Reviews and Comments

caracabe

caracabe@books.theunseen.city

Joined 1 year, 11 months ago

Writer and software engineer in the US Midwest. I enjoy poetry, horror, some f/sf, some mystery, some literary fiction (but not the kind where the main character is a professor and nothing happens).

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Review of No Gods, No Monsters

5 stars

No Gods, No Monsters is a weird book on many levels, from the unreliable omniscient(ish) narrator to the ant teleportation circles and the finger-eating dragon boy. It’s also a book that asks meaningful questions, both personal and social, and answers them in the ways that life does: enigmatically, heartbreakingly, surprisingly, or not at all. This is not a book to skim: there are many characters and a multitude of storylines, and the prose is worth paying attention to. A rewarding read.

Random House Group: Out There Screaming (Hardcover, 2023, Random House Publishing Group) 4 stars

A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that …

Review of Out There Screaming

4 stars

A wonderful, creepy anthology that’s perfect for not reading late at night when you’re alone in the house. The stories feature a variety of styles, themes, and approaches, ranging from folk horror to cosmic, from conventional narrative to experimental. Writers I‘m familiar with are here, like Nnedi Okorafor, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due, but I also discovered a few new names for my bookshop.org wishlist.

James Baldwin: Giovanni's Room (1956, Dial Press, N.Y.) 5 stars

Considered an 'audacious' second novel, GIOVANNI'S ROOM is set in the 1950s Paris of American …

Review of Giovanni’s Room

5 stars

Beautiful music telling us terrible things, to paraphrase Tom Waits. Heartbreaking and lovely. (And if, like me, you get stopped short by the guillotine being used in the 1950s — the last execution by guillotine in France was in 1977.)

Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2018, Harper Perennial) 4 stars

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Hebrew: קיצור תולדות האנושות‎, [Ḳitsur toldot ha-enoshut]) is a …

When I read a nonfiction book that has points to make, I often find myself in a debate with the author. I bring up counter-examples. I construct parallel tracks of thought, with facts they omit, that lead to contrary conclusions. I point out where their reasoning by analogy breaks down, and I call the word “obviously” a euphemism for “because I say so.” I do this whether I disagree with the author or not. “Sapiens” is a good book to argue with.

Premee Mohamed: No One Will Come Back for Us (2023, Undertow Publications) 4 stars

Here there be gods and monsters - forged from flesh and stone and vengeance - …

Review of No one Will Come Back for Ys

4 stars

A blend of science fiction, folk horror, and cosmic horror, this collection of stories is hard to classify but well worth reading. The story notes at the end are an entertaining touch. (Tip: read the story before the note. Spoilers.) My favorite pieces here are “Four Hours of a Revolution” and “Quietus,” but there’s not a clunker in the book.

Lisa Kröger, Melanie R. Anderson: Monster, She Wrote (Hardcover, 2019, Quirk Books) 4 stars

Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales, from …

Review of Monster, She Wrote

4 stars

An interesting book in itself, and a good resource to plan your future reading. My TBR list has grown by a few dozen titles. I’m happy that this book starts with Margaret Cavendish, and that it includes Nobel laureate Toni Morrison as a horror writer.

Bora Chung: Cursed Bunny (Paperback, 2021, Honford Star) 5 stars

Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring …

Refreshingly Weird

4 stars

Bora Chung is versatile in her weirdness. Some of these stories might be classed as surrealism, some as horror, some as science fiction or fantasy. Almost always, the characters are relatable no matter how bizarre their circumstances.

Victor LaValle: Lone Women (2023, Random House Publishing Group) 4 stars

Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with …

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

5 stars

This novel always has another surprise in store, but the surprises are organic, not gimmicky. It’s a story about racism, sexism, classism, and other isms, but also about personal regrets and second chances. It absolutely nails the landing.

Fiction. Surrealist writer and painter Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was a master of the macabre, of …

An important surrealist figure

5 stars

As a visual artist, Carrington was unjustly overshadowed by her lover Max Ernst. Her literary works have similarly been underrated. She was one of the greats of surrealism, and these stories are disturbing, funny, confusing, horrifying, poignant, and deeply philosophical, often all at once.