For reasons I can’t really explain just yet I have been really distracted the last couple of weeks so I apologize in advance if this review is not as detailed as I normally like to be. That out of the way lets talk about Stonefish. The author Scott Jones was a guest on Dickheads when we broke down the PKD novel The Zap Gun. At the time my co-host Anthony Trevino declared Stonefish not only a Dick-like suggestion but one of his favorite reads of the year. He was so assured I would like it that he gave me a copy. So yeah Thank you, Anthony.
Stonefish is written by Scott R. Jones who is well known in Lovecraftian circles having written about Howie in both fiction and non-fiction. If you have to define Stonefish you might say bizarro, as it is super strange and surreal at times, it is very Science Fiction in gonzo 60s new wave that reminded me not just of PKD although he is clearly an influence. Fans of John Shirley and even a little Rudy Rucker will be pleased. At the same time Stonefish walks that thin line where the horror and Sci-fi novel gets blurred in a way that John Brunner was a master at.
Stonefish was published by Ross Lockheart’s indie press Word Horde. This company has set a very high watermark and the quality almost never fails. It is the type of book that the big houses in New York wouldn’t touch or understand. In the 60s it took really out there thinkers like your Don Wollheim and Malzbergs reading the slush piles to find homes for books like these.
Those were physically thin but also thin on characters and deep prose. Don’t get me wrong I love that stuff but for every Dune or Canticle for Lebowitz, there were 100 space pirate books. Jones has created a super weird and creative novel that is overflowing with ideas and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments intentional humor. Plenty of “what the fuck am I reading” moments that those of us who love the weird crave.
The story follows journalist Den Second as he investigates a tech guru Gregor Makarios who disappeared into a psychedelic spiritually-minded virtual realm. Where else would a high-tech hermit live? In this unreal realm, Gregor explores the nature of reality and the meaning of life. Jones weaves traditional and experimental structure to tell the story through a series of visions and Den’s extensive interviews with Gregor.
What is reality? What does it mean to be human? How are we affecting the fabric of life? What is technology doing to the human being? Stonefish is full of questions. Gregor’s psychology becomes Scott Jones's path to a psychological deep dive into our human nature and the crossroads with grand and scary cosmic questions. For an author known for his Lovecraftian interests, this novel is more spiritually lined up with the questions pondered in the work of Philip K Dick.
The book includes gnostic Coprophilic Sasquatch Archons, they are online cryptid avatars for Gregor. They are probably the single weirdest thing in the book, even this virtual online world has developed its myths legends, and weird corners.
Weirder than most cyberpunk Stonefish is full of leather trench coats and Mirrorshades. This novel doesn’t have a Cyberpunk outfit but it has the beating heart of that genre.
My favorite moments happened on pages 186 and 87...
“Shit gets real. Shit is the real. Shit is the soft skin of Stonefish, the convincing layer that tells yes, yes, you’re here and it’s all happening, and you are part of it an ain’t life grand?”
And a page later he is one of the most important passages. This is Gregor speaking directly to the audience:
“You’re trying to make sense of this. Don’t … I can’t make sense of it for you, either, so don’t ask. Stories, though! Stories I can tell.”
Is it dismissive to say this novel is about our relationship to reality? Such an important question why not ask it as many times as we can. Stonefish was a treat, a weird off-putting, and times hilarious trip. I am sold on Scott Jones as a writer so here is hoping for more. Read Stonefish for sure.
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