Steve Erickson Books

Existential entropy is the dominant theme of Steve Erickson's sixth book, a meditation on the persistence of memory, the disappearance of the real, and the no-man's-land between fact and imagination.

With limber, hypnotic prose and vivid imagery, the nameless narrator leads us through a landscape of paranoia, sex, and decay. Though this no-man's-land takes the shape of L.A. early in the next century, the novel's axes are psychology and identity, not society and technology.

One of the narrator's obsessions is what he calls the Cinema of Hysteria: "movies that make no sense at all - and we understand them completely." Similarly, this tale seems plotless; but, as in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, the arbitrary oddities slowly coalesce into a haunting whole. Erickson has spun a cunning web - less a book of laughter and forgetting than a seductive insomniac nightmare of hysteria and amnesia.

I've heard some folks say that Erickson's Amnesiascope is one of his lesser works, but in my view it is head and shoulders above his other novels. "Amnesiascope" is an apocalyptic prose-poem about life in L.A., and where "Rubicon Beach" dragged with long, tedious dream-sequences, "Amnesiascope" soars by providing enough humor, detail, and vividly-imagined cityscapes to keep you fascinated by every page. As I read it, I occasionally thought to myself, "This reads like Henry Miller." Later, in an interview with Erickson, he mentioned that Miller was an inspiration for this novel.

this is a good book i cannot believe that it is out of print! I lent a copy to a friend and have never had it returned.
I read this before i ever visited L.A. but having been there now, you can see the jumps in imagination that he makes about a possible near future for the place. Dingy hotels and fires in the streets, subversive writers and strange and exotic grrls who just seem to turn up and then vanish. He describes a place that made me think of cities in warzones, in movies like Full Metal Jacket and The Killing Fields. What is so good is that the story veers between fiction and what sounds like autobiography a lot and so constantly keeps you on your toes and just a little off-balance in this dream-like world.
L.A. just before the end of the world, or maybe just after?

Erickson's dark, quirkily romantic future L.A. has the resonance of one of J.G. Ballard's apocalyptic landscapes. Like voyeurs, we're ushered into a world of flickering volcanic fires, leaking hotels and anxiety-run-rampant in the tradition of DeLillo's "White Noise" and Pynchon's "Vineland."

"Amnesiascope" is far more than a meditation on nightlife. Erickson's meticulously wrought characters are what propels this odd, gorgeous book. At once experimental and character-driven, "Amnesiacope" succeeds in its well-honed balance between landscape and psyche, empathy and urban detachment. There wasn't a moment I didn't like; "Amnesiacope" stands as one of the most moving near-future novels to have graced the genre.

It is a shame that this book is out of print, because it is one of those books that I would love to recommend to friends to read. The book is many things at once: provocative, sexy, imaginative, fun, sad. The back cover features a blurb comparing him to Pynchon, Nabokov, and DeLillo. Although I don't see the comparison to Nabokov, I would add my own comparisons: J. G. Ballard (especially books like CRASH and VERMILLION SANDS), William S. Burroughs, and even Neal Stephenson. The authors mentioned would prepare a would-be reader for the unexpected and the unusual; it might not prepare the reader for the beauty of his prose.

I fully expect this book to be in print again in the near future. Until then, I would urge any fan of literature to search this book out and read it. It is often beautiful, frequently haunting, and always original.

I'm totally blown away by this book, after seeing these drawings at the Walker I had to own it. Check out his website to see all the drawings on line.

If you live anywhere near Minneapolis get yourself over to the Walker Art Center, where every single one of Zak Smith's drawings/paintings/sculptures (yes, some are three dimensional) for this project are displayed on one wall. (All are in the permanent collection of the Walker.) How do I know it's all 750+ artworks? Because I counted. 45 columns by 17 rows. You could spend hours staring at them and not exhaust this monumental project. I'm not sure how long they'll remain on display so don't put it off.

Zak Smith a genious, and this book the best.
if you like concept ilustration, you'll love it...

and the prize it's great!

