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The Rift
Selena and Julie are sisters. As children they were closest companions, but as they grow towards maturity, a rift develops between them.
There are greater rifts, however. Julie goes missing at the age of seventeen. It will be twenty years before Selena sees her again. When Julie reappears, she tells Selena an incredible story about how she has spent time on another planet. Selena has an impossible choice to does she dismiss her sister as a damaged person, the victim of delusions, or believe her, and risk her own sanity in the process? Is Julie really who she says she is, and if she isn’t, what does she have to gain by claiming her sister’s identity?
400 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 11, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 212 reviews
July 18, 2017
The Rift is an example, in a long line of examples, of why you never, ever read the back cover copy.
It's a truly magnificent novel. So smart, and thematically rich and populated by flawed people who you can't help but care about. It plays in a sandpit of ambiguity but in a manner that never feels pretentious. It's intimate and tragic and wonderous. The prose mixes reportage with passages that are intricate and lyrical. It's structurally inventive without being gimmicky. And it showcases a writer who is in complete control of her craft.
But fuck me do not read the back cover blurb. It's not just that it gives away too much it's that like most blurbs it establishes preconceptions that aren't entirely reflected in the text. Books are so much more interesting when you don't bring any baggage to the reading experience. This book will especially reward you if you are baggage free.
It's a truly magnificent novel. So smart, and thematically rich and populated by flawed people who you can't help but care about. It plays in a sandpit of ambiguity but in a manner that never feels pretentious. It's intimate and tragic and wonderous. The prose mixes reportage with passages that are intricate and lyrical. It's structurally inventive without being gimmicky. And it showcases a writer who is in complete control of her craft.
But fuck me do not read the back cover blurb. It's not just that it gives away too much it's that like most blurbs it establishes preconceptions that aren't entirely reflected in the text. Books are so much more interesting when you don't bring any baggage to the reading experience. This book will especially reward you if you are baggage free.
January 21, 2019
The Rift is the story of two sisters, Selena and Julie Rouane. When Julie is 17, she goes missing, seemingly without a trace. Selena, three years Julie's junior, shoulders the burden of her sister's disappearance and grows up in the shadow of an unsolved mystery. When we meet Selena, she is in her mid-thirties, still bogged down in survivor's guilt. Almost as soon as she is introduced, she receives a phone call that turns her life upside down – a call from a woman who claims to be Julie. She is living close by, working at a hospital, and wants to reconnect with her sibling. She also claims that for the majority of the past 20 years, she has been living on an alien planet called Tristane.
The saga of Julie's disappearance and reappearance is woven through with strangeness – strands of glitter in a familiar fabric. Her account of Tristane expands outwards into another story, that of an explorer who visits the nearby planet of Dea and learns of a deadly parasite. The different strands of the novel fit together like matroyshka dolls. The explorer's story – which is supposedly a memoir but becomes popular as fiction – offers a parallel to Julie's. These stories are nothing alike in terms of content, but each is a narrative one person has constructed around something that happened to them. Each is a way for that person to understand the most significant events of their life. I was reminded of a line from Delphine de Vigan's Based on a True Story which I often think of: Whatever you write, you are in the domain of fiction.
How do we decide what is true? The question of what really happened to Julie persists. Selena understandably thinks the Tristane story is ridiculous and worrying, yet finds she cannot completely dismiss it from her mind. Selena and Julie's mother has a different reaction, one that casts a new kind of doubt on Julie's account – perhaps the most chilling moment in the book. Others, such as the xenometallurgist who studies Julie's pendant, find themselves more easily persuaded.
The Rift is such a clever twist on the 'lost girl' trope that appears in so much fiction of both the literary and the crime/thriller varieties. In some ways, it's a deconstruction of the concept and a realist examination of the aftermath. When the newspapers lose interest, what happens to the grieving family? What becomes of those caught in the crossfire: the teacher accused of an illicit relationship with Julie, the man walking his dogs beside the lake where she vanished? There's even a snippet of a novel partly based on the Julie case – a version of something that might have happened, filtered and distorted to the point of absurdity. Another example of fiction serving as a way to frame the world, however inexpertly.
The sense of place is always excellent, too. The scenes of Selena and Julie's childhood crackle with authenticity, a perfect encapsulation of the way one remembers childhood summers: ... the smells of baking tarmac and cracked lawns, the particular stillness of those evenings, mauve shreds of twilight collecting in the mouths of alleyways and shop entrances as it began to get dark, the charred scent from their neighbours' barbecues. There is such a contrast between this banal enchantment and Julie's descriptions of Tristane, which seem to encompass the enormity of the entrire universe: The sky overhead was strewn with stars, vast swathes of them, bright and numerous as sequins sewn into a ballgown. Yet both settings come to life as perfect complements to one another.
In contrast to most of Allan's short fiction, the first part of The Rift has a little bit of a coldness about it: I didn't immediately warm to Selena. It wasn't until the second half – after Julie has told her story, and when there is a greater sense of urgency in Selena's need to establish the truth – that I really felt reluctant to tear myself away from the book. It starts slow yet, by the end of its 400 pages, I could have read 400 pages more. Writing up my thoughts about The Rift has made me excited to read it again someday. It's that kind of book, a meticulous labyrinth that reveals more as you think about it. Rich, rewarding, genre-defying magic.
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The saga of Julie's disappearance and reappearance is woven through with strangeness – strands of glitter in a familiar fabric. Her account of Tristane expands outwards into another story, that of an explorer who visits the nearby planet of Dea and learns of a deadly parasite. The different strands of the novel fit together like matroyshka dolls. The explorer's story – which is supposedly a memoir but becomes popular as fiction – offers a parallel to Julie's. These stories are nothing alike in terms of content, but each is a narrative one person has constructed around something that happened to them. Each is a way for that person to understand the most significant events of their life. I was reminded of a line from Delphine de Vigan's Based on a True Story which I often think of: Whatever you write, you are in the domain of fiction.
How do we decide what is true? The question of what really happened to Julie persists. Selena understandably thinks the Tristane story is ridiculous and worrying, yet finds she cannot completely dismiss it from her mind. Selena and Julie's mother has a different reaction, one that casts a new kind of doubt on Julie's account – perhaps the most chilling moment in the book. Others, such as the xenometallurgist who studies Julie's pendant, find themselves more easily persuaded.
The Rift is such a clever twist on the 'lost girl' trope that appears in so much fiction of both the literary and the crime/thriller varieties. In some ways, it's a deconstruction of the concept and a realist examination of the aftermath. When the newspapers lose interest, what happens to the grieving family? What becomes of those caught in the crossfire: the teacher accused of an illicit relationship with Julie, the man walking his dogs beside the lake where she vanished? There's even a snippet of a novel partly based on the Julie case – a version of something that might have happened, filtered and distorted to the point of absurdity. Another example of fiction serving as a way to frame the world, however inexpertly.
The sense of place is always excellent, too. The scenes of Selena and Julie's childhood crackle with authenticity, a perfect encapsulation of the way one remembers childhood summers: ... the smells of baking tarmac and cracked lawns, the particular stillness of those evenings, mauve shreds of twilight collecting in the mouths of alleyways and shop entrances as it began to get dark, the charred scent from their neighbours' barbecues. There is such a contrast between this banal enchantment and Julie's descriptions of Tristane, which seem to encompass the enormity of the entrire universe: The sky overhead was strewn with stars, vast swathes of them, bright and numerous as sequins sewn into a ballgown. Yet both settings come to life as perfect complements to one another.
In contrast to most of Allan's short fiction, the first part of The Rift has a little bit of a coldness about it: I didn't immediately warm to Selena. It wasn't until the second half – after Julie has told her story, and when there is a greater sense of urgency in Selena's need to establish the truth – that I really felt reluctant to tear myself away from the book. It starts slow yet, by the end of its 400 pages, I could have read 400 pages more. Writing up my thoughts about The Rift has made me excited to read it again someday. It's that kind of book, a meticulous labyrinth that reveals more as you think about it. Rich, rewarding, genre-defying magic.
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February 26, 2018DNF @27%
With pretty much no SF elements so far I'm left with a book about the disappearance of a sister and the impact on the family of her return. Nearly a third of the way through a 400 page book and we're just going round and round on the sense of alienation, abandonment and detachment that the remaining sister has towards the returning one.
I get it from a literary point of view, but I don't find it interesting in any way. The key here is that by this stage in the book I've had all curiosity about why the sister was actually missing bludgeoned out of me by the mundanity of the novel so far.
Pretty extreme case of "not for me".
With pretty much no SF elements so far I'm left with a book about the disappearance of a sister and the impact on the family of her return. Nearly a third of the way through a 400 page book and we're just going round and round on the sense of alienation, abandonment and detachment that the remaining sister has towards the returning one.
I get it from a literary point of view, but I don't find it interesting in any way. The key here is that by this stage in the book I've had all curiosity about why the sister was actually missing bludgeoned out of me by the mundanity of the novel so far.
Pretty extreme case of "not for me".
March 28, 2021
This book is about discovering truths. It poses as a mystery, but I believe it is more about relationships. The central mystery should be more than enough to keep readers turning pages. This is my second N. A. read, and I will likely read the rest of her work now.
There were only a few places in the novel where the writing style slipped or pulled a 180. The first was in a good way. During the short story of the creef, which employs prose that resembles that of her 'partner,' Christopher Priest. It is a chilling scientific examination of a nightmare-inducing parasitic being. It injected a pervasive sense of dread into an otherwise tense scenario.
The book explores how narrative blends with life, how living is telling ourselves stories and how this tendency can lead to a communicable madness. In a sense, many of us are living what we want to believe. Yet, every person must deal with the transformation of the self through time, whether singularly, or in relation to others.
Nina Allan's style is consummately readable, if not pristine. If she'd introduced the supernatural elements sooner, would it all have been harder to swallow? Did our suspension of disbelief necessitate that it begin as a realist novel? I think the beginning is immersive and effective, though a little generic. She loves to add news articles, journal entries, and extracts from books within the book. She did the same thing with the Dollmaker, and as in that case, one of the short stories here is shoehorned in - maybe a red herring, but it came off as rather forced. The others add good texture and enlarge upon a few side characters, nearly all of whom have some dimension and definition.
I was highly intrigued by the observation that dead bodies seem like empty soul vessels, hollow chrysalides from which the living person's essence has dissolved. How this reminds us of the creef is something I will never forget.
The narrative operates via an X-files vibe and sustains cognitive dissonance like a pro. The layers of symbols were well distributed - time capsules, koi fish, jewelry. The motifs contain a creative component, engaging with the characters' occupation or obsession (as in The Dollmaker). I am fine with this recurring technique. It reminds me of Murakami's quirky abstract symbolism. But with Nina Allan you always get a sturdy skeleton of emotion, conflict, character development, and imaginative metaphorical splicing.
I found the underlying unsettling aspect of a chaotic universe of unknowns richly meaningful. Through extended internal monologues, her characters' outlooks and relationships are crystalline, but also latticed through with the demands of plot and structure.
