Slow River

The dark and intensely involving story of a young woman's struggle for survival and independence on the gritty underside of a near-future Europe, by the author of Ammonite, which won the Tiptree and Lambda Awards. From Publishers Weekly Griffith's compelling follow-up to Ammonite is an intricate, cautionary tale of love, betrayal and self-discovery in near-future Europe. Heiress Lore Van Oesterling escapes kidnappers who plan to kill her after her family refuses to pay her ransom. Lying bloody and naked in the street, she's taken in by a reclusive female hacker named Spanner, with whom she forms an uneasy alliance to scam the rich and naive. Lore finds herself falling in love and becoming more dependent on Spanner, but "whenever Lore reached for her, she wavered and was gone, like the shimmering reflection on the oily surface of the river." At loose ends and tormented by the growing venality of their "victimless crimes," Lore faces her culpability and decides to get on with her life: "We all get hurt. But self-pity, lack of courage, leads to a sort of... mortification of the soul. Corruption. And then it takes more courage, costs more pain, to clean it up afterward." She assumes the identity of a dead woman, rents a flat and starts an honest job at a waste water-treatment plant, struggling to establish an identity independent of her family's name and wealth. Griffith's only misstep is to chronicle Lore's life through both first- and third-person narration; while the technique is refreshing at first, confusion mounts as the narrative modes converge. Otherwise, this exceptionally well-written novel could win yet more awards for its talented author. 25,000 first printing. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Lore Van Oesterling is the wealthy daughter of a powerful bioengineering magnate who, inexplicably, refuses to pay the ransom when she is kidnapped. After escaping and killing one of her captors, Lore allows herself to be taken in and supported by Spanner, a computer data thief, rather than return to the family she now despises. Using her black market connections to obtain stolen personal identity chips, Spanner supplies Lore with a different name and a work history that help her land a job in a water treatment plant. However, as Lore becomes more enmeshed in Spanner's corrupt business dealings and her suspicions about her real purpose at the treatment plant grow, she begins searching for a way back to the world she forsook. Griffith's style is refreshingly lucid and captivating, helping her arouse real concern for her main characters. Yet the book as a whole falls short of the promise of Griffith's award-winning debut, Ammonite (1992), and, despite its sf trappings, works best as a human-interest story about the nature of personal identity. Carl Hays From the Inside Flap ith, winner of the Tiptree Award and the Lambda Award for her widely acclaimed first novel Ammonite, now turns her attention closer to the present in Slow River, the dark and intensely involving story of a young woman's struggle for survival and independence on the gritty underside of a near-future Europe.She awoke in an alley to the splash of rain. She was naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant was gone. Lore Van de Oest was the daughter of one of the world's most powerful families...and now she was nobody. Then out of the rain walked Spanner, an expert data pirate who took her in, cared for her wounds, and gave her the freedom to reinvent herself again and again. No one could find Lore if she didn't want to be found: not the police, not her family, and not the kidnappers who had left her in that alley to die. She had escaped...but she paid for her newfound freedom in crime, deception, and degradation--over and over again. Lore had a choi Nicola Griffith, winner of the Tiptree Award and the Lambda Award for her widely acclaimed first novel Ammonite, turns her attentions nearer to the present in Slow River, the dark and intensely involving story of a young woman's struggle for survival and independence on the gritty underside of a near-future Europe. From the Trade Paperback edition. Read more