BookOpinion

Steven Hall’s debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts, has had film rights optioned and has now had its rights sold to 20 different publishers. The book, which is filled with some unique production ideas, has received some decent reviews.

The Boston Globe writes, “The plot of Steven Hall’s debut novel The Raw Shark Texts unlocks like a Chinese puzzle box, each intriguing twist in the story leading to even greater enigmas and a wider sphere of conspiracy and risks…This is not a conventional thriller, but an experimental novel that builds on many of the devices of speculative fiction. Hall takes chances at every corner, and some of his more daring leaps of imagination will present challenges to the filmmakers who will be inevitably attracted to this story given its movie potential.” (Read more)

The novel carried so many unique printing requirements that it was sent to a special press in Italy. “He carries us along in a headlong to rush to test the very edge of what a novel actually is,” Veronique de Turenne says in an NPR podcast review.

“I wanted to write something that would work for different kinds of readers,” Hall says in an SFGate interview. “That’s part of the reason it took me so long. There’s different styles, different kinds of books in this book. The challenge was to balance it and make it a really great story.”

The SFGate summarizes the storyline:

…The basic plot goes like this: A man wakes up in a bedroom. He doesn’t know where he is or what his name is. He doesn’t remember anything. With the help of the wallet in his pocket and a note taped to the phone in the kitchen, he figures out his name is Eric Sanderson and he makes his way to a shrink who informs him that he has dissociative amnesia as a result of his girlfriend Clio Aames dying in scuba-diving accident while they were vacationing in Greece. He goes home and starts receiving letters from the first Eric Sanderson — he is the second — and learns that his memory (life?) has been eaten away by a thought shark called the Ludovician. As a result of the first Eric’s prolonged stay in a “conceptual loop” after Clio’s death, the shark has targeted Eric. It tends to focus on one person and will circle forever. Eric the second learns to ward off the shark with tactics such as taking on the identity of other people (basically memorizing their resumes and demeanors) and securing the perimeters of a room with taped loops of people speaking.

Eventually, though, Eric the second leaves his home to find people who can help rid him of the shark and restore parts of his identity. He meets a woman, Scout, who bears several striking similarities to the lost Clio, tangles with a strange figure called Mr. Nobody and eventually sets sail on the conceptual sea with Clio and the good doctor Trey Fidorous to meet the shark head-on…

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The Guardian Reviews chimes in:

…Yes, this does sound like a novel only a certain type of undergraduate could love, and the list of ultra-cool pastiches is extensive: The Matrix, Memento, Paul Auster, Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Chuck Palahniuk, and especially Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. And The Raw Shark Texts only really takes off in its last part, when Hall goes for broke and recreates Jaws - not just referencing it, but actually recreating it, plot lines, order of death, climax and everything.

There is, however, an exuberance here that keeps the self-conscious cult aspects from getting irritating. Hall acknowledges his influences directly and with enthusiasm, and his whimsy with typeface and page layout is usually to a purpose. Even the 50-page flipbook of an approaching shark late in the novel is surprisingly effective and chilling in context. And though his romantic dialogue is hackneyed, he’s an effective writer of both horror and adventure…

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In an effort to help get the book more noticed, the publishers have invested in a online marketing game at LostEnvelope. The game consists of various clues around the web, with pictures here at flickr and YouTube videos such as the blinking lights below: