Nate
Almost perfect. If not for a section near the beginning that was such a slog I almost bounced completely off this would be an easy 5 stars.
Easy one sitting read. Would love to see a stage production of it.
Genuinely creepy at times. The ebb and flow of the tension is perfect. Things escalate, almost coming to a head, before someone diffuses it with a fun/strange/light-hearted/tangential observation/joke/non-sequitur and things circle around before personalities clash again. We circle this drain from all these different directions, watching the id of this cast of multi-dimensional characters boil over until everything implodes. It's great.
Dialogue is what Max does best and he straight up murders it here. Believable, witty, punchy dialogue is the core of everything he does, and really what elevates him as a writer.
It does feel a bit thin though. Like this should be the middle third of a bigger piece of work. Or the title piece in a collection of stories that all examine this techno-horror character-study theme from different angles.
Either way. Super worth the read. Wish he'd learn to write prose (or team up with someone skilled at it (S. Craig Zahler and Landis would be my fucking dream collab)) and write a novel already.
It is straight up criminal that Stokoe isn't as widely read as some of the more mainstream ‘transgressive' authors. I think it's probably because he's been sadly typecast by readers who've only heard about him because of ‘Cows' and are afraid to approach his other works. They're missing out. And also dumb >:[
In my mind, I lump Stokoe in with my other current favorite author Zahler. They're both doing really similar things but coming at it from different angles. They're both pulp kings, but where Zahler knows he's writing pulp and leans into as hard as possible aiming to make the most intricately crafted and idealized pulp possible, Stokoe reaches for grander literary aspirations. Zahler makes pulp so perfectly honed that it transcends its genre limitations while Stokoe intentionally pushes the limits of what storytelling can be/do while existing inside a pulp framework. I love and deeply appreciate both approaches.
I kinda feel like they're the literary equivalents of like Tarantino (Zahler) vs De Palma (Stokoe). Tarantino makes pulp so pure and brilliant and hyper-focused and stylish that it's elevated to capital-A, Art. De Palma on the other hand is an Artist first and foremost and uses the dark recesses of pulp fiction as his base materials.
It's a fun dichotomy. And I think about their works in conversation while reading them.
I didn't talk about ‘Empty Mile' at all.
Is real good. 5/5.
Super weird and really fuckin fun for how wildly depressing and nihilistic it is.
My favorite thing I'm discovering about Zeb's work is the sheer amount of creativity and unique ideas crammed into every single corner of his books.
Most authors are incredibly precious with their big ideas. They hold on tightly to their favorites to try and deploy them at the perfect moments. They try and craft entire novels to milk a single powerful idea. Zeb says fuck that shit, I'll shove more creativity into a 150 page novella than most authors will trickle out over a 1200 page trilogy, dump those babies out, he says, I'm an indefatigable fucking font of gonzo ass brilliance.
Breath of fresh fucking air this guy is. I love it.
Just fucking incredible. One of my top 5 of the year for sure. Wildly imaginative, weird as hell, and surprisingly funny.
It's like if Fist of the North Star was a Frazetta painting... Oh shit.. Perfect Dalle2/Midjourney prompt..
God damn. I fucking LOVED this book.
It's not often that a book comes around that completely reinvigorates your love of reading, recontextualizes what a book can be/do, and reminds you why you love the hobby so much in the first place.
This book is one of those books for me.
Halfway through, I dropped my bookmark in, put the book aside, and went online to order every other book Zeb has written. I am enchanted.
There's a thing this book does that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. A specific framing of satire that might already exist but is very new for me.
So like, typically with satire, a concept is reframed in a sort of allegorical way that changes the factual basis to point out or examine some sort of inherent absurdity/idiocy right?
The trick Zeb pulls in this book is a thing I'd want to call like, Gonzo Satire? Hyper-Satire? The satire isn't used to examine an idiotic situation, because the thing being satirized is already clearly fucking insane. The satire is over the top and super hyperbolic and used instead as a way to reflect on and observe the internal feelings of the author/reader.
