How do I even begin to talk about this book?

Driftwood is the most creative, inventive, brilliant book I've read in ages. The worldbuilding is increidible: this is a story of the end of the world. But not The world. Rather, of all worlds.

Imagine a series of concentric rings constantly contracting. The outermost ring is made up of worlds that have just undergone their apocalypse. The outer edge of this ring is bounded by mist.

After a time, the mist will spit out new worlds having recently undergone their apocalypse, and the worlds in the outer ring will be pushed into the next ring. As it is smaller, parts of the worlds will disappear as they enter this ring. Perhaps now they are the size of countries, bounded on all sides by other worlds. Sometimes water can cross the boundaries, but sometimes not. Weather usually does not. So you can walk from desert into constantly pouring rain, etc.

The inner ring is known as the Shreds. Here, worlds have been reduced to city blocks, or neighborhoods and they are crammed together one atop the other in a constantly shifting mass of cultures and languages and species. The Shreds are populated not by distinct species, but those descended of many worlds known as Drifters.

At the center is the crush, where eventually all worlds go to die.

This story is told through a series of vignettes showing the interactions of various cultures and people with a guide named Last as they try to understand him and figure out where he has gone.

Last is widely believed to be immortal, sometimes believed to be a god. He is the last of his race, as his world died out long ago. Somehow he managed to live beyond it - but don't ask him how; not even he knows. He knows more Driftwood than anyone, and guides people across it to help them find what they need.

The writing is beautiful and each vignette showed a world and culture that I wanted to explore more. I would read an entire series about Driftwood. This is perfect as it is, a self-contained marvel, but it could easily expand indefinitely.

Consider a universe in which dying worlds slowly accrete together, colliding and compressing into a super-condensed Core. The aggregate is known as Driftwood, with the outer rings being less reduced in size, the inner ones mere fractions of their former selves. Each world operates according to its own rules; some have magic, others don’t; some have more than one sun, and so forth. No matter what the geography or culture, one constant remains: the desperate need to preserve memory and identity against the final, irreversible collapse.

This present volume comprises short fiction, some previously published, others original, loosely framed but eminently readable as stand-alone pieces. Overlapping worlds, occasional familiar place names, a historical timeline, and a charismatic recurring character enhance the cohesiveness of the collection. For me, though, the unifying factor was the shared experience, across cultures and personalities, of inevitable loss through change.

In “The Second Coming,” Yeats wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” But in the world of Driftwood, things fall into a center from which nothing emerges, not even the memory of what was once vital and precious. Yet despite the sadness, in the skillful storyteller hands of Marie Brennan, the stories move through compassion to hope, with many memorable moments along the way.

Welcome to Driftwood. It’s a place where worlds go to die. When a world approaches the end of its lifespan, they are enveloped by the Mist, where they will slowly fade away to nothing as they are gradually pulled towards a central zone called the Crush. But while this is happening, neighboring worlds are also experiencing the same slow creep towards oblivion, and so are brought together in a clash of cultures and geographies.

In the middle of all this is a character called Last, known for being Driftwood’s most enduring survivor, who saw his own world disappear a long time ago. People like to gather around and tell stories about him, for his reputation is legendary. Some say he is immortal; others desperately seek his guidance or try to learn his secrets and follow in his footsteps.

And thus, we have the book Driftwood, a collection of these tales, all linked together by the remarkable figure named Last. At the same time though, it’s not your typical anthology, as evidenced by the strange setting, the subject matter. Each story comes from a different viewpoint and reveals one of many faces of Last, whom we come to realize is a complicated character.

As a huge fan of Marie Brennan’s The Memoirs of Lady Trent series, I’ll read anything this amazing lady writes. Needless to say though, Driftwood is a completely different beast. You won’t be getting a linear or focused narrative here, as there’s absolutely nothing conventional about it, with its abstract premise and complex themes. The individual tales are more like short vignettes connected to each other by only a few tenuous threads, with little rhyme or rhythm to them otherwise. And because of its nontraditional format, there is an overall feeling of disjointedness.

I’ll admit, while these types of books aren’t typically my cup of tea, there’s just something so artful and charming about this one that I just couldn’t help but be drawn in. Granted, I think knowing the storytelling style beforehand helped a lot, as I was braced for a weird and possibility confusing read. As it turned out, I liked Driftwood more than I expected, and much of it has to do with the breathtaking world Brennan has created. Driftwood the world as a concept is an achievement of creativity and challenges the imagination. The notion is expansive, but at the same time easy to visualize and understand. Against the odds, I found myself enjoying the hodge-podge feel of multiple worlds and peoples colliding, co-existing.

Of course, the gorgeous writing didn’t hurt. Brennan takes difficult concepts, presents them clearly and concisely, and has time to ponder some significant questions about social malaise, belief systems, and the inevitability of fate besides.

