need to.
And by the end, you do. Although I wanted to take this new understanding and go back and read the whole novel again with it in mind, to better understand many of the sentences and moments in themselves. I've resisted doing it again straightaway, though, and will save it as something to look forward to.
This is proper old 70s scifi, and among veterans of that scene I'm given to understand that it's a cult classic. But I had no idea what to expect, and I was blown away. I've never seen an imagined world (in this case, a far-future Earth) detailed and thought out so well, and explained so beautifully. It feels fully realised, not created just for the benefit of the reader, and not over-explained for the benefit of the reader. In fact, you are often not sure what's happening. But Crowley seems to know so well himself, and keeps you engaged as you are wondering with such beautiful and real moments, that you trust he will make it good by the end, that you will understand as much as you need to.
And by the end, you do. Although I wanted to take this new understanding and go back and read the whole novel again with it in mind, to better understand many of the sentences and moments in themselves. I've resisted doing it again straightaway, though, and will save it as something to look forward to.
May 21, 2015
Sometimes stories are hard work but are rewarding in the end when it all comes together and makes it worth while. This book is certainly a lot of hard work but I'm not sure the reward at the end is quite enough to make it all worth while.
When I say that it was a lot of hard work, there were times when the reading was pleasant and engaging but there was far too much couched in impenetrable phraseology, whole chapters that seemed all about imagery and metaphor. The narrative was for large parts of the book barely able to anchor the story and I was barely able to grasp what the author was trying to say. There is a reason for this and the ending puts it all in context. If I were to read it again I imagine it would all make a lot more sense.
But sorry, that's just not good enough. The reader should be able to engage with the story the first time around, even if the ending puts it all in a different light adding new layers of meaning. I appreciate what the author was trying to do here but I just think it is all just too obscure and un-enjoyable the first time around.
I'm certainly going to be careful before I pick up any more of his work.
When I say that it was a lot of hard work, there were times when the reading was pleasant and engaging but there was far too much couched in impenetrable phraseology, whole chapters that seemed all about imagery and metaphor. The narrative was for large parts of the book barely able to anchor the story and I was barely able to grasp what the author was trying to say. There is a reason for this and the ending puts it all in context. If I were to read it again I imagine it would all make a lot more sense.
But sorry, that's just not good enough. The reader should be able to engage with the story the first time around, even if the ending puts it all in a different light adding new layers of meaning. I appreciate what the author was trying to do here but I just think it is all just too obscure and un-enjoyable the first time around.
I'm certainly going to be careful before I pick up any more of his work.
December 5, 2021
Synopsis: It is a far future post-apocalyptic North America, a subgenre I like to call post-post apocalyptic, far away from any zombie apocalypse or deep impact extinction. Ever since playing Horizon: Zero Dawn, I became a fan of that setting, where a back-to-iron-age civilization just dimly remembers 21st century's technology, wondering about the overgrown skyscraper ruins. Similar to A Canticle for Leibowitz, but also very different.
Engine Summer follows the adventures of young "Rush that Speaks" through four different parts. Rush comes of age in a reclusive, closed community Little Belaire. "Cords" build the clans based on personality traits, their people perfected introspection with "truthful speaking", leaving no room for misunderstanding or lies. Think of a Quaker monastery populated by aborigines.
There is no way through Little Belaire to the outside except Path, and no one who wasn't born in Little Belaire, probably, could ever find his way to the center. Path looks no different from what is no Path: it's drawn on your feet.
Rush's journey starts when his girlfriend "Once a Day" leaves his village. Rush tries to find her, and joins a hermit for a while in order to become a "Saint". Saints tell a story of their life, exposing a universal truth. The novel's structure reflects exactly this ideal.
Review: I absolutely loved Crowley's masterful World Fantasy Award winner Little, Big. That's a doorstopper of a novel with lyric prose and a homoeopathic dose of plot.
One can say, that I knew what I was up to, because Engine Summer has exactly the same traits. Low/No plot, no villain, not a single fight. Add to that the mysterious, fascinating setting that's never explained but has to be lived and read through, witnessed from within. Its dense narration allows no dreaming or skipping lines.
