Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson
Eddie Robson has written four science fiction novels: a comedy conspiracy thriller called Tomorrow Never Knows (2015), Hearts Of Oak (2020), a weird tale of architecture, alienation and talking cats, Drunk On All Your Strange New Words (2022), a locked-room murder mystery with aliens, and The Heist of Hollow London, about which I know nothing except it has an awesome cover and is coming out in September 2025. Drunk on All Your Strange New Words was required reading for my Science Fiction Book Club, and it reminded me of how important it is to share books you love with others. This is a novel I would never have chosen to read on my own and I found it superbly snarky and well plotted.
If you visit #HappyHourWithEddie, you can share a cocktail with the author (Amaretto Sour) as he tells you more about the writing of Drunk on All Your Strange New Words. He tells us that it is set in the not-too distant future (maybe fifty or sixty years ahead of now) in New York City where climate change has decimated the landscape to the extent that parts of Manhattan are under water. Facing serious difficulties due to global heating, people have retreated into virtual reality spaces via headsets instead of engaging in the real world.
Cocktail Book Review provides a recipe for yet another cocktail (The Fitz Collins) and reviews the plot of Drunk on All Your Strange New Words. In the novel, the earth makes contact with an alien species, the Logi (LOW-gee) but lack of a common language presents a barrier. Logi communicate telepathically. As a result, earth-born translators whose neural pathways are well suited to learning the Logi language are trained to communicate with them. One of the side effects of engaging in their language is the sensation of drunkenness (thus the book’s title) including impaired sensory perception and memory loss.
Lydia, the main character of Drunk on All Your Strange New Words, serves as one of the translators working for the cultural attaché of the Logi (Fitzwilliam or Fitz as Lydia calls him). Born in Britain and trained at the London School of Thought Language (LSTL), Lydia telepathically communicates in Logisi to Fitz what human words were just said to him and then relays Logi words from their telepathic communications to the humans Fitz is speaking to. In a hilarious scene at the beginning of the story the author emphasizes just how stressful Lydia’s job can be. She is at a Manhattan theater translating Hedda Gabler for Fitzwilliam when exhaustion causes her to get a bit woozy. A near tragedy then occurs…
The interior of the Broadway theater shifts and blurs in Lydia’s vision as the curtain falls for the interval, but she keeps her mental focus long enough to finish translating the last few lines of the first act for the cultural attaché. He calls himself Fitzwilliam and sits to her immediate right in the VIP balcony. (Lydia calls him Fitz, and either he doesn’t mind or doesn’t register the difference.) Translating while listening to the dialogue is tricky but Lydia can hardly ask the actors to stop for a moment and let her catch up, and she is keen for her employer to have a seamless experience. She is proud of her ability to translate and listen simultaneously—a lot of her old classmates struggled with this aspect of the job, and tonight’s play is a perfect chance to show it off—but it’s been ninety minutes and there’s more to come (Who knew plays were so long?), and she’s dizzy and needs a break. The cultural attaché thanks Lydia for her work, she tells him it’s no problem, then she stands up, trips over her bag and falls backwards over the railing.
By this stage Lydia feels so drunk that, as she plummets towards the stalls, she barely registers that what’s happening is bad. She feels little more than sluggish surprise—Oh, I’m falling off the balcony. Oh dear—as she hears the cries of alarm from other audience members, some of whom she is about to land on.
And then she stops. Not because she has landed on anything, or anyone. She just stops.
She is upside down. She looks up at her feet.
Fitz has reached out one of his long, slender arms and caught Lydia by her ankle, his flexible fingers clamped tight around the limb. She’s heard his people are stronger than they look but until now Lydia has seen little evidence of this because the job of cultural attaché is so genteel. She always wondered if the rumors of their strength were just used by certain groups of humans to justify their own fearmongering but no, apparently not. He’s holding Lydia by one hand without straining and she knows she is not the lightest of people.
Lydia stares foolishly down at the crowd of theatergoers staring up at her and feels relieved she didn’t wear a dress tonight. [Sorry, I forgot to record the page number!]
I am not going to give anything away except to say that the plot of Drunk on All Your Strange New Words involves a murder and unfortunately, Lydia becomes the primary suspect. It doesn’t help that at the time of the murder she was in a drunken sleep, lost her glasses which could prove her whereabouts, and experiences gaps in her memory.
Not only did I enjoy reading about Lydia’s life, but I also loved reading about the futuristic world created by Eddie Robson. For instance, news stories go through something called a “truthometer” which assigns “truthiness” ratings, and you can filter your news feed if you want to keep fake news out. Lydia constantly wears a pair of glasses that record everything she sees and hears. At any time, she can virtually journey anywhere; and in one scene travels to Strawberry Fields in Central Park where she chats with a John Lennon AI.
I appreciated this clever, humorous, sometimes outlandish mix of science fiction and mystery. If you are feeling bored in this life, try the inventive world of Drunk on All Your Strange New Words. I highly recommend it!
Check Amazon for more on this book I love.
