fiction
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Review of The Secrets of Umami (The Galactic Culinary Society #1) by D.R. Schoel
Following the protagonist, Jeanne, in her perilous descent into an off-world volcano to recover a delicious confection and gain the experience/ clout amid the Galactic Culinary Society, purveyors of synesthetic wonders, was a blast. Well-described locales and well-paced exploration. Cheeky, digestible, and sciency. I was quite impressed by the old-fashioned…
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Review of The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg
I was surprised by this book, first, because it was not science fiction. At least, in my opinion. Nothing supernatural happens, though the characters concert toward a supernatural goal. To me, this was a realist novel, driven by the four main characters. It is told in alternating first person, with…
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Review of The Enchantment of Lily Dahl by Siri Hustvedt
This was an easy-to-read novel with a dreamy atmosphere, a frustrating main character and bizarre side characters. I was not impressed by any aspect of the book, though certain ideas contained a glimmer of intrigue and the overall atmosphere was pleasing. The problem in my opinion was a lack of…
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Review of Terminal Boredom: Stories by Izumi Suzuki
A quick read. The first thing by Izumi Suzuki to make it into English. Can we get some more please? First off, the comparison to Black Mirror is apt. Ignore the rest of the blurbs. That’s enough of a hint. Base your reading decision on that fact alone. With this…
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Review of Song of the Golden Brew (The Galactic Culinary Society #2) by D.R. Schoel
In the second segment of the Galactic Culinary Society series, you will find more atmospheric description and additional otherworldly settings. You will notice a relaxed pacing, punctuated with action, but never threatening to overwhelm the reader’s sense of awe at the universe inhabited by the protagonist. It is a setup…
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Review of Fragments – A Sci-Fi/Horror: The sequel to Survival: The rules of reality have now changed by Chris Wright
In this second installment in the series, the pace ratchets up quickly. We join characters familiar from the first book (but I think this book can even be appreciated on its own, without some of the backstory). It is a good example of descriptions of cosmic proportions, and how paranormal…
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Review of The Rift by Nina Allan
This book is about discovering truths. It poses as a mystery, but I believe it is more about relationships. The central mystery should be more than enough to keep readers turning pages. This is my second N. A. read, and I will likely read the rest of her work now.…
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Review of The Race by Nina Allan
Familiar territory for Nina Allan. Another book dealing with a kidnapping, or missing woman. This one had a stronger feminist slant than The Rift, and I felt that the male characters were too two-dimensional, even by the standards of that agenda. The first segment of the book, dealing heavily with…
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Review of The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five by Doris Lessing
The second book in Canopus in Argos, the pentology. In this entire novel there was no mention of Canopus, Puttiora, or Sirius. In fact, I see no reason why this can’t stand alone as a soft s-f novel capsule. It reads nothing like Book 1. It reads like the work…
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Review of Dream Messenger by Masahiko Shimada
I wasn’t ready to take this book seriously. But I kept turning pages. I encountered jokes ranging from corny to laugh-out-loud. The writing possesses an endearing sloppiness. The book makes use of a convoluted pulp plot, and tantalizing suggestions of intriguing avenues never explored. It tosses off far-flung ideas, congealing…
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Review of First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami
Not a good entry point for new readers. Along with his last collection, Men Without Women, in a lot of ways, it feels like Murakami is riding his own coattails. To sum up my thoughts: This collection doesn’t enhance Murakami’s reputation, neither does it compare to his first 3 great…
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Review of Morbid Tales by Quentin S. Crisp
Incredibly good. QSC is not only a master storyteller, but his elegance and imagination are exquisite, refined, compelling, and unique. These are the types of speculative fiction short stories with subtle speculative elements, which could hold their own as literary fiction but expand their purview beyond the average range of…
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Review of Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
I’m a sucker for Japanese settings. The plot is as simple as a horror movie. Horror movie fans will appreciate the many nods to the genre tropes she offers. At bottom, it is a quirky take on tried and true set-pieces, a cinematic, low-budget adventure, rife with her signature post-punk…
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Review of Looking for Mr Fly by K.K. Byrne
This novel presents a meticulously detailed atmosphere, coupled with the pace of everyday life, which eases the reader into the rhythm and reality of urban existence. We meet harsh strangers, are jostled on the teeming subways, and encounter people dragging the dross and drudgery of their day-to-day lives into their…
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Review of Surface: Hollow; Book 1 by J V O’Neill
A strange and compelling novel. Combining a literary pace, trauma, confusion, humility, recovery, and imagination. Interspersed with Wiki articles which present revealing data to bolster the narrative devices, its pages are infused with relatable daily struggles, adjustments to life’s hardships, intimate details, intricate interior monologue, and all the facets of…
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Review of Drowning in Beauty: The Neo-Decadent Anthology
From the Introduction to the About the Authors page, there is a great deal to love about this anthology. It is one of several Neo-Decadence dedicated anthologies I plan to read this year. Snuggly is my new favorite press. This collection brings together powerhouse monoliths of modern experimental prose. I…
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Review of The Old King in his Exile by Arno Geiger