My only complaint? This probably won’t be too surprising, but at a mere 240 pages, there simply was not enough room to capture the entire book’s potential, especially given its fragmented structure. Furthermore, not all the tales are created equal, and some of the transitions are jarring. The world of Driftwood is an odd place and to a great extent you are expected to go with the flow, and so if you are the kind of readers to expect explanations and answers, you are likely to be left unsatisfied.

As you can probably tell, in the end I’m of two minds about Driftwood. On the one hand I probably would have enjoyed the book a lot more if it had been more to my tastes, but I was also pleasantly surprised at how readable it was, not to mention how quickly I took to it considering the lack of a traditional plot structure, central characters or a clear focus. I only wish there had been a little more “oomph” to some of the vignettes, a little more reason to care about the people and their stories. Nevertheless, Marie Brennan has created something special here, and it’s worth reading if you don’t mind trying something different.

I requested this book mostly on the premise that I have enjoyed the two books by Marie Brennan I had read before. Both were in some way part of her "Lady Trent" dragon fantasy series. This....sounded different. But as I felt that her strong writing was one of the biggest pluses for both of those other books, I was curious to see how this skill set would apply to a completely different story, one that seemed to much more science fiction and post-apocalyptic than high fantasy. And boy was I pleased!

It turns out that even worlds have a place to go when they die. Or, more accurately, when they're still in the process of dying. After whatever sort of apocalypse suits any particular world, it makes its way to Driftwood, a place made up of many different worlds slowly shrinking and moving inwards towards the Crush where the last bits of them and their people will disappear for good. But there is one being who seems to have been around forever, Last. No one remembers his world or his people, but many remember stories of ways that Last touched their lives. Now, when he has disappeared, maybe for good, they gather to share those stories.

I wasn't aware of this from the book description, but it turns out that this book is more of an anthology-like story than a plot-driven storyline about any specific character. I guess it's there enough in the blurb, but I didn't pick up on it. But it turned out to be a really nice surprise and a perfect way of creating such a unique, creative world. As much as this book is about Last and the influence he had on many people's lives, it's also about Driftwood. And by telling the story through these smaller narratives, we get to dip our toes into not only a bunch of really interesting new worlds, but into a variety of ideas and coping mechanisms that people have for dealing with death, the end of the world, and inevitability as a whole.

I also read the author's blurb at the back and discovered that the author was trained as an anthropologist. This all makes so much sense. Not only for this book, but now in hindsight looking at the way the Lady Trent books were written and their focus. But here, we can really see those skill sets shine. When describing all of these different worlds and peoples, it's not as simple as describing different ecosystems or different body types. No, Brennan creates religions, cultures, hierarchies, ways of speaking, all of the little things that really go into forming a "people."

Last was a great character in and of himself. But he is also the type of character that we know so little about (even by the end of the book), that it quickly becomes clear that what we do "know" about him are only impressions left by those telling their unique stories of him. But through them we can parse together a really interesting character who has existed in a space that, by definition, operates to undue existence. To be the only one of his kind. To not be "known" by anyone. To go on while the "world" is shifting constantly around you. Learning new things, but also constantly losing what you know. I really liked the brief insights we got into the kind of mentality that Last had to develop to survive. And that, while bleak at times, we're left with a character who values hope and love above everything.

The only real ding I have for this book was the ending. It felt like it came out of nowhere, was very sudden, and left me with a bunch of questions. On one hand, I'm ok with there still being secrets hidden in this world and about Last. Indeed, that's half of what makes the book so intriguing, the feeling that you've only scratched the surface. But there were a few "reveals," for lack of a better word, toward the end that left me scratching my head. I couldn't figure out whether I was missing some grand point or not. Part of me really feels like I am. But I re-read it several times and...I still don't really know what point the author was trying to come to, if any. Maybe others will have more success.

If you're a fan of this author, than this is definitely another of hers to check out. But, overall, if you're a fan of anthologies, science fiction, and stories that explore what "humanity" really is, this is an excellent read. If I had the "Beach Reads" list to do over, this is definitely the kind of book that I'd throw on there.

Rating 9: Beautifully written and incredibly unique. This is definitely a book to check out this summer!

This was a delightful read and one I cannot wait to share with my patrons. I'm always looking for new fantasy titles to share that have wide appeal.

'Driftwood' by Marie Brennan is one of those rare stories you don't quite see coming. I don't mean in the sense that the twists of the tale itself are unpredictable, though at times.. that too is true, but rather in the way that it is so much bigger, so much more impactful and moving than one might ever suspect.

Last, a one-blooded survivor of Driftwood who acts as a guide across the lands, has lived more lifetimes than anyone could ever imagine. Long before we learn his story, he lived to see his world end.. taking with it the rest of his people and for some reason leaving him behind. Driftwood is a strange place surrounded by mist where worlds enter the Edges having just suffered their apocalypses, pulled slowly toward the middle.. called the Crush, breaking apart bit by bit along the way.