In a different year, I'd have been up to the task, but this time, I found it exhausting at times. And still. This is still a masterwork of SF, and it's more my own shortcoming than the fault of this beautiful text that I couldn't enjoy it thoroughly. I can very well imagine that many readers wouldn't like this classic SF novel, disregarding it as too cryptic, artsy, probably as a slog.
That's not the case with me: I cared a lot for protagonist Rush, was invested in his coming-of-age story, and I enjoyed the world's atmospheric mysteries. But the interest degraded in the second half, never returning to the same level. Not only is the epigraph, but the novel itself remembered me a lot of the fascination and exhaustion I had reading Kafka's works. The good thing here is that it's not a doorstopper at all but rather a short novel.
Engine Summer is exceptional, something one doesn't read often, a work of art. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But readers who have a sense for more literary works, don't need much action, are in for a treat.
Engine Summer follows the adventures of young "Rush that Speaks" through four different parts. Rush comes of age in a reclusive, closed community Little Belaire. "Cords" build the clans based on personality traits, their people perfected introspection with "truthful speaking", leaving no room for misunderstanding or lies. Think of a Quaker monastery populated by aborigines.
There is no way through Little Belaire to the outside except Path, and no one who wasn't born in Little Belaire, probably, could ever find his way to the center. Path looks no different from what is no Path: it's drawn on your feet.
Rush's journey starts when his girlfriend "Once a Day" leaves his village. Rush tries to find her, and joins a hermit for a while in order to become a "Saint". Saints tell a story of their life, exposing a universal truth. The novel's structure reflects exactly this ideal.
Review: I absolutely loved Crowley's masterful World Fantasy Award winner Little, Big. That's a doorstopper of a novel with lyric prose and a homoeopathic dose of plot.
One can say, that I knew what I was up to, because Engine Summer has exactly the same traits. Low/No plot, no villain, not a single fight. Add to that the mysterious, fascinating setting that's never explained but has to be lived and read through, witnessed from within. Its dense narration allows no dreaming or skipping lines.
In a different year, I'd have been up to the task, but this time, I found it exhausting at times. And still. This is still a masterwork of SF, and it's more my own shortcoming than the fault of this beautiful text that I couldn't enjoy it thoroughly. I can very well imagine that many readers wouldn't like this classic SF novel, disregarding it as too cryptic, artsy, probably as a slog.
That's not the case with me: I cared a lot for protagonist Rush, was invested in his coming-of-age story, and I enjoyed the world's atmospheric mysteries. But the interest degraded in the second half, never returning to the same level. Not only is the epigraph, but the novel itself remembered me a lot of the fascination and exhaustion I had reading Kafka's works. The good thing here is that it's not a doorstopper at all but rather a short novel.
Engine Summer is exceptional, something one doesn't read often, a work of art. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But readers who have a sense for more literary works, don't need much action, are in for a treat.
July 30, 2025
This book is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where a community of humans are living in what seems to be a subterranean city called 'Little Belaire', with a spiralling, winding path leading from the surface down into the depths - past all of these hive-like residences where the inhabitants live. These inhabitants are separated out into groups, referred to as 'Cords', which are based on their characteristics, interests, professions, etc.
The narrative here is framed by our main character, a young man named Rush, recounting his childhood to an unnamed, mysterious presence who is questioning him about life in this bizarre world. This other character's dialogue is italicised, only coming in once in a while to question Rush further or to challenge him on something while he is telling his story. This is immediately intriguing because you're instantly questioning who this other character is and why they are interested in Rush's story. He goes through the events of his life, from growing up in Little Belaire to his adventures in the ruins of the old world.
I don't want to say too much more than that for a couple of reasons. One of those is that part of the joy of reading this novel is unpicking what John Crowley is doing here, with his masterful exploration of how language and culture may have evolved in line with the technology or society of the world they left behind. The way that he chooses to construct and write the book makes it feel like a bit of a puzzle box for the reader to fiddle with, until something clicks and you unlock another layer.
