Recent Reading: Red Spider White Web

Certainly one of the stranger books I read in terms of setting. A dystopian/horror/cyberpunk novel written by an Indigenous woman. The book is out of print and I found a copy through inter library loan, but a section of the novel is available in an anthology edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer called The Big Book of Science Fiction. They offer this description of the novel.

Red Spider White Web … describes a dystopian future congested, cyberpunkish America, dominated by Japan and afflicted by climate change, where artists try to avoid sanctuaries called “Mickey-Sans,” which shelter their inhabitants from the excremental waste and pollution outside but also sanitize creativity. Into this milieu steps a dedicated Native American artist who has been gengineered into a being half human and half wolverine, and on her mission falls afoul of surreal figures and dangers. The style is often phantasmagorical and full of dark menace, but the darkness is balanced by the main character Kumo’s pursuit of her hologram art.