Back in 1997 the vast VanderMeer empire that we know today was a mere collection of spores seeking to insinuate their way into the fabric of the SF&F community. Even then, however, it was exuding weirdness from every mycelium. One of the most glorious efflorescences of the Ministry of Whimsy Press was a surrealist novel called The Troika. Written by Stepan Chapman, it won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1998 and is one of the few winners of that prize that is more weird than anything written by Dick himself. It is one of the books that I choose to review in Emerald City #100.

The book is long out of print, and a new copy will set you back over $100. However, Jeff’s new ebook company, Cheeky Frawg, has just brought out an electronic edition. And yes, I have it in the store.

Update: Neil Clarke informs me that, while the book is published in conjunction with Cheeky Frawg, it is still a Ministry of Whimsy title, and these days the Ministry is an imprint of Wyrm Publishing. It is a complicated business, publishing, even at the small press level.

Beneath the glare of three purple suns, three travelers – an old Mexican woman, an automated jeep, and a brontosaurus – have trudged across a desert for hundreds of years. They do not know if the desert has an end, and if it does, what they might find there. Sometimes they come across perfectly-preserved cities, but without a single inhabitant, and never a drop of rain. Worse still, they have no memory of their lives before the desert. Only at night, in dreams, do they recall fragments of their past identities.

The Troika. There’s nothing else like it.