Customer Reviews

Farewell Horizontal

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jeter invented a truely wonderful world for this novel. The setting is a huge, cylindrical building that towers above the earth. Most of society exists inside the building but those who are outside society, on the edge, live on the outside of the building, on the "Vertical".

The novel's protagonist, Ny Axxter lives on this wall and tries to make a living as a freelance artist working with video and graffex. One day, he has what appears to be a stroke of good fortune and he thinks that he is on the verge of making it into the big time as a major artist.

At this point, his world starts to fall to pieces and he discovers that reality is not what he, and everyone else thought and that the major players in his world now want him out of the way.

While many parts of the world are unexplained, Jeter throws in enough in the way of technical details to make this hard SF and not fantasy. The writing style is very sharp.

Jeter is regarded by many as an heir to the mantle of the great P.K.Dick and this book is worthy of that regard. I always think that a sign of good writing is the quality of the pictures inside my head as I read and, on the measure, this was very good indeed.

Farewell Horizontal is a gripping read and I highly recommended it.

If you only read one K.W. Jeter book then you are missing out on some of the most significant science fiction of the last twenty five years. Still, this is the one to read if one is your ambition. Astounding ideas, breathless surgical execution and the very best gusto an amateur can bring to the field, here wrapped in one pocket-sized package by a true professional. How many authors could pull off a motorcycle chase up the side of a building and still make you want to read more? Simply marvellous.

I remember, when I read this at its publication, just grooving on the cover art (google it), and thinking, this is gonna be weird. And weird it was. Jeter posits a dangerous and peculiar culture, and if you're a fan, you understand he has much to say about the organization of culture and of power. So, we've got warring tribes, angels, and a protagonist who nurses a very bad attitude, kind of like when you worry a cavity in a tooth and it hurts, but at the same time there's the soothing confirmation of pain, you know? That's our guy. What's really cool is that this all takes place on the outside of the homeworld. It's huge, planet-size. And it was built, but we don't find out much about that. It's a thing that exists and is home to a civilization, and many have chosen to forsake the horizontal and risk it all living on the vertical. This is a very strange tale and one you should definitely read. K.W. Jeter was at the forefront of a certain cadre of science-fiction writer back in the eighties. Make his acquaintance.

One of the best science fiction novels I have ever read. Original idea and concept together with good writing, good characters and good story.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say this book was an influence on my own writing career. Jeter has long been one of my favourite writers, and I'm enormously pleased to see it now available on Kindle.

This vintage K.W. Jeter, in every sense. Original, surprising, sometimes disturbing, always inventive, Jeter has always delivered with his science fiction, and this book is no exception. Great read!

I enjoyed this book when it first came out and am looking forward to revisiting it on my Kindle. It's a great read, with imagery that sticks in your mind long after you have finished the novel. I won't go into plot summaries and spoilers, but if you are into photography, graphic design, and angels, you will find a lot to like in this book, especially as the lead character is a freelancer whose life is spent less on the work and more on navigating his clients (large and small), agent, and the compensation system. Fun stuff.

Although written in 1989, the tech is still interesting and cutting edge. The plot logic and language are the most fantastic elements in the book -- think a 22nd/23rd century "Through the Looking Glass."

And from my quick look, the book formatting has been handled with care, unlike some of the product on the market.

See the other description for what this is about. This is one of my favourite books. The idea is totally origional and all my friends say the same. Gives a breath of fresh air to sci-fi.

It deserves to be read. It is an ambitious experiment: can a novel reproduce a videogame? Jeter succeeded in doing that. The novel is a videogame. But it is a videogame on paper, peopled by characters with a soul and a (sometime) questioning mind (one of these is Sai). The apparent plot is a frantic adventure in a surrealistic virtual world whose shape is a scandal for reason. But here and there Jeter suggested that things aren't exactly what they seem (he was a friend of Philip K. Dick, after all), and there's more in this novel than the breathless quest of Ny Axxter in a grotesque cyberworld (maybe the ultimate cyberworld). Basically it is a satire of many aspects of the videogame imagery/subculture, and a discussion of its covert ideology. Not as food as other novels by the same author, Dr. Adder and The Glass Hammer, but a novel worth reading. And subtly funny most of the time. 'Tis a pity it's out of print!