Other pieces of this literary mosaic include: memories, the sinister secrets we stow next to our hearts, pop references, the unsolved missing pieces of our internal puzzle, the mysteries we must live with, the burden of life itself, of loss, grief, and delusion. The main character for most of the book is Selena, who plays out cutscenes of daydream in her head, rehearsing scenarios. While the sentence structure could be more varied, it reads fast, contains corny humor, and makes for extreme memorability. The persistence of childhood beliefs into adulthood is a lingering theme. To be honest I cared for the extraterrestrial sections far less than the realist sections, but they added a needed layer of mystery to the plot, allowing the reader to speculate on which version of the events described was true. It is the good kind of ambiguity where you can choose to interpret the events in your own fashion, but the pieces are all there for both readings. It is skillfully done.
We are left to ponder the living's duty to the dead and the absent, and the nature of forgiveness, if true forgiveness is possible. At its heart, it is a masterful exploration of relationships. I am most chilled by the sense of childhood games tapping into a haunting sub-reality, by the knowledge that some mystery must persist throughout our lives, especially where our own comprehension and memories fail.
There were only a few places in the novel where the writing style slipped or pulled a 180. The first was in a good way. During the short story of the creef, which employs prose that resembles that of her 'partner,' Christopher Priest. It is a chilling scientific examination of a nightmare-inducing parasitic being. It injected a pervasive sense of dread into an otherwise tense scenario.
The book explores how narrative blends with life, how living is telling ourselves stories and how this tendency can lead to a communicable madness. In a sense, many of us are living what we want to believe. Yet, every person must deal with the transformation of the self through time, whether singularly, or in relation to others.
Nina Allan's style is consummately readable, if not pristine. If she'd introduced the supernatural elements sooner, would it all have been harder to swallow? Did our suspension of disbelief necessitate that it begin as a realist novel? I think the beginning is immersive and effective, though a little generic. She loves to add news articles, journal entries, and extracts from books within the book. She did the same thing with the Dollmaker, and as in that case, one of the short stories here is shoehorned in - maybe a red herring, but it came off as rather forced. The others add good texture and enlarge upon a few side characters, nearly all of whom have some dimension and definition.
I was highly intrigued by the observation that dead bodies seem like empty soul vessels, hollow chrysalides from which the living person's essence has dissolved. How this reminds us of the creef is something I will never forget.
The narrative operates via an X-files vibe and sustains cognitive dissonance like a pro. The layers of symbols were well distributed - time capsules, koi fish, jewelry. The motifs contain a creative component, engaging with the characters' occupation or obsession (as in The Dollmaker). I am fine with this recurring technique. It reminds me of Murakami's quirky abstract symbolism. But with Nina Allan you always get a sturdy skeleton of emotion, conflict, character development, and imaginative metaphorical splicing.
I found the underlying unsettling aspect of a chaotic universe of unknowns richly meaningful. Through extended internal monologues, her characters' outlooks and relationships are crystalline, but also latticed through with the demands of plot and structure.
Other pieces of this literary mosaic include: memories, the sinister secrets we stow next to our hearts, pop references, the unsolved missing pieces of our internal puzzle, the mysteries we must live with, the burden of life itself, of loss, grief, and delusion. The main character for most of the book is Selena, who plays out cutscenes of daydream in her head, rehearsing scenarios. While the sentence structure could be more varied, it reads fast, contains corny humor, and makes for extreme memorability. The persistence of childhood beliefs into adulthood is a lingering theme. To be honest I cared for the extraterrestrial sections far less than the realist sections, but they added a needed layer of mystery to the plot, allowing the reader to speculate on which version of the events described was true. It is the good kind of ambiguity where you can choose to interpret the events in your own fashion, but the pieces are all there for both readings. It is skillfully done.
We are left to ponder the living's duty to the dead and the absent, and the nature of forgiveness, if true forgiveness is possible. At its heart, it is a masterful exploration of relationships. I am most chilled by the sense of childhood games tapping into a haunting sub-reality, by the knowledge that some mystery must persist throughout our lives, especially where our own comprehension and memories fail.
May 16, 2017
This is an unusual book with one of those soft, ambiguous story-lines that will drive some people batty but I enjoy. I'm not sure I understand it all, but I found myself re-reading passages, drawing and re-drawing connections, and thinking about how tricky it can be to differentiate between what's real and what's not. I found it moving and subtle, quietly weird, and it was a surprise because the jacket copy sounds very SF mystery and it doesn't read like something that straightforward.
July 11, 2017
I'm so grateful to Titan for an advance copy of this book, which was one of my most anticipated of 2017 after Allan's stunning The Race last year.
The books have some similarities. Like The Race, The Rift is complex in form - the story is told both through viewpoint narratives and through interpolated artefacts: letters, lists, newspaper articles, school essays, bits of stories, diaries. These aren't all written by the main characters, so for example we get a section from the diary of a specialist metallurgist who's consulted about an item of jewellery, giving a shrewd sidelight on one of the main characters.
Like The Race, this book centres on a disappearance: Julie, elder sister of Selena, goes missing from the North Cheshire village of Lymm in the mid 90s. Nearly 20 years later, she turns up again and the heart of the book is the section describing what happens then as Serena attempts to make sense of what happened.
It's a shifting, teasing story. There are issues of identity. Is it really Julie? She tells a fantastic story about what happened to her, but it's a very partial story. Apparently Julie stepped in a blink from the banks of Hatchmere, a lake in Delamere Forest some way from Lymm, to an alien planet, Tristane. But almost immediately this clarity begins to wash out. Julie poses two mysteries: the craziness of her story but also the fact that the account given hardly covers a few weeks of the time she was missing.
A lot has been missed out, one feels, is being hidden, even as Allan relishes the opportunity to sketch the geography, history and society of Tristane. Indeed there's enough material there for whole volumes of a more conventional )and conventionally narrated) SF saga - the strange, mind eating parasites, the abandonment of travel to nearby planets, the thousands of years of history, the suspicion of a coverup - but I think making it into that would be waste: instead Allan presents this material in fragmentary form, scattered through the book, and it seems more real than any spacefaring epic I've read.
At the same time, the loss of Julie brings to a head a crisis in her family, making visible faultlines already there. Allan's writing is never more beautiful than picking apart the impact on father, mother, daughter - the guilt, the wondering what really happened, the dislocated lives, the need both to go on living and to not give up hope. In the course of this Allan explores - again almost in passing but never superficially, never without respect - the other lives touched, such as the teacher who befriended Julie, was hounded by the press and whose story ends up turned into a novel, extracts of which are quoted. There's a weird foreshadowing of this in a character introduced early on who seems to be going to play a significant part in the book but, after a tragedy, is barely heard of again. And yet, there are hints about him, echoes of him and his life in other parts of the book, other characters and other scenes. Somehow it is, I think, all part of a whole - something also glimpsed in the resonances between different parts of the story (such as Julie's using the word "temple" for Coventry Cathedral, inviting a comparison with her description of those in the Tristanian city of Firby.
Alongside Julie's and Selena's parents, there is also a focus on another tragic couple, Cally and Noah, with whom she seems to belong in Tristane (but is the Julie of Tristane the same person as the Julie of Earth? Is one dreaming the other and, if so, which is which?) Again, little is said explicitly about their situation though Allan is marvellous at implying things via a few words via behaviour such as Noah's endless nighttime expeditions.
It's an entrancing, audacious book. Somehow the games with language and setting reminded me of another book - M John Harrison's Viriconium. It's less in the subject matter or setting but more the way that Allan seems to create, almost, a body of myth in this book - a deposit of stories around a central theme but not all consonant, sometime contradicting one another but, by their separateness, actually supporting one another. (I note in passing that Harrison uses many placenames from the North West of England in those stories, Lymm included, and locates parts of at least one in Manchester).
It's also book that can't really be captured in a few words. The Rift put me in mind of a Kaleidoscope, perhaps, or of washing going round in a machine: all the colours and shapes are there but one can't quite see how they relate to each other. It works, though. I think, at a different level from a logical, unfolding story, those pieces assemble themselves, somehow. If you've ever tried to imagine a 4D object, you may see what I mean. You literally can't imagine the whole, but you can model it, capture it your mind at some other level. In the same way, this story comes together such that even the most improbable seeming details fit and make a mind of sense. In the same way, Selena's acceptance and rejection of Julie, and the response of Julie's mother Margery, and some of the other discoveries in this books, do click into place.
I see this as very much a 21st century equivalent to those stories of children being carried off by the fairies and returning years after, unable to explain where they've been, unable to be in the society they left, unable to go back. At the same time it's also very preoccupied with modern problems, with relations between parents and children/ teenagers, with shifts in loyalties and "growing up", with lonely people making their own worlds for themselves - or trying to.
Finally, is this book perhaps to some degree a comment on or response to Boneland, the recently published third part of Alan Garner's Weirdstone of Brisingamen trilogy? Both concern the aftermath of losing a sister, both look to the stars for explanation, both focus on the Cheshire meres and seem to speak of sacrifice, sacred landscape and mystery.
A magnificent achievement, and a book to go back to again and again, I think.
The books have some similarities. Like The Race, The Rift is complex in form - the story is told both through viewpoint narratives and through interpolated artefacts: letters, lists, newspaper articles, school essays, bits of stories, diaries. These aren't all written by the main characters, so for example we get a section from the diary of a specialist metallurgist who's consulted about an item of jewellery, giving a shrewd sidelight on one of the main characters.
Like The Race, this book centres on a disappearance: Julie, elder sister of Selena, goes missing from the North Cheshire village of Lymm in the mid 90s. Nearly 20 years later, she turns up again and the heart of the book is the section describing what happens then as Serena attempts to make sense of what happened.
It's a shifting, teasing story. There are issues of identity. Is it really Julie? She tells a fantastic story about what happened to her, but it's a very partial story. Apparently Julie stepped in a blink from the banks of Hatchmere, a lake in Delamere Forest some way from Lymm, to an alien planet, Tristane. But almost immediately this clarity begins to wash out. Julie poses two mysteries: the craziness of her story but also the fact that the account given hardly covers a few weeks of the time she was missing.
A lot has been missed out, one feels, is being hidden, even as Allan relishes the opportunity to sketch the geography, history and society of Tristane. Indeed there's enough material there for whole volumes of a more conventional )and conventionally narrated) SF saga - the strange, mind eating parasites, the abandonment of travel to nearby planets, the thousands of years of history, the suspicion of a coverup - but I think making it into that would be waste: instead Allan presents this material in fragmentary form, scattered through the book, and it seems more real than any spacefaring epic I've read.
At the same time, the loss of Julie brings to a head a crisis in her family, making visible faultlines already there. Allan's writing is never more beautiful than picking apart the impact on father, mother, daughter - the guilt, the wondering what really happened, the dislocated lives, the need both to go on living and to not give up hope. In the course of this Allan explores - again almost in passing but never superficially, never without respect - the other lives touched, such as the teacher who befriended Julie, was hounded by the press and whose story ends up turned into a novel, extracts of which are quoted. There's a weird foreshadowing of this in a character introduced early on who seems to be going to play a significant part in the book but, after a tragedy, is barely heard of again. And yet, there are hints about him, echoes of him and his life in other parts of the book, other characters and other scenes. Somehow it is, I think, all part of a whole - something also glimpsed in the resonances between different parts of the story (such as Julie's using the word "temple" for Coventry Cathedral, inviting a comparison with her description of those in the Tristanian city of Firby.