Once these worlds reach the Crush, they disappear or disintegrate.. taking with them any remaining people that belong to that world. The memories, the artifacts, the language.. all gone, never to return.

Between the Crush and the Edges lie the Rings.. a swath of lands referred to as the Shreds for the crumbling condition of the worlds passing through them. It's here where the Drifters, those of mixed blood who belong to no land, gather together in response to the rumor that Last has died. Drawn to a place of great reverence.. and no small amount of risk in its own right, to commemorate him. To share stories of great deeds, unbelievable myths, even accusations. To debate him as a mercenary, an immortal, a liar, a legend.. and even a god.

Told in a shifting narrative through many points of view, we learn of Last primarily through the eyes of those who knew him. Those who felt he helped them or theirs, those who believe him to be less than honorable, and those who may worship him. Though some stories came from his perspective as well and those were especially dear to me.

Each small tale is a gift of sight, told with the passion and often fondness of those who I dare say, considered him a friend. There's a great deal of love for him in their words and so I found it easy to love him too, very early on. There were moments of great kindness, loyalty, deep pits of despair, and sometimes even regret for his attempts to aid those who he came across.

To a degree, we do get to know some of those who knew him. Through their recollections, we learn their motivations and how his actions influenced their lives. Our time with each of them is brief, but it isn't really about them. This is the story of Last.. and honestly within just a few pages, he was the purpose for reading. I waited eagerly for each glimpse of him, each appearance, each choice he made.. and always seemingly with the intent to better someone's circumstance.

There is one scene that I was particularly fond of.. because it felt like I stumbled across a secret. A place called. Quinendeniua, where he went to make a trade. A gift of memories for her, in exchange for the gift of forgetfulness for himself. A place where he and the person he hoped to aid.. had to "move as one." They literally had to move as one in dance, to make this happen.. and a song sprung to mind.. a handful of lyrics. 'Hotel California'.. where "some dance to remember and some dance to forget."

I don't know that it was an intentional reference, but I loved it all the same. It really set the mood for me.

Each world was wildly different from each other. Each had its own special culture and many of them bore some kind of magic exclusive to them, that would exist only as long as they did. I thoroughly enjoyed learning of them, learning of the people, and all the amazing things that passed through Driftwood before succumbing to their end.

Initially, the first couple of pov shifts felt unclear, but beyond the opening pages that never occurred again. Actually, this is easily one of my favorite reads this year and I had no idea it would be. I thought it a quaint sounding story with an interesting premise, but my hopes could not have readied me for what it really was.. an absolutely stellar tale.. and I desperately hope there will be more.

Certainly, I have my own opinion about what happened to Last. I wonder what yours will be..

Read it and see...

In Driftwood, Brennan creates something akin to a mythology for an imagined world (or worlds - it's complicated!)

We are invited to visit a derelict amphitheatre amidst the ruins of a lost civilisation. Here, over one night, the life of a man named Last will commemorated. Known to all, yet a mystery to all, Last is more an article of faith than a person: elusive yet ever present, he's even regarded as a god by some and many of the stories about him which we will hear are full of praise. Yet others have come to contest them, to offer harsher interpretations.

During the course of that night we'll be invited to hear for ourselves. We forma judgement. We may just be here for the stories and the company. Regardless, we'll learn about Driftwood and the worlds that comprise it. It is certainly an odd construct, 'Patchwork of world fragments, illogic made concrete'. Worlds - universes? - that have suffered their own foretold apocalypses somehow survive in a decaying state, and come out of a strange mist to contact Driftwood. Starting, more or less intact, on the outer edge, they are pushed further inward by new worlds arriving behind them. So the place evolves as a kind of plate tectonics of worlds, the surviving fragments shrinking until what was once an entire world may be reduced to a valley or a few streets or a cellar - until eventually they are destroyed in the centre, in the singularity called Crush.

Yet so long as they do exist, these vestiges retain their identity as worlds, with their own physical laws, their own magics and sciences. So for example you had best not be left in that amphitheatre at dawn or you will come to no good - but in a neighbouring worked a few hundred meters away, you will be fine.

Trying to survive as long as they can, the inhabitants of the different worlds travel and trade with each other and guides are sorely needed.

The man called Last is one such guide. He's seen by many as the key to Driftwood, and perhaps their salvation from it. Surely he is one who has lived many lives, who understands many things? Surely he understands what is happening - and how to escape it?

Across these stories we see Last sought out to provide advice or protection. We see him try to hide from all this seeking: cornered, he will reluctantly assist but there is a sense of burden, that he's being pressed to offer more than he can bear. All those religions, all those sciences, those kings and emperors trying to maintain their customs, their rituals, their superiority in a world that's being ground down, they all want support, advice, solutions. Their suns are dimming, the stars their myths depend on winking out, their sacred sites are fading away. Often the outcome of the story is about moving on from this, accepting the inevitable and perhaps seeing something saved - even if just a story, an echo of a trace of memory so that those lost civilisations can say, we were here too.