Engine Summer is split up into four segments, referred to as 'Crystals', with each chapter being referred to as a 'facet'. This serves a narrative function that I won't spoil here, but it also works perfectly to illustrate how this book feels like a carefully crafted, finely cut gemstone that you can look at from many different angles.
This isn't a story where very much actually happens - there aren't any crazy action sequences and there aren't any thrilling conflicts. Still, despite that, there is something genuinely enchanting about this book. Whether that's the satisfying feeling of putting together an elaborate puzzle or John Crowley's dreamlike prose, I'm not entirely sure.
I set this one down just now and found myself feeling like I would really benefit from a re-read, after having some of the mysteries unravelled in the final chapter. I probably won't do that any time soon, but when I do, I am sure that I will get even more out of this brilliant book.
The narrative here is framed by our main character, a young man named Rush, recounting his childhood to an unnamed, mysterious presence who is questioning him about life in this bizarre world. This other character's dialogue is italicised, only coming in once in a while to question Rush further or to challenge him on something while he is telling his story. This is immediately intriguing because you're instantly questioning who this other character is and why they are interested in Rush's story. He goes through the events of his life, from growing up in Little Belaire to his adventures in the ruins of the old world.
I don't want to say too much more than that for a couple of reasons. One of those is that part of the joy of reading this novel is unpicking what John Crowley is doing here, with his masterful exploration of how language and culture may have evolved in line with the technology or society of the world they left behind. The way that he chooses to construct and write the book makes it feel like a bit of a puzzle box for the reader to fiddle with, until something clicks and you unlock another layer.
Engine Summer is split up into four segments, referred to as 'Crystals', with each chapter being referred to as a 'facet'. This serves a narrative function that I won't spoil here, but it also works perfectly to illustrate how this book feels like a carefully crafted, finely cut gemstone that you can look at from many different angles.
This isn't a story where very much actually happens - there aren't any crazy action sequences and there aren't any thrilling conflicts. Still, despite that, there is something genuinely enchanting about this book. Whether that's the satisfying feeling of putting together an elaborate puzzle or John Crowley's dreamlike prose, I'm not entirely sure.
I set this one down just now and found myself feeling like I would really benefit from a re-read, after having some of the mysteries unravelled in the final chapter. I probably won't do that any time soon, but when I do, I am sure that I will get even more out of this brilliant book.
May 17, 2011
This is one of those perfect fables that if you read it early enough maybe it lives with you forever, and even if you don't it maybe still does. The only Crowley book I've read that gets sublime in the first 20 pages instead of the last 20 -- and that's coming from the very same mind best known for Little, Big, which I think I call "maniacally subtle" in my review. This is not maniacally subtle, but it's delightfully crafted and makes me ache with poignant joy. If you read Little, Big think of this as a sweet sad story about those who didn't make it into that story's conclusion, who were trapped in the world outside. It works.
I reread its sub-200 pages a few days ago over little more than a breakfast, a lunch, and an extended dinner. It's about stories, and becoming stories, and the limits of stories and language, and how stories only ever live through their interpenetration with a hearer; and it's an elegy in advance for the civilization we live in this very moment; and it's about the end of childhood and the realization of limits; and of course of course it's about memory and identity in a way this Gene Wolfe fan knows instinctively, even in this rougher and simpler form.
If you read this, you will know why snakes' hands are so often the best part of the story, why sometimes a secret is not what you don't tell but what cannot be told, and why you can never be lost when the Path is written on your feet.
I reread its sub-200 pages a few days ago over little more than a breakfast, a lunch, and an extended dinner. It's about stories, and becoming stories, and the limits of stories and language, and how stories only ever live through their interpenetration with a hearer; and it's an elegy in advance for the civilization we live in this very moment; and it's about the end of childhood and the realization of limits; and of course of course it's about memory and identity in a way this Gene Wolfe fan knows instinctively, even in this rougher and simpler form.
If you read this, you will know why snakes' hands are so often the best part of the story, why sometimes a secret is not what you don't tell but what cannot be told, and why you can never be lost when the Path is written on your feet.
