Surprise Along the Random Axis

Life has its share of surprises and sometimes they're pleasant. Some even make your day.

Yesterday, Gabriel Ricard, assistant editor of Unlikely 2.0 (www.unlikelystories.org), surprised me--- and made my day---with a review of my latest publication, RANDOM AXIS.

I conceived RANDOM AXIS as a sort of literary samizdat. I hand-printed and assembled 66 copies of the book, each with a different sequence of pages. It violated a number of conventions of the publishing business. Since I didn't assign a separate ISBN to each copy, most book distributors and sellers won't consider ordering it. In effect, RANDOM AXIS exists outside the business of selling books. Its random pagination represents my personal effort to destabilize text, as well.

I sent Gabriel Ricard a complimentary copy because I appreciated his deeply perceptive review of EMBLEMATIC MOON (http://www.unlikelystories.org/ricard0909.shtml). I didn't ask him to review RANDOM AXIS or expect him to. So yesterday's unsolicited review dropped into my lap as the kind of surprise that can make a writer's day. Here's the link to the review:

http://unlikelystories.org/blog/content/?p=227

I want to thank Gabriel for writing the review and for his deep (and flattering) insight into my work.

And for making my day.