Filaria

by Brent Hayward

Book Overview

Brent Hayward was born in London, England, and grew up in Montreal. His short fiction has appeared in various publications, including OnSpec, ChiZine, Horizons SF, Tesseract 14 , and the first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0980941016
• ISBN13: 9780980941012
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Chizine Publications
• Length: 235 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 16 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 11 and higher

Customer Reviews

Filaria

A complex, intricately woven (or should I say tiered?) little book, Filaria divulges its most important secrets in bits and pieces, usually secondhand to a character who is unaware of its import. For instance -- this isn't too big of a spoiler -- the lust that seizes all the male characters is revealed as a pheromone experiment mentioned in the first quarter of the book, aimed at Deidre, but outed to Phister. The four central characters never meet each other, but cross paths with mutual acquaintances who provide new revelations at every step. In addition, the level of detail is subtle and exquisite, often provided in succinct fragments. For instance: "Retired pods embedded deep in the curved walls. Dusty mesh strung between glistening tracks. Loops and untold lengths of entwined tubes. Endless tubes. Hundreds of sizes, gurgling and trickling and burping quietly, up and down the great shaft." The first scene, with Phister, is particularly well done -- he belongs to a ex-Public Works clan living in the very basement of the world, unaware of any other levels (or the existence of people with hair and teeth; the radioactive sewage in the basement makes theirs fall out). Through him, we also see only the basement, so his expanding world becomes ours as well.