Wednesday 14 December 2011

Birds & Apocalypses

In honour of Russell Hoban, who has just passed away, a great author of both adult and children's books, and the man responsible for one of the greatest novels of all time, the post-nuclear-holocaust Riddley Walker, I thought I'd take a look at another avant-garde take on the apocalypse, Adam Novy's The Avian Gospels.

I first came across this via a rave review in Publishers Weekly. It sounded fascinating, and that was before I actually saw the book. Published by Short Flight/Long Drive Books, it's a thing of beauty, taking its cue from the book's title and theme with a very biblical look--most specifically, the little Gideon's you find in hotel rooms.



Designed by Elizabeth Ellen and Aaron Burch, the woman behind SF/LD and the man behind the parent Hobart Pulp, this design splits the book into 2 volumes--a fat 'old testament' and a thin 'new', with gilded page edges, ribbon bookmarks and page reference numbers.




After buying these, I found that everyone who orders them from the publisher gets a free ebook edition too, which is probably a good idea. But if ever you needed a reason to avoid ebooks, it's when the physical alternative is this beautifully considered and produced.

SF/LD seem to specialise in these genre/format-warping exercises: Karl Taro Greenfeld's story collection is disguised as a series of travel guides, while Michelle Orange's travel book is in the format of a passport. This sort of madness is only to be encouraged.


7 comments:

Brooks said...

I've been lusting over The Avian Gospels for a while now. I might just go and buy it now.

JRSM said...

I think you should! It's surprisingly inexpensive, actually, especially if you get it from the publishers.

elizabeth ellen said...

actually, aaron and i designed all the books together and i am editor of sf/ld, while he is editor of hobart. but i'm happy you're a fan!

JRSM said...

Argh, sorry about that - I will correct the post.

Jonathan Walker said...

But what is 'The Avian Gospels' actually about (I'll google it now, but might be worthwhile to mention the subject matter / genre).

JRSM said...

Hmm, that's the tricky bit: mass deaths, a geographically rearranged world (the US fighting a border war with Hungary), great flocks of birds under the control of a father and a son in competition, and imminent apocalypse... It's not an easy book to summarise; my inadequate attempt with 'avant-garde apocalypse' novel is the best I could come up with.

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