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A review by mairispaceship
Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead
5.0
An extraordinary and epic poem telling the story of generations set hundreds, no thousand of years in the future. The Iliad and the Odyssey of sci-fi.
I don't know how to describe Calypso other than saying I'm pretty sure it was written exactly with my taste of book and theme ib mind. This book had the hallmark ergodic literature style of House of Leaves, but set in an eerie speculative sci-fi world in which plants, flowers and botany played a central role.
At times the winding, meandering poetry was hard to follow as it jumped between key characters and Greek chorus. Other times the physicality of the words on the page captured the scene beautifully. Sentences shifting from grounded to floating as the characters themselves were pulled to and fro by the narrative.
The narrative followed a generation spaceship set out to find and terraform a new world. As the engineers of the crew slumber in stasis, thousands of years pass. Kings rise and schisms shake humanity. Parts of the ship are quarantined for centuries and great murals line the metal corridors.
In short, this book was beautiful. To read and ti look at. I didn't even mind the religious allegory in the slightest.
I don't know how to describe Calypso other than saying I'm pretty sure it was written exactly with my taste of book and theme ib mind. This book had the hallmark ergodic literature style of House of Leaves, but set in an eerie speculative sci-fi world in which plants, flowers and botany played a central role.
At times the winding, meandering poetry was hard to follow as it jumped between key characters and Greek chorus. Other times the physicality of the words on the page captured the scene beautifully. Sentences shifting from grounded to floating as the characters themselves were pulled to and fro by the narrative.
The narrative followed a generation spaceship set out to find and terraform a new world. As the engineers of the crew slumber in stasis, thousands of years pass. Kings rise and schisms shake humanity. Parts of the ship are quarantined for centuries and great murals line the metal corridors.
In short, this book was beautiful. To read and ti look at. I didn't even mind the religious allegory in the slightest.