Alongside Julie's and Selena's parents, there is also a focus on another tragic couple, Cally and Noah, with whom she seems to belong in Tristane (but is the Julie of Tristane the same person as the Julie of Earth? Is one dreaming the other and, if so, which is which?) Again, little is said explicitly about their situation though Allan is marvellous at implying things via a few words via behaviour such as Noah's endless nighttime expeditions.
It's an entrancing, audacious book. Somehow the games with language and setting reminded me of another book - M John Harrison's Viriconium. It's less in the subject matter or setting but more the way that Allan seems to create, almost, a body of myth in this book - a deposit of stories around a central theme but not all consonant, sometime contradicting one another but, by their separateness, actually supporting one another. (I note in passing that Harrison uses many placenames from the North West of England in those stories, Lymm included, and locates parts of at least one in Manchester).
It's also book that can't really be captured in a few words. The Rift put me in mind of a Kaleidoscope, perhaps, or of washing going round in a machine: all the colours and shapes are there but one can't quite see how they relate to each other. It works, though. I think, at a different level from a logical, unfolding story, those pieces assemble themselves, somehow. If you've ever tried to imagine a 4D object, you may see what I mean. You literally can't imagine the whole, but you can model it, capture it your mind at some other level. In the same way, this story comes together such that even the most improbable seeming details fit and make a mind of sense. In the same way, Selena's acceptance and rejection of Julie, and the response of Julie's mother Margery, and some of the other discoveries in this books, do click into place.
I see this as very much a 21st century equivalent to those stories of children being carried off by the fairies and returning years after, unable to explain where they've been, unable to be in the society they left, unable to go back. At the same time it's also very preoccupied with modern problems, with relations between parents and children/ teenagers, with shifts in loyalties and "growing up", with lonely people making their own worlds for themselves - or trying to.
Finally, is this book perhaps to some degree a comment on or response to Boneland, the recently published third part of Alan Garner's Weirdstone of Brisingamen trilogy? Both concern the aftermath of losing a sister, both look to the stars for explanation, both focus on the Cheshire meres and seem to speak of sacrifice, sacred landscape and mystery.
A magnificent achievement, and a book to go back to again and again, I think.
November 29, 2017
Well, this book was a hot mess. The sci-if aspect was the one that made me want to read this book but that aspect is barely explored in this book and when it is , it is explored in the most confusing way ever. We are given “excerpts “ from books that have come from the different “dimension, world, reality “ and then we are given nonsensical geographic lessons without them being needed...it’s just felt like the author wanted to fill the pages . Then the book goes into a completely different direction, maybe Julie (the sister that goes missing and “returns” after 17 years) was abused and imagined this whole reality (going to another reality, world, dimension) as a coping mechanism....the books explores that aspect ...but then there is a twist towards the end where we are left to completely doubt what we have been told so far . The characters were weak and the supporting characters even more . There are different formats of writing splashed all over the book maybe because the author wanted to give this section a semblance of importance which is completely unnecessary when you read and only succeed in annoying the reader . I was completely let down by this book , the first 100 pages were promising at first but a huge drop after that . I know I’m the minority with my review (most people seem to like the book) but I consider that after reading a plethora of science fiction books , I at least can recognize when I read a bad one .
July 22, 2019
Ahoy there me mateys! This be the eighth book in me Ports for Plunder – 19 Books in 2019 list. The story of reading this book can trace it’s roots back to the 2015 John W. Campbell award finalists. For reasons that escape me now, I decided I was going to eventually read all of the 16 candidates for that specific year. Nina Allan appeared on that list and reading her book from that year, the race, marked the half-way point of me goal. I liked it enough that I wanted to read more of her work. Then this current book appeared on the 2018 John W. Campbell award finalists list. So I put it in me 19 in 2019 goal.
So I really liked this book and yet I will likely never re-read it. But I will likely re-read the race even though I thought it wasn’t as well written. That seems contradictory. I will try and explain. For the race, these were me thoughts:
"The author seemingly has an idea of alternate or mirror worlds. But were they really? I don’t know. The book certainly brought up more questions than providing answers. I feel like the first read barely scratched the surface and that it deserves a re-read after some time has passed."
The author does seem to have a fasination with other worlds that are seemingly connected to ours and also certainly provokes way more questions than providing answers. I think the major difference between the two reads is that the character development in the rift was not the primary focus of the book. It was more of an exploration of the concept of rifts and their consquences. The sci-fi nature of this book was also VERY slow to appear.
The story is told mostly from the perspective of Selena. Selena and her sister, Julie, were extremely close growing up. But as Julie is turning 17 and Selena is turning 15, a rift has formed in their relationship. Julie is distancing herself from her sister. Selena feels this change keenly. Their parents’ marriage also has developed a rift and so the summer is filled with the akwardness between all members of the household. Then Julie goes missing and her disappearance is never solved.
The rift between the family members turns into a gulf of pain with extreme consquences for the remaining members of the family. The mother refuses to speak about Julie, the dad is convinced that his daughter is still alive and won’t give up on the search, and Selena is consumed by survivor’s guilt. But then 20 years later, a woman claiming to be Julie calls Selena. She also claims to have spent the missing years on an alien planet.
The majority of the focus is on how Selena reacts to the news of Julie’s possible survival. Is it her sister? Or is it too good to be true? What actually happened to Julie? Is Julie sane? I was completely engrossed in following Selena’s thoughts and feelings on the subject. I also was fascinated by the details of the alien world and Selena’s hunt for the truth. The author choose to add in details like newspaper articles and journal entries that helped enrich the story. But I never really grew attached to any of the characters in this tale, unlike when I read the race.
That said, I absolutely loved the book and the unraveling mystery and even the ending. I was completely satisfied with me read and had even picked a side in the hunt for the truth. The problems came when I realized the huge holes that had no answers. What happens to Johnny? Why did the mother choose her final stance? If the planet was real then what the hell did Julie do on it for over 15 years and how did she get home?
These questions didn’t occur to me while reading the book and I didn’t feel like they even needed to be asked or answered. But upon reflection, I wanted to know. I needed more to the story. I wanted more information on the planet and how Selena’s life changes after all this drama. But the book and writing itself didn’t require it. The story seemed complete. The author seems to have answered the main question of what Selena is going to do in the correct fashion. I just can’t help but wanting definitive answers for some of me questions.
When reading the race, I felt like I was missing things and that the author had clues and hints that I could maybe find if I read it again. I have unanswered questions that I would like to explore again. In the rift, it feels like the story is complete, I had all the details the author cares to give, and the narrative was clear. I didn’t miss anything in reading it and I know what I have decided is the truth. The journey towards Selena’s answer was the point. Reading it again would not necessarily give me further insight and the mystery is over for me. And that was what made it fun. It is an odd read that I don’t know if I could recommend. In fact, I am not sure I could recommend either book due to the unususal nature of them. But I do know that I will read more by Nina Allen. Arrrr!
So I really liked this book and yet I will likely never re-read it. But I will likely re-read the race even though I thought it wasn’t as well written. That seems contradictory. I will try and explain. For the race, these were me thoughts:
"The author seemingly has an idea of alternate or mirror worlds. But were they really? I don’t know. The book certainly brought up more questions than providing answers. I feel like the first read barely scratched the surface and that it deserves a re-read after some time has passed."
The author does seem to have a fasination with other worlds that are seemingly connected to ours and also certainly provokes way more questions than providing answers. I think the major difference between the two reads is that the character development in the rift was not the primary focus of the book. It was more of an exploration of the concept of rifts and their consquences. The sci-fi nature of this book was also VERY slow to appear.
The story is told mostly from the perspective of Selena. Selena and her sister, Julie, were extremely close growing up. But as Julie is turning 17 and Selena is turning 15, a rift has formed in their relationship. Julie is distancing herself from her sister. Selena feels this change keenly. Their parents’ marriage also has developed a rift and so the summer is filled with the akwardness between all members of the household. Then Julie goes missing and her disappearance is never solved.
The rift between the family members turns into a gulf of pain with extreme consquences for the remaining members of the family. The mother refuses to speak about Julie, the dad is convinced that his daughter is still alive and won’t give up on the search, and Selena is consumed by survivor’s guilt. But then 20 years later, a woman claiming to be Julie calls Selena. She also claims to have spent the missing years on an alien planet.
The majority of the focus is on how Selena reacts to the news of Julie’s possible survival. Is it her sister? Or is it too good to be true? What actually happened to Julie? Is Julie sane? I was completely engrossed in following Selena’s thoughts and feelings on the subject. I also was fascinated by the details of the alien world and Selena’s hunt for the truth. The author choose to add in details like newspaper articles and journal entries that helped enrich the story. But I never really grew attached to any of the characters in this tale, unlike when I read the race.
That said, I absolutely loved the book and the unraveling mystery and even the ending. I was completely satisfied with me read and had even picked a side in the hunt for the truth. The problems came when I realized the huge holes that had no answers. What happens to Johnny? Why did the mother choose her final stance? If the planet was real then what the hell did Julie do on it for over 15 years and how did she get home?
These questions didn’t occur to me while reading the book and I didn’t feel like they even needed to be asked or answered. But upon reflection, I wanted to know. I needed more to the story. I wanted more information on the planet and how Selena’s life changes after all this drama. But the book and writing itself didn’t require it. The story seemed complete. The author seems to have answered the main question of what Selena is going to do in the correct fashion. I just can’t help but wanting definitive answers for some of me questions.
When reading the race, I felt like I was missing things and that the author had clues and hints that I could maybe find if I read it again. I have unanswered questions that I would like to explore again. In the rift, it feels like the story is complete, I had all the details the author cares to give, and the narrative was clear. I didn’t miss anything in reading it and I know what I have decided is the truth. The journey towards Selena’s answer was the point. Reading it again would not necessarily give me further insight and the mystery is over for me. And that was what made it fun. It is an odd read that I don’t know if I could recommend. In fact, I am not sure I could recommend either book due to the unususal nature of them. But I do know that I will read more by Nina Allen. Arrrr!
March 7, 2018
Actual rating: 4.5 stars!
This was INCREDIBLE!!!
I truly cannot understand why it has such a low rating on GR.
It was a mixture of sci-fi, psychological thriller and mystery. And I was LIVING for that.
Just, seriously, if you like your science fiction with twists and turns and not quite believing what is happening, then this is for you!
I LOVED IT!!!
Highly recommended!
Happy reading
Hannah xoxo
This was INCREDIBLE!!!
I truly cannot understand why it has such a low rating on GR.
It was a mixture of sci-fi, psychological thriller and mystery. And I was LIVING for that.
Just, seriously, if you like your science fiction with twists and turns and not quite believing what is happening, then this is for you!
I LOVED IT!!!
Highly recommended!
Happy reading
Hannah xoxo
October 29, 2022
Despite some minor flaws this was a cracking read that kept me guessing how things would turn out right until the very end. I can’t believe this book had been sitting on my Kindle for three years, just waiting for me to pick it up. This will surely rank among my favourites for this year.