It's really really clever and I felt a lot of camaraderie in rage with Zeb while reading. Weirdly cathartic.
Most authors would just stop there though. I know I would. But fuck no says Zeb.
There's also tremendously cool and meaningful worldbuilding. A heartrending through-line about alcoholism that hits a biiiiit too close to home. And a small treatise on solipsism and death and the lies we tell ourselves that came out of fucking nowhere, disarmed me, and stabbed me right in the chest before whirling away.
So much more too. Like how myths and ancient thoughts infect and spread and corrupt through eras, the horrors of weaponized technology, the existential angst of feeling internally youthful as your desiccated meatsuit decomposes around you. And tons of other stuff I forgot/didn't catch.
Oh, and also the book is funny and written well? Like come on dude. Leave some fucking talent for the rest of us.
Really enjoyed it. Feels like a lot of reviewers missed the point and want Chuck to stay in his lane. This isn't Invisible Monsters, this isn't Fight Club, this is Judy Blume by way of Anton LaVey; this is a coming of age story about a dead girl; this is fucking Young Adult Fiction by our favorite heir to Burroughs and Vonnegut, good old Chucky P.
Wish this book had come out while I was younger though. 14-16 year old Nate would've 5-starred the shit out of this, and would never have shut up about it.
Side note - Huge fan of the chorus he uses in this one (Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison). Probably my favorite of his since Invisible Monsters.
WOW.
Best book in the series by a long shot.
FPW is at his best when weaving tales of psychological horror, and goddamn does he absolutely crush it in this novel.
Between orchestrating Bill's loss of faith, Lisl's manipulation into cruelty and egoism, and the absolutely devastating final temptations, Rafe kept me both horrified and completely enthralled.
Also probably the most accurate depiction of how people fall into abusive relationships I've ever read.
So. Fucking. Good.
Probably my least favorite Zahler so far. Feels a lot more underdeveloped than his more recent output.
Nevertheless, still an easy 5 star and one of my top 10 for the year.
Zahler has skyrocketed to the top of my favorite authors list this past year and a half and I'm gonna be super sad after I finish ‘Mean Business on North Ganson Street' and have to sit and wait for his next novel.
Wish I would have read this in highschool alongside Catcher. Avoided it for the longest time because of the stereotypes around the people who adore Sylvia Plath. I regret it. I adore Sylvia Plath.
I went in expecting some purple prose about psychotic breaks and their historical mistreatment, and I got that. What I didn't expect was the wealth of charm, wit, and dark humor flavoring the experience. The amount of personality that shines through is stunning, and for every line that made me laugh out, I found parallel heartache at the loss of such an agonizingly relatable human.
“The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.”
Significantly better than the first one and should be an easy 4 stars except for one huge gross plot point in the middle that I really really hated and made me detract a star. Where the first one was a kinda charming 2.5 with enough intriguing things going for it it got bumped to a 3, this one's a kinda disappointing 3.5+ with big enough flaws to drop it down to a 3.
This series is clearly inspired by Conan/Howard and other classic pulp sword & sandals and very clearly an inspiration for tons of modern things, included but not limited to, Game of Thrones, Scott Hawkins' Library at Mount Char, and Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.
It makes me sad that this series at least so far doesn't even approach the greatness of those that came before or after.
That isn't to say I don't like it. It's just disappointing. It's the kind of series that should really thrive on either the strength of the characters, the world building, or the writing, but all of these are so mediocre.
I did like the mentor-Corwyn in this a lot more than goofy revenge-Corwyn in book 1 (until he ruined it in the most gross 1970s man way possible :/).
I also really really liked a segment in the middle where Zelazny actually put some effort into his craft and threw out some super gorgeous prose-work.
Also a section near the end had a really dope sword fight in a sapling forest with some badass imagery that I'm gonna remember for awhile.
I'm probably gonna end up finishing this series unless it somehow gets worse, they're short quick pulpy reads and I'm a lot more invested than I sound, but I feel like they could be so much more and have left me ultimately disappointed :(.