I applaud the translator and author for bringing such a moving story to life. This poignant first person account of the effects of Alzheimer’s is an exercise in understanding life, love, family, and mortality. The tragedy of memory loss is an inevitable problem one must recognize in adulthood, and reckon…
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Review of Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver
Reggie Oliver is one of those authors like Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, who is master of a few key aspects of horror, terror, suspense, and description. Yet, he is not a perfect writer. His stories are immersive, antiquated, and charming. Reading his work feels like sliding into another time,…
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Review of Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei
This gorgeous peach-colored volume from NYRB classics is a beautiful addition to my Chinese literature collection. A startling and wonderful story centering on an interesting and atypical female protagonist. It concocts a poignant tragedy from the personal life lessons endured by one girl who laments her fate within an unstable…
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Review of The Altimer: An interactive story (Entram Book 1) by Samuel Isaacson
In this choose-your-own adventure tale, I was treated to an atmospheric second-person perspective narrative combining interactive game elements with fiction. It provides opportunities to do character creation, stat assignment, etc. and is coupled with excellent artwork. With a concise and professional presentation it starts off quickly and takes little time…
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Review of Laughing Gas by P.G. Wodehouse
Wodehouse is grandmaster of comedic writing. Possibly the funniest writer of all time when adjusted for humor inflation. It’s all very prim and proper, with some hedging, and hemming and hawing, and quibbling and quarrelling and snorting and guffawing, but when it comes right down to it, it’s downright mean,…
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Review of Remember You’re a One-Ball! by Quentin S. Crisp
With some reservation I finished this peculiar novel. Having read a few titles by QSC, this one surprised me in its focused content. The reasons I did not enjoy it as much as his other books are manifold, and I think the right reader will get a lot out of…
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Review of Majipoor Chronicles (Lord Valentine, #2) by Robert Silverberg
This was unexpected. After reading Lord Valentine’s Castle, which I was a big fan of, I bought the rest of the series and jumped into this book, the second volume. It is a collection of unconnected stories, with a flimsy framing device, set on Majipoor, exploring locales, eccentric inhabitants, races,…
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Review of A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin
It was interesting reading these stories at the same time as the Collected Stories of Raymond Carver. There are some similarities, such as the slavery to alcohol, but Lucia Berlin’s have more humor, in my opinion. There is a great deal of personality to these tales. They are on par…
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Review of Eyeshield 21 Vol. 37: Ready Set Hut by Riichiro Inagaki, Yusuke Murata
“Eyeshield 21” is a sports manga with wide appeal. Like most great sports stories it understands that the true heart of the game is the people playing it. “Eyeshield” verges on being on a shonen manga due to its clever take on football. Every game is a battle between warriors.…
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Review of The Dark Room by Junnosuke Yoshiyuki
This slim novel is quintessentially enjoyable in the same way that the author’s stories are. It is also easy to criticize. Like Oscar Wilde said: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.” This book is…
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Review of When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin
“When the Sea turned to Silver” is a tough call. It is better than its predecessor in every way except the most important: the theme. “When the Sea Turned to Silver” is a direct sequel to “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.” It not only follows the same family but…
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Review of Sons (House of Earth, #2) by Pearl S. Buck
After reading The Good Earth, it is hard to imagine a more worthwhile reading experience.Pearl S. Buck, like John Steinbeck, knows how to combine characters, setting, and strong themes with great pacing and balanced prose… usually. Editing a book is like creating a katana, I think. To create these masterful…
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Review of Azumanga Daioh: The Omnibus by Kiyohiko Azuma
“Azumanga Daioh” is not deep, thought provoking, or complex. However it challenges the reader in the best way possible. It challenges them not to laugh till they cry. “Azumanga Daioh” is about friendship, growing up, and living with a “all cats bite me” disability. The jokes come fast, loud, and…
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Review of Tales of Love and Loss by Knut Hamsun
Hamsun is a reliable writer, able to absorb me effortlessly. Several of these stories are memorable, though some of them are less significant than others. A few pastiches and plenty of journeys by train. Hamsun’s personality shines through, especially when referring to gambling, lack of literary appreciation by passersby and…
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Review of The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1) by Rick Riordan
Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero is an engrossing start that improves upon what came before. Though I liked the Percy Jackson series, it feels like an early work in comparison to this. Everything that made the first series fun remains. The mix of mythology and the everyday world is…
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Review of Gesell Dome by Guillermo Saccomanno
Another well-done production from Open Letter Press. Great cover, good book. A Gessel Dome, as the introduction explains, is the two-way mirror used to observe, suspects, children and animals in a “natural environment.” This is the perfect double entendre to describe Villa Gesell, a real place, much like every other…
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Review of Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard
I’m convinced that Ballard didn’t care what people thought. Of course he did, though. His sentences are polished enough that he ironed most of them out like a fussy tailor. He shines best in his short novels, when he just takes one simple idea and draws it out to the…
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Review of Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R.A. Lafferty
