Andy is an extremely traumatized young man at the lowest point in his life, isolated and alone in the fringes of society in a small rural town, discarded by his fiancé. Realizing he has no place to go but down from there, Andy begins to rebuild his life in sexually explicit stages and to deal with the issues that have beset him, and battles to face his personal demons with any help he can get. Andy begins his journey by reaching out with the only tools he has confidence in, his athleticism, his attractiveness and his body. Through the healing powers of sex and with his own personal magnetism, Andy cements a series of loving friendships and continues his journey onwards with the Football Club struggling to win some acceptance. As Andy follows on his path, his personal changes are reflected in others around him, and slowly he is able to reverse all the damage in his life. His story is told in journal entries in his own words.
Vivid and Eerie. It is so easy to get lost in this book, to fall into this place that is both familiar and strange. To see this happening to our world and our societies.
This book is a rich and living tapestry woven of tales the tales of a multitude of characters each telling of the science and society that brought the situations that they find themselves in. The links between the characters and their stories don't become apparent until nearly the end yet they all contribute to create powerful picture of what could so easily be the future of mankind.
The theme of water, it's necessity, it's adaptability, and it's power, is cunningly used to cast illustrate human nature and the nature of society and to bring all the separate tales together into a harmonious whole that is a wrench to leave. Ultimately this book is about choices, those of individuals and of groups those of leaders and those of the lead. How the choices they make can have a powerful and often unseen effect on the future and the first choice, is always, choosing to survive.
I thoroughly enjoyed this tale, the writing is vivid, weaving clear and detailed images on the mind's eye. The characters are complex, real and "human" and I found myself caring a great deal about most of them. The story is multi-layered and multi-faceted, shaded with numerous connections and symbols all craftily woven into the overall effect. The themes are thought provoking and expertly handled, you are swept gently like a leaf on a lake into looking at the world and people around you a little differently and examining things a little more closely.
This is good hard Science Fiction, a beautifully and expertly wrought series of what-ifs that take you forward so that you can see now a little more clearly. I will definitely Estuary Tales, I'm certain there is much there I missed the first time.
This tale belies its genre. Not that it isn't chockfull very steamy sex scenes, it's that these aren't the point of the book. They are a vehicle, almost a symbol of a damaged, frozen young man beginning to thaw and let the world in. It's a way for those he loves to connect to each other to form the net, that will catch him when the ice breaks and he faces what he has kept locked away all this time.
This is a love story, not a not a wedding bells and happily-ever-afters, not a star-crossed lover tragedy but the story of a man who has is "handing out love like it was oxygen" as he rebuilds his life finally finds the courage to accept himself.
This is not a quick read, it's a journey filled with living, individual characters all learning to live with themselves and find their place in the community. The scenes are so vividly painted that when you finish the book and look at the cover, you know exactly where you are standing in the world you have just left. The symbols are expertly handled and subtly used. This book will move you, if you see beyond the steam it will uplift, it will excite, it will nurture and reassure, and will make you cry. It certainly did me.
I'm familiar with the author's ability to tell a story and so I took a chance on a book in a genre I wouldn't normally read. I am very glad I did, it's a journey well worth taking, definitely more once. It'll change your view of the world maybe a little, maybe a lot. This one will live with me for a long while like good books should.
All of Caldon Mulls books push the boundaries of my literary comfort zone, this one is no exception. In genre it feels like coming home yet the blend of mythologies and philosophies, and the staggering tapestry of symbols and metaphors give it an immense and surreal depth. It practically demands to be reread and the vividness of his writing and the interesting and compelling characters make that something to look forward to.
I also find myself wanting to know more, like all the others, the "world" of this book is huge and amazingly well realised. There are so many stories there that I'm loath to leave it. For this reason I'm especially looking forward to Omnipresent Occultation which releases in March. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Estuary Tales is a easy flowing river of entwined stories that sweeps you neatly into the rip tide that is Sphinx. This book sucks you down into a story where corruption is inevitably the maker of its own unmaking and it is the power of looking back that washes the future clean. The symbol, the metaphor, of water is not as obvious in this book as the last but still very much a woof thread of the total fabric. It is not until the last third of the book that you realise just how closely the two stories are entwined to create an epic, engrossing and thought-provoking whole. While Estuary Tales and Sphinx could be read as individual stories they are richer and more compelling together.