The composite, entropy-wracked, amalgam that is Driftwood makes, then, a compelling background and offers a lot of scope for stories - presented here as uncertain, contradictory, collected, containing and referring to older and older layers that nobody really understands but which are still treasured. I was reminded of M John Harrison's Viriconium cycle which has something of the same atmosphere of a world wound down - I wouldn't be surprised if that place is crunching into the edge of Driftwood and just hasn't realised it yet.

A collection of simple stories, each self-contained but building into a cycle that is more than the sum of its parts, Driftwood is a fascinating and rewarding creation, conveyed in prose that can range from the solemn to the bitter to the darkly humorous but is never less than engaging. Brennan is at home sketching the linguistics of a world, bringing alive a marketplace ('...a thousand spices, each one distinct on the tongue. Aromatic flowers that danced in the gentle air, their seeds spreading I the ceaseless light. Serpents doxing in the warmth, sold as pets, as sacrifices, as food...') or imaging its complex religious life as she is evoking the long-lived, continually reborn bar, Spit in the Crush's Eye or describing with great flair the adventurers who brought the balloon to Driftwood and sought to map it - undermining the solemnity of purpose expected in a fantasy novel by saying they did it simply because it seemed a fun thing to do. Everyone might be doomed, swirling away into the pit, but there are lives to live and people here to live them. Finding a calm place between denial of the inevitable and obsession with it seems to be key - in Driftwood as in our own world(s).

A relatively short book, it's best read in one go, letting the story engulf you and carry you along.

When worlds are hit by an apocalypse and go into their final state before desintegrating, their remaining fragments enter the world of Driftwood through the Mists and go through several stages slowly fading away until they finally disappear in a zone called the Crush. People on neighboring worlds change borders like nothing, each fragment with its own weather, moons and suns, and inhabitants.

Does that sound strange and maybe confusing? Never mind, because it doesn't have an astronomical explanation. It's a fantasy world with an unexplained mythology and the reader simply has to accept the setting which is joyfully described but never explained.

Some people meet in an infamous bar, the "Spit in the Crush's Eye" and tell wondrous stories about a man called Last. He is well known, and rumors go around that he is immortal, the last man of his world, the only one remembering it.

"I don’t want you worshipping me; I just want you to stop this idiotic cult business of yours and let people get back to whatever lives they can manage in this cosmic joke we call Driftwood."

He works as a paid guide, but sometimes helps people for free. They are astonishing, curious and ever creative, and always entertaining. They don't get old or similar and can be read back to back.

Lately, I've read a couple of story mosaics bound together as a novel with a framing story. The Hair Carpet Weavers or Trafalgar come to mind. This novel by Marie Brennan, the author of "A Natural History of Dragons", doesn't stand back against those classics and I highly recommend reading it.

Marie Brennan’s work always deals with such fascinating concepts and Driftwood may be the most fascinating of all. The synopsis was all it took for me to rustle up a copy of the book and check it out for myself. I mean, who could possibly resist a book where fragments of countless ended worlds appear in what is called Driftwood, where they are inexorably drawn towards the Crush and they will be no more.

Yes, the world building here is absolutely tantalizing and offers the opportunity for endless small and possibly even a few full length tales about the different world fragments, but the story is really about one called Last. He is the last of his race and his world was drawn into the Crush long ago. No one knows how old he is or what his world was called, though he sometimes helps those who seek him out for advice or assistance. Now he is thought to have died or at the very least, disappeared.

The story is a series of smaller tales, brought together by Last’s disappearance and the gathering of those who mourn (or seek) him. They tell tales of how he tried to save their world fragments, or assisted kingdoms or seekers of lost things. The tales were rich little nuggets of world building, but ultimately failed to satisfy me. I admit, I often have this issue with novellas or shorter length novels like this one so please take my assessment lightly. If you often enjoy shorter reads, you’ll probably think this is fantastic, as most others do.

The synopsis implies that there will be other tales set in this world, and I would very much like to give them a try. I think the concept is brilliant, and as I said before it’s ripe for more short stories or other forms of expansion.

Driftwood is a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel by award winning author Marie Brennan

No. Actually, scratch this. This novel can’t really be categorized, and it will be hard to review with spoiling anything.

Driftwood is a place of quantum shenanigans where worlds, and their last survivors, wind up after their respective apocalypses. Time crawls to a slow pace there. The different worlds revolve around themselves in circles, and slowly crash into each other, creating places of mixed cultures. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t. On the edge, you find the newest arrivals, and in the center, well, time might be slow, but all these worlds are slowly being pulled into their final destination, the « crush ». There is a Chiron like character, rumored the be the only one to have ever outlived the crush of his world, serving as some sort of narrator to readers, a guide to the denizens, and an upholder of the rules of this strange place.

