Reviews

this guys writes like david cronenberg films -- viscerally. he uses words like 'gob' 'muck' 'vomit' and 'rind' a lot. everything is about rotting flesh, bugs, blond children, fathers and mothers, and mud.
his sentences use a lot of assonance, alliteration and consonance, giving them a nasty lyricalness. if he wasn't a poet before, he should be. i think his writing style would suit a poem better. it's very vivid and visual, but the plot(s) of the short stories was non-exisistent or intangible. he kinda says the same thing over and over. maybe that's the point? anyway, it's an interesting book from an experimental point of view, or purely for its language, but i wasn't enthralled by any means.

taitmckenzie's review against another edition

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2.0

This is what happens when you let modern poets write fiction. There is no plot, there are no characters. There is only mood and setting, and these merely propped up by language. There are images, or more accurately the repetition of a small set of images, which have impact the first handful of times, but repeated this long quickly loose their significance without plot and character to drive them. There is a distancing with the voice that holds the entire construction of a ruined world at such remove that it is evident it is unreal—one can’t suspend one’s disbelief as there is nothing here to believe in. Compare this to earlier poets writing apocalyptic fiction—Patchen’s “Journal of Albion Moonlight” for instance, which succeeds where this doesn’t because it has plot, character, feeling. I think the key difference is that Patchen’s work has a theme; the author has a stance and an opinion about the apocalyptic (which is that mankind must do something to save our world). Butler, in contrast, merely says “look, some ruin,” without taking a stance, leaving the reader bored and detached.

theartolater's review against another edition

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3.0

When it works, it works. As a collection of short stories, there's enough here to be compelling.

spoerk's review against another edition

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5.0

This tiny book took me long to read and I don't recommend it to anyone who needs something to read while they are sick. (My fever dreams did not appreciate the extra fodder.)

Amazing. Scary. Bleak. Wonderful (the writing, not the content)

This will stay with me for a long while.

sincerelymendacious's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

lanid's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

quilly14's review against another edition

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4.0

So good. Not horror, but terrifying. Apocalyptic beyond anything I've ever read.

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