Stone Junction?

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Note the "proto-web" (the prototype of a traverse web?)

" . . . .an organization known as AMO, the Alliance of Magicians 
and Outlaws, a proto-Web that tends to connect more 
by way of pay phones, mail drops and ESP. . . . " 

and

" . . . .The story traverses a map of some moral intricacy, 
sure-footed as Chandler. . . ."

Of course, that what the Chims of Chance do, isn't
it, traversing as the crow flies, not as men walk.


"The fatal temptation for a fiction writer who must accept 
the presence, often a necessity, of magic in his own work, 
is to solve difficulties of plot, character and -- more often 
than is generally suspected -- taste, by conveniently 
flourishing some prop, some ad hoc amulet or drug, that 
will just take care of each problem as it arises. Fortunately
for us here, Jim Dodge, by the terms of his calling, cannot 
indulge in that particular luxury. Magic is in fact hard and
honorable work, and cannot be deployed at whim, not without 
consequences. A good deal of Daniel Pearce's character 
growth comes by way of learning the business and earning 
the powers -- making Stone Junction a sort of magician's
 Bildungsroman -- in which teachers, more or less 
unorthodox in their methods, appear to Daniel one by one, 
each with particular skills to pass along, all linked in an
 organization known as AMO, the Alliance of Magicians 
and Outlaws, a proto-Web that tends to connect more 
by way of pay phones, mail drops and ESP than linked 
terminals, over overseen by the enigmatic, not quite 
all-powerful Volta.

Through all this meanwhile runs a second plotline -- 
a whodunit, in which Daniel must solve the uncompromisingly 
earthly question of who murdered his mother, Annalee Pearce, 
in an alleyway in Livermore, California when he was fourteen, 
complete with multiple suspects, false trails, the identity of the 
killer not revealed till the final pages. The story traverses a map 
of some moral intricacy, sure-footed as Chandler, providing
 twists as elegant as Agatha Christie, as all the while Daniel's 
education proceeds."

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
Here's Pynchon's intro to SJ. This essay should be required reading for
 any student of ATD:
  
 http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_stone.html

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