December 15, 2017
Well, for once it is nice to read about post-apocalyptic utopias, even if they do come about through the “ignorance is bliss” principle. Since comparisons with Hoban’s work seem unavoidable, I’d say this was a pacifist Riddley Walker for those more poetically inclined, if it wasn’t for Riddley Walker already being pure poetry, so, yeah. I’m not really sure how to go about this.
Frankly, I would not recommend this book to most anyone, certain that the majority of readers would be bored to tears by all the gentle melancholy lassitude, but as evidenced by the rating, there is a subset of the reading population that this novel will hit just right. So, if a gray rainy day, you curled up under a blankie with your cat purring contently in your lap and a cup of hot cocoa by your side can kind of represent your mental state in general, you will likely be engrossed in this slightly psychedelic not-quite-love-story unfurling a thousand years after the collapse of our angelic high-tech civilization.
If not, your mileage may significantly vary.
Frankly, I would not recommend this book to most anyone, certain that the majority of readers would be bored to tears by all the gentle melancholy lassitude, but as evidenced by the rating, there is a subset of the reading population that this novel will hit just right. So, if a gray rainy day, you curled up under a blankie with your cat purring contently in your lap and a cup of hot cocoa by your side can kind of represent your mental state in general, you will likely be engrossed in this slightly psychedelic not-quite-love-story unfurling a thousand years after the collapse of our angelic high-tech civilization.
If not, your mileage may significantly vary.
May 5, 2016
Engine Summer: A Review in Verse
Sometimes
some books
when you hold them between your hands
they almost have a pulse
each word a heartbeat pumping life between the pages
They are pieces of a universe that exists somewhere else
you've never seen it
yet you know when you meet it
you simply know
firmly
surely
and a little bit excitedly
you know that these books
are made out of stardust of the same star
scattered between worlds
Discovering them is like a piece of miracle
cutting time and space in two
whispering a secret
Life, memory
are hardly linear
Some books make you live twice, thrice
countless times
not because you read them again
but because
they are so full of life
life is so densely packed in them
life is dripping from the ink into your fingers
so reading them is like a blood transfusion
is like topping up on oxygen
is like a supernova the size of your palm.
Some books exist in other books
like lives exist in other lives
and stories inside other stories
like embroidery
stitch inside another stitch
and there is affection in this pattern
there is love
and a kind of thirst too
surely
you'll notice it
Some books talk not about the stars and the skies
but talk in the language of the stars and skies themselves
they become an origami firmament
the Milky Way their spinal cord
Some books have been kissed by time
they age so wonderfully
like the year
blessed with the beauty of alternate seasons
Some books
the moment you finish them
they make you have a single wish
Go back to the beginning and start over
This is one of those books.
*
It seems that I love this book so much that my feelings towards it could have only been expressed in verse (reading DeleuzeGuattari around the time this was written did not help). If my poetic skill has not convinced you, perhaps what's in this story will tempt you enough:
a low-technology future; a small-scale, rural feeling; a love for life, simple things, and details; a unique and strangely fascinating society; an indescribable affection for stories, books, knowledge, life; a heart-wrenching, bitter-sweet ending you cannot imagine. And large cats. Lots of them. Cats everywhere. I swear this book was written for me. Who knows, maybe it was written for you too.
Sometimes
some books
when you hold them between your hands
they almost have a pulse
each word a heartbeat pumping life between the pages
They are pieces of a universe that exists somewhere else
you've never seen it
yet you know when you meet it
you simply know
firmly
surely
and a little bit excitedly
you know that these books
are made out of stardust of the same star
scattered between worlds
Discovering them is like a piece of miracle
cutting time and space in two
whispering a secret
Life, memory
are hardly linear
Some books make you live twice, thrice
countless times
not because you read them again
but because
they are so full of life
life is so densely packed in them
life is dripping from the ink into your fingers
so reading them is like a blood transfusion
is like topping up on oxygen
is like a supernova the size of your palm.