I just saw the Zak Smith exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minn. where I had gone to see the "Picasso in America". But this Gravity's Rainbow page-by-page is, by far, the reason to go to the Walker right now. Mindboggling. Buy the book and picture each page lined up like a grid covering an entire wall. The Pynchon book is quite challenging to read so try to imagine Zak Smith capturing the concept of each and every page with a drawing or picture. Number 404 looks like an inch thick melted white plastic mess--does anyone know what happened in the book on this page? I noticed that one of the "tags" for this product is "genius." Believe it.

I am at a loss for words.

It's one of the most beautiful things i've seen in years.

This book is two parts Kafka to one part Matrix. It starts out in some futuristic dream world and the reader is drawn in immediately. I found this book addictive and could not put it down as Erickson led me from the dream world to more reality based (or were they) worlds in which the initial dreams kept cropping up. It's a fascinating book by a talented author and I cannot believe it is out of print. Read it if you can find it.

A very ethereal and dreamlike book, it would make an amazing movie, probably directed by Ridley Scott or Wim Wenders. A journey into our minds, into America and into the spirit of Los Angeles. Having just moved to LA recently, I have been experiencing the surreal, alien nature of this city and Rubicon Beach expressed it perfectly.

I cannot possibly recommend this book enough. One could spend a decade reading this book with a shovel and still not find all the levels underneath. Erickson's gorgeous prose has gorgeous ideas to back it up. This book is about everything and everywhere, from the country of America and what lies to the West, to one little girl beautiful beyond compare with eyes that are blades of light. I do not have the word capacity to fully describe this book. But it is not for the weak. Ignore logic and physical time or space before you dare attempt it. Erickson fightened and delighted me. There cannot possibly be another book like it

Steve Erickson doesn't write novels; he chronicles dreams. Set in a futurtist LA, where water floods the streets, the narrator goes about a mysterious quest. This is a book of shadow and light, enigma and truth. It will frustrate and amaze you at the same time. It is a rare book that looks to your intuition, rather than your mind, to decipher. Gorgeous and unsettling, like the best of Dali

Leap Year takes the elections of 1988, one of the least interesting political years in my memory, and breaks it down step by step, candidate by candidate, and shows us exactly what was going on in his or her head at each step of the way. Erickson approaches the elections with the mind of a brilliant novelist, combining great personal stories of the conventions and meeting candidates in obscure locations with analytical genius, making almost everything about politics, even issues not discussed in the book, easily accessible to anyone. I did feel that the sections dealing with Sally Hemmings seemed a little irrelevant and confusing, especially when the same character is approached so well in Arc d'X. But otherwise, the surreal tone so familiar to Erickson's novels worked amazingly well. Read this book with a highlighter so you don't miss a thing

On the surface this is one view of the 1988 presidential race.In reality,it is an epic(but concise) capsule of our country:past,present,and future.Check it out

Erickson lambastes the Right and the Left in this journey through the election of 1988 (copyright 1989). Much of it could have been written about any election since by merely changing the names. Even though the specifics are dated, it is still a fun, funny and intelligent read in 2008. Highly recommended.

A few stand alone stories are in this volume. William Shakespeare produces the first play that Morpheus has requested, and puts on a live performance in the wild for Titania and Auberon.

A man literally gets his muse from another writer, we see the Dream of Cats, and the final fate of an Element Woman who has had enough.

Excellent book, it is a few seperate stories but there is some background of the main characters not to be missed.

Gaiman is an original in every sense of the word. The first couple of volumes I read in the "Sandman" series didn't impress me all that much, I have to admit. At least, not uniformly. But the average quality in this one is very high indeed. The four stories all share the theme of dreams, from a novelist enslaving Calliope the muse to provide ideas for his books, to a cat's revelation of what the real world used to be like, to a piece about a woman who only wants to die but can't (the only "comic book" story you'll find here, and the least successful, in my opinion), and the award-winning story of the first performance by Will Shakespeare's company of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" -- for an audience from Faerie (and that one alone is worth the price of the book).

