275 pages, Lulu
Review by Marc Nash
Kneel Downe is a wor(l)d builder. A
fractured, fleeting world like viewing through a spectroscope. But a rich one
all the same. It put me in mind of Italo Calvino's "Invisible
Cities", as if refracted through a Jeff Noonian sphere. Indeed Downe
acknowledges Noon's influence on the "Blurb" world.
'Virulent', a multi-faceted word that
contains notions of virus, of infection, of poison, of spite and malignancy.
But this book is all about the transmission of words, like a virus, the spread
of an infectious creativity and imagination that gladly smears the willing reader
and conducts us into the Blurb world. But it is a fractured one. For the book
is made up of different sections, loosely and thematically linked through
Detective Kurt Lobo and the nature of the sentient life in this futurescape.
After the single lined prologue that
appears to conduct us into the dreams and visions of Joshua Knight, we enter
the introduction to a future/alternative world in which Joshua's technology
"births a new age" through the drug ReGen. The next part of the book
takes us through the various physiological and psychological "Phazes"
of the transformation brought about by use of the drug. This is where Downe's
skill with language comes to the fore. Compact 140 character what- passages,
bulletins, blurbs? populate this section of the book. (Yes, this section evolved
via Twitter). Evocative, rhythmic pulses of language, echoing song titles and
lyrics and probably fragments of literature too. The language is both skintight
and sumptuous to the mind's eye, a world conjured through words, but not the
sentence running on after sentence of conventional description you might be
familiar with. The compact rhythm drives the pace, yields the tension of each
passage, the word choices, the imagery and the assonances fuel the pleasure of
luxuriating in language itself.
The next section is "History",
equally fractured and fragmented, but giving tantalising glimpses into some of
the spaces in between the world of the Phazes. But then comes my favourite
section, three narratives involving Detective Lobo written in the style of film
scripts. Lobo moves through the ReGen world in suitably noir fashion,
encountering his fellow citizens who are all gene spliced with the animal of
their choice as they determine their own external appearance according to their
self-image. Everyone in this world is pursuing their hedonistic pleasure, while
desperately clinging on to life itself. Downe ramps up the threat and menace as
new foes are on the trail of Lobo and the third script ends with Lobo
surrounded on all sides by enemies terrestrial and supernatural in the Police
Station, much like an "Assault on Precinct 13" scenario. And this was
my only disappointment with the book, that Downe leaves me hanging not knowing
the outcome, which is instead to be resolved in the next instalment of the
Blurb. Downe certainly knows how to create an instant devotee, these scripts
are just supremely well written and draw you fully into their world.
The final section, the "Fractures
Three" is a hilarious psychological interrogation of various super-heroes
and villains under the auspices of the Police. None are terribly co-operative,
and Downe is playing with the idea of just how conscious of their powers and
super-being these folk are, together with that split between the ordinary
mortal self and that of the almost demi-god enabled by their powers. More of
this as well to come in the future I hope.
So surrender yourself to the world built by
Kneel Downe, Virulent Blurb: Fractures. A fractured world to be sure, but one erected on weighty
linguistic and ideational foundations. Kneel down at the creative forge of
Kneel Downe.
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