The Wells of Ur

Begin at the howling wells of ruined Ur, turn from the desert, and let Jon Mollison take you back to the dark trade behind our decision to live close to one another. Marvel at JB Jackson's demon-haunted 1977 Philadelphia, the city still intoxicated from its then-recent Bicentennial celebration. See, either far in the future or deep in the past, the moment when the White River is crossed and the towers of Im are improved. Visit Argentavis's thrilling World City, the one where you live now, a hive of vicious subhuman ferocity alive with the disorder brought on by a mysterious absence of statues. If history were a bone, Jon Mollison's "The City at Dawn" would take us into history's marrow, or within whatever is deeper than marrow. He takes us beyond mute runes-a task too important to be left to mere language experts. Only audacious imaginations like Mollison's can render the moment when a city became socially possible. His fiction speaks louder than ruin. JB Jackson's "Philadelphia" is-if not the slough of despond-then just upstream. The narrator's good humor and wit, while locally hilarious, are grim counterpoint to a general degeneracy. Brian Renninger's "Across the White River" begins with a playful high drama, a chaos of weird churn which asks many questions. How do we know when greatness is born? How do we know when we have been given a gift? What do we do about the arrival of a stranger bearing a vision of order so strong it needn't be imposed, but takes root by itself? Finally, how can we build anything if we aren't willing to come to our city's defense? Every city is patterned on an ur-city, an agglomeration of echoes. One can tease out Chicago, Milan, Córdoba, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, Budapest-even the towered farragoes of Jodorowsky, Moebius, and Hergé seem to loom over Argentavis's work. lost city; ur; atlantis; legends; books for men; humorous; phantasmagoric; psychotronic; foundation legend; heavy metal; refugee; female protagonist; new voices in science fiction; journey by train; Prester John; Philadelphia; 1977; rock n' roll