Reviews
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Review of The Exalted and the Abased by Damian Murphy
Several more novellas with occult-aesthetics from the master of neo-decadent novellas. It is a niche genre perhaps, but the sumptuous descriptions and elegant interior design, the descents into esoteric epiphanies, the occluded worlds steeped in reverent awe of dark forces – none of these things get old when the prose…
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Review of The Neo-Decadent Cookbook by Various
A fun companion piece to the other Decadent anthologies from Snuggly Books (though this was published by Eibonvale) featuring returning favorites: Brendan Connell, Quentin S. Crisp, Justin Isis, Damian Murphy, and several others. The short tales center around food, ingredients and people. They are rich in detail and surprising in…
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Review of Atari 2600/7800: A Visual Compendium by Bitmap Books
Makes a nice pair with the Commodore 64 volume. Bitmap Books makes immensely lavish retro video game books for readers like me, who prefer pixels to photorealism. And you get a lot of pixilation in this volume. I could complain about the book’s blocky pools of color, how the format…
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Review of Bliss Montage by Ling Ma
This surreal collection of short stories put me in mind of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, Smart Ovens for Lonely People, and Life Ceremony. It uses the same recipe of injecting everyday tone with bizarro aesthetics. This is upmarket bizarro. Genre fiction pretending to be literary fiction. A popular…
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Review of Instagrimoire//Fax Screen Sect: The Cancellation of Graham Greene, Volume 1: Tales from Orthographic Oceans, or: A Room with a View (Self-Portrait in a Concave Mirror with Interior Landscape & Key to the Scriptures) by Justin Isis
“The Ghost of Hana Kimura” is one of the finest poems I have read anywhere in a long time. These are utterly unique, rereadable, poignant statements about our times. Dissectable, dense glimpses into a mind steeped in the light of liminal “inner flame.” Landscapes of the cyber-dead, and the obsolete…
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Review of Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams
Brutal, Bloody Realism. Impressive in every way. While Williams’ old-fashioned style suits the atmosphere of this tense book, his sentences are florid in places. But the graphic depictions and tangible grit make this journey unforgettable. It reminded me of the film Wages of Fear. I mourn the millions of buffalo…
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Review of Through the Abyss: Supreme Creation Seriesby Sidney Son
The first thing you may notice about this book is that the cover is reminiscent of Andy Weir’s books. But I approve of covers that convey a book’s comp titles. The author provides a highly detailed style which coalesces into atmospheric descriptions without sacrificing a quick pace. There is a…
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Review of Stoner by John Williams
Good storytelling. A memorable picture of American life. Steinbeckian. Stoner the famer becomes Stoner the stubborn professor. We witness his heartbreaking home life and his harrowing professional life–two spheres most middle class Americans dwell in like split personalities. It has been called a perfect novel. I would like to point…
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Review of People from My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami
Hiromi Kawakami collects here a dreamlike conglomeration of semi-related characters and events from her part of town, if the title and interior clues are to be believed. The random nature of the images and events lend the collection an experimental feel. The writing is smooth and simple and unadorned. Her…
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Review of Save the Cat! Writes a Novelby Jessica Brody
There are several types of craft books. You can start with The Elements of Style to learn how to avoid many grammatical issues. You can also just use ProWriting Aid. Then there’re structure books, like this one. Finally, there’re industry books, which contain contradictory information from what you read online…
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Review of Frankissstein: A Love Storyby Jeanette Winterson
Just great, bold, immersive writing. The various perspectives sustain their storylines and characters through intense and quiet moments. Introspective, but with plenty of dense, quippy dialogue. Outrageous sex doll business planning discussions, Mary Shelley in bed with P. B. Shelley, pillow whispering poetry. Humans as monsters and monsters as humans.…
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Review of Letters of Thanks From Hellby David Vardeman
I’ve finished all of Vardeman’s published works. Now I have to resist the daily urge to search the web for new publications by this author. LoTfH is a dramatic play taking place hundreds of years ago, with historically appropriate syntax and vocabulary. But somehow, Vardeman avoids confusion and localization, modernizing…
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Review of Great Jones Street by Don DeLillo
