Head Full of Mountains

July 7, 2014
Crippled Crospinal was raised by thinking machines under the command of the man he thinks of as his father. When his father dies after a long illness, Crospinal is thrown out into the world, left to his own resources for the first time in his life. The world he discovers is not the one he expects; everything his father taught him, from the nature of his home to his true origin, seems to have been a farrago of lies and fantasies spun by a madman. Wandering a bizarre landscape, Crospinal will find echoes of lost family amid new dangers, and answers to questions he never knew to ask. Naïve protagonists unraveling lies to discover the truths hidden from them, revealing an entire world in the process, is a familiar spectacle, as is the kind of artificial construct Crospinal finds himself exploring; in terms of basic originality, there is not much to be found here. Where the novel stands out from its brethren is in the quality of Hayward's (Filaria) prose, and the skill with which he carefully details each scene and each character, using well-worn set pieces with an energy and splendor that blinds readers to their essential familiarity.