Blue Lard

[rich]

Howdy

finally some fiction to look forward to (albeit an early novel now
translated). sounds a bit like Coover/Pynchon hybrid

i am a bit biased, very much liking Sorokin's other works

https://www.nyrb.com/products/blue-lard

The book begins in a futuristic laboratory where genetic scientists speak
in a Joycean dialect of Russian mixed with Chinese—peppered with ample
neologisms—and work to clone famous Russian writers, who are then made to
produce texts in the style of their forebears. The goal of this
“script-process” is not the texts themselves, but the blue lard that
collects in the small of their backs as they write.

This substance is to be used to power reactors on the moon—that is, until a
sect of devout nationalists breaks in to steal the blue lard, planning to
send it back in time to an alternate version of the Soviet Union, one that
exists on the margins of a Europe conquered by a long-haired Hitler with
the ability to shoot electricity from his hands. What will come of this
blue lard? Who will finally make use of its mysterious powers?