Let me just say that I have kids. They do things that kids are wont to do; make noise, make messes and generally prevent me from reading, my favorite pleasure. So I made a compromise; I wanted to read, but I couldn't get into a book, then I decided to get back into comics. Needless to say, I am a long time comic reader. Superhero stuff mainly. Characters from the DC universe (Batman is my favorite) and Kurt Busiek's Astro City were pretty much it for me.

But I got restless. I needed a change. Not that I've quit reading about superheroes, but I needed to broaden my outlook.

I've long known about Gaiman's classic Sandman series, but at the time, it just didn't seem interesting to me. But I asked a young woman who worked in a comic book store about it. She praised it and recommended the series. Since I didn't know anything about Morpheus or any of his siblings in the endless, she suggested starting off with Dream Country, in what is the third volume of the series.

To veteran Sandman readers, it's a brief collection of four short stories and the shortest book of the lot. But for the novice, it's a superb introduction to Neil Gaiman's brilliant storytelling and a nice way to ease into his fantastic world. I read the collection in a day. I then got the rest of the series. If you like good stories well told, superb characters you want to feel for and a taste for the different, look no further.

I would recommend Sandman to even the most jaded reader. I'd be genuinely shocked of they weren't won over.

When one walks into a movie theater, they expect to see a movie. When one walks into a pizzeria, they expect to be served pizza. When one plays paintball, you should expect to be hit by at least one paintball. So, one could draw the conclusion that when one reads any of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, you should expect to be pulled into a bizarre world where your heroine (or dark figure leading the show) happens to be the actual Sandman ... right? Apparently, the answer is closer towards the "no" theory than one could expect. I understand the concept of building a stage and allowing readers to see the entire universe, and not just one small figure, but that isn't why I purchased this series. I purchased it for the sole reason that I enjoyed the first two in this collective series. I find the character of the Sandman to be one of the greatest literary figures in graphic novels today. His words will entice, his patience will amaze, and his strength will force you to think of Superman as the weakest man alive. The Sandman is intelligence, boldness, and heroics all boiled together into one shaded character. He is the epitome of "cool", if one were to phrase it that way. Yet, why would anyone who loves this series think that without the main character, the central focus of the show, would a series be able to survive? If I had started with this collection, I don't believe I would have gone any further.

I know, I seem to be an odd voice in this collection that seems to have garnered award after award for possibly the dullest story ever dreamed by Gaiman. For those fan boys out there that are drooling over the ingenuity of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", I would say - not rudely - but get over it. Sure, there were moments of fun and inspiration, but for the most part this story seemed to go on longer than needed and gave this avid Sandman reader a chance to catch up on some well deserved rest. I had seen Gaiman twist the story of Shakespeare earlier in one of the early collections (I think it was when the Sandman was talking with his "friend", Hob Gadling), but I didn't think he would dedicate half a collection to the birth of an idea. Again, I am not knocking the creativity of the piece, because I saw the premise well, it just felt overly-dramatic coupled with an overall sense of "blah". It was too much for this reader to enjoy. I wanted the fantastical coupled with sinister, and before you say it, this just didn't have it. Sure, there were creatures, but they did not come anywhere close to what I witnessed in the first two collections. I just missed the tone that Gaiman had captured with his creation in the first two collections; obviously this was a completely different step.

How did I enjoy the other stories? I thought that "A Dream of A Thousand Cats" was decent, but again lacking that panache that lingered from the first two books. "Facades" was utterly fun, but diabolically confusing. Who remembers Element Girl? To me, it just seemed too outdated for the rest of the series. My personal favorite was "Calliope", a truly frightening tale of imagination that reminded me of why I am such a big Gaiman fan. It was dark and spooky all at the same time. It was the epitome of what the Sandman represents, then we are left with nothing more a ramshackle of other stories that don't fit the bill. They were a hit or miss with me, as I have read, it seems to be the case with other Gaiman fans. I wanted, and desperately needed, more Sandman. I wanted my character back. I wanted something to breathe life back into this short collection. For those of you wondering where most of the pages remain, there is a huge development of the "Calliope" story at the end which nearly takes up 20 pages. This was a waste of time and space. Obviously, this was the weakest link pertaining to the series.

