A Year in the Linear City is a 2002 weird fiction novella by Paul Di Filippo, published by PS Publishing.
Synopsis The Linear City is a world composed of two across and an enormous but uncertain number of city blocks long, with a river on one side and railroad tracks on the other. The story follows the lives of some residents of the 10,394,850th block throughout the course of a year.
Reception A Year in the Linear City was a finalist for the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella,2003 Hugo Awards , at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved May 13, 2018 the 2003 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella,2003 World Fantasy Convention, at WorldFantasy.org; retrieved May 13, 2018 and the 2003 Theodore Sturgeon Award.Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award , at the University of Kansas; retrieved May 13, 2018
In Locus, Claude Lalumiere described it as "Di Filippo at the apex of his idiosyncratic creative energy".Postmodern, Postindustrial, and Posthuman, by Claude Lalumiere, in Locus; published November 18, 2002; retrieved May 13, 2018 In Emerald City, Cheryl Morgan called it "wonderfully bizarre", noting that it is "aggressively SF in content" but "very mainstream in style", and commending Di Filippo for being "content to fill our heads with wonderful ideas and leave us to extrapolate from them." Short Stuff: Novella Reprise, by Cheryl Morgan, in Emerald City #92, April 2003; retrieved May 13, 2018 Similarly, at infinity plus, Keith Brooke praised Di Filippo's worldbuilding as "lovingly painstaking", observing that it is "utterly convincing" and "fiction of the highest order." A Year in the Linear City by Paul Di Filippo, reviewed by Keith Brooke, at Infinity Plus; published June 15, 2002; retrieved May 13, 2018 Strange Horizons lauded it as "(m)ythic and grand, yet intimate and moving, (with) an impressive emotional range", and observed that protagonist Diego Patchen — an author of "cosmogonic fiction" — is a "transparent doppelganger" for Di Filippo himself.Playfully Perverting Consensus Reality: A Critical Chronology of Paul Di Filippo's Fiction, by Claude Lalumiere, at Strange Horizons; published November 4, 2002; retrieved May 13, 2018
References
External links
Preview of A Year in the Linear City, at Paul-Di-Filippo.com (via archive.org)