Pallas

Lisa Kuznak's asteroid of Folk Horror

I buy books. A lot of them. My Kindle shows 78 downloaded and unread. I also buy a lot of hardcovers. I love going to small independent bookstores and finding a copy of one of my favorite novels in hardcover so I can add it to my library. Most of all I like buying your book, that is I like supporting independent writers, philosophers, and social commentators, that are outside the traditional publishing establishment. This habit of mine comes out of growing up going to local punk and goth shows in California where I used to spend what little money, I had buying Indy albums, t-shirts, and stickers, supporting my favorite local bands and venues.

So, if your work gets my attention. If your Substack interests me, I will buy your book. I think that spending less than I would at Starbucks to support an independent author is more than worth it. If I was wealthy, I would invest money in supporting the arts, sponsoring a prize, and maybe even funding a publishing platform for work that I appreciate. But unfortunately, being far from wealthy, my occasional Kindle purchase will have to do.

Now I have to confess. Just because I buy your novel doesn’t mean I will read it. Sorry, between my full-time career, being a husband, and a father, and working on my writing, I just don’t have a lot of time. Right now, I have Brideshead Revisited, Swann’s Way, The Magic Mountain, Gravity’s Rainbow, and Infinite Jest to finish before the year is through. On top of that, I’m a mood reader, I get into strange moods that force me to read novels outside my plan. Like two days ago I was in a strange mood and wanted to immerse myself in Scandinavian Noir so now I’m two Harry Hole Novels into that bleak, alcoholic, detective series.

But now and then I come across a writer that catches my attention. Usually a combination of online presence, topics of conversation, and subject of their work. The most recent case is Lisa Kuznak and her debut novel Pallas. Kuznak is a regular Substack commentator and an independent writer who seems to cross paths with several other characters I know in this scene, so when she recommended her novel a while back I immediately bought it and set it aside for a day when my mood turned towards science fiction. That happened to be a few days ago, so I started it up and found myself captivated by it. A truly enjoyable bit of sci-fi that embraces vintage pulp tradition while at the same time using contemporary writing and even a bit of stylistic experimentation.

Lisa Kuznak’s debut novel Pallas is a traditional bit of science fiction that takes its inspiration from the weird and horror strains found in classic pulp sci-fi and 80’s science horror films. It pleasantly reminded me of the vibes out of the more classic Star Trek episodes which pushed the line between straight sci-fi and Twilight Zone weirdness, yet Pallas never crosses the line into supernatural horror, it remains firmly planted in the scientific. One way I described it to myself was that I was reading one of the Away Mission Star Trek episodes, the ones set on a strange planet where nothing is as it seems but set in a world more akin to William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

Pallas, in case you didn’t know is the name of 2 Pallas the second-largest protoplanet asteroid in the belt. Discovered in the 19th century and is difficult to study due to its eccentric orbit making it hard to approach by spacecraft. And of course, it’s on Pallas that the main character, Kylan Bence, a long-haul corporate space trucker, has to land his malfunctioning ship.

When the novel starts, Kylan has accepted his fate. The corporation he works for will not come to his rescue. His life, the old ship, and his cargo are worth less than a rescue and salvage operation would cost. So, he sets his distress signal to be monitored by his AI copilot and awaits his imminent death due to thirst and starvation once his supplies run out. But, someone on Pallas responds to the signal. A strange response from the abandoned mining colony that hasn’t been in contact for over one hundred years.

Now he has a chance at surviving, so Kylan suits up and makes his way to the massive dome of the abandoned mining colony. He expects it to be a derelict station, an abandoned place where he might be able to salvage equipment or supplies to keep him alive for a while longer and maybe entice the corporation to come to rescue him. Instead, he finds himself walking into an ecological paradise. Not only is Pallas not abandoned but it’s thriving. The mining colony is now a strange biodome with grass, houses, plants, fields, fruit, and a population of humans that must be the descendants of the original colonists from over a hundred years ago.

At this point Pallas turns from a straight sci-fi novel and embraces the influence of Folk Horror, it becomes a sort of Midsommer in space. Kylan goes from imminent starvation and death in his stranded space truck to a bucolic fertile paradise of beautiful women, friendly men, and plenty of great food. He is escorted around the colony by the beautiful Thalie, wined and dined by the jubilant colonists eager to learn about the outside world, and intrigued by the meek and mysterious Sarah, the woman who first responded to his distress call.

Of course, it doesn’t take long for things to start falling apart. In genre tradition, not everything is as it seems, there is more to Pallas than a sort of asteroid Amish paradise. The machinations of the council, strange, hooded figures whose bodies seem to be decaying, begin to affect the colonists, who themselves it quickly becomes clear to the reader aren’t exactly what they seem, maybe not even human at all. Pallas descends into a chaotic catastrophe of violence, murder, terror, disease, and alien biology, which leads Kaylan and his only ally Sarah down to the depths of the asteroid colonies' abandoned mines, where the truth of what happened to the original colonist is revealed.

Pallas is a great bit of Friday evening science fiction. Kuznak nails this debut, tackling traditional genre tropes by writing a tight novel using contemporary middle-brow prose that is often elevated by her experimentation with style and perspective. This is intelligent, well-written, independent pulp science fiction, updated and done well. She has earned her place on my bookshelf next to a few other great Indy writers like Schuyler Hernstrom who take their love of classical science fiction and fantasy and transmute it into relevant contemporary fiction. It was Hernstrom’s novella Mortu and Kyrus in the White City that came to mind while reading Pallas. It’s clear that Lisa Kuznak is well educated in Vance, Wolfe, and PKD, but also well-read when it comes to literary works such as Pynchon, Delillo, and McCarthy.

Pick up Pallas, a debut worth reading, one that makes me excited and hopeful that Lisa continues to write and hopefully push the literary envelope away from genre tropes and expand her work into original territories.