'When encountering the works of Richard Makin, an urgent question is raised: How does one actually read this? One of the first sentences in the book is: 'Word order is an allusive presence, a residue.' In order to understand this linguistic 'residue,' one has to alter one's perceptions about how narrative operates. Work, like Makin's other works, is allusive, elusive, solipsistic, and playful. Offering no anchor to the reader - a linear story, identifiable characters - instead, we are set adrift on a sea of words. Images and passages fade in and out, possible genres - science fiction, detective noir, autobiographical confessional - cling to the mind and then disappear just as easily. 'I have inherited the magnetized corpse of an abandoned empire, ' he says. This can be read as a passage from a speculative fiction novel or is Makin's own assessment of the state of contemporary fiction. Work is fiction as a polysemic vehicle and mise en abyme.' -The Driftless Area Review 'One of the
