Through his mailing list, Robin Sloan gave away a few copies of his new novel, Sourdough. I guessed one of the lowest primes (409, natch) and was lucky to receive one. What a treat! I blazed through the book over the course of a day.
Sloan uses the temporal flexibility of a futurist-historian to tell a story of food, culture, and technology. Like in my hometown friend Derek Dellinger’s year on fermented food, the miracle of living food plays a key role in the narrative, which as you might expect hinges on sourdough.
The novel falls short of science fiction primarily because technology caught up to us; Sloan living on the vanguard in the Bay Area captures the emergent present. All said, a delight to read and I’m sad it’s over!
You can read a bit more about the book here.
And do preorder.
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