cover image Urbis Morpheos

Urbis Morpheos

Stephen Palmer, . . PS Publishing, $20 (312pp) ISBN 978-1-906301-43-9

Challenging sometimes to the point of impenetrability, Palmer's first novel since 2004's Hallucinating details a far-future battle between natural and manufactured ecosystems. Like his music (with the rock/electronica group Mooch) and art (including the cover art for this volume), Palmer's writing can only be called psychedelic. The world is richly imagined, unusual, and creative, full of narcoleptic snow, plastic vultures, and living databases called “wrealities,” but dense prose, the choice of giving two main characters virtually the same name, seemingly random point of view shifts, and a wealth of unexplained details occasionally render the story incomprehensible. Only determined readers will make their way to the final page, but those who do will find the ending worth it. (June)