Talking Man - Terry Bisson

1986; 192 pages. Genre : Science Fantasy. Overall Rating : B-.
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Talking Man is a wizard. But he is also a dreamer. Along with his soulmate, Dgene, they dreamed this universe into existence. Then Talking Man fell in love with his creation. So he hid in it, and lived in a small housetrailer in the hills of Kentucky with his 16-year-old daughter, Crystal. But the cosmos hath no fury like a Soulmate spurned, and Dgene is out to un-make the dream.
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What's To Like...
Bisson is a different sort of Sci-Fi writer. His forte lies in creating fabulous, vivid worlds. The back-cover blurbs describe this one thusly :
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"The geography shimmers and melts, catfish as big as boats are pulled from the Mississippi, the moon crumbles into luminous rings and refugees from burning cities choke the highways." (snip) "Kentucky back roads, junkyards, fast food and magic..."
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Crystal and a boy named Williams find themselves driving a borrowed Mustang from Kentucky to New Mexico to the North Pole in order to help Talking Man keep his dream (and their world) alive. However, like one of my recurring dreams, the "real" is shifting almost constantly. Whole states disappear, the Mississippi River now runs through a Grand Canyon-like channel, the US-Canadian border is heavily mined, and the names of cigarette and candy brands keep changing.
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Bisson is kind of the antithesis of Tolkien. He presents his universes as is and without ever addressing the whys. Denver burns, but we never find out what caused this. An owl figurine is an artifact of monumental importance, but the reason is never detailed. Tolkien would obsess over the causes of such things; Bisson ignores them.
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Excerpt...
"There are two ways to tell a wizard. One is by the blue light that plays around his tires when he is heading north on a wet pavement under the northern lights, his headlights pointed toward the top of the world that so many talk about but so few have actually seen."The other is by his singing."
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I give Talking Man a B-. It's an engaging story, but in the end I was left with too many unanswered questions. For a change, I wouldn't've minded another 100 pages added to the book, in order to delve into the reasons for everything.
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Postscript...
Oh look! My good friend Thursday Next from Jasper Fforde's series hopped into this book, and brought me back a photo of the aforementioned "Catfish as big as boats". Thanks, Thursday!