Audition
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
The spaceship Audition is hurtling through towards an event horizon. Squashed immobile into its rooms are three giants: Alba, Stanley, and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing. So they talk, and as they do, Alba, Stanley, and Drew recover shared memories of the injustices faced back on Earth by their former selves. Or are they constructing those selves from memoryscripts that have been implanted in them? At once speculative and grimly realistic, formally experimental and politically urgent, Audition asks how we live with each other's violences, and what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much space.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The provocative latest by New Zealander Adam (The New Animals) combines science fiction with a treatise against carceral systems. The dialogue-driven narrative has the feel of improvisation as it follows passengers Drew, Stanley, and Alba aboard a spaceship called Audition, where they negotiate the cramped quarters and try to stay positive ("It would be better if we took a moment to be really grateful for this beautiful spacecraft which used to be so perfect for us. Which was built especially for us. When we got too big for Earth," says Stanley). It turns out the trio have grown to more than 18 feet tall while on board, and have discovered that the only way to stop their dangerous rate of growth is to continue talking. They reflect on their metamorphosis, which began in a vaguely described classroom where they prepared for their mission. Eventually, the reader learns that the classroom was not a nurturing environment but a prison, and the Audition constitutes the trio's punishment as it hurtles toward a black hole. Adam charms with her nonstop dialogue and her characters' determination to be hopeful. This ebullient tale thrums with life.
