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Cake day: March 3rd, 2024

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  • A Void’s plot follows a group of individuals looking for a missing companion, Anton Vowl. It is in part a parody of noir and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and a grim conclusion. On many occasions it implicitly talks about its own lipogrammatic limitation, highlighting its unusual syntax. A Void’s protagonists finally work out which symbol is missing, but find it a hazardous topic to discuss, as any who try to bypass this story’s constraint risk fatal injury. Philip Howard, writing a lipogrammatic appraisal of A Void in his column Lost Words, said “This is a story chock-full of plots and sub-plots, of loops within loops, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an opportunity to display his customary virtuosity as an avant-gardist magician, acrobat and clown.”

    I also find it funny that this paragraph from OP’s link also avoids using an individual symbol. I’m also trying to do it in my post, but it’s hard to form any thought without it. I don’t think that I could draft a full book using this constraint, and notably a book that’s so cognizant of it’s own imposing limitation and of it’s protagonists habit of fourth wall smashing.