Overall, I cannot suggest this book to friends or family. If one asks which collection they should start learning about our heroine, the Sandman, in Gaiman's eyes, I would tell them to stay clear of this collection. Dream Country may be giving us a hit of what is to come, but for me it felt tired, bored, and over inflated. While "Calliope" will pull you in, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" will confuse you to the point of insanity, or at least give you a good nights rest. Dream Country was weak, and it is obvious with the fact that there was what I like to call "filler" at the end of the collection. If one doesn't have anything worth saying, don't waste my time. This collection will anger any fans of the series that loved the first two. Read through this one quickly, and get to the next. I promise ... it will only get better from here.

Grade: ** out of *****

Erickson will never be a taste for the masses. It is a shame because this really is some amazing writing. I would encourage anyone who ran across this book to give it a shot. Yes it is not a "happy" book but it is a "vital" book. There is something really alive in this writing. The book is not so concerned about lateral development as it is thematic depth. You may call it navel gazing. I don't see it that way. There is a truly dreamy poetics to it which cut deeper than the lastest crotch-rocket story engine driving to another ending you've seen a million times. There is a certain inscrutabilty to some of the scenes and imagery but compared to his other works (ie Amnesiascope and Days Between Stations), the surrealism is muted. Still if everything has to be "Reality TV this could really happen to you" in your fiction, you may not make it the whole way through. Some would call it experimental but really all the techniques at Erickson's disposal have been around for many many years. For me what is original is how he combines this elements into vibrant forms which resound as much as they shine. Mixed metaphor is the closest I can get to explaining the allure of this novel. This review is a warning as much as it is praise. If you want tidy resolutions and safe situations, this is not for you.

Chaos and personal apocalypse and synchronicity and shifts in space-time. Los Angeles. Punk rock and strippers and snuff films. A man who kisses chaos into strange women and in doing so saves their lives. A girl who runs away and becomes someone's sex slave, only to realize that she's the one enslaving him. Definitely suited to a niche market of readers, but if you happen to fit into that category, you'll be more than pleased with this find.

It is a shock that the name Steve Erickson is not well known. His books sit comfortably alongside books by DeLillo, Pynchon, Margaret Atwood. If you like any one of those three, then you owe it to yourself to try Erickson. Personally I think he's more enjoyable -- and this book is his best. It is a tour de force of characters who are all prisoners of something -- each other, their own past, the future. It's funny, moving, and complex.

We are all our own private millineum, walking through the world, our own apocalypse (or apocalapse), our own world of chaos tucked just under the skin. It could start with a gunshot in May of '68, or sometime much later. You will live and think the world means something and then one day you will wake up and it will not mean anything and you will join the countless others who are living in time void of meaning.

I can't say more about this book. His ideas are stunning. I'm enraptured.

A sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing "memior of the future", this novel contains plot twists that in themselves are nothing short of amazing. The books many protagonists live as if in a surreal dreamworld of cultural movements, apocolyptic fear, horrific urban legends and even worse histories of the last century. The writing is very lyrical, but the narrative also has a frenetic science-fiction like pace that keeps you turning the pages with each cosmic coincidence. Very much like Delillo in delivery and Pynchonian in plot.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood

ZEROVILLE is a perfect 'double-feature' read with EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS. I would be pretty certain that novelist Erickson read this account of Hollywood in the 70s, as his novel is filled with ambiguous versions of real-life Hollywood figures of that era. One major character seems to be writer-director John Milius. Another is clearly Margot Kidder. Coincidentally, I recently read EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS, and I fear if I hadn't that Erickson's hazy references might have been confusing. Fortunately, the novel's surrealistic tone allows Erickson to get away with giving these characters a fuzzy identity.

Erickson is clearly a huge film fan and along with being a chronicle of Hollywood in the 70s we are also treated to various musings like a breathtaking analysis of the editing of A PLACE IN THE SUN.

