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A review by lkedzie
Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt
5.0
In Brainwyrms, our protagonist meets a person in a club and they soon fall in love, except that that their respective kinks, and the histories behind them, drive them apart, until pulling them back together to destroy the world.
My typical problem with horror is the wobbly allegory, with [b:Tender is the Flesh|49090884|Tender is the Flesh|Agustina Bazterrica|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1594563107l/49090884._SY75_.jpg|58496867] as the exemplar, of a good idea spoiled by indecision. This book shows the right way to do it. The allegory of parasitism, literal and figurative, real and supernatural, is not singular in its expression, but it is multi-layered, and some of the terror here comes from the frisson of disorientation about that. The multiple takes do not compete, but reinforce the story of the book and its message.
I see that its reception is along the lines of Some Fucked Up Shit, but I think that is unwarranted. The fear and disgust factor here is far more on par with any mass market horror book, and none of those include an authorial check-in on how the reader is doing.
Yes, it is not something to read to the kids as a bedtime story, unless you are specifically trying to get not asked to babysit (I see you, Julie), but there is a thriving Kindle singles subgenre of extreme horror that this is far from.
Or maybe it is so horrifying that it swivels around into joy. Or maybe this is my fetish. Or maybe I am actually a thumbnail-sized tick, prancing on the keys, but who still has trouble getting the apostrophe and shift-lock control, hence the lack of contractions, and merely trying to convince you that it is all normal, perfectly normal so that I ditch this lousy poet for a more shapely forearm from which to suck truculent vertebrate heme. Who truly can say?
Much like in the previous book of the author, the balance between a sort of ordinary queer terror and the supernatural is consistently used to great effect. It excels at the fear of the mundane, and in expressing how there is a sort of fear that persists in queerness here, and not that elsewhere is much better. That leads to my only real criticism, in that the contrivance is sometimes too much, and it is too pat and obvious. But genre fiction does that a lot, and what is here is within the range of suspension of disbelief.
My other complaint is the dear reader-esque sections. When they hit, they are eloquent and fun metafiction. When they do not, it is getting thrown from a moving car, without even the dubious privilege of the Randian soapox.
Anyway, the ending is super and the book infinitely quotable. With this book, Rumfitt has secured her spot on my pre-order list.
My typical problem with horror is the wobbly allegory, with [b:Tender is the Flesh|49090884|Tender is the Flesh|Agustina Bazterrica|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1594563107l/49090884._SY75_.jpg|58496867] as the exemplar, of a good idea spoiled by indecision. This book shows the right way to do it. The allegory of parasitism, literal and figurative, real and supernatural, is not singular in its expression, but it is multi-layered, and some of the terror here comes from the frisson of disorientation about that. The multiple takes do not compete, but reinforce the story of the book and its message.
I see that its reception is along the lines of Some Fucked Up Shit
Spoiler
rimshotYes, it is not something to read to the kids as a bedtime story, unless you are specifically trying to get not asked to babysit (I see you, Julie), but there is a thriving Kindle singles subgenre of extreme horror that this is far from.
Or maybe it is so horrifying that it swivels around into joy. Or maybe this is my fetish. Or maybe I am actually a thumbnail-sized tick, prancing on the keys, but who still has trouble getting the apostrophe and shift-lock control, hence the lack of contractions, and merely trying to convince you that it is all normal, perfectly normal so that I ditch this lousy poet for a more shapely forearm from which to suck truculent vertebrate heme. Who truly can say?
Much like in the previous book of the author, the balance between a sort of ordinary queer terror and the supernatural is consistently used to great effect. It excels at the fear of the mundane, and in expressing how there is a sort of fear that persists in queerness here, and not that elsewhere is much better. That leads to my only real criticism, in that the contrivance is sometimes too much, and it is too pat and obvious. But genre fiction does that a lot, and what is here is within the range of suspension of disbelief.
My other complaint is the dear reader-esque sections. When they hit, they are eloquent and fun metafiction. When they do not, it is getting thrown from a moving car, without even the dubious privilege of the Randian soapox.
Anyway, the ending is super and the book infinitely quotable. With this book, Rumfitt has secured her spot on my pre-order list.