The Raw Shark Texts (2007) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Eric Sanderson: The main character of the story. After waking up in a house he doesn't recognize, he receives pre-written letters in the mail from his old self, which he refers to as the First Eric Sanderson. Initially pushing these letters off to the side, it isn't until the events of his previous life catch up him that he embarks on the journey to uncover the truth.
• Scout: A young woman involved with the Un-Space Exploration committee. She rescues Eric from his second encounter with the Ludovician and knows a lot about un-space and conceptual fish. Any many ways she resembles Clio Aames, Eric's former love.
• The First Eric Sanderson: Throughout the book, Eric Sanderson refers to him past self as almost being a completely different character in the book due to the fact that his former memories are never acquired. We only meet the first Eric through stories from the Light Bulb Fragment (a series of codes revealing memories of his vacation in the Greek islands) and his advice, which helps teach the second Eric tips and tricks for staying safe and out of sight on his journey.
• Clio Aames: Eric Sanderson's girlfriend; she is revealed only in the text through various letters and fragments. She appeared to have drowned during their vacation on the Greek islands which is what sent the first Eric Sanderson looking for the ludovician to preserve the memories of her.
• Ian the Cat: As one of two cat's owned by the first Eric and Clio, he appears one day on the Second Eric Sanderson's window sill and later becomes his traveling companion. It is never told what happened to the second cat, Gavin.
• Dr. Trey Fidorous: The man Eric sets out on his journey to find. He is an expert on conceptual fish. He makes his laboratory home deep in un-space. At first, he is reluctant to help Eric, but eventually warms up to him and creates the conceptual boat, the Orpheus.
• Mycroft Ward: One of the antagonists of the story. During the time of the novel, Mycroft Ward is an immense internet database that controls hundreds of "Mycrofts" world wide.
• Dr. Randle: A retired doctor, presumably of psychology. She is the first contact Eric Sanderson has after the death of The First Eric Sanderson. She is convinced that Eric has a dissociative condition because his symptoms are similar to that of a dissociative condition, though some of them do not fit at all. For the first few months of the book, Eric Sanderson and Dr. Randle meet regularly.
• Mr. Nobody: A man who identifies himself as an employee of Mycroft Ward. He contacts Eric Sanderson in hopes of capturing him.
• Aunty Ruth: The owner of the Willows hotel, where Eric stays during a rainstorm. Though she is not actually the aunt of any of the guests, the guests generally use this term of endearment.

Quotes edit see section history

• “The view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view.”

  Eric Sanderson

• “Geniuses don't go mad. That's what people don't understand. They go out so far out that the water is like glass and they can see for miles and they can see so much, and in ways people have never seen before. They go out over such depths, down down down and down, and some of them get taken. Something rushes up out of their thoughts, from the insides of their own heads and through the act of looking and thinking itself - because the deep blue is in their too, do you understand? And it takes them.”

  Mr. Nobody

• “I had no idea where I was...... Against all that phisycal panic it was still a small secondary concern, a minor oddity at the corner of things.”

• “She made the air feel doomly, faintly radioactive. You half expected your ears to pop.”

• “Having almost everything to ask often means there's NOTHING you can ask- no single question which, if asked before all the others, won't seem like a ridiculous place to start.”

• “Empty spaces, barriers, caution and willpower, this was the game I'd been born into. Th etrick, as Randle suggested, would be in knowing which barriers could be kicked open for progress and which were defensive, structural. Which ones were actually shoring everything else up.”

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• The truth is, stillness is an idea, a dream. It's the thought of friendly, welcoming lights still shining in all the places we've been forced to abandon.

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• It isn't just the past we remember, it's the future too. Fifty per cent of memory is devoted not to what has already happened, but to what will happen next.

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• 'Geniuses don't go mad,' he said. 'That's what people don't understand. They get out so far out that the water is like glass and they can see for

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• I think there's still a small block of original quiet that exists in the world. 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. - a last natural wilderness, time's shrinking little Antarctica.

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• all the hopes and dreams and ambitions which make up any human life - we remember what we did and also what we will do.

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• The word connects the visible trace with the invisible thing, the absent thing, the thing that is desired or feared, like a frail emergency bridge flung over an abyss.

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• What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get into the habit of thinking, this is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is a much darker and deeper place than this, and much of it is occupied by jellyfish and things.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Naxos, Greece

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Steven Hall (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Arthur C. Clarke Award (Finalist, 2008)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 823.92

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary