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Edison, David

Entry updated 2 October 2023. Tagged: Author.

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(1977-    ) US author whose projected Waking Engine series, beginning with Waking Engine (2014), complexly mixes several sf and fantasy topoi. Though it is possible to read the first novel as an Urban Fantasy set in an Afterlife world [for Afterlife and Urban Fantasy see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], it can also be understood as being set in a Multiverse accessible to humans only after their first death, with that first death, and any deaths that might follow, being understood as transitions from one Dimension to another. The tripartite structure of this multiverse – Earth and other similar worlds; a plethora of Purgatorial Dystopian City/planets; and finally the City Unspoken – evokes Godgame epics like Wyndham Lewis's Childermass sequence; and the deep centripetal river that seems to serve as conduit through the maze of realities evokes similar uses of the topos of the world river, the first example of several being perhaps John Kendrick Bangs's Houseboat series, with later examples including series by Philip José Farmer, Ian Watson and others. Waking Engine comes close to drowning in its potential, but further volumes should gain focus. [JC]

David Edison

born St Louis, Missouri: 3 November 1977

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Waking Engine

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