short story
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Review of Sleepwalker in a Fog by Tatyana Tolstaya
This second collection by Tolstaya is a brief, inconsequential, but enchanting volume, reminiscent of Cat Valente’s Deathless, or similar quirky, literary, bold tales, congealed together by the old fashioned setting and the unfixed narration. On the whole, it was not focussed enough to move me, but entertained me all the…
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Review of Waiting for Gaudiya & Other Stories by Erik Martiny
Despite the reference to Beckett in the title of the collection and some passing moments within, this collection of short stories borrows little and invents much. As the opening quote intimates, Martiny invests in a continual creation of reality in real-time, through uncanny conjuring of the absurd, straddling the reader’s…
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Review of Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions by Neil Gaiman
Started out strong but ended up inconsistent. Whereas the much-touted Gene Wolfe produced unpredictable story collections of genre-bending, unconventional tales of varied length culled from a wide selection of magazines over decades, IMO any of Wolfe’s collections are better than the totality of Gaiman’s output. It is not just that…
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Review of The Shivering Ground & Other Stories by Sara Barkat
In this generous and surprising collection, enigmatic mysteries intrude upon an elegiac setting. A precocious protagonist discovers a dislocation from the every day. Media intrudes in multifarious forms, and inanimate objects or nature blend with the human elements in a well-orchestrated interplay of fantasy and gothic revelations.They seethe with cognitive…
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Review of The Maples Stories by John Updike
The gift of loving. The heart’s projection in a face. Poetic logic extrapolated into pullulating prose. Rhythms of the distracted interior. The quiet calm of an assured mind. The heady grandeur of a passing fancy. Every stiff tonsure and allure of wafting tendrils of silken hair. A magniloquent breeze. Heartfelt…
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Review of Everything and Nothing by Jorge Luis Borges
This volume collects a few pieces not found in Collected Fictions including “Nightmares,” “Kafka and His Precursors,” “The Wall and the Books,” and “Blindness,” plus several famous, masterful tales. In “Blindness,” Borges discusses the various qualities of his blindness, along with similar instances in literary history: Milton, Joyce, Homer. A…
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Review of Dadaoism by Justin Isis and Quentin S. Crisp
One must look closely at the cover to appreciate the art. Words, portmanteau or apropos to the content, beginning with the longest word and decreasing slowly into the four-letter expletive at the bottom, cascading into one another. These key terms suggest some of the tricksterism to be encountered in the…
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Review of Glyphotech and Other Macabre Processes by Mark Samuels
A solid collection of unsettling short stories in the vein of Machen, Poe, and Ligotti. Mark Samuels appears to be able to hold his own when compared to these giants. His command of language is only matched by his superb imagination. Darkness infuses every atmospheric example of traditional storytelling. While…
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Review of Pleasant Tales II by Justin Isis
Isis doesn’t disappoint. In this collection, he shows versatile and snide talent, facetious and chameleonic mastery, satiric and oneiric brilliance. He is a stark commentator on modern mores and a profound pursuant of personal stylistic innovation. A mesmeric and elegiac offering from a grossly under-appreciated storyteller. I think you will…
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Review of Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
I surprised myself with this second reading by not wanting to give the collection 5 stars. Carver’s first collection is relatively short – as was everything he published – the man was not very prolific. I’ll review his major publications as I get through them in the LOA collection, then…
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 What is All This?: Uncollected Stories by Stephen Dixon
I’m not going to go easy on Dixon this time. But I will read more of his stuff and decide if he deserves the accolades and blurbs. The stories here are artificial because the mechanics of what he is doing are never concealed by the writing. You can see the…
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Review of Sing to It: New Stories by Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel’s award-winning The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel was chock-full of absorbing, somewhat dog-centric tales, with formal artistry and quirky characters. Her latest collection proves that she has been doing something the past thirteen years. The main problem is the brevity and insignificance of what is on display here.…
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Review of Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth
One’s enjoyment of this collection may depend on one’s enthusiasm for wordplay. There is a significant amount of utterly clever portmanteuing. Buried beneath the lexical prestidigitation is a penchant for unconventional storytelling. Combining homages to classical mythology with post-modern shenanigans, Barth’s creative use of the English language is a rare…
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Review of The Paper Door and Other Stories by Naoya Shiga
Naoya Shiga’s short story collection, translated by Lan Dunlop is a condensation of a career, a well-translated, well-written, well-selected enticing collection. In Japan, Shiga is hailed as “god of the novel.” His only novel-length work was the morose A Dark Night’s Passing, but in Japanese, apparently, the term ‘novel’ refers…
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Review of Collected Early Stories by John Updike
This one surprised me. It is a luxurious and splendid collection. Well worth the money. My first Updike. Reading it resulted in me buying 12 of his books. For some reason, he has acquired a reputation recently, and most of the chatter about his work takes the form of complaints.…
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Review of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