Unbelievably good.
His previous collection, Friday Black, was one of the best books I read in 2020, and one of the books that have stuck with me the longest. I never stop recommending it and regularly think about it.
Chain-Gang All-Stars is going up right next to it. It's perfect. I love it. It's operating on so many fucking levels. Every set of PoV characters are used with such intent and purpose and every message he tries to get across and every question he asks resound with such power and intensity and humanity and ugghh I just want to read the entire thing again. Adjei-Brenyah is brilliant and I can't wait to keep reading everything he puts out.
I would be VERY surprised if this doesn't get optioned for a TV show or a movie. I hope it does just for the fact that more people need to be exposed to this story and Nana deserves a massive fucking payday, but man I am certain they would ruin it lol. Maybe something like a 6 episode series directed by Jordan Peele with a 150+M budget and Nana Kwame doing the screenplay/on constant consultation?
I wanted to write a lot more about it, but I finished it the day I got hit by a car (like 2 weeks ago now..) and I've been on a ton of pain meds since
Loved the style. Just dripping with cool and charm.
Story felt a bit threadbare though. Like 95% Pussy, 5% Detective. Not really a lot of tension or stakes. Mostly just a dope tone-piece with some really clever wordplay and moments of real wisdom.
Had a hard time separating some of the bits that felt like humorous/provocative tongue-in-cheek character-work from parts that felt like character-as-author's-mouthpiece moralizing, but I think that kind of thing will probably clear up as I read more of Duvay's future works and catch more of his vibe, which I'm super excited to do.
Not at all what I was expecting, but this is why I love going into things with as little foreknowledge as possible. Sometimes it gets me into trouble (looking at you Necroscope
Of all of Zahler's brutal and unrelenting work I've made my way through so far (2 books, 3 movies, and a podcast), I was not expecting his YA novel to be the most brutal and unrelenting
I loved this!
Eric LaRocca is taking the horror world by fucking storm and I'm here for it.
Also he lives in Cambridge? D: I work in Cambridge! It's inevitable we have a meetcute right? Where we blindly bump into each other around a corner, he drops a stack of looseleaf A4 (his newest novel fresh from the printers!), I kneel down to help him collect it and we bump heads (ouch!), I offer to buy him a coffee (pumpkin spice oatmilk lattes! yum!), we hit it off immediately... yada.yada.yada... we end up back at his place... he introduces me to the demon he sold his soul to for all his indefatigable creativity and talent so I can make that same goddamn deal. Inevitable.. right??
This was a fun experiment from an author I'm not super familiar with, and from what I've gleaned I think I might have been more well served by his more traditional novels.
I really like the concept of this, it's one of those ideas that feels almost tailor-made for me, but I feel like it was being pulled in too many opposite directions and it wasn't able to really excel in any of them. I think the horror elements and true-crime elements both dampened each other's impact and the parody non-fiction elements made the comedy feel a bit tonally out of place. It's kind of like if an artist had full palette of vibrant colors, and instead of using them to highlight and enhance each other, he mixed them together until everything was a boring ruddy brown.
It did really pick up near the end which was pretty much perfect, and bumped it up to a 4 for me, but it was just a little too late.
Finishing this and then coming here to check out the reviews has been super disheartening. The amount of straight up terrible takes is fucking astounding.
Like, if a book has a minority protagonist, and that character experiences racism, and you take that as a personal attack? You might need to take a look in the mirror. Jesus fucking christ. So much disingenuous bullshit. I feel really bad imagining Amina coming here and browsing these reviews :/. Y'all should be ashamed.
So when a story about a secretly wealthy young person who gets rescued and told they're special and is taken to a beautiful secluded land with strange people in robes casting spells and waving magical stones where they can self actualize and develop into a badass stars a Pakistani girl, the book is “shallow and vapid and can't shut up about its liberal politics” but when it stars a little white boy it's “the best selling book of all time”. Ok.
