The following posts include (1) "footnotes" for The Doris Piserchia Website (link at left), (2) texts-in-process that will eventually appear there, (3) texts from other websites, and (we hope) (4) stimulating discussion threads. The picture to the left is the back cover of The Spinner (book club edition), depicting a citizen of Eastland "hanging out" while Ekler the cop and Rune the idiot-superman look on.
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[This] is my personal favorite [Piserchia novel]. There are invisible rings floating through the air, and people who can see them--a recent mutation--can step through them to other worlds in other dimensions. (If the world is too far from Earth-normal, they are transformed into creatures adapted to that world.) Despite the possibilities of these worlds, things are fairly grim on Earth--social breakdown, resource depletion, a mysterious rise in the incidence of earthquakes--though most of the problems remain in the background.
In the foreground, we have Daryl, whose abilities--exceptional control of the rings and exceptional physical adaptations--extend well beyond those of the standard mutation. She also has amnesia. In the course of one of her unauthorized vacations from the school where she is being kept, she is kidnapped and sold to a team of agents whose investigation turns out to be related to the earthquakes. The problem of the earthquakes begins to converge with that of her lost past--and neither seems to make much sense. As I said, I had fun with this book. It's unrealistic, even on its own terms--the enemies Daryl faces are Keystone-Kop-level inept--but the character of the protagonist and the style of the narration make the book enjoyable.
--Dani Zweig, from Belated Reviews