Geoffrey Morrison

In a world flooded and irradiated by a nearly forgotten cataclysm generations passed, all that remains of civilization clings to life in two war-torn, city-sized submarines. For fifty years, the only peace between them has come from separation. Now, young councilwoman Ralla Gattley has uncovered mysteries that will bring these two factions face-to-face, setting in motion events that will forever change their undersea world. Along the way she meets Thom Vargas, a bored fisherman and aspiring drunk who merely wants to climb one rung on the social ladder. Little does he know that single step may well put the fate of the world in his hands.

Undersea

THE GLOBE AND MAIL TOP 30 CANADIAN BOOKS TO READ IN 2023 CBC BOOKS WORKS OF CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2023 All talk, no action: The Mezzanine meets Ducks, Newburyport in this meandering and captivating debut It’s a hot summer night, and Hugh Dalgarno, a 31-year-old clerical worker, thinks his brain is broken. Over the course of a day and night in an uncannily depopulated public park, he will sift through the pieces and traverse the baroque landscape of his own thoughts: the theology of nosiness, the beauty of the arbutus tree, the pathos of Gene Hackman, the theory of quantum immortality, Louis Riel’s letter to an Irish newspaper, the baleful influence of Calvinism on the Scottish working class, the sea, the CIA, and, ultimately, thinking itself and how it may be represented in writing. The result is a strange, meandering sojourn, as if the history-haunted landscapes of W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn were shrunk down to a mere 85 acres. These digressions are anchored by remarks from the letters of Keats, by snatches of lyrics from Irish rebel songs and Scottish folk ballads, and, above all else, by the world-shattering call of the red-winged blackbird. "From the first page to the last I felt wholly captivated by Falling Hour and Hugh’s sensitive and far-ranging digressions. Morrison has captured the magic of Sebald and made it entirely his own, a curiously anti-capitalist exploration of what it means to live in a “fake” country. " – André Babyn, author of Evie of the Deepthorn "Falling Hour is a profound incantatory exhalation – a quiet triumph; to read it is to engage in a smart, humane and at times very funny conversation that you will never want to end." – Simon Okotie, author of After Absalon “A stellar debut novel by a stellar new talent. Falling Hour is written in a prose style that enlivens every page.” – Mauro Javier Cárdenas, author of Aphasia: A Novel "Falling Hour deserves mention as a notable debut along the estuary of modern fiction." – D. W. White, Atticus Books, Phoemix, AZ

Falling Hour

Matthew Tomkinson

Archaic Torso of Gumby is a series of interlinked stories and essays by Geoffrey Morrison and Matthew Tomkinson that explore the gooey, prickly, sticky materials of late-capitalist pop culture, from video games to claymation to children's picture-books commissioned by oil and gas companies. Here lyric essay, personal memoir, fable, pseudohistory, and science fiction all coexist alongside more conventional short story forms. Each part reveals unlikely connections between subjects as different as a sentient wallet, a gathering of headless saints, abject descriptions of 3D-printed food, a sixteenth-century courtier who thinks he's a horse, a virtual reality religious experience, and a couple with a fetish involving crustaceans. By turns cerebral, goofy, and heartfelt, Archaic Torso of Gumby is a delirious rabbit hole for the adventurous reader.

Archaic Torso of Gumby

A great silence has settled upon a drowned world. In the final battle of their final war, the massive citysubs Universalis and Population reduced each other to ruins. One lays wrecked on the seafloor. The other, beached and lifeless, litters the island of pristine polar ice it tried to destroy. Pockets of survivors huddle together. On the frigid surface, Ralla Gattley and Thom Vargas cling to life and each other. Below, the soldier Geran Lo fights relentlessly to free trapped and drowning civilians. As they struggle against a world determined to kill them, a new and even more dangerous menace approaches. Undersea Atrophia is the second book in the Undersea Saga.

Geoffrey Morrison

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