Some books exist in other books
like lives exist in other lives
and stories inside other stories
like embroidery
stitch inside another stitch
and there is affection in this pattern
there is love
and a kind of thirst too
surely
you'll notice it
Some books talk not about the stars and the skies
but talk in the language of the stars and skies themselves
they become an origami firmament
the Milky Way their spinal cord
Some books have been kissed by time
they age so wonderfully
like the year
blessed with the beauty of alternate seasons
Some books
the moment you finish them
they make you have a single wish
Go back to the beginning and start over
This is one of those books.
*
It seems that I love this book so much that my feelings towards it could have only been expressed in verse (reading DeleuzeGuattari around the time this was written did not help). If my poetic skill has not convinced you, perhaps what's in this story will tempt you enough:
a low-technology future; a small-scale, rural feeling; a love for life, simple things, and details; a unique and strangely fascinating society; an indescribable affection for stories, books, knowledge, life; a heart-wrenching, bitter-sweet ending you cannot imagine. And large cats. Lots of them. Cats everywhere. I swear this book was written for me. Who knows, maybe it was written for you too.
December 22, 2013
If I had to choose one book to convince a skeptical English professor of the power of speculative fiction, this would be it. John Crowley has spectacular talent, no question, but in too much of his work (i.e. Aegypt) it's wasted on aimless new-age musings while the story goes slowly nowhere. Not so here. Engine Summer is stuffed with ideas and themes enough to fuel a book five times as long, but they are all in service to the protagonist's story and what it says about human nature and human needs. I've never read a book simultaneously this smart and this readable. If you are looking to see what a genre grand master can do with a couple hundred pages, pick this up.
September 14, 2007
I "accidentally" read this book while I was trying to find a book I had read as a Jr High student. I put out a few aspects of the story I remembered and some suggested this could be it. It wasn't, but it was still pretty good.
It is a post apocalyptic coming of age tale. Crowley's style is fairly distinct, and once you get used to it, the pages just fly by. There are spacklings of advanced technology, but in this piece it does not take center stage, it is just a prop. I don't know exactly how a writer can make me feel melancholy and nostalgic for a time and place I have never been, but Crowley does it with this one.
I stop just short of calling this a must read though, as it seems to leave off just where I was REALLY curious what was next... Guess I will have to read Little Big and see if it ties in the way some folks suggest.
It is a post apocalyptic coming of age tale. Crowley's style is fairly distinct, and once you get used to it, the pages just fly by. There are spacklings of advanced technology, but in this piece it does not take center stage, it is just a prop. I don't know exactly how a writer can make me feel melancholy and nostalgic for a time and place I have never been, but Crowley does it with this one.
I stop just short of calling this a must read though, as it seems to leave off just where I was REALLY curious what was next... Guess I will have to read Little Big and see if it ties in the way some folks suggest.
August 22, 2014
Engine Summer is evidently one of those "Marmite" books - you either love it, or you don't. Unfortunately I fall into the latter category, finding it quite hard to follow. A frustrating and difficult read, it's easy to lose track of what's going on. I've heard it called poetic and beautiful, but sadly for me, it was just confusing.
I found this book to lean more towards fantasy rather than science fiction. However, there is some lovely imagery in the writing, and the scenario is very interesting indeed - there are some great 'visual' moments and some lovely ideas, sadly marred by the cumbersome and confusing dialogue.
I found this book to lean more towards fantasy rather than science fiction. However, there is some lovely imagery in the writing, and the scenario is very interesting indeed - there are some great 'visual' moments and some lovely ideas, sadly marred by the cumbersome and confusing dialogue.
May 13, 2016
This is one of those rare novels that will either change you forever, or leave you cold and wondering why you've wasted your time. If you look at my star rating, you'll know what it did for me. Crowley writes beautiful prose, and it's possibe to get lost in it , which normally drives me crazy, but it makes Engine Summer feel like something special, a sacred little book. It will uproot you; you'll find yourself looking back at the brief moment you were alive and realizing that one day it will be ancient history. A heartbreaking, fascinating book.
January 27, 2022
No he entrado. Me ha parecido una novela que crea un mundo interesante con sociedades postapocalípticas al más puro estilo Le Guin pero cuya trama es inexistente. Se basa en un viaje iniciático del protagonista que se me ha hecho lento y demasiado críptico. Valoro el estilo de Crowley y la ambientación, pero no me parece que haya envejecido bien.