My first encounter with R. A. Laugh-ferty. His humor and cleverness are quite astounding. He sets up gags and jokes in the middle of serious situations. His humor is often so unexpectedly outrageous it is harrowing. He made me catch my breath and squint my eyes. It is all a…
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Review of The Samurai by Shūsaku Endō
I only feel comfortable rating this novel 3 stars because I enjoyed a few of his other novels so much more. To be clear, there was nothing bad about it. It was a historical novel about the clash of religion and politics between Japan and Europe. There is much discussion…
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Review of Hunter (Hunter, #1) by Mercedes Lackey
For the first novel by this author I have listened to on audiobook, I was entertained most of the way through. Mercedes Lackey has written an infinite number of novels – by which I mean I know I will never be able to read them all. (Seriously, look at that…
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Review of Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Family dynamics and office politics are explored with acerbic wit in the ranting, eccentric ramblings of our sleaze ball narrator in Something Happened. The internal monologue is so steeped in hate and vindictive self-righteousness that it will easily polarize half the readers. But following the main character’s galloping train of…
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Review of Cynicism Management (Cynicism Management Series Book 1) by Bori Praper
Cynicism Management is an English language novel by a Slovenian author and musician. Its tone is, of course, cynical. A colorful group of pseudo-amateur musicians converge in a spy-tinged romp through modern Slovenia. On the outskirts of these absurdly amusing characters are contracted corporate spies, who treat the affair more…
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Review of Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
“This is what would happen if I gave my kids a trust fund.” – said someone, about this book. I fear this frame of mind for our youth. This casual nihilism, this destructive illusion of indestructibility. At times powerful, at other times, just not that compelling. Excessive, isn’t it? It…
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Review of Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds
Second Reynolds after House of Suns. This one felt like he was phoning it in by comparison with the first. Still a decent s-f novel with a great concept. If you look at all of his concepts, they tend to be perfect set-ups. The backs of his books often read…
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Review of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
A fascinating look at characters and the brutalities of war and violence that seep into our lives. Murakami’s characters aren’t necessarily deep, but they feel like real people. The women are mediums, he claims, allowing the male protagonist to experience new concepts. They take some getting used to.The whole book…
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Review of The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami
The quiet beauty of a store interior. The intentionality of the setting. The sincere dignity of a retail worker. The cyclical expanse of such a life, confined within shrinking walls, hemmed in by the minutiae of the commercial products of everyday life. Constant exposure to these mundane implements imbues them…
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Review of The Abyss of Human Illusion by Gilbert Sorrentino
A brief, final testament left by Sorrentino, and proof that his dotage was virile and discerning. Broken into 50 scenes, these flask fictions (flash fictions) are reminiscent of Barthelme and even, fragments of Bolano. Often humorous, this “novel” shines with deep human emotions, wry bathos – as the author himself…
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Review of La Grande by Juan José Saer
Long at 500 pages but not-quite monolithic, this scattered Argentinian novel about a confusing literary movement called Precisionism, is less precise than the dependably inaccurate blurbs led me to believe. Jumping from close-knit characters to disparate scenes to clandestine moments of startling imprudence, through days and nights and the tired…
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Review of The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5) by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a series that embodies many of enjoyable aspects of YA fiction and fantasy. The difference between this volume and the first is pretty vast in my opinion. The development of the author is clear throughout the series, more so than in similar sagas. Writers…
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Review of Abyssinia by Damian Murphy
Redolent of mystic awareness. Cryptic and profound. With a highly refined prose style, the author indulges in subtle subterfuge of the reader’s expectations. A quiet and subconscious exploration of inner landscapes, characters bound by association to a storytelling doll, imbued with sententious sentience. Constricted to the confines of a microcosmic…
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Review of The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada
This would have been a fun book. But the short sections are told through shifting first person perspectives, adding unnecessary layers of confusion. I wanted to read about Japan’s Middle class struggles. It is hard to tell if this book is about jaded employees or hallucinogenic workplaces. Overall, it has…
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Review of Mr Palomar by Italo Calvino
Mr. Palomar, Calvino mentions elsewhere, is another one of his literary exercises. It is not as fascinating or developed as Cosmicomics or Winter’s Night, but a worthwhile read. Mr. Palomar observes various phenomena, draws cosmic and personal connections, and then moves on. He is more a mouthpiece or a device…
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Review of Endangered Species by Gene Wolfe
I would question anyone who reads this whole book and fails to rate it 5 stars. What are you looking for in fiction? Sophisticated characters, complex subtexts, compulsively readable science fiction themes, lighthearted fantasy, excellent world-building, truly immaculate imagery, well-defined dramatic scenes, a huge variety of motifs, atmosphere and tense…
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Review of A Captive of Love: A Romance from the Original Japanese of Kyokutei Bakin by Bakin Takizawa
Takizawa Bakin or Kyokutei Bakin is a truly remarkable Japanese author, little known in the West. He lived from 1767-1848 and according to online sources wrote at least 470 books, many of which were quite hefty, according to accounts from other Japanese writers, and the most famous of these works…
L. S. Popovich 