Get Your Copy The Arden Produced By L.S. Popovich Available In Print

REVIEW TO COME I cant decide if this book is more of a crafted story or a piece of art painted with words.
The imagery and development of the story feels more painted than written, Some of the descriptions remind me of Dean Koontzs work he has some great descriptions, Theres a real vividness to this future world Kaneda lives in, The writing is very crisp and its an easy story to get lost in, The more I read, the more I found myself struggling with how to classify The Arden, Is it a story for entertainment or is this all an allegorical warning about the dangers of becoming too dependent on technology, or chasing after cheap fixes rather than searching for real solutions Everything is layered well creating a lot of points were the reader must stop to consider what more is being said.
Some areas read almost like poetry, Others like warnings. Still others like philosophy. They are all wrapped in this strange, fastpaced, interesting story,

The Arden, which governs the future, uses shortterm memory loss as a tool to keep humanity from returning to technology and the harmful things that come from it.
Thus, creating a delicate balance between man and the environment, This is just one concept that really stood out to me, Ever since I played the game telephone as a kid, when you get a group of people together and one whispers as message and that message is relayed down the line until the final person hears it.
Then you compare the final message to the original, It always amazed me how far off the two were, Perhaps the reason the legal system doesnt put as much stock in eyewitness testimony, The questions posed about this touch one of the most fascinating things: how do you know you can trust your own memory The truth is, even if you saw something, you dont know that you saw all of what happened.
You dont know what you didnt see, You dont know how much of what you saw you interpreted without evening meaning to, Yet, you trust that memory that is surrounded by mystery, uncertainty, and fallibility as it were truth incarnate.
Thats the kind of rabbit trail thought process good sciencefiction is meant to take you on, Thats the rabbit trail I spent a long time on here,

In The Arden people in the future had a sort of repeated memory loss, They had to keep journals to reminds themselves of what happened, Now you have memory, being written down after being interpreted, then read and being reinterpreted, Its a society playing telephone with themselves every day, It reminded my of the premise of one of my favorite movies: Memento and I was thrilled to revisit the quandary of shortterm memory loss and the practical implications of everyday life.


What I found particularly interesting is the Kaneda, Gypsy, and Gray are not just taken to one future to show what happens to the world when everything goes wrong, we are taken to two futures one far distance future and one in between.
Heres why that intrigues me: there are plenty of stories that write about future worlds, Most dystopian/utopian books are built around that genre, Sprinkle in a lot of sciencefiction in general and imagining what could happen to the world or what the future could look like, is a relatively common idea.
What makes the book stand out is what the future looks like and how its different from our own.
The Arden jumping to the middle, a future between the final reality and our present one provides an element Ive not seen before: how we got there.
Its a clever warning of what the next milestone in the road might look like and what that road might lead to if we dont course correct.


This was not at all what I thought I was getting into, I am delighted to be surprised by it,
While I initially felt this surreal, environmentalapocalyptic tale to be a little slow getting off the ground, I soon realized the initial chapters laid the groundwork for whats to come.
More importantly, the introduction added to the believably of the incredible, richly described world of the Arden.
Its so much better than Vandermeer, So if youre a touch hesitant, stick with it! Its a worthwhile trip, The Arden soars once our main characters transport themselves to the future Earth of the titular title.
But its the three main characters, Kaneda, Gypsy, and Gray that really make this story shine, A bunch of misfits, it was surprising to see how the three evolved over the course of the tale each experiencing a different sense of time and aging due to the temporal portals of the Arden.
In particular, the character of Gray has a unique arc which I wasnt expecting, and hes nicely juxtaposed with our main protagonist our eyes and ears in the world of the Arden.


The Arden is filled not only with an evocative landscape, but equally welldefined cultures and populations I normally dont like to use the term, but theres no denying the worldbuilding is effectively done here.
And the supporting characters, in particular the mystic ranger, Saras, and the despicably creepy Alonso, are worthwhile and very memorable characters in their own right.


Ultimately, what most affected me, aside from the extremely wellthought out plot and story, was the heart at the centre of it all.
There was a special bond between our principle trio, so much so that they felt like real, unique personalities transcending the written page.
Finally, I appreciated that even if questions about the environment were central to the premise of The Arden, the author never turned it into a parable, instead leaving the reader to come up with their own answers, as any good story should.
I have to wonder, will we see Kaneda again
WARNING: Spoilers

“The Arden” is a scifi novel that introduces itself as a type of cyberpunk novel about the hardships of a trio of misfortunate, dysfunctional souls that try to survive in an already broken city.
However, the book quickly transforms itself into a futuristic adventure meditating on societal demise and human kinds hand in it.

“The Arden” has many strengths, The most prominent being its humour, as sarcasm and punch lines are spouted left and right mainly by the main character that we follow throughout the narrative.
Its comedy adds an extra flavour to the books overall allure as well as allowing the reader to distance themselves from the dark nature of the events occurring.

Another strength is its worldbuilding, The books vivid descriptions of the environment and atmosphere makes it easy to imagine the unique vision of the future that the author is painting.
The many details added, especially regarding the lives of the tribes, add to the richness of its world.

I also like the pace of the story and how it shifts and changes throughout and never seems to slow down long enough to become stagnant, and especially like the short “interview” section of the book.

Many of the details included bring ideas across that further the depth of the novel, The annual amnesia that affects the citizens of “The Arden” and the idea that memory of his previous world is the only thing that keeps the main character from surrendering to the new one.
The monster of the Arden, that functions as a necessary evil in order to keep the human race in harmony.
Or that the reason the world got engulfed into nature was because man tried to keep it flourishing while also not having to adjust his behaviour and that the end result is a supreme semibeing that can be nothing but obeyed.