January 31, 2023
“It isn't strange that you think love, which is so much like a season, will never end; because sometimes you think a season will never end - no matter that you tell yourself you know it will.”
-John Crowley
-John Crowley
April 13, 2022
Otra novela postapocalíptica de Crowley, donde vemos al protagonista llamado "Junco que habla" intentar convertirse en santo (es decir, alguien que puede contar historias). Cada encuentro y viaje que emprende lo conecta con la antigua civilización que existía antes de la Tempestad (el evento apocalíptico) y con los artefactos que quedan abandonados y olvidados, mientras intenta cumplir ese destino. Hay mucho eco de las novelas de Le Guin, especialmente de El eterno regreso a casa. Es una novela muy evocadora, donde parece que no pasa nada y es difícil entender qué sucede al principio, pero a mí siempre me ha causado una sensación de nostalgia preciosa.
January 17, 2008
This is a John Crowley book, so I will read it again and again, each time finding I have more to learn, and love. I found this slow going despite the short length, but that is typical of Crowley at least in my experience - more a reflection of my desire to relish his writing than any difficulty in the reading. Having typed that, I look forward to re-readings and catching all of the nuances I'm sure I missed this time around. Post-apocalyptic, beautiful and devastating.
May 5, 2021
Kitabın anlatımı , hikayenin içine girip takip etmeme engel oldu. Okuyucuyu bu dünyaya hazırlamadan balıklama içine daldırması, o dünyada yaşayanların düşünüş, yaşayış ve iletişim biçimini, bu zamanda yaşayan biz okuyucular için açıklayıcı bir yol seçmeden hikayeyi sürdürmesi yazarın edebi bir yol deneme tercihiydi deyip saygı duysam da , güzel ve tatmin edici bir okuma olmadı benim için.
June 2, 2025
My grandma recommended this book; she’s been rereading it since the 80s and I was eager to get my hands on it but she’d lost her personal copy. The local library didn’t have it, and my two local sci-fi/fantasy used bookstores didn’t have it either. Finally, my grandma bought a new copy online. This is all to say that it should not be so hard to get your hands on such a masterpiece. I am shocked that this has faded into obscurity over the decades, as this would connect with so many sci-fi fans today.
It’s a story about a boy grows up in a compound hundreds of years after a catastrophe that caused the collapse of society. He leaves and goes on a journey looking for the secrets behind stories he’s heard about the time before the collapse. Because it takes place in a totally different society, sometimes it takes a little bit to understand what the young narrator is describing in his own foreign culture or in the ruins around him that he himself doesn’t understand. This makes the book a puzzle to unravel on multiple levels, piecing together the world he lives in as well as the secrets our hero discovers about human nature, technology, and himself.
The language is beautiful, with sweeping imagery and poignant observations about humanity. The post-apocalyptic conditions are creatively crafted and fascinating to explore. The story overall is quite soft and mostly low-stakes, but I still felt propelled forward by the desire to discover the intricate world along with the protagonist.
The cherry on top is the reveal at the end, the kind of reveal that re-contextualizes the entire story and makes you want to immediately start it over again, or at least flip through to certain parts that suddenly mean something totally new. I now fully see why Grandma kept reading it over and over, examining the engine of the story and how it runs. I highly recommend anyone who likes sci-fi to order a copy, especially fans of Ursula K. LeGuin and Emily St. John Mandel.
It’s a story about a boy grows up in a compound hundreds of years after a catastrophe that caused the collapse of society. He leaves and goes on a journey looking for the secrets behind stories he’s heard about the time before the collapse. Because it takes place in a totally different society, sometimes it takes a little bit to understand what the young narrator is describing in his own foreign culture or in the ruins around him that he himself doesn’t understand. This makes the book a puzzle to unravel on multiple levels, piecing together the world he lives in as well as the secrets our hero discovers about human nature, technology, and himself.
