Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley
Jan. 7th, 2024 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
In January 2314, Rowena Savalas - a curator of the vast archive of the twenty-first century’s primitive internet - stumbles upon a story posted in the summer of 2024. She’s quickly drawn into the mystery of the text: is it autobiography, fantasy or fraud? What’s the significance of the recurring number 381?
In the story, the protagonist Fairly walks the Horned Road - a quest undertaken by youngsters in her village when they come of age. She is followed by the “breathing man”, a looming presence, dogging her heels every step of the way. Everything she was taught about her world is overturned.
Following Fairly’s quest, Rowena comes to question her own choices, and a predictable life of curation becomes one of exploration, adventure and love. As both women’s stories draw to a close, she realise it doesn’t matter whether the story is true or not: as with the quest itself, it’s the journey that matters.
It’s 7 January 2314.
17-year-old Rowena Savalas is an organic living in the Atlantic settlements on the reclaimed Jurassic coast. She hasn’t yet decided what she wants to do with her life but is considering becoming a historian. This is partly because she’s been doing a personal project on a document that comes from the Age of Riches - the period of time lasting from the late 20th century to the beginning of the 22nd century where there was a huge rise in digital information such that there’s no real way of cataloguing it to work out what is important and what is not.
The document that Rowena’s obsessed with is called The Dance Of The Horned Road, which was uploaded on 23 July 2024 and was labelled an autobiographical document containing elements of fiction. Although there’s nothing specifically special or interesting about it, Rowena is fascinated by it and feels a connection to it, even though little within it makes sense and deals with things that could not possibly have happened and meanings that have since been lost in the mists of time. What follows is a reproduction of The Dance Of The Horned Road with Rowena’s annotations setting out her thoughts and reflections on the text.
The Dance Of The Horned Road itself follows Fairly, a young girl living in a walled village who one day finds herself called to perform a quest that all youngsters who come of age in her village have to do - walk the Horned Road and press the button on each Chain Device in order to find her place in the world. She’s followed by a Breathing Man, who stays close behind her to ensure she keeps to the task but who never speaks. As Fairly makes her way along the road, she learns about the world she lives in and herself and the choices she has made …
Aliya Whiteley’s standalone SF novel is a technically clever piece of writing (each section of Fairly’s story is exactly 381 words) but its literary nature is one you either absolutely love or really don’t dig. Sadly, I was in the latter camp as there isn’t enough characterisation of Rowena or Fairly for me to engage with while the coming of age theme is under-developed and Fairly’s story so thin that I couldn’t understand Rowena’s fascination.
I picked this up because I’d been impressed with Whiteley’s debut novel SKYWARD INN and was interested to see what she wrote next. In some ways this is a similar novel - it’s another literary-style novel with a focus on character and development rather than action and world building (although there are tasters of Rowena’s world peppered throughout the book these aren’t deeply explored, more like tantalising off hand remarks that I wish had been developed further).
The bulk of the book consists of The Horned Road told by Fairly in the first person, with an introductory chapter from the 17 year old Rowena as a kind of introduction. There are then footnote annotations from Rowena written over the course of her life setting out her thoughts and reflections on the story and how it relates to her life. For all this though, I never really connected with either Rowena or Fairly during this and in the case of Fairly, didn’t understand what was driving her. To be fair, Rowena has the same issue (at one point she footnotes the story to ask if Fairly is an idiot for a decision she takes, which made me laugh as it was exactly what I was thinking) and although this leaves things open to interpretation, it’s just too loosey goosey for my taste.
Matters are not helped by the fact that there are large parts of The Horned Road that are not explained and do not make sense. Given that we are in 2024, it is clear that parts of it are not real life (notably the regular departures of rocket ships colonising other works) and that made it seem weird to me that Rowena wouldn’t know that - even allowing for the fact that the so-called Magnaman method of sorting through information did not exist at this point. Reading it as a piece of 2024 fiction though doesn’t satisfy either because it’s so open to interpretation that I found it difficult to connect.
As a piece of technical writing, it is very cleverly done. Each of the sections of the book is 381 words (I din’t check every one but the random ones I did check came out at 381) and that is a very difficult thing to pull off as well as Whiteley does here. I can also see how some readers will really vibe with the use of cha (a fictional small creature that repeatedly appears in Fairly’s story) and how it ties in with Fairly’s self-discovery and coming of age elements but the way Whiteley also leaves this so open to interpretation was just too frustrating for me.
Ultimately there are things in this book that I admire on an intellectual level but emotionally, I just didn’t connect with this at all. Saying that, I think that Whiteley is a very considered, very thoughtful writer who is not afraid to try and put a new spin on traditional story tropes and themes so although this novel wasn’t my jam, I would still be keen to see what she writes next.
The Verdict:
Aliya Whiteley’s standalone SF novel is a technically clever piece of writing (each section of Fairly’s story is exactly 381 words) but its literary nature is one you either absolutely love or really don’t dig. Sadly, I was in the latter camp as there isn’t enough characterisation of Rowena or Fairly for me to engage with while the coming of age theme is under-developed and Fairly’s story so thin that I couldn’t understand Rowena’s fascination.
THREE EIGHT ONE will be released in the USA on 16th January and in the United Kingdom on 18th January 2024. Thanks to Rebellion Publishing for the review copy of this book.