I have read 16 Delillo novels so far. His literary cobbling definitely intrigues me. The sense of place, the weird characters saying off-the-wall things. The long, unnecessary, wandering, plotless sections of simply intriguing writing. My ranking of Delillo so far: 1. Underworld2. Americana3. Cosmopolis4. The Angel Esmeralda5. The Body Artist6.…
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Review of Palm Mall: A Vaporwave Novelby Oliver Neale
I have been searching for a ‘real’ Vaporwave novel. My Vaporwave shelf contains some works which analyze the genre and some books that taunted me with similar aesthetics, like Ballard’s retro futuristic descents into madness and Philip K. Dick’s vibrant dystopias. I came upon this 728-page Vaporwave novel with hesitation.…
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Review of A Cool Million by Nathanael West
Greasy satire of the most malicious kind. A rags to rags story about one man’s valiant pursuit of the American nightmare. A surprisingly smooth and cinematic journey through the underbelly of America, which is not an underbelly so much as a carcass here, teeming with greedy maggots. The swindles are…
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Review of Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
I needed this. More unrestrained than Kawabata. Less brutal than Mo Yan. The voice is folkloric, the storytelling all over the place but always entertaining. With beautiful language, Gao depicts a China in transition, whose government and people are full of contradictions, but also resonant with long-standing traditions, suffused with…
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Review of Later Stories by Alexander Theroux
Not short stories but novellas. While I disliked the tone of most of the stories, and much of the subject matter, I enjoyed the dollops of sophisticated prose. The companion volume, called Early Stories, is half as long and less bloated. it is a better distillation of Theroux’s capabilities and…
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Review of Two Stories by Osvaldo Lamborghini
A certain type of reader may find the book interesting. Though, it is more of a pamphlet than a book, being 35 pages, with notes and an introduction. The reader would be completely at sea without a lifeboat if it weren’t for the notes, but they constitute a translation of…
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Marked to Die: A Tribute to Mark Samuelsby Justin Isis
The Weird Tale, as a genre, plays host to stories of far more diversity than most other genres. It can combine elements of horror, literary fiction, historical fiction, humor, adventure, science fiction, and fantasy. Examples abound of Lovecraftian experiments in cosmic dread and Machen-esque descents into sub-realities, but no author…
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Review of The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
Dreams are more interesting in the midst of the fugue. Waking spoils the coherence. Analysis takes some of the fun out of them, even if it nails a few symbols. More intriguing to me are Joseph Campbell’s sort of cultural consciousness archetypes. I feel like there is a lot more…
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Review of We Love Glenda So Much and A Change of Light by Julio Cortázar
Cortázar had the face of a lion and the ability to defamiliarize the everyday. His lengthy paragraphs are more entertaining than Henry James’ because more happens, but the subtle connections between his warring ideas are often obscured by leaps in logic, incongruous character behaviors, and piquant observations. Cortázar doesn’t hold…
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Review of The Anthologist (The Paul Chowder Chronicles #1) by Nicholson Baker
Baker’s deep dive into poetry analysis and history succeeds on every level except for his audiobook narration, which is uneven, ranging from blasting your ear drums out to indecipherable murmurs. The whole book is a poetic interlude about an anthologist failing to write a poetry book introduction. The minutia of…
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Review of Trafik by Rikki Ducornet
Quirky even for Ducornet. Suffused with her characteristic charm, wit, sensuality and signature linguistic exuberance. A vivid dreamscape of “tonguefeels.” A melancholic deepening of post-atomic exotic, nebulous human-wannabes on the edge of the pendulous nostalgia-fueled singularity of an entire dissolving civilization. Memories, avatars, simulations, showerhead massages, spacey antics: both delicious…
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Review of Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
A short, atmospheric novella relating the enigmatic beauty of an unremarkable life. A quiet, heartfelt rendering of human beings intertwined in the awkward embrace of modern life in an out of the way place. I really enjoyed the setting. A well-structured short work, but less striking than a more-developed novel…
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Review of The Breast by Philip Roth
A plot worthy of Woody Allen initially turned me off, but I’m reevaluating my impression toward Roth, and this was short enough to read in one sitting. Pristine prose stylings are why I read this author. Not always polished to a high gleam, not Nabokov, but well-rhythmed, easy to read,…