This book is difficult to review and can’t be categorized as fantasy, because we don’t follow a team of adventurers in a quest to save themselves from oblivion. It is clearly stated that this can’t be done, The story is told from the point of view of many of the inhabitants, weaving a tapestry allowing us to understand the place and its rules.

Imagination run abounds and, even if it isn’t an humorous title as such, one can be reminded of Sir Terry Pratchett at times. And, actually, maybe Discworld is there somewhere on the edge.

Driftwood seems to be a world building exercise, and a great one at that as, in the end, many stories could be told in this strange universe Marie Brennan has created there. The book is fairly short, so I can’t imagine the author being finished with it.

Thanks to the aptly named Tachyon publications and Netgalley for the ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.

This book was reviewed by me for American Library Association's Booklist. As a result, my review for Booklist is linked below.

https://lynns-books.com/2020/08/10/driftwood-by-marie-brennan/
My TL:DR Five Word Review: My oh my. How unusual.

What a strange and strangely unique story this was. On the face of it, it’s a world with different countries colliding together and then shrinking before disappearing from existence completely. A story brought together by different inhabitants from all those countries recounting their own stories, all centering around one particular character, a character called Last who is known simply because he’s been around longer than anyone else. It’s an odd concept, this group of people sitting around recounting their own tales, it feels like a meeting of strangers at a funeral all sharing stories of the deceased, which is also kind of fitting when you consider that each of the worlds here are about to pop out of existence. And, at the same time as being a totally fictional place cram packed with imaginative and quirky details this can also be taken as an allegory, maybe of the history of the world or perhaps a look at disappearing civilisations. It’s not as though we haven’t discovered our share of civilisations that have become extinct and it’s a fascinating part of the world’s history and this particular book takes a look at the way stories are shared and passed down from one generation on to the next until finally they’re so fundamentally changed or parts of them completely forgotten that that particular time and place is eventually lost to us.

So, this story really highlights the way we tell our stories. Short story collections don’t usually work for me but this one did and that’s because it’s not a typical anthology, it’s a complete story told by a number of different people and in that respect it works very well. This is a world that contains multiple worlds, it’s like a collection of all the disappeared civilisations, an imagining that brings them together, jostling for position, almost like flotsam bobbing randomly upon the waves before being sucked into a vortex.

The writing is good, it’s crisp and there is no wastage. To be honest it surprised me that it pulled me into the story because it isn’t really character focused (although Last is the main thread throughout) and I do like my stories to be character led. It’s difficult to get to grips with the characters when they’re discovered in this way and yet I find myself in the strange position of liking Last and in fact I think he could totally be the star of his own show if the author decided to tell his story.

In terms of world building. Well, I had no problem picking this one up and running with it. It’s like if you imagine all the fairy tales ever told belonging to one world, like the Neverending Story, if you like, they’ve all come together for their last gasp before blinking out of existence. And like the Neverending Story there is no shortage of worlds and people – they’re not deeply dwelled upon but they are quite fascinating and sketched in a way that is entertaining and curious all at once.

In terms of criticisms. Well, I can imagine that this might not appeal to everyone in fact I’m the first to confess that when I started this I had that horrible sinking feeling that it simply wasn’t going to be my cup of tea. It certainly doesn’t follow a traditional format and in some respects it feels like a precursor to something else – I certainly hope so. It’s not a swords and sorcery style story, in fact it’s really not a traditionally told story at all – but I find that it worked for me on this particular occasion and even more so because of the style, creativity and ability to make me ponder. I like a good ponder.

Overall, I’d give this 4 out of 5 stars

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this fantasy eARC from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I love Marie Brennan and Tachyon Publications so I was excited to get this and it is awesome.

Have ye ever heard about the end of the world?  Well Driftwood is the purgatory where worlds hang out just before they end forever.  Yer world slowly starts disappearing before eventually being engulfed by the Crush.  Driftwood itself is a collection of the last pieces and parts of a variety of worlds slowly being consumed and the people who inhabit them.

As the author says on her website:

"Driftwood is inherently a place of fragments, the large, coherent structure of a novel felt like fundamentally the wrong approach to storytelling in that setting.  But there’s a way around that. Call it a fixup if you want — a book assembled out of pre-existing shorter material — or a mosaic novel, with the story being told through many voices and many sub-tales . . . It’s made up of the short stories I’ve written already, plus a novelette-length tale that’s new, and it’s all stitched together with a frame that gives context and greater meaning to the pieces within it.  Which makes the text kind of like Driftwood itself.'

The novel's interconnected short story format was a little confusing at first cause ye be tossed right in.  I quickly became fascinated by Driftwood.  There is a character, Last, who is the frame holding the stories together.  Last's world is long gone but somehow he didn't go with it.  He passes his time being a translator and guide.  His presence is felt all over Driftwood and he seems to be the only constant.  He is a mystery with no good answers but lots of speculation.