I loved this book. Breezy thriller with a great emotional core. I absolutely loved Ronnie and her self-actualization journey. I loved hating the villains, I loved the ravens, I loved the friendships, I loved the writing. Straight up devoured this book, can't wait to check out more of Amina's work.
Kind of a mess? Ambitious as fuck with a ton of cool ideas but wrapped in a thick layer of pseudoscience psychobabble. At its highest points? A transgressive masterpiece. At its lowest? Embarrassing nonsense.
aaaaaand the illusion Blake Crouch had cast on me is completely shattered.
2/5 instead of a 1 because despite everything, I really like the way Blake Crouch writes. His books are so tightly edited and efficient that I just kind of look at one of his books out of the corner of my eye and suddenly I'm 150 pages in. I don't know how he does it and as much flak as he gets for it, it takes real talent to put so little obstacle between the information on the page and the brain of the reader. His style reminds me of like.. a super simple dish done to perfection, or maybe even a Barnett Newman painting. The kind of painting where at first you're like ‘ok, just a big red canvas' then you walk closer and realize how absolutely flawlessly it's done. It takes a lot more confidence and dexterity to perform this efficiently than he really gets credit for.
Everything else about this book suuuuuuuucks. Holy shit.
I am so disappointed. I thought maybe, just MAYBE, in the Crouch novel where the protagonist is a failed scientist who accidentally gets upgraded into a hyper-intelligent post-human genius we'd get a plot that isn't just resolved by meathead jingoistic pewpew gunfight bullshit. But I guess not.
It blows my mind how hard the ball got fumbled on this. Like what even does Crouch think intelligence is? Because the answer he comes to in this book is being smarter = being better at shoot gun good.
You would think, that in a novel pitting the two smartest humans who ever lived against each other in a high concept battle of wits to decide the philosophical path the human species will take in their race against a self-imposed extinction due to climate change / inequality, that maybe there would be some cat-and-mouse style twists and turns? Plans and subterfuge and subversion and tricks and backstabbing and I dunno, drama? Maybe a philosophical debate or two where we can see their opposing viewpoints? Nah, of course not. It's a Blake Crouch book. So fuck all the pretense, here's some pewpew gunfight bullshit.
Super fun collection. Reminded me a LOT of Stephen Graham Jones minus the MFA energy.
The longer stories were definitely the highlight. Especially ‘Truck Stop' and the mind swapping one.
I felt like some of the shorter stories brought the average down though. A few felt a bit more like writing practice than a full short story and seemed a bit like they were added to fill up space which was disappointing :/.
Don't have a ton to say, but it was pretty good. Felt like a big part of the middle section was stretched out by characters being willfully ignorant. Lots of Victorian era bewilderment. Really picked up in a fun way near the end though and tackled some topics I find super interesting. Mostly a 3, but a great finish lands it a solid 4.
Merged review:
Don't have a ton to say, but it was pretty good. Felt like a big part of the middle section was stretched out by characters being willfully ignorant. Lots of Victorian era bewilderment. Really picked up in a fun way near the end though and tackled some topics I find super interesting. Mostly a 3, but a great finish lands it a solid 4.
There are a lot of books that I've finished that I disliked or disagreed with or thought were kind of boring, but I feel like even my most hated books usually have at least something I can take away or learn from them that make the experience worth it.
I can count on one hand the books that I actually regret finishing, books that I thought were a literal waste of my time. Last Exit is now public enemy no. 1 on that list.
Repetitive, vapid, hollow, and full of long, winding, navel-gazing, word-vomit prose that ultimately has nothing to say besides the most empty and basic of platitudes.
It's insane to me that a book this obsessed with introspection and inner monologues and growing up and the passage of time could somehow at the same time have such cookie-cutter, replaceable, robotic, one dimensional characters. Characters with no growth, and no arc, and no chemistry whatsoever in a road trip book without anything that makes a road trip worth reading about.
I'm kind of upset that I didn't DNF at 50 pages when I first wanted to, and then every 50 pages thereafter, but I'm a glutton for punishment and an easy victim of sunk-cost fallacy so I persevered. I shouldn't have.