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A vividly dark journey beyond the confines of conventional consciousness and perception. Fitting that this won the P.K. Dick Award - Phil could have written it himself.

Bizarre symbolism with subtle meanings; intelligent thought-provoking humor; disturbing, strange events; a steady undercurrent of love and compassion. High level artistry on many levels “daydreaming of coral snakes and isopods, bone marrow and xylophones, traffic lights, whistles, the planet Neptune, absolute zero...”

Statements arise in context but jolt with unexpected force: “There wasn't much a jeep could do, to comfort a brontosaur.”, “An angelfish woman in anemone drag sat on a post and wished that she were a conch man.”, “the crucial thing in life, I feel, is to become more and more like a machine, as you go on, and less and less like a person.”, “People were dropping like flies, but the new plastics were breeding like rabbits. It gave one hope for the future.”

Strong cynicism and biting social commentary tempered with deep and realistic hopefulness, a book to shake the most entrenched complacency while offering an ode to perseverance. - Award Winner's Review

 

What people are saying:

It's always exciting to see a writer try something completely unlike everything else that's out there...a pleasure to read. - Kathe Koja

...cornucopia with a cutting edge: a vivid phantasmagoria crowded with bizarre imagery. - Brian Stableford

Any book that can barely be described as a surrealistic, high energy tour-de-force is supposed to also be tedious and self-indulgent -- but The Troika is an entertaining read as well as being brilliant and would even be a good companion on an airplane. Chapman is sure to be arrested for breaking the rules. - John Shirley

Let me start with a warning: this is a difficult book to read. You can't skim it or read without your full attention like you can with -- well, with almost everything. The characters switch bodies (or think they do), they're unreliable narrators whose perceptions may not match reality, they contradict themselves, there are flashbacks and dream sequences galore. Only well into the book is it possible to even get any idea of what's going on. As confusing as The Troika can be, it is very much worth the effort. Trust is required here. You're on a drive, but someone else is at the wheel. Slide into the moment, enjoy the view and stop worrying so much about where you're going. You *are* going somewhere, but the trip itself is the best part of the experience. There are stories and images in The Troika that will stay with me for a long, long time. There are passages in the book that are as beautiful and carefully sculpted as anything I've ever read: the line of girls with their tongues frozen to the parking meters; skating upside down along the bottom of the ice; the fish-headed sacrifice who escapes moments before her heart is cut out. I was reminded of Dick, Kafka and others, but Chapman's voice is unique and original, and he clearly has a love of language and words. The Troika was one of the strangest books I've ever read, and among the best I've come across in several years. - Andrew Sasaki

Alex, Eva and Naomi are a jeep, an old woman and a dinosaur, respectively. Or maybe not. They're walking across an endless desert and they can't die. Or maybe not. The Troika by Stepan Chapman is truly an excellent book, witty, profane, brilliant, demanding... much like Samuel R. Delany's 'Dhalgren' or Philip K. Dick's 'Valis' but not derivative of anything, it plays around with identity, with history, mythmaking, delusion, good, evil, insanity and redemption. It rewards repeated readings, and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite books. - Matthew W. Rossi