I loved the world building, the different people, how the economies worked, the magic elements, and the mixing of cultures.  The short story format was tantalizing and always left me wanting more.  More about every world, more about the characters ye merely glimpse, and just more stories altogether.

The only real dissatisfaction came from the book ending too soon even though it was fantastic and kinda perfect in how it ended.  I could certainly read more about Driftwood and while I loved the mosaic novel, I would also love more of Last's life and backstory.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Tachyon Publications!

A superbly written story although at times quiet strange. I found it to be a mental puzzle at first to figure out just what was going on and why. Too often we are faced with novels where there is a central story with its accompanying characters that go on some quest or another together. And while this book is similar in some ways it is also completely different.
Driftwood is an interesting place, where collections of other worlds all crisscross and interconnect. It is a place where people and things and even worlds themselves go to die and seize to exist. However there is one character, Last, who seems to exist outside of the rules and never disappears. His misadventure and his own frustrations as to why he is still around is something that frequently confounds him. I found that to be completely novel and unique. This book is a collection of stories of other characters missions and realities in which they cross paths with our main protagonist. In some ways you get completely attached to him and I for one would love to see more stories about his misadventures.
All the stories are clever and unique. It has an old world reality feel to it and perhaps because of such a creative and inventive way of creating a fantastical world is just so hard to get out of your head once you are done. The story was over all too soon and so many more twists and turns could be abounded. I highly enjoyed reading it once I figured out what was going on, the author does not hold your hand and guide you through it but just throws you into the mix and forces you to fight and wade your way. I absolutely adored it!!! If you want some creativity and mental stimulation then this is the book for you.

I never read Marie Brennan before, so it was my first encounter with her writing-style. Let's say I don't regret it!

First, let me tell you: it's quite hard to write about this book. What to say, what not to say, how to explain, what could be a spoiler, what is not, how to express what I felt reading it. I'll try as best I can.

I had a hard time in the beginning because it is quite confusing: we enter the book in medias res, not knowing anything about the characters and the world. There are some hard names to pronounce - except for Last's -, it's hard to know when a name is for a world or for a person, hard to know where we are, who is who, what is going on.
But I feel like it is intentional: the reader is confused just like the new comers in Driftwood are confused. We get to experience what they live through when they arrive in this strange new place. Moreover, after the first chapter briefly introducing Last, the reader encounters different narrators: they might be a way to show the diversity of Driftwood.

Last is the main character but he is only the narrator for a short time - snippets of the first chapter actually. After this, in the book, he becomes a kind of myth for some, for others a man they met and lived something with. Either way, they feel the need to tell or to listen to what happened to honor and/or remember him. Because Last disappeared, and no one knows what he became.

Last is a mystery for others and for himself: he doesn't know why he's still here, why he didn't know the same fate as everyone else. He clearly suffers from the situation and from the way people regard him. Nobody really knows anything about him, and the reader doesn't get much from the short time they spent in his head. I really would like more from this character!

How can I tell you about Driftwood without saying too much? If you want to enter blind, you'll be lost. If you read the synopsis, you might still be lost. But "there is grace in being lost".
This world is strange, terrible, and beautiful at the same. The whole concept is both poetic and horrible. I don't want to say too much, but if you read the synopsis, you know what the novel is about, and so you can guess why it can be sad.

This book is both beautiful and awful, both inspiring and depressing. Everything comes to an end one day and it is heartbreaking. This novel also emphasizes the need to remember and to keep cultures and traditions alive. They live as long as someone remembers.

I spoke earlier about strange names for people and worlds: the reader gets to know different cultures and different people throughout the novel. It is fascinating to imagine the different worlds, the streets of Driftwood, the borders, the different architectures, the different languages: it feels like Babel sometimes. I loved that there are places where some rituals feel like magic, where things are possible as long as the place is still in Driftwood. It felt magical, eerie, and I wanted to stay longer.


When the book ended - on yet another heartbreaking but beautiful scene -, I just wanted more. If another book comes out related to this world, I'll read it for sure!

Similar to One Thousand and One Nights, Driftwood tells its main tale through the aid of several short stories themed after the main character of Last. Last, who has lived for longer than anyone remembers or knows, while the rest of the worlds slowly disintegrate until they reach the Crush at the center of Driftwood and cease to exist.

As a whole, Driftwood is the sum of a lovely set that touches on our emotions in different ways. There is, throughout, a theme of friendship and bonding that spans along different years by way of the lead. And as the stories are read, we are reminded again and again that everything, eventually, comes to an end—yet there is no reason for one to dwell on that rather than attempt to make the best of the time that is left, live it, enjoy it, and be joyful. It's a takeaway worth keeping no matter the times.

As a reader, I have preferences, and one of them is my desire and enjoyment in getting to know characters and seeing them grow. That's not always easy to do when shorts are used rather than a novel, which is why I don't tend to read them too often. Therefore, it did lack that broadening of self that I want to see in a full cast.

