Filaria [Kindle Edition]

Filaria is, in its conciseness and its oddly disturbing grace, one of the finest debuts written in the last decade -- in the sff genre or any other genre. For a fast reader, it could be consumed in nearly a breath, but this would be to miss the point entirely. This is a book meant to be examined, to be known.

What strikes me as so unique is how Hayward manages to build such a intensely resonant world in so few words. You will not forget having been in this book. Images, perhaps even whole scenes if you're visually minded, will stick with you for the remainder of your life.

Here, because it might illustrate what I'm trying (and probably failing) to say, is something I said about Filaria in an interview:

"There is a scene in it where two ancient elevator-repairmen brothers are hanging in a massive (and malfunctioning) elevator shaft--or rather, have been hanging in a massive elevator shaft their entire lives. This may seems a somewhat mundane scenario when compared to interstellar wars and such, but there is for me this moment of consideration: what must life be like, hanging in silence and darkness for most of your life, waiting on... what? An elevator car that will never come? It's frightening to consider, and yet in its way it is also beautiful in an immensely sad way. It's almost like considering death, that great unknown."

Anyway, you should buy it, because it's great.

This is an intriguing puzzle-box of a read. The setting is an impossibility taken seriously: a resort hotel so large that the denizens believe it's the entire world. It's visualized so well, the characters drawn so intricately, that you can't help believe it. Every character adds their own thread to the story, illuminating the reader even while the characters grow more confused and desperate.

I'll reread this one.

A complex, intricately woven (or should I say tiered?) little book, Filaria divulges its most important secrets in bits and pieces, usually secondhand to a character who is unaware of its import. For instance -- this isn't too big of a spoiler -- the lust that seizes all the male characters is revealed as a pheromone experiment mentioned in the first quarter of the book, aimed at Deidre, but outed to Phister. The four central characters never meet each other, but cross paths with mutual acquaintances who provide new revelations at every step.

In addition, the level of detail is subtle and exquisite, often provided in succinct fragments. For instance:

"Retired pods embedded deep in the curved walls. Dusty mesh strung between glistening tracks. Loops and untold lengths of entwined tubes. Endless tubes. Hundreds of sizes, gurgling and trickling and burping quietly, up and down the great shaft."

The first scene, with Phister, is particularly well done -- he belongs to a ex-Public Works clan living in the very basement of the world, unaware of any other levels (or the existence of people with hair and teeth; the radioactive sewage in the basement makes theirs fall out). Through him, we also see only the basement, so his expanding world becomes ours as well.