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Review of Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
I am cautiously optimistic regarding Mieko Kawakami’s literary future. She is a rising star of popular Japanese fiction, but I see her writing style suffering from common traits plaguing the English translations we are getting within the past several years. It is a kind of commercial dumbing down of the…
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Review of The Green Child by Herbert Read
This bizarre novel was broken into three disparate parts, and by ‘broken,’ I mean ruined. For part one, he might merit 5/5 stars, for part 2, 2/5, and part 3, 4/5. The longest middle section is a droll account of the main character’s life story, his toppling of a dictator,…
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Review of To Hold Up the Sky by Liu Cixin
The short stories in this volume cover many topics, including concerns and ideas that also appear in The Three-Body Trilogy, but they are used in different settings. Super-string computers, hollow earth, the value of poetry, total perfect vision of time and space achieved by simulating the original Big Bang and…
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Review of The Sleep of the Righteous by Wolfgang Hilbig
My third Hilbig novel in quick succession. Whereas his others were solid blocks of interior narration, this one perfectly captures an elegiac wonderment characteristic of childhood’s hurtle through strata of growth, confusion, and sadness.The author summons reality with abundance through the distorted mirror of his character’s psyche. He is a…
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Review of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting
The most creative short story collection I have ever read. While technically belonging to the bizarro genre, this collection passes itself off as literary fiction. The author has, by now, established herself as a literary figure. It always bothers me how a slight literary polish makes all the difference between…
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Review of Tampa by Alissa Nutting
Are you a brave reader? If you read Lolita unfazed, made it through American Psycho, and graduated to Story of the Eye, maybe you’re ready for this one. But ask yourself, what do you want to get out of literature. A thrill? Shock value? There’s a multi-part series on Youtube…
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Review of Sunny, Vol. 5 (Sunny, #5) by Taiyo Matsumoto
A relaxing and contemplative series from a creator I now look forward to reading. The abandoned kids home, or orphanage, if you prefer that designation, which comprises the setting, provides a dense interplay of childish communications. The way the characters talk over one another reminds me of Robert Altman’s films.…
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Review of The Golden Ass by Apuleius
Whenever someone says Don Quixote was the first novel ever written, one-up them with this one. Same if they claim Tale of Genji was first. Other novels, poems, and fragments might claim to be the first, but none are so convincing a contender as The Golden Ass. Supposedly, other Roman…
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Review of Necromancy Cottage, Or, The Black Art of Gnawing on Bones by Rebecca Maye Holiday
Right in time for Halloween, Necromancy Cottage is a very readable and unconventional bildungsroman. The tone and atmosphere inspire a cozy kind of fright, as you might glean from the title. How many times, as a kid, did I conjure in my imagination a secluded second life on a desert…
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Review of MONKEY: New Writing From Japan (Volume 1) by Motoyuki Shibata
I have been a hug fan of this publication, having completing the original run of Monkey Business, so I was delighted to find this resurrected imprint. Nearly every issue contains writing or interviews available nowhere else featuring Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Kawakami, Mieko Kawakami, and Hideo Furukawa. If that isn’t enough…
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Review of Into the Violet Gardens by Isaac Nasri
In this very near-future s-f novel, cyborgs and cartels battle it out amid a powder keg political imbalance. The author provides prose rich with details of setting and character that easily communicates the suffering common to human experience, which constitutes the novel’s beating heart. Making use of tried-and-true thriller trappings,…
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Review of Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 4: Materia (Gunnerkrigg Court #4) by Thomas Siddell
A continually surprising series. Meshing classical myth with original ideas, this kid-friendly series of light adventures and comical mishaps often stumbles into darker territory, heady themes, and far-reaching consequences. While I long for more maturity, it is nice to see rich character development throughout each volume. The players change subtly,…
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Review of The Poems of Catullus by Catullus