Overall, this is a great novel for those who like their scifi filled with comedic elements and a heavily subversive attitude.
This is a awesome read, Period. My only gripe would be I wish the book was longer purely selfish on my part because I didn't want it to end.
Possible Partin the works

I generally don't read science fiction so wasn't sure what I was getting myself into but am I ever glad I got to read this! I am sucker for writing that takes me there and I was there, smelling, touching, seeing everything Popovich described.
There are no blind spots in Popovich's writing, The author has an imagination to be envied, that's for sure,

Kaneda is the most wellfleshed out character of the novel but Gypsy and Gray are believable characters, too, with their own personalities, ambitions, and imperfections.
Popovich also did a great job making the lesser characters stand out as well,

This just isn't a dark science fiction story, Fans of other genres like fantasy or literary may enjoy this book, too! For those environmentalists out there, I am confident they will love this book.
Dystopian fans surely will add this to their most cherished,

There is no need for me to give a synopsis of this book as I see others have gone into great deal.
I will end this review with this, if you're looking for something unique, highly imaginative, with a dark feel to it, a narrator that will have you at times laughing aloud, give The Arden a try.
I am not seeing you putting this book down once you start it, The Arden by L. S. Popovich

Several recent books bemoan fictions historic lack of concern with the destruction of the environment.
Why didnt writers in theth andth centuries notice what was happening around them Im not so sure fiction past was so oblivious, Germinal and Bleak House come to mind.
But if novelists did once ignore the destruction of the environment and its coconspirator climate change, in the last decade many novelists have made it a central theme of their fiction.
A welcome addition, L. S. Popovichs The Arden explores the environmental theme, but obliquely, The story is about a possible outcome of our misadventures,

It begins in a futuristic San Francisco, The city has gone to hell, and the only positive tourist attraction might be the snow that falls, prettifying the buildings.
Our main character is Kaneda, which is not pronounced Canada KAN/UH/DUH but KAY/NAY/DAY, and our hero will promptly correct anyone who mispronounces.
Hero might be a misnomer, Hes a wiseass antihero who brought down his fathers business empire, is estranged from his family, and now gets by blogging and scavenging the streets.
If he hates the rich, he goes none too easy on the poor, disdaining the citys riffraff.
In San Francisco, he will hook up with two other bohemians: One is Gypsy, ayearold musician who meets Kaneda when he was about to hock his Rickenbacker bass.
He plays a couple of chords for Gypsy, whos so impressed, she suggests forming a band with her friend Wolfgang Gray, a heavyset drummer and aspiring artist.
The three form a band, practice in Grays family garage until Grays parents kick them out, then together they move into La Vie Exquise, a decrepit “condominiumopolis” as Kaneda puts it, with a view.
Gypsy complains as much as Kaneda, but she has a job guess who pays the rent, spends freely and owns an ancient Yugo to haul them around SF to the jeers of the streetcorner environmentalists.
Up on the roof of La Vie Exquise, they meet Oswald, an artist, pigeon fancier, and possible seer.
Oswald will disappear, but will reappear on the other side,

The other side is The Arden,

Although the first thirty pages reflect the aesthetic of Rent and of Les Mis, Popovich is slumming to document the world Kaneda will encounter on the other side.


Scavenging through the stuff Oswald left behind, Kaneda appropriates an old but functioning television, In the tradition of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, a small animal will trigger the adventure of our bohemians.
When Gypsys cat Oliver disappears into the television, Gypsy pursues her into the screen, Concluding that the old TV doubles as a portal to, . . somewhere, Kaneda and Gray soon follow,

Emerging from the portal, Kaneda and Gray confront a mysterious forest that they will learn is called The Arden.
Beginning as a search for Gypsy, the story tracks Kanedas efforts to unlock the forests secrets and survive its many hazards.
Kanadas initial reaction: “The arrangement of trees was different, The forest

was like a jumbled Rubiks cube, a selfdistorting tessellation of organic circuitry, ” For an opening sally, Kanedas description left me chewing my lip, How do I visualize this A jumbled Rubiks cube A selfdistorting tessellation tessellation is the covering of a surface with one of the more geometric shapes with no overlaps and no gaps.
Its intriguing but baffling. As Kanedas adventure unfolds, hell voice similar Delphic descriptions, He is definitely a logophile: word happy, but in effect is he also an unreliable narrator That said, many of his descriptions of The Arden are dazzling:

The floating heads of children, disembodied in various stages of decay, conglomerates of roots and grass, crusted bone and mildew sticking to me flesh extruded raw from gaping holes, bubbling pustules roving over woven tree limbs ,eyeless worms rolling over our train, like knotted animate yarn.


I can both see it and feel it, Popovich sensualizes the environment his hero passes through, bringing to mind Verne and Wells, but most emphatically Burroughs of the John Carter novels

In The Arden, well encounter plenty such scenes of horror, madness and monsters, mysterious remains of technology, indigenous people, rituals and cultural artifacts, astronauts from the future, a notquite defined Lethe that threatens memories.
But the forest, The Arden , remains inexplicable, Kaneda will escape once, returning to San Francisco to seek answers, but the answers are unsatisfying, prompting his return through that damn television.
Back to heroic action.

The Arden may provide answers only in the way a nightmare does,

A provocative imaginative, and important read, .