“The first words were born in the voices of the first Speakers.” (p. 285)
Close your eyes and think. Think of words as living beings. Not the living, breathing entities that can be meek or overbearing as we know them in our minds, but physical, sentient beings with emotions, personalities, and speech. Anxious might trot and stutter at infrequent intervals, fretting about the state of the world and the hiccups she’s been having throughout the week. Serendipity would likely find treats lying in a corner, or their favourite book left on their doorstep by accident, always in a cerulean summer dress.
The stories and poems in Geoffrey W. Cole’s Zebra Meridian imagine the factors that might determine success in extending the lifespan of objects, relationships, people, ecosystems, planets, universes. Salvage and repair are central concerns. Don’t read Zebra Meridian because you want reliably feel-good stories: the book seems to offer odds of about 40 percent on positive outcomes for crisis-driven human(ish) reconstitutive enterprises. But do read it if you’re interested in stylish, genre-informed investigations of what it means to “save” or “fix” almost anything.
Throughout, Cole skillfully conjures a range of difficult, high-stakes wrangles for survival and flourishing, across a wide array of genres.
At first, Dakini Atoll seems to function as a sequel building, yet a disorienting approach to storytelling may actually be an expression of this book’s larger themes.
The books shortlisted for the 2024 Ignyte Best Novel Award emphasise the role of co-operative action in addressing the problems faced by their characters—and their readers.
