Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
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- $0.99
Publisher Description
This story is not like the other fantasy stories that you have read. In this story, we look at the lives of several people who are considered as different in this world.
The main character is Alan. He is a middle-aged man who just moved to Toronto and is working as an entrepreneur. He is different because his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine. His brothers are: a dead man, three Russian nesting dolls, a fortuneteller and an island. Alan himself is different, because although he looks like a normal human, he can heal immediately and if he cuts off his leg, the leg will grow again. He is a social person and makes friends very quickly. His new friends are his neighbours: Kurt, Mimi, Link, Natalie and Krishna.
Kurt is a man determined to bring free wireless to Toronto and to whom Alan helps with his idea.
Mimi is a student girl, who is born with wings on her back. Her boyfriend is Krishna and he cuts off her wings every three months and abuses her.
It seems that Alan’s life gets better, but then, problems start appearing. His brothers return to his world. His dead brother comes back for revenge, the three nesting dolls try to save their lives and want Alan’s help, and his last brother doesn’t return.
And, this is not the end, but on the contrary, it is just the beginning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's only natural that Alan, the broadminded hero of Doctorow's fresh, unconventional SF novel, is willing to help everybody he meets. After all, he's the product of a mixed marriage (his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine), so he knows how much being an outcast can hurt. Alan tries desperately to behave like a human being or at least like his idealized version of one. He joins a cyber-anarchist's plot to spread a free wireless Internet through Toronto at the same time he agrees to protect his youngest brothers (members of a set of Russian nesting dolls) from their dead brother who's now resurrected and bent on revenge. Life gets even more chaotic after he becomes the lover and protector of the girl next door, whom he tries to restrain from periodically cutting off her wings. Doctorow (Eastern Standard Tribe) treats these and other bizarre images and themes with deadpan wit. In this inventive parable about tolerance and acceptance, he demonstrates how memorably the outrageous and the everyday can coexist. FYI:Doctorow won the 2000 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
