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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=gwern0@gmail.com
href="mailto:gwern0@gmail.com">Gwern Branwen</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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Synopsis:<BR><BR>> A novel of the fantastic set in an imagined country in
Europe<BR>> An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location
chooses<BR>> to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The
moment<BR>> Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he
could<BR>> have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he
is<BR>> detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of
a<BR>> family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there
are<BR>> supernatural agencies at work, but they are not in some ways
as<BR>> threatening as the brute forces of bureaucracy and corruption in
that<BR>> country. Is our hero in fact a spy for the CIA? Or is he an
innocent<BR>> citizen caught in a Kafkaesque trap? Gene Wolfe keeps us
guessing<BR>> until the very end, and after.<BR><BR>> I'm not sure why,
but for some reason I thought that _The Land Across_<BR>> was going to
involve time travel or dinosaurs!<BR></DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">At
least he can plausibly argue that cellphones, internet etc. are not available to
the public in this setting. </DIV></DIV>
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style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">This
is not a criticism of Wolfe – he has been criticised for ignoring such things in
_Home Fires_ but in truth perfect communication is a plot-wrecker. I
suspect few novelists/scriptwriters etc. like what cellphones do to their mise
en scene.</DIV></DIV>
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Gerry Quinn </DIV></DIV>
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