Set in Manchester, this book follows two sisters Julie and Selena. The story begins with Selena aged 34. Two decades earlier Julie mysteriously disappeared after leaving the house one day. Then, out of the blue, Selena receives a phone call from a woman claiming to be Jullie, telling her she has returned. The sisters get together and Selena is soon convinced that this woman is indeed Julie. She looks like Julie and acts like Julie. She also knows certain details from when they were young that only Julie could know. After a while, Julie finally (and only reluctantly) reveals to Selena where she’s been all these years: an alien planet named Tristane. Is Jullie telling the truth or is it all in her mind?
This story is such a clever and creative take on the missing person trope. But what I liked most about this book was the writing, which had me emotionally invested in the characters from start to finish. Allan imparts a strong sense of realness to her writing and there is a flow to it that I really enjoyed. The central mystery at the heart of the story also made this a real page-turner. The only things that worked less well for me were the lengthy geographical descriptions of the alien planet, which didn’t really serve the story in any real way and slowed down the pacing of the book. There were also a few side characters on the alien planet that could have been better developed, especially in their relation to Julie. But other than that this was such an excellent and refreshing read. Highly recommended for anyone who likes character-driven ‘soft’ sci-fi (one could even argue that this isn’t sci-fi at all). I will definitely be reading more of Allan’s work.
4.5 stars rounded up.
Set in Manchester, this book follows two sisters Julie and Selena. The story begins with Selena aged 34. Two decades earlier Julie mysteriously disappeared after leaving the house one day. Then, out of the blue, Selena receives a phone call from a woman claiming to be Jullie, telling her she has returned. The sisters get together and Selena is soon convinced that this woman is indeed Julie. She looks like Julie and acts like Julie. She also knows certain details from when they were young that only Julie could know. After a while, Julie finally (and only reluctantly) reveals to Selena where she’s been all these years: an alien planet named Tristane. Is Jullie telling the truth or is it all in her mind?
This story is such a clever and creative take on the missing person trope. But what I liked most about this book was the writing, which had me emotionally invested in the characters from start to finish. Allan imparts a strong sense of realness to her writing and there is a flow to it that I really enjoyed. The central mystery at the heart of the story also made this a real page-turner. The only things that worked less well for me were the lengthy geographical descriptions of the alien planet, which didn’t really serve the story in any real way and slowed down the pacing of the book. There were also a few side characters on the alien planet that could have been better developed, especially in their relation to Julie. But other than that this was such an excellent and refreshing read. Highly recommended for anyone who likes character-driven ‘soft’ sci-fi (one could even argue that this isn’t sci-fi at all). I will definitely be reading more of Allan’s work.
4.5 stars rounded up.
August 17, 2017
Originally published at Risingshadow.
Nina Allan's The Rift is one of the most compelling, ambitious and immersive reading experiences of the year. Besides being a thought-provoking exploration of love, loss, alienation, memories and identity, it's also a thoughtful meditation on relationships and mental health. It's different from and more original than other new speculative fiction novels, because the author has written an incredibly enticing story that features challenging themes and issues. To be honest, The Rift is one of the most rewarding literary speculative fiction novels I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
Nina Allan is an author who has never failed to impress me with her fiction. She's one of the most talented speculative fiction authors I've ever come across, because she writes beautiful, haunting and thought-provoking prose that leaves you fully satisfied with its literary values and alluring strangeness. The Rift is an excellent example of her writing skills, because it's deeply engaging and features excellent prose. It's a seamless blend of literary fiction, science fiction, mystery fiction and psychological thriller fiction with horror and slipstream elements. The author succeeds in combining different elements and various genres, because she does it with confidence and dares to be experimental.
The Rift is a story two sisters, Selena and Julie. Selena and Julie used to be close when they were young and had their own habits. They enjoyed each other's company and spent lots of time together. As they grew older they became more distant from each other and a gap formed between them. Soon Julie went missing and everything changed. One day, many years later, Selena gets a phone call from Julie. The phone call suprises her and she doesn't quite believe the person calling is Julie. Julie wants to meet Selena so that they can get to know one another again. They agree to meet each other. When they meet, Selena has trouble believing that her sister has really come back and she tests her. When Julie opens up about her life, she tells Selena an incredible and unbelievable story about how she has spent time on another planet. Julie claims to have accidentally travelled through a rift in space-time continuum to Tristane. Selena finds herself facing a difficult to choice, because she can either believe her sister or she can dismiss her as a damaged person who can't handle what has happened to her.
This novel is a story about different kinds of rifts that can - given the right circumstances - exist or develop between people. The rift that has developed between Selena and Julie is realistic, because they have not seen each other in years and Selena finds herself wondering about what has happened to her sister, because she is not very forthcoming about the years when she was missing. There's also a kind of a rift between Selena and her father, Raymond, because Raymond begins to suffer from mental problems, but I'll write more about that later on.
The characterisation is excellent. The author creates a vivid portrayl of two sisters and their lives. What makes the characterisation especially effective is the author's way of writing about the characters' lives in a believable way, because she fully introduces the primary characters to her readers and also writes well about the secondary characters.
Selena is a well-created protagonist. She is one of the most fully fleshed characters I've ever seen in speculative fiction novels, because the author writes about her life and feelings in a literary way and creates a complex vision of a woman whose life is shaken by her sister's sudden appearance after twenty years. Julie's appearance brings back many memories and Selena finds herself thinking about them and her past.
Cally and Noah are well-created supporting characters who live in Tristane and are connected to Julie. The author reveals a few important things about their lives, but leaves a lot unsaid and only hints at certain things, because she excels at writing about minor things that have an impact on the characters' lives. She explores their lives in scarce yet profound way and proves that sometimes less is more.
Selena's friendship with Stephen Dent, an older math teacher who has lived in Japan, is fascinating, because Stephen offers her a place to escape her normal life. When Stephen kills himself, Selena experiences her first sense of loss. She is troubled by guilt, because she might have been able to persuade him not to do it. I also enjoyed reading about how Selena became friends with her boss, Vanja, who is a jeweller and whose husband may be involved in criminal activities, because their friendship is interesting.
I find the author's way of exploring what the disappearance of a family member does to a family realistic, because there's harsh realism in her writing style that highlights the events. The author writes unflinchingly about the consequences of Julie's disapperance and how it affects Selena, Raymond and Margery. Raymond's mental problems are described well, because it's easy to believe that a man's personality can change when something dramatic happens to him. Raymond begins to suffer from mental illness after Julie disappears and his life changes (it feels as if Raymond has suffered a severe wound that begins to fester and never heals). The author tells how Selena feels about her father's condition and how her mother copes with the situation.
I think it's great that the author also pays attention to what the police officers do when someone goes missing, because these little things add quite a lot of realism to the storyline and make it even more intriguing. The actions of the police officers feel convincing and the advice they give to the Rouane family is sensible.
The author explores identity and memories in a multi-faceted way that makes readers think about what has happened and how the characters lives have been affected by the happenings. Who or what Julie is, is explored in mesmerising details, because Julie may not be who she claims to be. There's a possibility that she may be an imposter who knows detailed information about the real Julie's life.
Julie's amazing story about having lived on another planet is simply astonishing and wonderfully detailed, because it feels that she truly may have experienced what she claims to have experienced. Although her account of the events is convincing, there's just the right amount of doubt to make the reader question the credibility of her story.
I love the author's worldbuilding, because she creates a stunning vision of Tristane, its city-states and its wilderness. She excels at detailed worldbuilding, because she gradually writes more about the alien world and lets her readers marvel at and think about the strangeness of the planet before delving into further details about its culture, history and society.
It was compelling to read about Tristane, because the author has a created a stunning vision of another planet and reveals amazing sights to her readers. The planet's history, geography, culture, society and residents are explored in a surprisingly detailed way. This kind of worldbuilding is not often found in literary speculative fiction novels.
Parasitic beings have often appeared in speculative fiction stories, but not many of them have been as captivating and terrifying as the creef in this novel. The creef are isopods, parasitic beings, whose hosts turn into them during a complex biological process. The creef pose a serious threat to people who are not wary and accidentally become infected by their eggs and larvae. The infection leads to the person being fully consumed and devoured by the isopod.
The author's effortless way of writing about memories captivated me. It was fascinating to read about how Selena thought about her childhood and how she remembered the happenings. As it is with memories, certain things are clear while others are vague, and there are things that may haunt us afterwards, because may feel sorry for doing or hiding something. All of this is explored deftly in the story.
One of the best things about this novel is that there are no easy answers to the events, because the author never underestimates the intelligence of her readers, but offers them compelling and thought-provoking scenes that demonstrate the complexity of life, existence and human condition. The story is so well-told that you can't help but think about what has happened and what is real. I love this kind of storytelling, because it stimulates my imagination and appeals to my sense of style.
The use of documents, police reports and extracts from various books feels fresh, because they emphasise many events and reveal several things. I found myself captivated by them, because they feel authentic and offer information about many the events, but also raise questions.
The ending is simultaneously harrowing, strange and rewarding, because readers are offered several choices that may explain what has happened to Julie. I won't go into details about what the choices are, but I can mention that each of them is plausible. It's up to us readers to gather all the facts and interpret the events, because Julie's amazing story may be real or product of a damaged and disturbed mind.
Nina Allan's literary prose is beautiful and nuanced. In this novel, she has created an observant and intriguingly fragmented story that reveals complex truths about life, memories and human condition. I firmly believe that readers who are familiar with the works by such authors as Gene Wolfe, Christopher Priest, David Rix, Douglas Thompson, Aliya Whiteley, Oliver Langmead, Brendan Connell, Joel Lane and Andrew Hook will love the author's writing style.
I give this novel full five stars on the scale from one to five stars, because I was deeply impressed by it and enjoyed the characterisation. I will soon re-read it, because I consider it to be one of the best novels of the year.
Nina Allan's The Rift is an exceptionally rich, haunting and immersive reading experience that will linger on your mind for a long time after you've finished reading it. It's unlike any other novel you're likely to pick up, because it's something unique and has a satisfyingly complex structure. If you're yearning to read something different and compelling, I strongly urge you to read this outstanding novel and immerse yourself into its strangely compelling world.
Very highly recommended!
Nina Allan's The Rift is one of the most compelling, ambitious and immersive reading experiences of the year. Besides being a thought-provoking exploration of love, loss, alienation, memories and identity, it's also a thoughtful meditation on relationships and mental health. It's different from and more original than other new speculative fiction novels, because the author has written an incredibly enticing story that features challenging themes and issues. To be honest, The Rift is one of the most rewarding literary speculative fiction novels I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
Nina Allan is an author who has never failed to impress me with her fiction. She's one of the most talented speculative fiction authors I've ever come across, because she writes beautiful, haunting and thought-provoking prose that leaves you fully satisfied with its literary values and alluring strangeness. The Rift is an excellent example of her writing skills, because it's deeply engaging and features excellent prose. It's a seamless blend of literary fiction, science fiction, mystery fiction and psychological thriller fiction with horror and slipstream elements. The author succeeds in combining different elements and various genres, because she does it with confidence and dares to be experimental.