Erickson's prose is mezmerizing, making this slight tale highly readable even as it feels a bit like a fever dream. I'm not sure if main character Vikar, who succeeds as a film editor, in spite of being both volatile and simple-minded, ever becomes fully believeable and remains a bit of a literary conceit.

The ending becomes increasingly surreal and ultimately, I'm not sure what it all means...but if you're a fan of both liteary fiction and Hollywood movies, this novel may strike a chord in you.

Very entertaining, skillfully written. An entertaining and somewhat sarcastic look into the past and present machinations of H'wood film industry told through the POV of a young dude coming to LALA land from Philadelphia.

In college I double majored in Film and Creative Writing, so when I happened to stumble upon ZEROVILLE I felt I found the most perfect book I have ever come across. I felt like it was written FOR me. Not only does Erickson detail the GREAT gems of our cinematic history, he also weaves them in flawlessly in a mysterious and enlightening story. Vikar tends to vex us, as he so warns the people around us, but that is because he is a true innocent. Like the ghost of Montgomery Clift tells him "You got trust in your eyes, like you were just born", Vikar in essence, is a child, a child with a furious belief that movies are God. I recommend this book to ANYONE who loves movies, and I'm talking about GOOD movies, not the crap Hollywood tends to spew out, but the classic ones, the ones that really COULD and DID change the world. Great great wonderful amazing novel.

"Zeroville" is a great little thought provoking page turner but especially poignant for those familiar with the wild worlds of Peter Biskind's "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood." It's an added degree of fun to try and pinpoint the characters who populate Erickson's novel and Biskind's rollicking tale of excesses provides an entertaining and elucidating skeleton key. Thumbs up! Buy it read it and laugh about it.

There are several things I want to say about Steve Erickson's Zeroville, but none of them really describe what's going on here. The first would be that you really need to love and know vintage movies to get this, but that's not entirely true. Yes, it would add to the experience to know the difference between Rio Bravo and Red River, and to understand what Vikar means when he says that Travis Bickle is in another movie where he's a boxer. But that's also completely unnecessary to get into the quest--and that's what this story is, a quest--that Vikar undertakes. The second is that this story, with its piles upon piles of coincidence, wonder and desperation reminds me, more than any other book, of House of Leaves. I think Vikar and Johnny have a lot in common, but Vikar's quest is absent the unnamed menace of Johnny's.

Vikar knows movies. In fact, that's all he knows. He finds his feelings in them, but learns how to communicate with others not through what is said during movies but rather what the people around him say about the movies. That's the thing about Erickson's writing that makes this book so hard to pin down: it's not a book about the movies, it's a book about how we feel about the movies. And in a way, it's a book about how the movies feel about us. Vikar gives his whole life to unspooling a cosmic reel of questions--saying that makes the book sound lofty and sanctimonious, but Erickson brings it down to earth with the grit of Vikar's obsessions, appetites and fears.

Like House of Leaves, I'm still not entirely sure that what I have written about Zeroville is even accurate. But to its credit the book was fun to read, even through its ruminations on God and sacrifice, so that I am ready to revisit this, and soon.

Having read all of Erickson's novels, I would rate this one somewhere in the middle. Having said that, I still think he is the best contemporary author we have. With the exception of the brilliant segment of the Rooms of Lost something or others, I felt this book was a rehash of his past works. But I honestly did not see how he could improve on "The Sea came in at Midnight", so i wasn't let down. If you've never read Erickson, this book might be a good introduction, though i recommend starting with "Days Between Stations" and read them all. Thank you Steve Erickson!!!!!!!!

Last July, while supervising my department's move into a new building on a scorching Saturday afternoon, I began reading Steve Erickson's book "The Sea Came in at Midnight". It was a luminous, hypnotic novel, full of fantastic imagery and strange logic. I thought, this is my kind of writer.

So I finally got around to reading a second book by Erickson, and it's "Our Ecstatic Days" -- which, it turns out, is kind of a sequel to the previous book, picking up more or less where that one left off. If there's a protagonist of either story, it's Kristin Blumenthal, former cult member, concubine, memory girl, and now mother of three-year-old Kierkegaard (called Kirk). Kristin, who used to be fearless to the point of recklessness, has been reduced to a sniveling mass of fear and paranoia simply by giving birth.

