The Bridge (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Iain Banks
- First Published: 1986
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Fantasy—dystopia
- Time of Work: The early 1980’s
- Setting: Edinburgh, Scotland, and various dream worlds
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction, Fantasy, Dystopian fiction
- Subjects: Dreams, 1980’s, Accidents, Scotland or Scottish people, Bridges, Amnesia
- Locales: Dreamscape, Edinburgh, Scotland
The Plot
The Bridge is a critique of a world in which limitless faith in science and instrumental reason has impoverished human life by denying all truths that cannot be accounted for in the narrow terms of science and rationality. The novel weaves together several apparently distinct narratives whose protagonists may be seen as dream-projections of a single character, who is never directly named.
At the beginning of the novel, this unnamed man lies in the wreckage of a car crash, crushed but still alive. As he loses consciousness, he slips into a bizarre dream....
[The entire page is 998 words long]
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