The Rift is a story two sisters, Selena and Julie. Selena and Julie used to be close when they were young and had their own habits. They enjoyed each other's company and spent lots of time together. As they grew older they became more distant from each other and a gap formed between them. Soon Julie went missing and everything changed. One day, many years later, Selena gets a phone call from Julie. The phone call suprises her and she doesn't quite believe the person calling is Julie. Julie wants to meet Selena so that they can get to know one another again. They agree to meet each other. When they meet, Selena has trouble believing that her sister has really come back and she tests her. When Julie opens up about her life, she tells Selena an incredible and unbelievable story about how she has spent time on another planet. Julie claims to have accidentally travelled through a rift in space-time continuum to Tristane. Selena finds herself facing a difficult to choice, because she can either believe her sister or she can dismiss her as a damaged person who can't handle what has happened to her.
This novel is a story about different kinds of rifts that can - given the right circumstances - exist or develop between people. The rift that has developed between Selena and Julie is realistic, because they have not seen each other in years and Selena finds herself wondering about what has happened to her sister, because she is not very forthcoming about the years when she was missing. There's also a kind of a rift between Selena and her father, Raymond, because Raymond begins to suffer from mental problems, but I'll write more about that later on.
The characterisation is excellent. The author creates a vivid portrayl of two sisters and their lives. What makes the characterisation especially effective is the author's way of writing about the characters' lives in a believable way, because she fully introduces the primary characters to her readers and also writes well about the secondary characters.
Selena is a well-created protagonist. She is one of the most fully fleshed characters I've ever seen in speculative fiction novels, because the author writes about her life and feelings in a literary way and creates a complex vision of a woman whose life is shaken by her sister's sudden appearance after twenty years. Julie's appearance brings back many memories and Selena finds herself thinking about them and her past.
Cally and Noah are well-created supporting characters who live in Tristane and are connected to Julie. The author reveals a few important things about their lives, but leaves a lot unsaid and only hints at certain things, because she excels at writing about minor things that have an impact on the characters' lives. She explores their lives in scarce yet profound way and proves that sometimes less is more.
Selena's friendship with Stephen Dent, an older math teacher who has lived in Japan, is fascinating, because Stephen offers her a place to escape her normal life. When Stephen kills himself, Selena experiences her first sense of loss. She is troubled by guilt, because she might have been able to persuade him not to do it. I also enjoyed reading about how Selena became friends with her boss, Vanja, who is a jeweller and whose husband may be involved in criminal activities, because their friendship is interesting.
I find the author's way of exploring what the disappearance of a family member does to a family realistic, because there's harsh realism in her writing style that highlights the events. The author writes unflinchingly about the consequences of Julie's disapperance and how it affects Selena, Raymond and Margery. Raymond's mental problems are described well, because it's easy to believe that a man's personality can change when something dramatic happens to him. Raymond begins to suffer from mental illness after Julie disappears and his life changes (it feels as if Raymond has suffered a severe wound that begins to fester and never heals). The author tells how Selena feels about her father's condition and how her mother copes with the situation.
I think it's great that the author also pays attention to what the police officers do when someone goes missing, because these little things add quite a lot of realism to the storyline and make it even more intriguing. The actions of the police officers feel convincing and the advice they give to the Rouane family is sensible.
The author explores identity and memories in a multi-faceted way that makes readers think about what has happened and how the characters lives have been affected by the happenings. Who or what Julie is, is explored in mesmerising details, because Julie may not be who she claims to be. There's a possibility that she may be an imposter who knows detailed information about the real Julie's life.
Julie's amazing story about having lived on another planet is simply astonishing and wonderfully detailed, because it feels that she truly may have experienced what she claims to have experienced. Although her account of the events is convincing, there's just the right amount of doubt to make the reader question the credibility of her story.
I love the author's worldbuilding, because she creates a stunning vision of Tristane, its city-states and its wilderness. She excels at detailed worldbuilding, because she gradually writes more about the alien world and lets her readers marvel at and think about the strangeness of the planet before delving into further details about its culture, history and society.
It was compelling to read about Tristane, because the author has a created a stunning vision of another planet and reveals amazing sights to her readers. The planet's history, geography, culture, society and residents are explored in a surprisingly detailed way. This kind of worldbuilding is not often found in literary speculative fiction novels.
Parasitic beings have often appeared in speculative fiction stories, but not many of them have been as captivating and terrifying as the creef in this novel. The creef are isopods, parasitic beings, whose hosts turn into them during a complex biological process. The creef pose a serious threat to people who are not wary and accidentally become infected by their eggs and larvae. The infection leads to the person being fully consumed and devoured by the isopod.
The author's effortless way of writing about memories captivated me. It was fascinating to read about how Selena thought about her childhood and how she remembered the happenings. As it is with memories, certain things are clear while others are vague, and there are things that may haunt us afterwards, because may feel sorry for doing or hiding something. All of this is explored deftly in the story.
One of the best things about this novel is that there are no easy answers to the events, because the author never underestimates the intelligence of her readers, but offers them compelling and thought-provoking scenes that demonstrate the complexity of life, existence and human condition. The story is so well-told that you can't help but think about what has happened and what is real. I love this kind of storytelling, because it stimulates my imagination and appeals to my sense of style.
The use of documents, police reports and extracts from various books feels fresh, because they emphasise many events and reveal several things. I found myself captivated by them, because they feel authentic and offer information about many the events, but also raise questions.
The ending is simultaneously harrowing, strange and rewarding, because readers are offered several choices that may explain what has happened to Julie. I won't go into details about what the choices are, but I can mention that each of them is plausible. It's up to us readers to gather all the facts and interpret the events, because Julie's amazing story may be real or product of a damaged and disturbed mind.
Nina Allan's literary prose is beautiful and nuanced. In this novel, she has created an observant and intriguingly fragmented story that reveals complex truths about life, memories and human condition. I firmly believe that readers who are familiar with the works by such authors as Gene Wolfe, Christopher Priest, David Rix, Douglas Thompson, Aliya Whiteley, Oliver Langmead, Brendan Connell, Joel Lane and Andrew Hook will love the author's writing style.
I give this novel full five stars on the scale from one to five stars, because I was deeply impressed by it and enjoyed the characterisation. I will soon re-read it, because I consider it to be one of the best novels of the year.
Nina Allan's The Rift is an exceptionally rich, haunting and immersive reading experience that will linger on your mind for a long time after you've finished reading it. It's unlike any other novel you're likely to pick up, because it's something unique and has a satisfyingly complex structure. If you're yearning to read something different and compelling, I strongly urge you to read this outstanding novel and immerse yourself into its strangely compelling world.
Very highly recommended!
December 29, 2017
The Rift is one of the most extraordinary, hard-to-categorise, and unsettling novels I’ve read. (I'm sure there are others along the same lines and that use similar techniques but I can't think of any right now). I hadn’t read its blurb beforehand, or any reviews, and I really do think this novel is best read with no preconceptions whatsoever. In this case I also didn’t read any other reviews before reviewing it myself - I just wanted to set down my reactions and later see how others reacted.
It's written in masterful prose, prose that knows how to be crystal clear and transparent, colloquial where needed, at times poetic and and rich and ambiguous, but never concerned to show itself off. It's told from multiple points of view and in various forms: in first- and third-person accounts, newspaper articles, interviews, and excerpts from hypothetical books of geography, history. It’s cleverly structured: accounts appear out of chronological order yet form an organic whole, backtracking in order to slowly reveal secrets and contradictory points of view. In the process, the novel riffs off several concepts and particular words: 'monster', 'time', the title word 'rift' itself, hinting at and exploring their various layers of meaning.
A teenage girl, Julie, goes missing. Her case is never solved. Then, many years later, she contacts her sister, Selena. Or does she? We hear her account of what has happened to her. These claims are revisited, reexamined, and both affirmed and contradicted in other parts of the novel. Should Selena believe her or not? Had their father really been 'crazy'? The whirlwind, multi-layered series of accounts over the years hint at terrible crimes, at identity issues, at an unimaginable interplanetary tragedy. As you try to solve the very complicated jigsaw puzzle that is the novel, you find yourself struggling with increasingly disquieting issues. Among many: what is the real nature of family bonds? How can we understand it when two people’s understanding of the same person or event are contradictory? What is the relationship between belief or trust and self-deception? Perhaps this makes the novel sound pretentious, but it's far from it. Relationships in the novel mirror life: they're complex and contradictory, difficult and slippery and ultimately mysterious, and in some cases, also deep and unshakeable.
Although it contains elements from various genres, including notably SF, The Rift is as unlike a typical genre novel as you could get. In some places it’s more like a highly intelligent horror novel than anything else. I usually avoid horror, so it’s just as well I didn’t know this beforehand. There were times, while reading, that I was almost too filled with dread to read on. (Don’t put too much store by that - I can bit a bit of a wimp that way.) And yet it’s not really like a horror novel either. The reader is led on a merry chase, both psychologically and philosophically. As you read this enormously complex book you think that surely there are must be at least one or two red herrings. There might be, if you keep expecting the ending to follow a genre formula. In fact, if you keep thinking in terms of there being an ‘answer’ or plot resolution in terms of SF, or horror, or fantasy, or crime fiction, or any particular genre, you may end up being disappointed. But there are no real red herrings; everything is important.
There’s so much here that’s ambiguous and complex and multi-layered, and that manages to end up being both deeply disturbing and satisfying, even uplifting, at the same time. Insofar as it can be said to be SF, it does everything that I think SF at least in part ought to do - it makes you feel a shiver of wonder and fear at the complexity of not only what does exist but what possibly might exist.
So now, having not yet read any other reactions to the novel or interpretations of it, I’m off to do just that.
It's written in masterful prose, prose that knows how to be crystal clear and transparent, colloquial where needed, at times poetic and and rich and ambiguous, but never concerned to show itself off. It's told from multiple points of view and in various forms: in first- and third-person accounts, newspaper articles, interviews, and excerpts from hypothetical books of geography, history. It’s cleverly structured: accounts appear out of chronological order yet form an organic whole, backtracking in order to slowly reveal secrets and contradictory points of view. In the process, the novel riffs off several concepts and particular words: 'monster', 'time', the title word 'rift' itself, hinting at and exploring their various layers of meaning.
A teenage girl, Julie, goes missing. Her case is never solved. Then, many years later, she contacts her sister, Selena. Or does she? We hear her account of what has happened to her. These claims are revisited, reexamined, and both affirmed and contradicted in other parts of the novel. Should Selena believe her or not? Had their father really been 'crazy'? The whirlwind, multi-layered series of accounts over the years hint at terrible crimes, at identity issues, at an unimaginable interplanetary tragedy. As you try to solve the very complicated jigsaw puzzle that is the novel, you find yourself struggling with increasingly disquieting issues. Among many: what is the real nature of family bonds? How can we understand it when two people’s understanding of the same person or event are contradictory? What is the relationship between belief or trust and self-deception? Perhaps this makes the novel sound pretentious, but it's far from it. Relationships in the novel mirror life: they're complex and contradictory, difficult and slippery and ultimately mysterious, and in some cases, also deep and unshakeable.
