Book review: The Factory World

'The Factory World' by Joseph Edward Ryan.

The Factory World by Joseph Edward Ryan
(Steam Press Ltd $30)

The Factory World, another first novel by a Wellington writer, is After The Apocalypse, Variation 368. A young boy in a lion costume is rescued from a filthy pipe by a gun-toting stranger, near an abandoned factory whose utter dereliction epitomises the smashed and sinister land where events are set.

Simon and his gaunt saviour are both lost, within the world and within their heads. A burst of green light has changed everything for ever. The sky is full of purple flashes; the ground is full of great holes. Mannequins with black leather faces sit at unused railway stations.

There are ambushes and mutilations. Fearsome presences loom and threaten; the landscape has been chewed and savaged. A war is mentioned. It's all very brooding and effectively unspecified. The two protagonists' trek across the ruined world inevitably recalls Cormac MacCarthy's tremendous, terrifying The Road. So does Ryan's style, with its unreeling, unremitting cadences. But it's tribute, not imitation.

Other characters queue up: a red-cloaked man with a black eyepatch; a giant woman with yellow eyes and silver armour; hunchbacked creatures with spines; cat-like beings with white fur; other mannequins inset with glowing squares. Yes, colour does threaten to overcome coherence at times.

Perils and puzzles succeed one another through short, staccato sections. Strange objects and strange abilities fleck the plot, almost to excess.

The Tin Man, as Simon's rescuer becomes called, can speak fluent Russian, shoot a flying knife out of the air, whittle consummately. Metal plates bearing runic inscriptions, and a suit button which lets its owner bend light both feature. So do a lot of subterranean chambers. If things look like slowing up, another hidden door/mysterious being/eerie light or three do their stuff.

It belts along with tremendous energy, episodic but cumulative, barrelling towards a riddling little epilogue.

The poignancy of a small boy trying to find his way home, and the motifs of commitment and loyalty which accompany this, help deepen the plot. So does the unease of an existence where present is murderous, future uncertain and past evasive.

Simon is an engaging creation, a stoic, frightened small boy who can play Pachelbel's Canon at a crucial moment, just as the world seems about to end. (Well, what better time?) More variety of pace and fewer bizarre semi-life-forms would improve things, but it's a considerable imaginative accomplishment, and definitely absorbing. Watch this guy's space.