Bloody Books Review - Only Forward by Micheal Marshall Smith
Continuing the releases of these reviews I've been sitting on for a while whilst time is against me getting any newer articles written, we come to the second of the Michael Marshal Smith reviews
ONLY FORWARD by Michael Marshal Smith
How many times have you tried to talk to someone about something that matters to you, tried to get them to see it the way you do? And how many of those times have ended with you feeling bitter, resenting them for making you feel like your pain doesn't have any substance after all?
Like when you've split up with someone, and you try to communicate the way you feel, because you need to say the words, need to feel that somebody understands just how pissed off and frightened you feel. The problem is, they never do. "Plenty more fish in the sea," they'll say, or "You're better off without them," or "Do you want some of these potato chips?" They never really understand, because they haven't been there, every day, every hour. They don't know the way things have been, the way that it's made you, the way it has structured your world. They'll never realize that someone who makes you feel bad may be the person you need most in the world. They don't understand the history, the background, don't know the pillars of memory that hold you up. Ultimately, they don't know you well enough, and they never can. Everyone's alone in their world, because everybody's life is different. You can send people letters, and show them photos, but they can never come to visit where you live.
Unless you love them. And then they can burn it down.
It is rare for me to start a review with a quote from a book, and rarely for it to be such a lengthy one. However, this is what still holds true in my mind when I think about Only Forward. Throughout the absurdist humor and concepts, passing through the darkness and the horror, it's a tale of loss and isolation, told beautifully with an ending that still, to this day so many years later, fills me with fear as I get closer to the end.
There is nothing out there like Only Forward. Something that starts out like a Neal Stephenson / William Gibson parody and turns into a horror unlike anything else I've ever read. You may marvel and laugh at Cat Neighborhood, but that laugh is frozen in place as the sickness of Jeamland starts to take hold. There is a dream-like logic that swoops in and out of the tale (for very obvious reasons), with insights into the human condition and explorations in morality that should really have had conversations with the Discworld. You'll note that I'm not providing a synopsis for "Only Forward", and the crashing reality is... I can't. I can try. I can speak about how Stark is a "Fixer", who fixes Things. And Something is wrong. Those capitals are all on purpose.
Stark lives in Colour, a neighborhood that spans more ground than an average city and may well be in a futuristic Britain. Colour is named thus because the streets and building change colour to match your clothes as you walk past. That's where we begin. Vast amounts of strange and bizarre settings and concepts later, and Smith springs a trap that cuts to the very core of the reader. It's a fear we have all experienced and throughout it comes an array of breathless movement and cutting dialogue from a master of characterization.
Please, just read it. And prepare to have your heart and soul broken.