Although it contains elements from various genres, including notably SF, The Rift is as unlike a typical genre novel as you could get. In some places it’s more like a highly intelligent horror novel than anything else. I usually avoid horror, so it’s just as well I didn’t know this beforehand. There were times, while reading, that I was almost too filled with dread to read on. (Don’t put too much store by that - I can bit a bit of a wimp that way.) And yet it’s not really like a horror novel either. The reader is led on a merry chase, both psychologically and philosophically. As you read this enormously complex book you think that surely there are must be at least one or two red herrings. There might be, if you keep expecting the ending to follow a genre formula. In fact, if you keep thinking in terms of there being an ‘answer’ or plot resolution in terms of SF, or horror, or fantasy, or crime fiction, or any particular genre, you may end up being disappointed. But there are no real red herrings; everything is important.
There’s so much here that’s ambiguous and complex and multi-layered, and that manages to end up being both deeply disturbing and satisfying, even uplifting, at the same time. Insofar as it can be said to be SF, it does everything that I think SF at least in part ought to do - it makes you feel a shiver of wonder and fear at the complexity of not only what does exist but what possibly might exist.
So now, having not yet read any other reactions to the novel or interpretations of it, I’m off to do just that.
July 19, 2017
I finished this book totally confused about how to rate it. At times I loved it, like in the beginning, during Selena's point of view. Then Julie came in and it all went pear shaped. The long excerpts from books, the huge swaths of story not addressed, and maybe a bit that I didn't get a solid sense of Julie and ended up not liking her very much. I skimmed a little, during the excerpts, like the one about the giant catfish, and at times thought of not finishing it, but I made it through. At the end I was left nonplussed. I'm not sure what happened in this book, really, and I'm not sure why, and if that was the goal of the author, she nailed it.
September 12, 2019
What an extraordinary, beautiful, strange novel. Perhaps my favourite science fiction novel of the decade.
March 27, 2018
I bought this novel on a whim, encouraged by positive reviews and how much I enjoyed Allan's earlier novella The Art of Space Travel. And this book didn't disappoint me: it was memorable, creepy and ambiguous, full of thematic depth and emotional resonance, and terribly unputdownable. I really enjoyed the way it played with genre conventions; its intertextuality and the conclusion. There are some aspects I wish we could have learnt more about, but I am fine with the way it leaves the reader to their own devices in a way. It's a fascinating puzzle that can be put together in different ways and that made it special for me.
I will definitely want to read more Allan.
I will definitely want to read more Allan.
September 9, 2020
I am loathe to tag this as science fiction even though it straddles the border in weird and not quite definable ways. At the same time, I wouldn't call it not science fiction. I guess if I had to say something I'd say it's a book that's profoundly not interested in the question of "is this science fiction or not?"; it's interested deeply in its characters as people, and in very little else. I did not expect that to be enough to pull me in, and yet it was.
January 3, 2018
A powerful and moving tale of love and loss - and other worlds.
September 10, 2017
Sisters share some of the closest bonds two human beings can share. They also share rivalries and jealousies, turning them into frenemies. But their loyalties to each other run deep.
This the story of two such sisters, a story that tests their knowledge of each other, and their connection and loyalty to each other.
When Julie disappears as a teenager, her sister Selena is left to ponder, with her parents, the big questions of what happened to her and why. The pain recedes over time, until Julie suddenly reappears in Selena's life, and tells her a story about her abduction and life on another planet (as revealed on the back of the book). Now Selena is faced with troubling questions: is Julie's tale true? Is Julie suffering from delusions due to abuse or trauma after being abducted? Is this person even Julie? Julie herself shares some of the narration here, and the difficulties of her side of the story include reintroducing herself to her family, getting her sister to listen to her side of the story, and re-acclimating herself to life on Earth. The sisterly bond is tested, questioned, and has the potential to be strengthened, if both women can settle back in to the habits and comforts of their old relationship.
There's not much plot here, and what there is is slow and mostly internal, as both parties struggle with the renaissance of their relationship. Half the book is told from Selena's perspective, with flashbacks to the younger years and the day of Julie's disappearance. The other half is from Julie's perspective, as she relates her story of the missing years.
Neither sister is compelling or all that interesting. Selena's complacence at her sister's reappearance I don't get, frankly. And Julie's seeming presumption that their relationship will just naturally pick up where they left off is also off-putting.
There are several extraneous (and I admit, sometimes skippable) passages the author adds here, which in my opinion add little to the family drama, but which add something to the confusion the author means to plant in the reader as to what has actually happened to Julie, such as chapters from the so-called history books of the planet Julie has supposedly lived on, Tristane; other passages from other books such as natural history and sociological studies by authors on Tristane; newspaper and magazine "articles" about Julie going missing; a gemologist's report on a trinket Julie brings back from the other planet, etc.
The inserts of the "historical" books of Tristane add a sense of what and how the people on this planet think, but I wish they weren't as dry and boring as they are, and didn't focus so much on terrain, but more on philosophical or sociological differences. The idea that there's a planet very like Earth whose inhabitants are so similar to Earth as to be indistinguishable from us is interesting. But Tristane is too much like Earth. I like the idea that a planet hospitable to humans would have developed similarly to us, but the author could have been more imaginative in thinking about ways we differ. However, the similarity of the planets speak to the question of Julie's sanity and contributes to the uneasy position the reader is put into, of not knowing how to distinguish truth from fiction, or from mental illness. But the involved story of Cally and Noah doesn't go anywhere. The story could have developed more, and seemed to promise an answer to the great mystery of where Julie is, or where she thinks she is, but it never develops fully or concludes satisfactorily. Similarly all the theories, people, books, etc that she encounters on the other planet.
Thank you to the author and publisher for a review copy.
This the story of two such sisters, a story that tests their knowledge of each other, and their connection and loyalty to each other.
When Julie disappears as a teenager, her sister Selena is left to ponder, with her parents, the big questions of what happened to her and why. The pain recedes over time, until Julie suddenly reappears in Selena's life, and tells her a story about her abduction and life on another planet (as revealed on the back of the book). Now Selena is faced with troubling questions: is Julie's tale true? Is Julie suffering from delusions due to abuse or trauma after being abducted? Is this person even Julie? Julie herself shares some of the narration here, and the difficulties of her side of the story include reintroducing herself to her family, getting her sister to listen to her side of the story, and re-acclimating herself to life on Earth. The sisterly bond is tested, questioned, and has the potential to be strengthened, if both women can settle back in to the habits and comforts of their old relationship.
There's not much plot here, and what there is is slow and mostly internal, as both parties struggle with the renaissance of their relationship. Half the book is told from Selena's perspective, with flashbacks to the younger years and the day of Julie's disappearance. The other half is from Julie's perspective, as she relates her story of the missing years.
Neither sister is compelling or all that interesting. Selena's complacence at her sister's reappearance I don't get, frankly. And Julie's seeming presumption that their relationship will just naturally pick up where they left off is also off-putting.
There are several extraneous (and I admit, sometimes skippable) passages the author adds here, which in my opinion add little to the family drama, but which add something to the confusion the author means to plant in the reader as to what has actually happened to Julie, such as chapters from the so-called history books of the planet Julie has supposedly lived on, Tristane; other passages from other books such as natural history and sociological studies by authors on Tristane; newspaper and magazine "articles" about Julie going missing; a gemologist's report on a trinket Julie brings back from the other planet, etc.
The inserts of the "historical" books of Tristane add a sense of what and how the people on this planet think, but I wish they weren't as dry and boring as they are, and didn't focus so much on terrain, but more on philosophical or sociological differences. The idea that there's a planet very like Earth whose inhabitants are so similar to Earth as to be indistinguishable from us is interesting. But Tristane is too much like Earth. I like the idea that a planet hospitable to humans would have developed similarly to us, but the author could have been more imaginative in thinking about ways we differ. However, the similarity of the planets speak to the question of Julie's sanity and contributes to the uneasy position the reader is put into, of not knowing how to distinguish truth from fiction, or from mental illness. But the involved story of Cally and Noah doesn't go anywhere. The story could have developed more, and seemed to promise an answer to the great mystery of where Julie is, or where she thinks she is, but it never develops fully or concludes satisfactorily. Similarly all the theories, people, books, etc that she encounters on the other planet.
Thank you to the author and publisher for a review copy.
June 2, 2022
This is a complex, nuanced, well written book with multifaceted characters. It also completely pissed me off, and it took me a long time to figure out why.
Let's start with what the book did well: characterization. The characters are given phenomenal space to be themselves and to demonstrate their personalities and internal conflicts in a way that feels real and organic. Basically all the characterization is done as show-don't-tell. We can see that the girls' mother has put up emotional barriers and maintains a stiff upper lip in order to deal with her daughter's disappearance because of the way she behaves and talks.
Now onto the part of the book that pissed me off: none of the questions raised are ever given solid answers. Any particular clear cut answer to any of them leaves gaps or contradictions.
This is entirely reasonable, even for an ostensible sci-fi book. Making people work sift through the ambiguity in a piece of writing is a sign of mature and masterful writing. All of these questions, and the associated stories involved (e.g. the expedition to Dea), could easily be jumping off points for an entire book on their own. It takes guts and confidence in your ability as an author to write a story to offhandedly throw well-made story hooks like that at your reader. There's a tendency certain authors have, newly published authors of world-building type fantasy in particular, to "show their work" and overwhelm the reader with exposition, setting, worldbuilding, and background. Allan does not do that, and she does not do that because all of the sci-fi shenanigans are a McGuffin to drive the behavior and interaction of the characters. Her world is fleshed out to the extent that it is necessary for the characters to have agency and interact. Again, this is a perfectly fine thing to do, and it is done very well.
However, the problem is that the only thing the characters do with their agency is wallow in the ambiguity of the situation, and that is simply not a sufficiently interesting theme to build an entire novel around. The one serious attempt to verify or refute Julie's story occurs near the very end of the book, and then everyone involved seems to lose interest and just goes about their own lives and routines. Recognizing and navigating ambiguity requires dynamism that the characters lack. They should care about answering the questions raised! These are important questions, and they deserve more than a token response!
To summarize: this book is well written and conducts superb characterization, but the primary theme of "some things are ambiguous, don't think about it too hard" is not strong or compelling enough to carry the book over the finish line.
Let's start with what the book did well: characterization. The characters are given phenomenal space to be themselves and to demonstrate their personalities and internal conflicts in a way that feels real and organic. Basically all the characterization is done as show-don't-tell. We can see that the girls' mother has put up emotional barriers and maintains a stiff upper lip in order to deal with her daughter's disappearance because of the way she behaves and talks.
Now onto the part of the book that pissed me off: none of the questions raised are ever given solid answers. Any particular clear cut answer to any of them leaves gaps or contradictions.
