“Decapitate,” said Logan. “Then find yourselves clothing and equipment.”
“What the hell you at?” shouted Buzzard. “Ain’t this enough?”
“Tribal raid, soldier. Decapitate. They’re all right. They’re dead.”
“Go stuff yourself,” said Buzzard. “You ain’t real any more, Logan: you ain’t the Ninth. You’re screwed.”
Logan struck him under the ribs with a spear. Buzzard looked at Logan and at the spear they both held. “You Mother,” said Buzzard.
“Can we afford that, sir?” said Face.
Alan Garner, Red Shift
I finished Red Shift a couple of weeks ago and….it’s not quite accurate to say I enjoyed it, but it was disturbing and unsettling and one of those books that compels you to read it again, and well worth anyone’s time even if, like me, you go around telling everyone you “don’t read” science fiction (assuming that that’s technically what this is—since arguments about literary genre and taxonomy make me want to kill myself, someone else can decide). There’s a hallucinatory quality all throughout, the language sounding almost as if the characters from Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker suddenly began speaking in standard English but lost none of their oddities of syntax and cadence, and the ending is an emotionally wrenching virtuoso turn. The BBC adapted it for Play for Today but the TV version is impossible to find and also allegedly stinks.
