The
Fictional World of Archives Original Novel Title: Arc d'X
Author: Steve Erickson
Publisher: New York, NY: Poseidon Press, 1993 (hardcover)
Original Novel Title: Days Between Stations
Author: Steve Erickson
Publisher: New York, NY: Poseidon Press, 1985
Original Novel Title: Rubicon Beach
Author: Steve Erickson
Publisher: New York, NY: Poseidon Press, 1986 (hardcover)
Bradley D. Westbrook, Manuscripts Librarian, University of California, San Diego, summarized these three novels by Steve Erickson for the ARCHIVES mailing list:
Erickson's protagonists in Rubicon Beach and Arc d'X are both "professional" archivists, albeit in institutional settings none us would recognize, for instance, post-cataclysmic L.A. (which Erickson dates somewhere around 1998, I believe). In Days Between Stations, the protagonist is not nominally an archivist, but his project surely is archival: to locate and reunite fragments an early twentieth century film magnus opus. Erickson shows little interest in the professional lives or concerns of archivists, however. I think he is more interested in questions having to do with the possession / control of information / history and the power derived from it.
The
Fictional World of Archives
Submitted by Bradley D. Westbrook, 1998.10.16. Updated 1999.03.21.