This is entirely reasonable, even for an ostensible sci-fi book. Making people work sift through the ambiguity in a piece of writing is a sign of mature and masterful writing. All of these questions, and the associated stories involved (e.g. the expedition to Dea), could easily be jumping off points for an entire book on their own. It takes guts and confidence in your ability as an author to write a story to offhandedly throw well-made story hooks like that at your reader. There's a tendency certain authors have, newly published authors of world-building type fantasy in particular, to "show their work" and overwhelm the reader with exposition, setting, worldbuilding, and background. Allan does not do that, and she does not do that because all of the sci-fi shenanigans are a McGuffin to drive the behavior and interaction of the characters. Her world is fleshed out to the extent that it is necessary for the characters to have agency and interact. Again, this is a perfectly fine thing to do, and it is done very well.
However, the problem is that the only thing the characters do with their agency is wallow in the ambiguity of the situation, and that is simply not a sufficiently interesting theme to build an entire novel around. The one serious attempt to verify or refute Julie's story occurs near the very end of the book, and then everyone involved seems to lose interest and just goes about their own lives and routines. Recognizing and navigating ambiguity requires dynamism that the characters lack. They should care about answering the questions raised! These are important questions, and they deserve more than a token response!
To summarize: this book is well written and conducts superb characterization, but the primary theme of "some things are ambiguous, don't think about it too hard" is not strong or compelling enough to carry the book over the finish line.
September 9, 2018
Selena had an older sister, Julie. When they were young, they were close. When they were teenaged, they started drifting apart. When Selena was 14, Julie disappeared. And for 17 years, there was no sign of her.
And now, all of a sudden, Julie appears again. She wants to explain. Wants to come back. Wants Selena to keep this a secret, even from their mother, at least for now.
This isn't a mystery story, and it's SF/F only in a soft, subtle way; around the edges, as it were. This book's focus, as the title implies, is distance -- and how a person we've known and loved can transform into somebody different and unrecognizable.
This, as I read it, is the thing this book does: It finds this pattern again and again. In Selena's mother (who was, it seems, a wholly different person before she married); in her father (who set aside everything else in his life to search for Julie, more and more desperately); in children who grow up and become adults. The pattern repeats, in ways that are dramatic, or quotidian, or painful to see.
There are some books I feel might have been better as short stories; that feel like they didn't really have enough material or plot for an entire novel. Books that had one lovely idea, and wound up padded in plotting and faux-conflict up to novel length.
This is the opposite -- a short story that needed, and got, to be a full-length book. It's like a short story. Its plot is not its focus; it's difficult to describe "what happens in it"; like many literary short stories, the important part is its structure, its point of view, its theme, all of which are reflected in a short span of its characters' lives. But it doesn't feel padded in the least -- each chapter is something new, and also that fits right in with what we've already seen. This book builds something very focused, like a short story might, but it builds high.
I especially enjoyed the story's conclusion, which is at once very weird and extremely fitting. It's an excellent cap to the book's theme, and even an encouraging one, strangeness and all.
Definitely not a book for every reader, but unusual and intriguing -- perfect for readers who are always looking for something new and different.
And now, all of a sudden, Julie appears again. She wants to explain. Wants to come back. Wants Selena to keep this a secret, even from their mother, at least for now.
This isn't a mystery story, and it's SF/F only in a soft, subtle way; around the edges, as it were. This book's focus, as the title implies, is distance -- and how a person we've known and loved can transform into somebody different and unrecognizable.
This, as I read it, is the thing this book does: It finds this pattern again and again. In Selena's mother (who was, it seems, a wholly different person before she married); in her father (who set aside everything else in his life to search for Julie, more and more desperately); in children who grow up and become adults. The pattern repeats, in ways that are dramatic, or quotidian, or painful to see.
There are some books I feel might have been better as short stories; that feel like they didn't really have enough material or plot for an entire novel. Books that had one lovely idea, and wound up padded in plotting and faux-conflict up to novel length.
This is the opposite -- a short story that needed, and got, to be a full-length book. It's like a short story. Its plot is not its focus; it's difficult to describe "what happens in it"; like many literary short stories, the important part is its structure, its point of view, its theme, all of which are reflected in a short span of its characters' lives. But it doesn't feel padded in the least -- each chapter is something new, and also that fits right in with what we've already seen. This book builds something very focused, like a short story might, but it builds high.
I especially enjoyed the story's conclusion, which is at once very weird and extremely fitting. It's an excellent cap to the book's theme, and even an encouraging one, strangeness and all.
Definitely not a book for every reader, but unusual and intriguing -- perfect for readers who are always looking for something new and different.
March 11, 2018
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2976098.html
Selena's sister disappeared twenty years ago from their family home in Manchester, when they were teenagers. Their father broke down, moved out, and recently died. And now, just after Selena and her boyfriend have broken up, Julie is back, or someone who says she is Julie, and claims she was somehow transported into another world; and tells stories of what happened to her there. Again, we have an interesting narrative format, with flashbacks and parts of the parallel world story interjected into the core frame of Selena's experience; and newspaper reports, handwritten notes and other material are brought in to support the story. There are some gloriously drawn supporting characters, most notably Selena's boss, and the family dynamic - dysfunctional and yet normal? - is gradually revealed and well depicted.
Selena's sister disappeared twenty years ago from their family home in Manchester, when they were teenagers. Their father broke down, moved out, and recently died. And now, just after Selena and her boyfriend have broken up, Julie is back, or someone who says she is Julie, and claims she was somehow transported into another world; and tells stories of what happened to her there. Again, we have an interesting narrative format, with flashbacks and parts of the parallel world story interjected into the core frame of Selena's experience; and newspaper reports, handwritten notes and other material are brought in to support the story. There are some gloriously drawn supporting characters, most notably Selena's boss, and the family dynamic - dysfunctional and yet normal? - is gradually revealed and well depicted.
June 23, 2018
The Rift is one of those books that can sit comfortably on a scifi bookshelf or nestled in general fiction. Which shelf you find it on – and where your general reading sympathies lie – is likely to influence how you read it and how you feel about each of its characters. As such, it’s a brilliant study in perspective and bias – for the reader as well as for its protagonists.
As such, I think this may appeal to non-SF readers even more than to many SF fans, but those who enjoy works of literary SF will find much to admire.
I ended up engrossed in this gorgeous, bittersweet story of loss and hope and love and trust - but I find I’m a little disappointed in the ending, even if it’s broadly as ambiguous as I hoped.
Full review
As such, I think this may appeal to non-SF readers even more than to many SF fans, but those who enjoy works of literary SF will find much to admire.
I ended up engrossed in this gorgeous, bittersweet story of loss and hope and love and trust - but I find I’m a little disappointed in the ending, even if it’s broadly as ambiguous as I hoped.
Full review
August 12, 2023
I enjoyed The Rift more than Allan's most recent book Conquest. I really like her writing style and both novels have similar structure and themes, but I preferred the characters, settings, and plot here. The Rift centres upon the disappearance of a teenage girl named Julia and the impact on her younger sister Selena's life. The family dynamics are keenly observed and sensitively portrayed. The news articles, letters, and other materials interjected into the narrative are well-judged; they add texture and depth to the settings.
The main reason I preferred it over Conquest, however, is that The Rift commits more to weirdness. Julia unexpectedly reappears in Selena's life after two decades, which she claims to have spent in another world. The interludes in this fantastical place are wonderfully atmospheric, with memorable details that include truly terrifying parasitic isopods named creef. Selena and her mother's reactions to the reappearance of Julia create a lot of psychological drama. I enjoyed the ambiguity of the situation and how the narrative orbited around Julia. Allan is an insightful and compelling writer and The Rift works well both as a fantastical mystery and as an examination of identity and relationships.
The main reason I preferred it over Conquest, however, is that The Rift commits more to weirdness. Julia unexpectedly reappears in Selena's life after two decades, which she claims to have spent in another world. The interludes in this fantastical place are wonderfully atmospheric, with memorable details that include truly terrifying parasitic isopods named creef. Selena and her mother's reactions to the reappearance of Julia create a lot of psychological drama. I enjoyed the ambiguity of the situation and how the narrative orbited around Julia. Allan is an insightful and compelling writer and The Rift works well both as a fantastical mystery and as an examination of identity and relationships.
September 2, 2025
Ce livre est un véritable OLNI (Objet Littéraire Non Identifié). Je pense que mon commentaire ne lui rendra pas justice. Ce roman m'a profondément bouleversée, questionnée, émue : entre le thriller, le fantastique, la SF...
Un livre angoissant, aussi. Le brio avec lequel l'autrice fait entrer l'étrange dans l'ordinaire est d'une efficacité redoutable. D'une élégance folle.
J'ai aimé les questions laissées ouvertes.
Il était sur ma PAL depuis des années et je regrette de ne pas l'avoir lu avant !
Un livre angoissant, aussi. Le brio avec lequel l'autrice fait entrer l'étrange dans l'ordinaire est d'une efficacité redoutable. D'une élégance folle.
J'ai aimé les questions laissées ouvertes.
Il était sur ma PAL depuis des années et je regrette de ne pas l'avoir lu avant !
July 27, 2018
This book is touted as “science fiction,” and indeed, that’s the bookstore section in which I found it, but I think it is mislabeled. Rather, I would say it is primarily about family and trauma and possibly mental illness, with a bit of a "Twilight Zone" flavor.
This story is narrated alternately by two sisters, Selena and Julie Rouane. It begins when Selena is 34. Twenty years earlier, when Selena was 14 and Julie 17, Julie disappeared. Suddenly after all this time Selena receives a call from Julie, who is back in Manchester (in the U.K.):
“Selena knew full well who it was, only she didn’t. The same feeling you got when you ran into someone familiar out of context, and couldn’t think for the life of you who they were.”
They get together, and only reluctantly and gradually Julie tells Selena her story of where she has been.
Julie claims she went through a “rift” in the fabric of space to the planet of Tristane in the Aww Galaxy. Just prior to that, she had accepted a ride in a van with Steven Jimson, unaware he was “the Barbershop Butcher.” She told Selena how she managed to escape from him; passed out; and woke up on the shores of Shoe Lake, an analogous place on the other planet. She was rescued by a sister and brother, Cally and Noah, who contended that Julie was from that planet but had lost her memories. Julie tells Serena many stories about life on Tristane, but never how she got back to Earth from there.
After some time, Selena manages to convince Julie to go see their mother and let her know Julie is alive. But her mother claims this woman is not Julie.
Selena does her own research. Julie indeed knows the answers to Selena’s questions about their childhood that no one else would know. But there are odd aspects to Julie’s story. In addition, there is the matter of Shoe Lake. Selena had seen a movie (had Julie seen it too?) called “The Shoe” about a man who created a false past because he couldn’t face the real past. If a terrible thing happens, Selena thinks, it could be that “you would shut down your whole mind rather than face the memory of it.” She thinks about the rift between one version of reality and another, like the rift in her life from the time before Julie left and the time after. Has Julie constructed this whole thing as a way to deal with trauma? Indeed, is it really Julie after all?
Then something startling in the plot occurs, something so unexpected that in some ways it changes the whole meaning of the story. But the author leaves the determination of the meaning entirely up to the reader. As with many other missing pieces of the story, readers are asked to participate in its construction.
