Teaser Tuesday 12/11/2012: “Tears in Rain”

This month my free book from Amazon is Tears in Rain by Rosa Montero. The astute reader may recognize “tears in rain” as part of Rutger Hauer’s epic Famous Last Words in the film “Blade Runner”, appearing here as listed on Wikipedia:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die.”

Why is this book called Tears in Rain? Because it’s about replicants, of course. (In a particularly meta scene, the main character, Bruna Husky, a combat replicant turned private detective, reminisces about watching “Blade Runner” with a friend.) Unlike in “Blade Runner”, however, in this novel, replicants and humans fought a war that ended with replicants achieving full citizenship status and rights for their short lives. Which is not to say that some humans wouldn’t like to take those rights away …

She had assumed that they’d tail her and she tried to make it easy, because the tail, one of the boys who had been with the man in the vest, was not at all good. He was so clumsy that she was almost tempted to ring Lizard so he could give him a few pointers on how to tail someone without being seen.

This book was originally written in Spanish, and there are spots — particularly in the dialogue — where it’s apparent that the translator doesn’t have the best ear for how English-speakers talk. But that doesn’t really detract from the book. If anything, it’s kind of quirky and endearing, as if speech in the future has become more formal.

And, of course, here is this week’s teaser from part two of Shards, still in progress, but shaping up nicely!

Then the Tellehi said: “You know, of course, that the sorceress escaped the hall of statues? That her friends survived the fall from the cable? That they beat back and bound Daras-Drûm at the gates of Abacar?”

Kihantroh became aware that it was looking at the Tellehi with a slack-jawed stare and, with an effort, closed its mouth.

Those crazy Tellehi, what a bunch of know-it-alls …