Sunday, February 08, 2004
 
The Black Corridor by Michael Moorcock (1969)

I paid a dollar for this book at Hooked on Books in Springfield, Missouri. It was on the rack of cheap books that they keep outside the store because they don't care if someone loots them. That's the kind of book I bought for a dollar.

The book takes place aboard a space ship containing survivors from Earth's social breakdown, en route to a planet around Barnard's Star. All but one are in suspension for the trip, leaving a single person to wander the ship for the five year trip, checking on automatic instruments and going mad with guilt for the sins he committed while stealing the ship. And others.

Much of the book is told in flashback, flashbacks to an Ehrlichian future imagined by those whacky Brits in the period between world wars. The remainder of it represents a descent into paranoia and a climactic delirium that almost tells the untold story, but allows the user to concoct his own meaning if he cares to. Okay, I did a little the night I finished the book, but that's it.

It's a light read and I spent only a couple of nights on it. It helped that many of the 184 pages featured concrete poetry, drawing words on the page with other letter much like ASCII art. At least it got that part of the future right.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:08 AM
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To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."