In January 2314, Rowena Savalas - a curator of the vast archive of the twenty-first century’s primitive internet - stumbles upon a story posted in the summer of 2024. She’s quickly drawn into the mystery of the text: is it autobiography, fantasy or fraud? What’s the significance of the recurring number 381?
In the story, the protagonist Fairly walks the Horned Road - a quest undertaken by youngsters in her village when they come of age. She is followed by the “breathing man”, a looming presence, dogging her heels every step of the way. Everything she was taught about her world is overturned.
Following Fairly’s quest, Rowena comes to question her own choices, and a predictable life of curation becomes one of exploration, adventure and love. As both women’s stories draw to a close, she realise it doesn’t matter whether the story is true or not: as with the quest itself, it’s the journey that matters.
It’s 7 January 2314.
17-year-old Rowena Savalas is an organic living in the Atlantic settlements on the reclaimed Jurassic coast. She hasn’t yet decided what she wants to do with her life but is considering becoming a historian. This is partly because she’s been doing a personal project on a document that comes from the Age of Riches - the period of time lasting from the late 20th century to the beginning of the 22nd century where there was a huge rise in digital information such that there’s no real way of cataloguing it to work out what is important and what is not.
The document that Rowena’s obsessed with is called The Dance Of The Horned Road, which was uploaded on 23 July 2024 and was labelled an autobiographical document containing elements of fiction. Although there’s nothing specifically special or interesting about it, Rowena is fascinated by it and feels a connection to it, even though little within it makes sense and deals with things that could not possibly have happened and meanings that have since been lost in the mists of time. What follows is a reproduction of The Dance Of The Horned Road with Rowena’s annotations setting out her thoughts and reflections on the text.
The Dance Of The Horned Road itself follows Fairly, a young girl living in a walled village who one day finds herself called to perform a quest that all youngsters who come of age in her village have to do - walk the Horned Road and press the button on each Chain Device in order to find her place in the world. She’s followed by a Breathing Man, who stays close behind her to ensure she keeps to the task but who never speaks. As Fairly makes her way along the road, she learns about the world she lives in and herself and the choices she has made …
Aliya Whiteley’s standalone SF novel is a technically clever piece of writing (each section of Fairly’s story is exactly 381 words) but its literary nature is one you either absolutely love or really don’t dig. Sadly, I was in the latter camp as there isn’t enough characterisation of Rowena or Fairly for me to engage with while the coming of age theme is under-developed and Fairly’s story so thin that I couldn’t understand Rowena’s fascination.
I picked this up because I’d been impressed with Whiteley’s debut novel SKYWARD INN and was interested to see what she wrote next. In some ways this is a similar novel - it’s another literary-style novel with a focus on character and development rather than action and world building (although there are tasters of Rowena’s world peppered throughout the book these aren’t deeply explored, more like tantalising off hand remarks that I wish had been developed further).
The bulk of the book consists of The Horned Road told by Fairly in the first person, with an introductory chapter from the 17 year old Rowena as a kind of introduction. There are then footnote annotations from Rowena written over the course of her life setting out her thoughts and reflections on the story and how it relates to her life. For all this though, I never really connected with either Rowena or Fairly during this and in the case of Fairly, didn’t understand what was driving her. To be fair, Rowena has the same issue (at one point she footnotes the story to ask if Fairly is an idiot for a decision she takes, which made me laugh as it was exactly what I was thinking) and although this leaves things open to interpretation, it’s just too loosey goosey for my taste.
Matters are not helped by the fact that there are large parts of The Horned Road that are not explained and do not make sense. Given that we are in 2024, it is clear that parts of it are not real life (notably the regular departures of rocket ships colonising other works) and that made it seem weird to me that Rowena wouldn’t know that - even allowing for the fact that the so-called Magnaman method of sorting through information did not exist at this point. Reading it as a piece of 2024 fiction though doesn’t satisfy either because it’s so open to interpretation that I found it difficult to connect.
As a piece of technical writing, it is very cleverly done. Each of the sections of the book is 381 words (I din’t check every one but the random ones I did check came out at 381) and that is a very difficult thing to pull off as well as Whiteley does here. I can also see how some readers will really vibe with the use of cha (a fictional small creature that repeatedly appears in Fairly’s story) and how it ties in with Fairly’s self-discovery and coming of age elements but the way Whiteley also leaves this so open to interpretation was just too frustrating for me.
Ultimately there are things in this book that I admire on an intellectual level but emotionally, I just didn’t connect with this at all. Saying that, I think that Whiteley is a very considered, very thoughtful writer who is not afraid to try and put a new spin on traditional story tropes and themes so although this novel wasn’t my jam, I would still be keen to see what she writes next.
The Verdict:
Aliya Whiteley’s standalone SF novel is a technically clever piece of writing (each section of Fairly’s story is exactly 381 words) but its literary nature is one you either absolutely love or really don’t dig. Sadly, I was in the latter camp as there isn’t enough characterisation of Rowena or Fairly for me to engage with while the coming of age theme is under-developed and Fairly’s story so thin that I couldn’t understand Rowena’s fascination.
THREE EIGHT ONE will be released in the USA on 16th January and in the United Kingdom on 18th January 2024. Thanks to Rebellion Publishing for the review copy of this book.
