Hearts of Oak

January 6, 2020
Four people in an uncannily unchanging city come to question their reality in this piercing work. Iona, Steve, Saori, and Victor can’t remember a time when they didn’t live in the unnamed city or follow their daily routines. They go to work, go home, and repeat this cycle again the next day alongside their obedient, homogeneous fellow citizens. But the arrival of a stranger triggers repressed memories, sending all four hurtling into danger as they realize that the city is not a haven but a cage. Robson (Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully) is a master of the gradual release of information, ratcheting up the tension by degrees as both readers and characters learn the truth of his intricately constructed universe. The clipped, measured, and deceptively simple prose echoes the unnatural calm of the monotonous city and serves as a surprisingly effective vehicle as Powers raises questions about the nature of complacency and of humanity itself. Clever, emotional, and thematically rich, this is sure to please fans of classic science fiction.

Starred review from February 1, 2020

Iona has been an architect and teacher for as long as she can remember, and the town continues to grow with designs she has done, by students she has taught. The king is interested in the progress of the city--buildings are taller, the city is bigger--but rarely goes outside to see it. The planning department assures that they always have more room. But after the death of a colleague during a building collapse, Iona notices that people are behaving strangely. She remembers words and concepts out of dreams, such as "felt," "babies," and "coins," that never existed in the real world. The king's advisor Clarence says everything is fine--but can you trust the words of a talking cat? Arson raises more questions. Iona, the king, and others soon discover that the oddities coming up have more to do with reality than they thought. Twists and surprises abound in this engaging sf adventure. VERDICT A mesmerizing look at facing reality and what you believe to be true. Robson's (Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully) characters are well-rounded and themes of exploration and expansion undergird the playful prose.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2020
Town planning has never seemed so...sinister. Iona is the city's leading architect. She has a comfortable life: She teaches, she likes her work, and her house, at the planning department's insistence, is so much bigger than she needs that she rarely visits its upper stories. But when a young woman named Alyssa appears in her office asking for one-on-one instruction, Iona finds herself moved to tears by the woman's hat, which is made of something she thinks is called felt--a "dream-word." This strange intrusion of dreams into her reality, of "things that didn't exist but that somehow meant a lot to her anyway," will send her on a quest to uncover the truth about her perfectly pleasant but not-quite-right life. Meanwhile, up in his tower, the king wonders if he ought to have gone to the funerals for the victims of a building-site collapse. But his cat, Clarence, says there's no need for that sort of thing, and Clarence is probably right. Still, the king feels--lonely. Both Iona and the king have a vague, nagging sense that something is a bit off about this city, that something is missing in their busy, purposeful lives. But what Iona eventually discovers is much, much stranger than either of them could have imagined. The deep sense of puzzling oddness in the beginning of this book is totally captivating. The surface-level mildness and niceness of this world underscore the sense of mystery and offer plenty of opportunities for comedy. Once the reason for all the oddness is revealed, the story does lose some of its drive. But Robson (Tomorrow Never Knows, 2015) manages to rekindle the suspense for its final push. Strange, charming, unpredictable, and full of unusual images, this is an off-the-wall delight.

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