The language is beautiful, with sweeping imagery and poignant observations about humanity. The post-apocalyptic conditions are creatively crafted and fascinating to explore. The story overall is quite soft and mostly low-stakes, but I still felt propelled forward by the desire to discover the intricate world along with the protagonist.
The cherry on top is the reveal at the end, the kind of reveal that re-contextualizes the entire story and makes you want to immediately start it over again, or at least flip through to certain parts that suddenly mean something totally new. I now fully see why Grandma kept reading it over and over, examining the engine of the story and how it runs. I highly recommend anyone who likes sci-fi to order a copy, especially fans of Ursula K. LeGuin and Emily St. John Mandel.
June 19, 2024
New age drug aided enlightenment propaganda, but in a good way.
Alright at first, I wasn't really into this, I was writing it off as another post-apocalyptic hippie commune book, but it revealed some hidden depths and worked some real magic into the story. If that's confusing to read, well that is done in spirit of the book, because it is full of riddles. Right when you think you can pierce it with a pin and label it, the caterpillar turns into a butterfly and zips off on the wind.
The imagery the author employs merely hints and teases letting you fill in the general details. There is a wide array of characters and surprises waiting. Subtle bits of humor that if you're staring too hard you won't see them to appreciate. Possibly the best compliment I can give it is a gentler, less alien Tales of the Dying Earth: The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, Rhialto the Marvellous
Alright at first, I wasn't really into this, I was writing it off as another post-apocalyptic hippie commune book, but it revealed some hidden depths and worked some real magic into the story. If that's confusing to read, well that is done in spirit of the book, because it is full of riddles. Right when you think you can pierce it with a pin and label it, the caterpillar turns into a butterfly and zips off on the wind.
The imagery the author employs merely hints and teases letting you fill in the general details. There is a wide array of characters and surprises waiting. Subtle bits of humor that if you're staring too hard you won't see them to appreciate. Possibly the best compliment I can give it is a gentler, less alien Tales of the Dying Earth: The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, Rhialto the Marvellous
May 12, 2013
I am kinda in literary shock right now. It is clear from my rating that I felt this novel was fantastic... it is just...
Engine Summer is the third novel by John Crowley. It is definitely at this point that he begins to become the writer that would later write the better known novel: Little, Big. There is quite a bit similar between Little, Big and Engine Summer. Seasons play a huge role both symbolically and plotwise in both, and you could sum up both by saying they are about "The Tale" (to use Little, Big terminology)/"Snake's-hands"(Engine Summer terminology). Essentially, stories about stories.
Engine Summer also marks the end of John Crowley as a science fiction writer. Even in this book, you can see that he is starting to lay out his tools to write fantasy. The next time he will write science fiction will be in short story form ("Snow", followed by "Great Work of Time", both of which you should totally read).
This is, at least on the surface, a coming of age story (Bildungsroman for you snobs out there) set in a post apocalyptic New York state. (the exact location is never mentioned in the novel, but when in doubt, it's New York in John Crowley's writings). Our protagonist, Rush That Speaks, is setting off on a voyage of discovery. Hoping to bring back knowledge that is lost, find his first true love, and/or become a saint; he actually sets off on a path to become something...else... greater, perhaps.
Aside from being a fantastic novel, Engine Summer could actually act as a treatise to the writing style of John Crowley. It is always the 'snake's-hands' (side-plots that do not necessarily go anywhere except to deviate from the main plot for a bit)that are the important parts, nay, the best parts of a story (and review. Further, it is also the jarring change(s) in perspective that make a John Crowley novel fantastic. These changes in frames of references really change the meaning of the story, even though the narrative itself does not change. Or rather, it adds depth and complexity to what otherwise may be a standard, sinuous fantasy.
Engine Summer is the third novel by John Crowley. It is definitely at this point that he begins to become the writer that would later write the better known novel: Little, Big. There is quite a bit similar between Little, Big and Engine Summer. Seasons play a huge role both symbolically and plotwise in both, and you could sum up both by saying they are about "The Tale" (to use Little, Big terminology)/"Snake's-hands"(Engine Summer terminology). Essentially, stories about stories.