Words and expressions the translator should have thought twice about using: “Treadmill,” “French poodle,” “syphilitic.” Catullus is the OG badass Roman poet. His polyamorous adventures and vicious satirical portraits amply flex his majorly ripped wit, status, and (professed) sexual prowess. Listen to him mic drop other statesmen and rapturously serenade…
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Review of U-Day (Memory Full, #1) by Rapha Ram
A desperate CEO gives the reader a taste of the morbid underbelly of the near-future society featured in this book in the prologue. In this multi-faceted work, the lens through which we perceive the world is Livvy Blunt, a girl with a modern mind, trying to squeeze the meditative regimen…
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Review of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1) by L. Frank Baum
As whimsical and intriguing as the film. As timeless and humorous and charming. As off-kilter and unique. But can it sustain the delicate balance of childish wonder, nostalgia, and creepy subtext, the Alice and Wonderland dreaminess, for a dozen books? This splendid series has spawned a recognizable aesthetic, probably due…
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Review of The Marvelous Land of Oz (Oz, #2) by L. Frank Baum
The darkly amusing saga continues in this slightly less consistent sequel to the classic children’s tale of Oz. We are back in the magical land, but without Dorothy and the frame story. Noticing quite a few differences between this and Return to Oz, the film, I can tell that they…
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Review of Tales From the Liminal by S.K. Kruse
Tales from the Liminal showcases a hearty handful of hilarious and poignant tales for every occasion, tales full of personality and pizzazz, modernistic flair and quirky humor, clever situations described with aplomb and enough literary extravagance to enlighten the most jaded reader. Equipped with charming illustrations, each easily digested episode…
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Review of Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Very much in line with the film, Return to Oz, a personal favorite of mine. Rife with weird objets d’art and dramatic situations void of any real danger. The underground fortress and faint-hearted exploration were reminiscent of Narnia, which is to say I was entertained and sometimes absorbed. It boils…
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Review of Hokusai Manga by Katsushika Hokusai
Breathtaking. One of the most ensorcelling art books I’ve found by one of my all-time favorite artists. You are familiar with Hokusai’s woodblock prints. His art has become synonymous with Eastern art. A legend. This edition is small in size, but impressive in content. His depiction of creatures, landscapes, plants,…
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Review of Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love by Haruki Murakami
I began by pretending this was a short novel about a t-shirt and vinyl-record-obsessed old guy, who happened to also be an obscenely successful novelist and it worked for the most part in the sense that I enjoyed reading these table scraps of autobiographical reminiscences from the most influential Japanese…
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Review of The Wayfarer by Zachary Kekac
The Wayfarer begins the way all of my favorite fantasy novels tend to: with a compelling world map that draws me into the world. While there is a learning curve for most world-building accomplishments like this one, I think Wayfarer’s is relatively enjoyable to climb.Perhaps the most intriguing aspect it…
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Review of Dancing With Disorder by Andrew Lawes
When I picked up this book, I knew it would map out the plight of the mentally ill in some form or another, but I did not expect the intimate perspective, which delves deep into psychology and the emotions incumbent in major life changes, without losing the focus on character…
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Review of Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White by Taiyo Matsumoto
One of the few masterpieces of ‘realistic’ manga. By which I mean it contains whimsical touches, flights of fancy, imagination, heart, and friendship without succumbing to any of the cheap thrills so often associated with this medium like giant robots. ghost hunters, or revealing costumes. A genuinely admirable and affecting…
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Review of Life Ceremony: Stories by Sayaka Murata
Murata portrays a skewed world, often in the form of a soft, mild-mannered dystopia, where one key component of life is unquestionably different from our own. This creates a massive paradigm shift, accompanied by harrowing cognitive dissonance. This brand of edgy speculative fiction is simply another form of wry satire,…
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Review of The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
A shortish novel from one of the top three most bleeding edge writers of fantasy in this day and age. I lump this author above most modern fantasy authors because of the range of her ideas and her psychological distaste for clichés. With a vast body of work already beneath…
L. S. Popovich 