THROUGH THE HEART

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding post-apocalypse novel
Review: Reviewer: Rich Barnett. Coming-of-age story set in a post-disaster USA, with good character detail and enough mystery to keep the pages turning. Great for Philip Dick or Harlan Ellison fans. I found a copy at the local library -- hurray for it! Contains sexual situations that may offend some

Rating:
Summary: commentary on fiction as commentary
Review: The best fiction, we are told, imitates reality. _Through the Heart_, however, imitates reality in a very oblique manner- disguisedly- and this reality is far more bleak, and poisoned, than our own. It is also the only novel of Grant's that truly qualifies as 'science fiction'- the others include too much fantasy, or mystery, or mainstream, or delicately drawn parody- and thereby are difficult for a publisher to categorize. As usual, Grant's writing is like a steady stream of lucid clarity; also as usual, he's taking on a theme from which a genre novelist would be expected to shy away. A word of warning- the theme of this novel is very grim: moreso than his other works. It's a profoundly affecting work on an emotional level- however, as a 'Science Fiction' novel, it falls a bit short of the mark (which is probably why it's out of print): there is less of the frantic energy of invention and 'what-if' that characterizes the genre than in any of the author's novels. Still- It's a Richard Grant novel, and nobody writes like Richard Grant.