However, as it is, there's also the advantage that a lot of ground was covered throughout the book and the reader gets to experience some of the different cultures and worlds that inhabit Driftwood. And these are fairly different and inventive. Marie Brennan does not lack imagination. With every story, there's something to learn about the people and places we read about, and the original Quinendeniua—or, The Court of Memory—is the little gem that I take with me moving forward.

The entire structure of Driftwood and its workings is not only well drafted and detailed, but I felt the sadness, hopelessness and sorrow that so many of these people feel at the fact that places eventually come to their end, and so do the people that belonged to them. It puts one in the place of Last while reading, thinking of what it must be like to exist as he has—to see so many that he cared for lost and gone, but remain, eventually alone and needing to start again.

There's heart of this book lies in its sentiment.

Te only unambiguous thing about this book is how much I loved it. Is Last dead? What is he? How does Driftwood work? Is this a novel or a collection of connected short stories? Unclear. All of it.

But that doesn't really matter, because the focus on details creates a world at eye level. No one knows or cares what's happening in the next Shred over, not even the reader. What the reader cares about is what's happening in the moment.

My full review can be found on my blog.

Not to be splitting any literary hairs here, but Driftwood is not really a novel. It’s a series of short stories connected by the setting and the recurring character of Last. Some of the stories are in fact just vignettes, focused solely on worldbuilding and showcasing characters as specimens of a particular culture; some of the other are more robust, having a discernible plot and sometimes even clear evidence of character development within its bounds. There are big and little individual and social dramas, stories of sacrifice and discovery, various religions and all that’s in between. Scarcely any science at all, which is baffling only at the first sight. For as you enter deeper into Driftwood you start to realize that the whole concept is an elaborate impression of our world’s diminishing cultural diversity. That’s my take on it, at least. To my jaundiced eye, the book revolves predominantly around the highly abstract concept of Driftwood itself – a landfill of broken worlds, floating purposelessly and inevitably through mists toward their crushing demise. We get impressions of different cultures and beliefs, alive in one moment and dead in the next, as parts of their worlds are inexorably consumed by the ceaseless grind of entropy.

Driftwood is clearly a fruit of intellectual labor and love. Brennan kept coming back to the idea of decaying worlds, of the unexplored bond between material and immaterial culture, of the twin processes of social remembering and forgetting, steeping it all in the anthropological concepts of cultural fringes, acculturation, and cultural amalgamation. It’s a laudable effort, and the results are intriguing, to say the least. We can see a staggering variety of cultures and peoples, all afflicted by the realization that their end is near.

And don’t get me wrong, the portrayal of a quiet pan-apocalypse that at the same time remains a timely if somewhat over-the-top allegory of globalization is a very ambitious undertaking. The main problem with such a theoretical approach, however, is that while Brennan has admirably honed her writing skills, and the narrative in Driftwood flows smoothly, evoking images and impressions with laudable ease and imagination, the whole endeavor remains just a mind game, a dry if imaginative thought exercise – bereft of life and emotion. A good example of that can be found in the main character of Last, who as a multilingual guide and intermediary between cultures and peoples was designed as the book’s source of emotional resonance and metaphorical glue, binding the stories together into a loose, impressionistic mosaic. And yet, despite his constant presence (or absence) which drives the disparate plots and activities of all the stories, Last himself remains flat and lifeless, purposefully enigmatic to the end. Simply put, there is no character in this book that I cared for or even liked enough to remember their name.

And that’s the main problem of Driftwood, in my opinion. It’s like a well-written travelogue, or your average nature program – full of pretty pictures, professionally made, mildly entertaining, but in the end utterly forgettable. Beings are born, they suffer, they experience moments of joy, they have children, they die. They may have feathers, or blue skin, or fur, or crests on their heads. They speak different languages, believe in different deities, bring with them different memories of the past. But in the end, one story blurs into another, and our unwilling, taciturn and somewhat desensitized guide doesn’t help with engendering a feeling of empathy in the readers. There’s no meat on those bones – the intriguing main concept of Driftwood as a place of inevitable cultural clash and decay is not buttressed by a plot or realistic characters, remaining till the end in the area of an ambitious yet not entirely successful thought experiment, an interesting but not engrossing intellectual play.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks!

Wildly creative. This book was a quick read that nonetheless packs a punch. Featuring several worlds on the brink of destruction, and one man who simply cannot die, Driftwood is a collection of stories that build upon one another to evoke a simultaneously depressing and hopeful atmosphere.

The beginning was a little bit confusing—overwhelming with the many myriad worlds and races introduced rapidly. But I think the book then orientates the reader well into the rest of the story, gradually easing them into accepting the concept of several dying worlds being mashed together into one big messy patchwork.

I haven't read anything like this before, and it's certainly made me keen to check out Brennan's other works.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tachyon Publications for an ARC of this book.

"What was there to fear in death? Death was just an end, and ends were good. They might hurt you, but then they stopped."

