Customer Reviews

The Dry Salvages

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An old woman recounts a long-ago journey with a small crew to investigate distant abandoned ruins, humanity's first proof of alien life. The mission brought the crew to madness and prompted a government cover-up; now, the narrator is the last record of what they really found in the ruins. At only novella-length, The Dry Salvages suffers from too much build up and not enough delivery. Nonetheless, the build-up and atmosphere are top notch, a combination of psychological and Lovecraftian horror, and on the whole this is an intriguing and enjoyable, if brief, read. I recommend it.

I've previous read and adored Kiernan's Threshold , and the aspects I loved of that book reappear here: Lovecraftian horror of the endless and threatening unknown, slow-building tension, and a wealth of scientific detail which makes the supernatural events all the more believable. The Dry Salvages also adds psychological horror--this brief book has little room for plot; instead, character interactions make up most of the action, following the crew's slow descent towards madness. All of these elements are skillfully rendered and incredibly enjoyable, creating a book which grips the reader and builds the sort of horror which I actually find frightening--a rarity, in literature, and something that I cherish.

And yet the book offers little more than that. The build up does lead somewhere, but it doesn't lead to a destination quite big enough for all that precedes it. At just over 100 pages, this book simply feels too short: there's enough time for foreshadowing but not enough time for action, and the conclusion is a miserably short ten pages. Things end as soon as they seem to begin, and it's simply frustrating. The anticipation is still delicious, and the short conclusion is a wonderful balance between madness and horror, but I wish there were more to this book. As a result, I prefer her novel-length works by a long ways, simply because they strike a better balance and have more to offer. But I did enjoy and do recommend The Dry Salvages. It's not perfect, but it's short and sweet and still worth the time it takes to read.

Very unsettling. It remineded me of Event Horizon, but without the too-exact explanation of what the "bad thing" was. I find the unexplained and unknown more frightening than the diagrammed and dissected evil being that's just a trounced-up version of my neighbor. This book pulled that off perfectly. I especially liked the futuristic slang that the characters used, made it seem like a completely foreign world.

Now begins the excrutiating wait for Daughter of Hounds.

Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Dry Salvages (Subterranean, 2004)

There's something utterly cool about a book whose back jacket lists the author's last publication as a huge unpronounceable stream of words published in an obscure archaeological journal (well, obscure to everyone save archaeologists). Especially when the book you're holding will not be filled with the same types of unpronounceable words. Such is the case with The Dry Salvages, a short sci-fi novel from the always-fine pen of Cait Kiernan. The setting is Piros, a small red moon orbiting a gas giant in another galaxy. The players are four scientists and an unknown number of artificial persons headed to Piros to work with a bunch that's already there. The plot is... hmm. Well, basically nonexistent. This is a character study about the interactions of four people with themselves and others, told by one of them many years after the events in question.

After watching the flood of negative reviews come in for the last book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, I can see a lot of people hating the way this novel ends. I, personally, thought it was the bees' knees. Your mileage may (and likely will) vary. Can't say more than that for fear of spoilage.

Kiernan hasn't yet writ the book not worth reading. This one is another fine addition to the library. *** ½

This is a genuinely unsettling little deep-space ghost story.

This work is not perfect. It's really difficult to pull off a structurally flawless horror novel, and Kiernan doesn't do so here.

But _The Dry Salvages_ creates and sustains an eerie, haunting tone. It manages to capture some of the terrifying size and emptiness of the universe, the feeling you can get looking up at a night sky in the country, or from Lovecraft when he's not being silly. That's a plenty rare accomplishment in its own right.

If I had to pick Kiernan's best work, it might be some of her short stories, rather than this. But this is one of her most stylistically successful works. Her prose can become a bit ornate sometimes, and the gritty, technical tone of this novella helps to fight that.

Regardless, if you like horror, its not as though the bookstores are overflowing with accomplished, interesting new work. This is short, very readable, and quite good. Horror fans who are unfamiliar with Kiernan definitely ought to give it a try.

Caitlin Kiernan's lastest offering reads like poetry by Harlan Ellison would sound. Kiernan possesses a gift for describing vivid stories in effortless, flowing movement and an insight into the human condition far beyond her young years. So very much more than an 'alien' tale, The Dry Salvages resonates with the reader long after the reading is done. It touches the very essence of 'humanness', which is the best sort of 'science fiction' one could ever hope to read. This book is destined to be another well-deserved award-winner for Ms. Kiernan.

I've just finished reading this book and I know what I will say about it will never, ever measure up to what I've just read. I am, nearly literally, stunned. Kiernan is a genius. Read her bio. I can't help but feel that I've been grabbed from somewhere behind my navel and dragged along for the ride. Fans of Carl Sagan and science as a whole should enjoy this novel immensely. It is unlike anything I have ever encountered. I strongly reccomend the chapbook The Worm in My Mind's Eye that accompanies this novel if you can get ahold of it.

M.R. James does in 13 forever-haunting pages what it takes Kiernan 129 to do with far less success. And I was so irritated at how she avoided telling the story she sets up in 125 of those pages that I hurled the book across the room. They are called "obligatory scenes" for a reason. The reason being that the author never wants to write them, and the editor usually forces the writer to write them, and the book is always better for them being written. I'm aware that Kiernan may well think it is her own cleverness but she should see H.G. Wells' hundred year old, tale "Fear Itself" which did it better. I call this book a cop-out and/ or a failure of the imagination. Too bad, as the book is nicely written with interesting characters and a credible future set-up, and with real propulsive motion you can't buy with money. Of course, I saw the other "plot-turn" coming forty pages early, too. Whatever happened to Cocteau's dictum: "Astonish me!" ?