Recommended for hardcore DFW fans. This collection is a deeply personal, scattered exhibit of loneliness, a harrowing, sad, and convincing portrayal of damaged psyches. Wit, brilliance, and exuberance are all evident in Wallace’s oeuvre, but here, must be discerned through strata of mimesis. Listening to the audiobook reading by the…
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Review of A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories by Young-moon Jung
I’ve often read story collections of authors before their novels, but in the case of Young-moon, I believe this is less accessible than his longer works, and is the 4th thing of his I’ve read. The best way I can think to characterize his style is: abstract, pseudo-omniscient, first-person Impressionism.…
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Review of Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
I’m surprised that Viking listed this as a children’s literature. There’s nothing risque in it of course, and it is structured a little like Alice in Wonderland, but I think it will appeal to both children and adults with its playful style and malleable language. There are a lot of…
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Review of Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Beginning a series of reviews I will do for Murakami, though I’m arriving late to the party, what with the plethora of reviews out there. I’ve been a fan since high school and through college. His short stories have a very different feel than his novels in my opinion. With…
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Review of Collected Stories by Roald Dahl,
Dahl’s adult stories are not as famous as his children’s books. Taken as a whole, The Collected Stories is as impressive as Saki’s Complete Works if you ask me. Many of these stories, for me, were the antidote to reality. His characters, their perpetually gleaming eyes, their moist lips, constantly…
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Review of The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov is unapproachable, never ordinary. He is a master and is fundamentally enjoyable to read. This short short novel is elegant in the extreme. Nab describes the desire to write Lolita as a throb plaguing him much of his life. It produces a corollary in this work. An offshoot, the…
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Review of An Angel of Sodom by David Vardeman
Primarily through comedy, Vardeman’s experimental stories run the gamut of human emotion, from hilarity to harrowing heartbreak. From page one he offers an unflinching and unflattering view of the human animal’s foolish and various ways of tackling life. It is with a unique literary mastery of his chosen arguments that…
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Review of The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
When choosing which single volume of Poe’s to keep in my collection I settled on this one. I decided against the Library of America edition of the tales due to conspicuous absences in the Table of Contents. This one has all of my favorite poems, stories and a few essays.…
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Review of In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass
I think I am going to like this Gass, I thought, and here I am, at the end of it, hovering between four and five stars, as I so often do, but settling for that generous bedizening – the whole roster of stellar units. Linked only by nefariously complex sentences,…
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Review of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
My first reading of Angela Carter. I can see why she is popular and well-regarded. This book is about as good as retellings of fairy tales could be. Through rabid exorcisms of imagery mesmerizing moments are born from her disturbing imagination. The dense sentences cluster like a nest of snakes,…
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Review of The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories
Since I’ve read every word Haruki Murakami has published in English I felt obligated to read his introduction once it showed up in the preview on Amazon. People saying “Haruki Murakami is my favorite author” has now become a cliche. But cliches can sometimes be true. His introduction was nice…
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Review of Selected Short Stories by Honoré de Balzac
Balzac, I have found, is one of those authors you can read for your whole like, like Dickens, spreading out the oeuvre as necessary Balzac’s books, in my opinion, are not to be consumed like snacks or junk food. They are hearty vegetables, often not terribly exciting, but vigorous and…
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Good Ol’ Maggie, short story
Red Fez also published a literary fiction piece of mine. Check it out: Click Here
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The Egg & I, a short story
My new short story was published in Red Fez. Check it out! Click Here
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Young New World, a short story
Commuter Lit published “Young New World.” Check it out: Click Here
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How to Train Your Slime, flash fiction
Bull & Cross published a new flash fiction story by L. S. Popovich! Click Here
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A Slim Portion of Sky, a short story
Commuter Lit published my new short story called “A Slim Portion of Sky.” Click Here
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Prototypes of Shade Town, a short story
Bewildering Stories published a new story of mine: Click Here
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The Cocoon, a short story
One of my stories was just published in The Ancible. Click Here:
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Stars, Hide Your Fires, a short story
A new story is out in Bewildering Stories. Check it out! Click Here:
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Hey You, a short story
Here’s a new short story by L. S. Popovich in Bewildering Stories: Click Here:
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new story in Red Fez:
Here’s a new story by L. S. Popovich in the latest issue of Red Fez. It is called “Hollows of the Milky Way.” Click Here
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What They Found in the Forest, a short story
Thank you Bewildering Stories for publishing my new short story. Click Here
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4th Quarterly Review 2017
My short story “Cygnus” was featured in the 4th Quarterly Review of Bewildering Stories for 2017. Click Here
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The Heart of Cygnus, a short story
A new story of mine has been published in Bewildering Stories: Click Here
L. S. Popovich 