In order to get the most out of Driftwood, a reader must arm themselves ahead of time. Archeologists’ tools - brushes, trowels, and picks - are recommended. This, you see, is not merely a book… but an artefact of another world. Driftwood immerses the reader within its ever-shifting borders. It demands that the reader explore and discover, content in its own ergodicity without crossing the line into onanism. The constant press of the new and novel, the erasure of history and culture, and the preservation of individual identity within that atmosphere is explored with a subtle, deft hand. This is less a novel than it is a glimpse into a distant, alien future that might have been.

The world - or rather worlds - of Driftwood are an ever-present reminder that time waits for no one. Driftwood is the shore where worlds wash up to die. At the edges, life can more or less continue on as normal. When worlds have only recently ended, they’re able to maintain much of their history… for a time. As new lands fall and wash up from the Mists and into Driftwood, their weight begins to push others inward. Everything compacts in on itself, slowly and inexorably being pushed into the Crush, where everything ends once and for all.

"Life is different in the Shreds. Out on the very edges of Driftwood, places like Kakt, a determined person can live her whole life pretending her home is still its own world. A little farther in, when things have gotten smaller and you’re not by the Mist anymore, you start thinking of your world as a country; you learn about your neighbors, trade with them, set up embassies in their territory. But in the Shreds, there’s no ignoring the weirdnesses of Driftwood, the way it’s summer on one street and winter on another, day here and night there, obedient to your laws of reality in your own ghetto, but operating by a totally different set of rules three houses down. Don’t ask how it works. It’s Driftwood. Patchwork of world fragments, illogic made concrete. It just is, and you learn to live with it."

Each of the short vignettes presented in the novel explores a different facet of preservation. Very few go gladly unto their deaths; most are desperate to grasp at the smallest chance that they might regain who they were before Driftwood eroded away at their home and culture. They’ve lost their land, their temples, and sometimes even their own names. They have not only been destroyed, but also replaced - they have been ground away by the new worlds appearing at the edges, forced into extinction by new world, new people, and new cultures. They have grown old and forgetful. Their identity has been diluted until it became no longer recognizable as their own.

The many featured narrators are gathered together in an amphitheater located in a small Shred of a world, itself a microcosm of Driftwood at large. “The amphitheater has been abandoned for ages, and for good reason. Any living creature that remains within its truncated bowl when that world’s sun rises dies . . . or disappears and is never seen again, which amounts to the same thing.” While the amphitheater exists at a much smaller scale, it represents the same sort of cyclical renewal-destruction process exhibited in Driftwood as a whole. Each dawn is a destruction of any who remain within its boundaries, just as the arrival of a new world to Driftwood spells the end of an existing one.

One person in Driftwood exists outside of this basic law of creation and Crush. Known only as Last, he is the only remaining survivor of his world. His people and land disappeared into the Crush long ago; unlike other one-bloods who never mixed with other races of Driftwood, Last managed to avoid disappearing alongside his home. Each of the narrators describe one small facet of Last’s story. He brings them hope, heartache, and ruin in turns. Through this lens, they unveil Last’s own struggle with immortality.

Last is deeply, deeply alone. While he finds small bits and pieces of meaning and identity through his role as a guide to those who are lost, he nevertheless faces an internal battle not dissimilar to the physical world’s. He is burdened not by the future, but by his own past. Memories of his people have long ago ceased to be a comfort; now, they weigh him down and press him in just as the new worlds push and jostle the older ones. Last struggles to remain in the present as he watches countries come and go. Each one that succumbs to the Crush is yet another weight on his soul. He struggles to maintain close friendships, keeping others at arms-length by keeping to his contracted role as a helper.

“You’re the only one who remembers,” Noirin said. His world, and countless others that had come and gone. “If you forget . . . then they’re dead, even if you live.”

“Maybe I want that,” he said harshly, cutting across the steady rise and fall of the music.

“For now. But not forever. There will come a time when you regret the loss of those memories. And who will remember them for you then?”


While Last’s fate is ambiguous, what he desires most becomes clearer and clearer throughout the course of each story. This culminates in the final, the last, story in the novel. This one is told from Last’s perspective, focused on a small, tiny farm that appeared at the edge of the Mist. Due to its diminutive size, it was commonly held that Paggarat would disappear long before it ever reached the Crush. However, its two inhabitants held on, smiling, until the very end. To them, what mattered existed in the moment. The connection and love between the two of them allowed them to smile even in the face of annihilation. Connection: the one thing that Last both seeks out and rejects in the same breath.

These conflicting desires as they exist alongside the destruction and renewal are what sets Bennan’s novel apart. Driftwood will haunt you long after you’ve set it down. Brennan has crafted a gorgeous, poignant apocalypse where getting a second chance doesn’t always mean getting a new life. Each of the diaspora she’s depicted are richly imagined, complex, and compelling. I cannot recommend it enough.