Kirk is a strange little child, demanding and controlling, making odd pronouncements such as "I am a Bright Light." But if the boy is strange, the events that surround him are even stranger. As Kristin and Kirk try to make a comfortable, safe life at the top of a hotel, a lake suddenly springs up in the center of Los Angeles. It grows larger and deeper by the day, swallowing up streets and buildings, inching ever closer to the Blumenthals' hotel room. Kristin, convinced that the lake wants to take Kirk from her, decides to confront the lake at its source. She and Kirk row out to the center of the lake, and she jumps in. When she resurfaces, Kirk is gone.

He has been snatched away by owls.

The delight of Erickson's writing is in stumbling around the corner to discover an unexpected turn of phrase or a fascinatingly nonsensical plot point (the color blue completely vanishes from the earth, for example). Keeping up with the plot -- such as it is -- is hard work, but this isn't the kind of story you should endeavor to understand. On the contrary, it's the kind of story you absorb, like David Mitchell's "Ghostwritten". It's almost like poetry.

That's not to say that it's perfect. Erickson returns again and again to some really awkward metaphors about motherhood and reproductive anatomy (for example, Kristin becomes a dominatrix who tells fortunes by reading the patterns of her menstrual blood in the toilet. Eew!). But as an abstract, very surreal depiction of what loss -- and the fear of loss -- feels like, Erickson mostly succeeds.

"The Sea Came in at Midnight" is a better book, and I'd urge anyone to read it before trying to read this one. But "Our Ecstatic Days" is a more than worthy follow-up, and I recommend it to the initiated or the brave.

Just finished Our Ecstatic Days, and it has my head spinning. The separate narratives, the fact that he even has a page-to-page trailing, separate narrative interrupting the main text, the fact that he makes them actually, coherently MEET UP?!
I loved the ride, Mr. Erickson. Saw and heard you read from this one in Berkeley and finally had the chance to sit down and read it.

Erickson is unparalleled in my mind as the greatest contemporary writer alive. As a voracious reader, I am in bookstores frequently. It is a rare visit where I don't check the "E" section of the fiction shelf to see if Erickson's got a new book out. The six year wait between "The Sea Came in at Midnight" and "Our Ecstatic Days" was torture.

I imagine that Erickson's books have a special appeal to those of us who like to think of ourselves as more dialed-in to the vibrations of collective memory than others, but I would be hesitant to categorize his books into a specific genre (e.g. "post-apocolyptic surrealism"). What resonates with me personally about Erickson's books in general, and this one specifically, is their ability to replicate the lucid dream state- where things are both more real and unreal than in waking life. I'm sure the themes mean different things to different people; for me, they represent the possiblities of parallel lives, which is as comforting as it is disconcerting.

I had never read nor heard of Steve Erickson until Simon and Schuster asked for permission to use the lyrics for my song "Opal Moon" in his book. Before I gave permission, I requested a copy of a book so I could see what the writing was like. They sent me "Rubicon Beach" -- which I thought was strange and beautiful. Upon reading "Our Esctatic Days", I found that these two books might be companion books (in fact, one chapter is the beginning excerpt from "Rubicon Beach"), both living in the same world. I found the book compelling to read, and for those who have suffered a loss in their life, it will resonate.

Erickson's gift for seamlessly weaving multiple characters and myriad sub-plots, brilliantly unifying the apparent chaos of his worlds, can be breathtaking. In Erickson's visions, there is always a sense of order, of fate that lies beneath the anarchy and madly pulsating landscapes that he creates.

I have begun to accept that, like all great art, I will never have any assurance that my understanding of this book is what the artist actually intended. Perhaps that was his intention all along...

I am hesitant to begin a new book for several days...I need some time to let this one sink in. I find that this reaction is becoming a habit with all Erickson novels that I complete. This book, like "The Sea Came in at Midnight", continues to haunt me.

When I finished this novel I didn't know if I loved it or hated it. I had never had that reaction to a work of literature before. I did know that I could not put it down, and that means a lot to me. I needed to know what happened to Lauren and Michel.

