Review – Slow River by Nicola Griffith (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: August 20, 1996
ISBN-13: 978-0345395375
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Swapped though Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“She awoke in an alley to the splash of rain. She was naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant was gone. Lore Van Oesterling had been the daughter of one of the world’s most powerful families…and now she was nobody, and she had to hide.

Then out of the rain walked Spanner, predator and thief, who took her in, cared for her wound, and taught her how to reinvent herself again and again. No one could find Lore now: not the police, not her family, and not the kidnappers who had left her in that alley to die. She had escaped…but the cost of her newfound freedom was crime and deception, and she paid it over and over again, until she had become someone she loathed.

Lore had a choice: She could stay in the shadows, stay with Spanner…and risk losing herself forever. Or she could leave Spanner and find herself again by becoming someone else: stealing the identity implant of a dead woman, taking over her life, and creating a new future.

But to start again, Lore required Spanner’s talents–Spanner, who needed her and hated her, and who always had a price. And even as Lore agreed to play Spanner’s game one final time, she found that there was still the price of being a Van Oesterling to be paid. Only by confronting her family, her past, and her own demons could Lore meld together who she had once been, who she had become, and the person she intended to be…”

This was an okay book set in the future. The story focuses around a young woman, Lore, who’s been kidnapped. When her parents refuse to pay the ransom she ends up broken and alone in an alley. Eventually she is picked up by a woman named Spanner. Spanner helps her learn how to make a less than legal living off grid.

Eventually Lore decides to try to make a honest living and this leads her to somewhat accidentally uncovering a number of secrets from her past.

The story jumped around a lot between Lore’s childhood, the near past, and the present. It was decently done and never got all that confusing. The writing style is beautifully done and descriptive.

Somehow the whole story just came off as feeling a bit pointless to me. I did enjoy the world-building but never found either the characters or the story all that engaging. I almost stopped reading this a few times because I just didn’t really care much. I kept hoping that something amazing was going to happen to tie everything together but it never really did.

Overall this was okay but not great. It very much has that mid-90’s somewhat ambiguous cyberpunk feel to it…if that’s your thing you might enjoy this.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge