Review of Neo-Decadence Evangelion

I don’t summarize plots in my reviews. (Some of these tales do not contain plot). But I do offer impressions. 

This volume compliments the Neo-Decadent canon curated by Justin Isis, enlarging and enriching the aesthetic and providing a unique form of entertainment which will surprise and challenge any brave reader.

The Slug – Brendan Connell: — Predicated on a delight in horrors which are substantially human but redolent of the grave and the inner bestiality we conceal with our fig leaves. Its scalpel is the animal nature of our subconscious, the egregious waste of human capital we proliferate as a species. Snuffing the aesthetic of empathy for ultra-refined absurdity, it starts off the anthology on uneasy footing – Think trenchfoot.

Sadprince – Golnoosh Nour: — An ode to idolization, told with libidinal zest, the author’s persona intrudes, but a thin veneer of mimesis provokes splendid moments of revelation. Humans appear like pale imitations of our conceptions of what humans should be.

A Tree Rotting from the Top Down – Justin Isis: — Power in numbness, a distant narrator. Lost potential, disillusionment, the haunting specters of youth, vanished like dissolving dreams, mixing unconventional philosophies, graphic depictions of shameless behavior, and somehow radiating sincerity, the author’s candor is luminescent, his characters possess simultaneous innocence and jadedness, and the shockingly detached perspective details the travails of a family dislocated from societal expectations, susceptible to chimeric doctrines and the allure of a transitory existence. They are as ready and willing to die as they are to commune with their personal demons. As usual Isis proves master of selecting the uneasy neural pathways to explore, forcing the reader down unaccustomed lanes of subliminal ecstasy and outright psychic dissonance. So devastating as to verge on being difficult to recommend.

Yawar Jaguar – Arturo Calderon: — A critique of Youtuber/ Streamer culture perhaps, or the generic online life, which might sustain layers of pseudo-reality to a devotee. Do we each cultivate an alternate persona which is more animalistic than human? What is your spirit animal. This wildly creative slice of life is stupendous, dealing with cyberspace subjects in a way which is not sci-fi but simply a mere straining at the true threads which suspend our lives over the abyss.

The Costume – Gaurav Monga: — fashion as the meaning of life, obsession with a Pathani suit to the point of mental illness. I’m not a fashionista. I purchase clothes at Goodwill. I didn’t see the point. But I suppose it can be read as a materialist critique. The writing flows. Possibly too tame to rest easily among the viperous other offerings in this collection.

Fred is Dead – Audrey Szasz: — A masterpiece. A sadistic and twisted tale about doomed people acting out compulsive self-sabotage. Depicting an underlying subtle grist of human dignity hopelessly shattered, a despair which derives from a transcendent ethos, the relishing of pain as proof that one is alive. An agony aunt abuses her unpaid intern/ slave. There is murder. The author is uncompromising and frighteningly blunt. I immediately ordered one of her novels…

Hellenic Dropout – Colby Smith – a foray into vicious, wastoid existence. Compared to the author’s other published novella, this showcases an elevated approach. He has honed his storytelling into a vehicle for interpreting life through an unsettling descent into vice. The Hell torso here is mirrored in the next story, transposed from the narrator’s upper body to a character’s lower body’s tights. (Bosch was apparently one of the first Neo-Decadents). I detected hints of hierophilia, among other examples of things you would not discuss in your coworkers’ book club.

Baphomet’s Ballroom – LC Von Hessen: — ultimately, a mindless ramble through pop ephemera. Meme-language pasted together into a trendy porridge of hip slang with occult sausagefest decor piled into a mountain of edgelord metacommentary of Gen Z or whatever constitutes cultural significance in an age of costume art pieces and fraudulent narcissistic claptrap. A barely tolerable level of reference. Pointed, incessant and like taking a hypo of social media memoribilia. At bottom, a compilation of descriptions of vainglorious walking subhumans who define themselves through a cowardly dependence on image and who sermonize to all and sundry the tenants of their self-proclaimed supposedly revolutionary worldviews. A clever, intemperate gas bag narrator guides the reader through a museum tour of present-day obsessive egomania. Hellacious. Yet it is the prison most of us squeeingly inhabit.

Providence Spleen – James Champagne: — tangential thoughts rife with alternative culture references, the uncool put upon a pedestal. Unfocussed, belligerently evoking dreamlike discontent, but easygoing, idiosyncratic, choosing weird and inappropriately abstruse diction instead of easy or correct language, containing many intriguing comparisons, effulgent opinions and vague notions, which somehow manage to conjure nostalgic appreciation for a certain frame of mind which denies the supremacy of public opinion. Here are the undiscovered countries concealed beneath layers of banality. Bubbling over with sincerity and political incorrectness, uncomfortable, confronting countless contemporaneous topics without the dressing of plot, to take the piss out of panderers. An aimless exuberance, putting it all out there, a confession, describing how he sees the world unapologetically, with a clarity of message, and worst of all, indulging in and subjecting the reader to his excessive descriptions of taking a dump. Spectacularly indescribable but overly wordy in its own extravagant way.

The Black Zodiac – Kristine Ong Muslim: — Her work is a constant enigma. A compilation of facts, coincidences, confrontations and symbolism, congealing into an unwieldy mass of speculative splendor. I fail to ‘get’ some of the connective tissue, but it is all interesting, well-presented, elusive, alluring, undeniably decadent, not the type of writing they teach you in Creative Writing class. A sort of speculative fiction that is often relegated to small presses who fight against the prevailing tides. Unsqueamish, fervid, and easy to read.

A Night of Amethyst – Damian Murphy: — A second-person narrative, written in the form of a video game script. A slow, long, retro sonata to Decadence. Mostly alluring descriptions of quasi-surreal locales. With the author’s brilliant, approachable style, he pushes the boundary of fictive environments and forces the reader to interact and interpolate reams of mysterious information. The dark master of cozy occult fiction. His video game narratives are unparalleled. This and Monga’s contribution are the only ones lacking in pessimism. I long for more of this author’s luxurious writing.

Drink deeply and be subsumed by decadent grandeurs. The outré and the unpopular opinion. The proponents of the scattershot sublimity of a new un-genre.