If a book doesn't capture me in the first twenty pages or so I tend not to stick with it- I think writers either have it or they don't. This book pissed me off but also made me track down all his other novels- a singular experience for me. So far I have been equally elated (The sea came in at midnight) and dismayed (Rubicon Beach) by his works, often in the same novel (Arc d'X).

I'm not only discussing "Days Between Stations," here...

Now then- as regards Erickson: his writing is lush, highly rich and poetic. He weaves astute psychological insights in with chaotic and seemingly random hyper-conscious details when describing the inner workings of those who populate his works. The characters and worlds that Erickson crafts veer from heart-wrenching and lovingly-detailed to maddeningly, utterly book-tossingly, non-sensical. Out of nowhere- the most surreal occurences materialize and take over the narrative, often destroying my patience and aggravating the living hell out of me.

Yet there is a pay-off. He weaves fantastic stories and he does it in a way that is wholly his own- no one writes like Erickson. For all his flights of post-modern fancy I can't help but get wrapped up in the intricately-realized, labyrinthine details of the lives in his stories. days Bewteen stations is a great example of this- the chapters on the making of the silent film and the betrayal that finalizes it... I was stunned. For all Erickson's words (and he is wordy as hell) there is something still lurking between the musings and the poetry and the cast of strange, naked souls that inhabit his dystopian visions of the world as it was and will be... I can never put my finger on this pulse of his and that wil always bring me back to him. It really angers me at times- because I think a great deal of the wreckless way he imposes discontinuity and hellish non-sense is, well, kinda empty and pointless. But it makes for a ride like no other.

A caveat- I tend not to go for woefully pomo writers and Erickson is cerainly one of those. I stormed away from "Arc D'X" (despite LOVING the first fifty-odd pages) God-knows how many times before finishing it. Still haven't finished Rubicon Beach. His interviews (there are many online) don't really clarify things but I suspect he wants it that way.

I reccommend him.

Like other writers who cross their hard-edged fiction with elements of surrealism and sci-fi, Steve Erickson keeps you guessing about the realities and invites you into a world of motives. The three main characters are living through a world cataclysm, which only heightened my interest in them. Jason, a professional cyclist, moves from race to race, and affair to affair, with no thought towards his wife, who falls in love with an amnesiac stranger, Michel. I know it sounds like a soap opera, but no soap could implore the sensual depth in Erickson's writing, or give the book such a sad and longing ending. A great place to start reading Erickson's work.

Erickson championed cinemagraphic-styled narrative through all of his works but especially in Days Between Stations. As contemporary screenwriters venture to adopt powerful time inversions and thread their viewer's consiousness through the colorful tapestries of the subconcscious, works such as Erickson's should find their way to the top of any required list of literary influence.

Days Between Stations has special potency for screenwriters because of its inclusion of light and film as subject matter in the sub-plot of the story.

The cult of Steve Erickson consists of thousands of unafilliated readers, all eagerly awaiting Erickson's next novel, and wondering if the next one will finally completely batter down the door that exists between our waking consciousness and dream states of dark beauty and erotic potential. Days Between Stations is a fine first novel that will hook those with a predilection towards exploration of the creative subconscious and who are aware of and embrace the shadow that exists in all of us. As with all first novels a seam shows here and there. Unlike most first novels, this read becomes a portal through which the reader passes to advance to the writer's next level of development. It is an initiation into the genre of Erickson. The novel, dreamlike and surrealistic, folds adventure into fictional events that are original and apocalyptic in scope. In Days Between Stations the reader is transported to a world mysteriously overwhelmed by blowing sands, moonlit nights, and surrealistic journeys To places we all visit in our dreams. In a way any attempt to describe a Steve Erickson story misses the point. Try Days Between Stations and you too may realize that somehow you have become a secret unafilliated member of the cult of Steve Erickson.

tim hawkinson's books and catalogues disappear fast and become very expensive. this one is in an edition of 2000 and will not last. it will be a $400 book within a year.