Evaluation: This is quite an unusual and creative book, and the ending is a knock-out one. So why didn't I rate it higher? There are several reasons. There are long passages on the geographical terrain of the other planet that didn't seem that interesting or relevant. The story about Cally and Noah was very incomplete and again, I was unable to make connections to what it meant to Julie. And finally, I would have liked a few more loose ends tied up at the end. Nonetheless, it would make an excellent choice for any book club that is willing to consider genre fiction.
This story is narrated alternately by two sisters, Selena and Julie Rouane. It begins when Selena is 34. Twenty years earlier, when Selena was 14 and Julie 17, Julie disappeared. Suddenly after all this time Selena receives a call from Julie, who is back in Manchester (in the U.K.):
“Selena knew full well who it was, only she didn’t. The same feeling you got when you ran into someone familiar out of context, and couldn’t think for the life of you who they were.”
They get together, and only reluctantly and gradually Julie tells Selena her story of where she has been.
Julie claims she went through a “rift” in the fabric of space to the planet of Tristane in the Aww Galaxy. Just prior to that, she had accepted a ride in a van with Steven Jimson, unaware he was “the Barbershop Butcher.” She told Selena how she managed to escape from him; passed out; and woke up on the shores of Shoe Lake, an analogous place on the other planet. She was rescued by a sister and brother, Cally and Noah, who contended that Julie was from that planet but had lost her memories. Julie tells Serena many stories about life on Tristane, but never how she got back to Earth from there.
After some time, Selena manages to convince Julie to go see their mother and let her know Julie is alive. But her mother claims this woman is not Julie.
Selena does her own research. Julie indeed knows the answers to Selena’s questions about their childhood that no one else would know. But there are odd aspects to Julie’s story. In addition, there is the matter of Shoe Lake. Selena had seen a movie (had Julie seen it too?) called “The Shoe” about a man who created a false past because he couldn’t face the real past. If a terrible thing happens, Selena thinks, it could be that “you would shut down your whole mind rather than face the memory of it.” She thinks about the rift between one version of reality and another, like the rift in her life from the time before Julie left and the time after. Has Julie constructed this whole thing as a way to deal with trauma? Indeed, is it really Julie after all?
Then something startling in the plot occurs, something so unexpected that in some ways it changes the whole meaning of the story. But the author leaves the determination of the meaning entirely up to the reader. As with many other missing pieces of the story, readers are asked to participate in its construction.
Evaluation: This is quite an unusual and creative book, and the ending is a knock-out one. So why didn't I rate it higher? There are several reasons. There are long passages on the geographical terrain of the other planet that didn't seem that interesting or relevant. The story about Cally and Noah was very incomplete and again, I was unable to make connections to what it meant to Julie. And finally, I would have liked a few more loose ends tied up at the end. Nonetheless, it would make an excellent choice for any book club that is willing to consider genre fiction.
November 28, 2020
Very tense book with a lot of energy, but with a few elements that didn't quite break my suspension of disbelief but came close (most notably the planet Tristane's technological levels which seemed highly, highly unlikely), while in the last part the author really laid it very heavily on to keep ambiguity (if we get into DNA tests, what is that difficult for the returned Julie to take one after all, same with tracking her history in the missing years down as either she has vanished from the Earth or not after all etc...). Worth reading for the prose, characters, and tenseness, but could have been so much more from a somewhat defter in the ways of ambiguity writer.
Overall quite good but falling a bit short of the masterpiece it could have been for its energy, prose, and characters and leaving me somewhat unsatisfied in the end and not for the ambiguity, but for the way the author almost hit the audience on the head in the last part, kind of like, see "how clever am I"...
Overall quite good but falling a bit short of the masterpiece it could have been for its energy, prose, and characters and leaving me somewhat unsatisfied in the end and not for the ambiguity, but for the way the author almost hit the audience on the head in the last part, kind of like, see "how clever am I"...
September 16, 2017
Selena and Julie are sisters, both teenagers growing up in Manchester, England. But then Julie disappears, mysteriously and thoroughly. Foul play seems likely. The police drag the lake near where Julie was last seen, but do not find a body. They make an arrest anyway, but eventually have to release the man for lack of evidence. The media circus arrives, performs a few tricks, and then departs. Selena and her parents adjust as well as they can to the hole in their lives where Julie had been. The adjustment does not proceed smoothly, of course, but life goes on, as it tends to do... for twenty years.
Then Julie returns. Without explanation, she's suddenly back in Selena's life. Without, that is, any explanation Selena can believe—even assuming Selena can believe it is truly her sister who has returned. Those years of separation have created a rift that may never be healed...
This setup may seem familiar to you, as it did to me, if you're also a fan of the late Graham Joyce and have read in particular Some Kind of Fairy Tale. In both Joyce's book and Nina Allan's novel The Rift (not to be confused with the Walter Jon Williams novel of the same name), a young British woman disappears mysteriously and then comes back, years later, and even more mysteriously. But The Rift takes its own path from that common starting point.
That path is a slow one, and it wanders a bit. Like Julie herself, Nina Allan seems much more interested in feeling out Selena and Julie's relationships—with each other (past and present); with their mother Margery; with Selena's colorful expatriate employer Vanja—than in getting around to whatever Julie was doing during those two decades. It's almost as if The Rift isn't science fiction at all, to begin with, and for many pages thereafter. And when Allan does bring in science-fictional elements, the possibility remains that they are more fictional than scientific. Whatever goes on outside, The Rift continues to be focused on its characters' interior lives—other sorts of speculation are strictly secondary.
In keeping with the book's general level of introspection, Allan's characters specifically like to discuss reading, books, and bookish pursuits:
On the other hand, Nadine's observation below certainly slots in precisely with my own experience, both as a child and as a father:
The Rift shows us a very different Manchester from the one in Jeff Noon's Vurt, which I recently reread.
One more thing that struck me about The Rift—though I'm a little reluctant to mention it at all, because Nina Allan does manage this so subtly and well—is how fully populated the book is with women who have their own lives, women with agency. All of the major characters, in fact, are female—there are a few men (this isn't that kind of SF), but they're either thoroughly offstage or no more than bit players. And all Allan's women relate to each other so matter-of-factly that this didn't even dawn on me until near the end of The Rift.
Then Julie returns. Without explanation, she's suddenly back in Selena's life. Without, that is, any explanation Selena can believe—even assuming Selena can believe it is truly her sister who has returned. Those years of separation have created a rift that may never be healed...
This setup may seem familiar to you, as it did to me, if you're also a fan of the late Graham Joyce and have read in particular Some Kind of Fairy Tale. In both Joyce's book and Nina Allan's novel The Rift (not to be confused with the Walter Jon Williams novel of the same name), a young British woman disappears mysteriously and then comes back, years later, and even more mysteriously. But The Rift takes its own path from that common starting point.
That path is a slow one, and it wanders a bit. Like Julie herself, Nina Allan seems much more interested in feeling out Selena and Julie's relationships—with each other (past and present); with their mother Margery; with Selena's colorful expatriate employer Vanja—than in getting around to whatever Julie was doing during those two decades. It's almost as if The Rift isn't science fiction at all, to begin with, and for many pages thereafter. And when Allan does bring in science-fictional elements, the possibility remains that they are more fictional than scientific. Whatever goes on outside, The Rift continues to be focused on its characters' interior lives—other sorts of speculation are strictly secondary.
In keeping with the book's general level of introspection, Allan's characters specifically like to discuss reading, books, and bookish pursuits:
"{...}When you shelve books alphabetically you stop noticing them, don't you find?"I'm not sure the above is entirely true—my own books are shelved alphabetically, and I still notice when one is out of place. Alphabetization differs from, and to some extent conflicts with, other types of categorization—but the "vagaries of alphabetical order" (not original to me, but it's a phrase I've used for years) can even be an aid to serendipitous discovery.
"I've never thought about it," I said, although the longer I thought about it, the more it made sense. Categorisation is a kind of brainwashing. How do you know which books will turn out to be important to you, until you've encountered them?
—Julie and Cally, p.200
On the other hand, Nadine's observation below certainly slots in precisely with my own experience, both as a child and as a father:
My father always used to say that books are their own censors, that a child will only understand when they are ready to. Anything else will pass them by, just a jumble of words.
—Nadine Akoujan's diary, p.342
The Rift shows us a very different Manchester from the one in Jeff Noon's Vurt, which I recently reread.
"I always think the only time you get to know a place properly is when you're a kid. You need to get down in the mud, you know?"There's no hint in Allan's online bio that she ever spent time down in Manchester's mud as a kid—but the places she describes (even the ones with made-up names) still carry a fair amount of verisimilitude.
—Vanja, p.375
One more thing that struck me about The Rift—though I'm a little reluctant to mention it at all, because Nina Allan does manage this so subtly and well—is how fully populated the book is with women who have their own lives, women with agency. All of the major characters, in fact, are female—there are a few men (this isn't that kind of SF), but they're either thoroughly offstage or no more than bit players. And all Allan's women relate to each other so matter-of-factly that this didn't even dawn on me until near the end of The Rift.
"Persistence is more valuable than bravery, in my book. It is certainly more useful, in the long run."The Rift resists facile analysis, but rewards persistence. You have to be willing to give it time to sink in. You never know, not for sure, whether the rift can be healed... but you can know that the time spent trying is time worth spending.
—Nora Shah, p.355
October 27, 2017
An intriguing premise. The books starts off well but does not live up to expectations at all. It's taken me over a month to get round to finishing it.
The characterisation is unconvincing. What's the point in writing mulitple first-person points of view if I keep forgetting whether I'm reading Julie or Selena.
I get that she's trying to explore universal themes. But she forgets that to grip the reader you have to first fascinate them with the particular, THEN show your philisophical point.
The characterisation is unconvincing. What's the point in writing mulitple first-person points of view if I keep forgetting whether I'm reading Julie or Selena.
I get that she's trying to explore universal themes. But she forgets that to grip the reader you have to first fascinate them with the particular, THEN show your philisophical point.
September 21, 2018
¿Al leer la metamorfosis de Kafka pensaste que el libro era mala ciencia ficción porque no explica por qué K. se transforma en cucaracha? Pues esta historia también debe tomarse como viene, sin más.
Una historia muy bella sobre sororidad, traumas sexuales y familiares, incapacidad de conexión con los seres amados y locura... Que tiene la desgracia de usar la metáfora como motor, en vez de la ciencia ficción que vende la portada. Los que busquen ciencia ficción no la van a encontrar, solo una historia que reta nuestros prejuicios sobre los géneros literarios.
Una historia muy bella sobre sororidad, traumas sexuales y familiares, incapacidad de conexión con los seres amados y locura... Que tiene la desgracia de usar la metáfora como motor, en vez de la ciencia ficción que vende la portada. Los que busquen ciencia ficción no la van a encontrar, solo una historia que reta nuestros prejuicios sobre los géneros literarios.
August 13, 2017
As a science fiction novel it's not particularly interesting, as contemporary literature it's not well written enough. The fragmented "found document" style is redundant, tiresome, unoriginal and overused - I want to know these characters, I want to know the father, the mother, the two sisters, Cally and Noah, their feelings, reactions, thoughts and fears. All I know is that Julie's afraid of black holes and alien monsters.
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