Lost City Hydrothermal Field

Discovering this book is a bit like discovering the Lost City hydrothermal field itself, an underwater vent ecosystem featured in the James Cameron IMAX Disney movie “Aliens of the Deep”. The Lost City is hostile to life but are the conditions in which life began.

In Greiner's lonely poems and short science fiction stories, he seems like the sole poet-scientist encapsulated in his version of Deepsea Challenger, wrapped and co-mingled in technology but threatened by external environmental pressure. Often his writing seems like gifts for friends –
friends who are away. Sometimes his writing seems like memories of some trapped, ancient traveller struggling to recall their adventures in space-time. Often metaphor and buzzword intertwine to create some familiar sense of place not quite of this world but also right next to you.

There was a very, very odd moment I had when reading this book. I was about a quarter into the book and kept being reminded of some Neil Young songs from Rust Never Sleeps. The feeling of loneliness and jumping around in time and emotional juxtapositions. A few pages later the song Pocahontas is referenced and I'm left bewildered and in awe. It felt like for a moment the whole book was operating in a different dimension.