Slow River is a tense and slow-building novel of corporate espionage, physical and emotional abuse and manipulation. Lore runs away from her wealthy family after she is kidnapped and they don't pay her randsome. She spends the next years building a seperate identity and uncovering what really happened.
It was dark and painful and sexy. I liked that Lore's attraction to women was an unremarkable fact in the novel—just another part of her—which I think is bold for a novel from the 90s.

3.5 stars. I liked the alternate-view-of-the-future perspective, and I liked learning the backstories piece by piece. Sometimes I got lost in those back stories and had to reread, but generally I liked it. The ultimate romance wasn't quiet believable to me, though I saw it coming. I just didn't quite feel the chemistry. Overall though, a not-too-heavy sci-fi lesbian romance story. I think.

Interesting sci-fi, there wasn’t a lot that was sci-fi in the book and I’m not sure the sci-fi aspects were necessary for the story. It is about an incredibly rich young woman who has been kidnapped and finds herself trying to survive in the underclass. She meets up with a drug-dealing, thieving, hacking woman who helps and heals her after her kidnapping. The rich woman is gradually dragged further and further into the thieving woman’s ways. She ruins her other friend’s lives for money. The book is saying that it’s a choice to chase money and you can still survive without resorting to using everyone around you.

Harlan Ellison, that science-fiction Titan, advises would-be writers to become plumbers because he says plumbers have more positive effect on the world. Stephen King says if you are a plumber and you want to write, consider writing about the plumbing onboard an interstellar spaceship.

Which brings me, elliptically, to Slow River. First, I've loved every Nicola Griffith book I've read, and this, her second novel, is set in a near future where one or two families control vast wealth because of their tech patents (ooh, sound familiar?). The main character, Lore, is a daughter of the family that has created and monetized biological water-cleaning systems that are used by countries all over the world. Lore has every advantage money can buy as she grows up in the family business, learning the chemistry and biology of water treatment, but her family is seriously messed up. When Lore is kidnapped, and her ransom goes unpaid, she escapes her captors and goes to ground.

She lives for a time with a grifter named Spanner, becomes addicted to a souped-up version of E. She and Spanner become lovers, and the two women dive into a series of sordid money-making operations before Lore breaks free.

Lore takes a legitimate job at a water-treatment facility, where she first hides her acumen, but then helps to avert biological disaster at the plant. Meanwhile, she finally confronts the abuses of her family and finds love.

This is a big, sprawling novel that won the Nebula and the Lambda in 1995. It's a sci-fi novel far closer to, say, Jennifer Eagan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, than an Arthur C. Clark novel. It's a solid if not joyous science-fiction-y story: the chunk of information I now feel at least a passing familiarity with about algae scrubbers and the mechanics of water-treatment—not to mention the possibilities therein for mistakes and malicious actions?!—wow! I don't know if Griffith ever spent time working in a treatment plant herself, but I appreciate the depth of research and gritty detail of Lore's world.

4.5 stars

It took me awhile to get into the book, but once I got about 1/3-1/2 way through I read the rest in one go. I thought it ended kind of abruptly - everything from her finding out about her mom and Greta to the story's end did not take up much space - and could have used a little longer epilogue. But on the other hand it definitely left me with a feeling of hope for the character and her future without over-explaining everything, which was nice after reading about the griminess of her life with Spanner.

I did appreciate how the LGBT relationships were just there without comment or need for justification or excuse, especially in a book written back in 1995. There were quite a lot of sex scenes, which mildly annoyed me, but thankfully they didn't tend to drag on for too long and they did contribute to the story.

I enjoyed watching Lore's growth (illustrated well with the time jumps) from being a rather arrogant elite who didn't think about those her family affected at all to being lost to regaining her sense of self and starting to heal. Magyar was great too, and Spanner was certainly memorable. I kind of wish I knew more about Ruth and Ellen (how did she convince them to help with the PIDA anyway?) but enjoyed them as the supporting characters they were. Additionally, hovering over the whole book were themes of abuse and its effects, monopolies/class issues, and secrets/identities, which I thought were generally pretty well done.

The near-future sci-fi angle was fine, but honestly I'm not sure how much it really contributed to the story. It didn't detract, at least. There might also have been a little more information about wastewater treatment plants than is strictly necessary. But the characterization was excellent, and once I got into it the story itself is interesting and well-written.

3.5

I liked this one a lot more than I thought I would. The interplay of the 3 story timelines was well done, and I thought everything converged well at the end. My only complaint was the overly quick development of the relationship near the end, which happened too fast to be believable to me.