Engine Summer also marks the end of John Crowley as a science fiction writer. Even in this book, you can see that he is starting to lay out his tools to write fantasy. The next time he will write science fiction will be in short story form ("Snow", followed by "Great Work of Time", both of which you should totally read).
This is, at least on the surface, a coming of age story (Bildungsroman for you snobs out there) set in a post apocalyptic New York state. (the exact location is never mentioned in the novel, but when in doubt, it's New York in John Crowley's writings). Our protagonist, Rush That Speaks, is setting off on a voyage of discovery. Hoping to bring back knowledge that is lost, find his first true love, and/or become a saint; he actually sets off on a path to become something...else... greater, perhaps.
Aside from being a fantastic novel, Engine Summer could actually act as a treatise to the writing style of John Crowley. It is always the 'snake's-hands' (side-plots that do not necessarily go anywhere except to deviate from the main plot for a bit)that are the important parts, nay, the best parts of a story (and review. Further, it is also the jarring change(s) in perspective that make a John Crowley novel fantastic. These changes in frames of references really change the meaning of the story, even though the narrative itself does not change. Or rather, it adds depth and complexity to what otherwise may be a standard, sinuous fantasy.
February 28, 2016
Je suis plutôt porté sur la SF d'actions, d'explorations Je dois avouer que ce livre, à l’opposé de la mode actuelle des post apocalypses zombiesques et de mes choix habituels, m'a bluffé Il est tout en subtilités, en nuances et peint une terre qui survit non pas envers et contre tous, zombies, militaires, carnivores etc mais développe une autre vision de l'Homme et des leçons à tirer du passé (entre autres) Une écriture magnifique ( pour mes yeux de lecteur français) sans tomber dans la mièvrerie
L'auteur, sans avoir l'air de donner de leçons, évoque un nombre impressionnant de concepts qui donnent à réfléchir tout en maintenant suffisamment de péripéties pour nous entrainer dans un voyage initiatique original avec son jeune héros Rush J'ai tout lu sans avoir envie de sauter des passages !
Engine Summer est un vrai coup de coeur (d'où le 5 étoiles) qui méritera plusieurs lectures à mon humble avis pour s'imprégner de toutes ses nuances Bravo et merci MonsieurJohn Crowley
L'auteur, sans avoir l'air de donner de leçons, évoque un nombre impressionnant de concepts qui donnent à réfléchir tout en maintenant suffisamment de péripéties pour nous entrainer dans un voyage initiatique original avec son jeune héros Rush J'ai tout lu sans avoir envie de sauter des passages !
Engine Summer est un vrai coup de coeur (d'où le 5 étoiles) qui méritera plusieurs lectures à mon humble avis pour s'imprégner de toutes ses nuances Bravo et merci MonsieurJohn Crowley
November 11, 2025
Brilliant, unsettling, even the humour in this post-apocolyptic story of stories is chilling. Like Russell Hobans Riddley Walker this book is best read fast enough not to get bogged down in WTF moments. The writing is a delight.
Especially intuiging to me is the new clan system at New Belaire. If we could learn how to Be Truthful Speakers, maybe we might be able to learn from JC´s cautions.
Especially intuiging to me is the new clan system at New Belaire. If we could learn how to Be Truthful Speakers, maybe we might be able to learn from JC´s cautions.
July 29, 2017
Poetic and complex. I guess that you will appreciate more the story of Rush once you know how it ends. Then, you will be able to fully comprehend all of his inner turmoils and his passionate narration. Why his quest was so important and what he wanted to achieve through it. Did he achieve it at the end ? A part of him surely did! I think that a second read it's mandatory, after all the greatest part in this book are the Snake-hands.
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May 31, 2018Another dusty mm pb... what was I thinking when I picked this up wherever in heck I did? More power to you if you like this kind of thing, but it's not for me.
Oh it feels so good to get rid of these books that I've hauled around several homes in CC... now that we're headed all the way to MO, I've no more excuses to try to read stuff I'm not really interested in.
Oh it feels so good to get rid of these books that I've hauled around several homes in CC... now that we're headed all the way to MO, I've no more excuses to try to read stuff I'm not really interested in.
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