Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
14th out of 27 books
—
30 voters
By The Time We Leave Here, We’ll Be Friends
by
J. David Osborne (Goodreads Author),
Jeremy Robert Johnson (Goodreads Author)
Siberia, 1953. Stalin is dead and a once-prosperous thief named Alek Karriker is feeling the pressure. Trapped in an icy prison camp where violent criminals run the show, betrayed by his friends and his body, Karriker is surrounded by death and disorder. Bizarre Inuit shamans are issuing ever-stranger commands that he must obey. Opium is running scarce and bad magic is ple...more
Paperback, 168 pages
Published
December 6th 2010
by Swallowdown Press
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
339)
Originally published at WelcomeToTheVelvet.com:
In the frozen hell that is Siberia, Alek Karriker goes about his duties as gulag guard while losing himself in the fog of opium as an unholy light pores from the scar across his neck. Ilya Bogruv hauls starving inmates out into the wastes and puts a bullet in each man's head, telling his superiors they tried to escape. Anton Nikitin wanders the fences at night and sits during the hours after reveille reading Soviet propaganda and gingerly petting th...more
In the frozen hell that is Siberia, Alek Karriker goes about his duties as gulag guard while losing himself in the fog of opium as an unholy light pores from the scar across his neck. Ilya Bogruv hauls starving inmates out into the wastes and puts a bullet in each man's head, telling his superiors they tried to escape. Anton Nikitin wanders the fences at night and sits during the hours after reveille reading Soviet propaganda and gingerly petting th...more
Wow!
This review is hard, why? Hard to put into words what feel and want to say.
I've read many books that are graffic and violent, I'm not nieve about what a man can do to others.
But this book is some how different... Graffic, yes, horrifying, yes, deffinately NOT for the weak of stomach or of heart.
This book makes you feel like it is REAL ... Not just a story.
This book makes you wonder how some one can be so cold that these things don't effect them..
How they could even ENJOY doing these things!
M...more
This review is hard, why? Hard to put into words what feel and want to say.
I've read many books that are graffic and violent, I'm not nieve about what a man can do to others.
But this book is some how different... Graffic, yes, horrifying, yes, deffinately NOT for the weak of stomach or of heart.
This book makes you feel like it is REAL ... Not just a story.
This book makes you wonder how some one can be so cold that these things don't effect them..
How they could even ENJOY doing these things!
M...more
By The Time We Leave Here We’ll be Friends by J. David Osborne. He’s a young author but his debut is impressive. Probably one of the best books I’ve read this year.
I think his talent lies in his economic use of language. Every word is carefully chosen and adds to the overall harrowing atmosphere of a Russian gulag.
Former thief and prisoner, Alek Karriker is a guard and is searching for a way out of this hellish place. The only way he can achieve this is by finding someone who could serve as a sa...more
I think his talent lies in his economic use of language. Every word is carefully chosen and adds to the overall harrowing atmosphere of a Russian gulag.
Former thief and prisoner, Alek Karriker is a guard and is searching for a way out of this hellish place. The only way he can achieve this is by finding someone who could serve as a sa...more
Set on the insides of a Siberian gulag, Osborne's debut novel is something beyond dark and gritty. It's a tense story of grizzled villains and gruesome horror, set in a deadly void where the depravity knows no bounds. The protagonist is Alek Karriker, a former prisoner given guard duty, and there's something seriously wrong with his neck. He and the rest of the people living in this prison are all doing their best just to survive, and while Karriker is tough as nails, he too might break under th...more
I knew that this book would be bleak and gritty before I received it. It did not disappoint. Set in the Russion Gulag, the milieu very much resembles a concentration camp, with the conflict between hoping to stay alive by cooperation with your captors vs taking your chance are in sharp contrast.
The protagonist, Alex Karriker, is deeply addicted to opium, and no wonder considering the circumstances and the fact that it is readily available in the camp. The narrative dips into his opium dreams fr...more
The protagonist, Alex Karriker, is deeply addicted to opium, and no wonder considering the circumstances and the fact that it is readily available in the camp. The narrative dips into his opium dreams fr...more
EDIT: After writing a review for this -- no easy task -- I somehow deleted the damn thing. Maybe I'll have the heart at some point to come back and rewrite it, but for now I think I'll go get some lunch and cheer myself up. Maybe take a computer class or something so I can stop doing this sort of ridiculous nonsense.
Short version, I really liked this book. It was weird and I don't really get it, but the writing is gorgeous and the characters are strangely likable, even though they're not very n...more
Short version, I really liked this book. It was weird and I don't really get it, but the writing is gorgeous and the characters are strangely likable, even though they're not very n...more
J. David Osbourne’s BY THE TIME WE LEAVE HERE, WE’LL BE FRIENDS is one of those rare stories that follows you long after you’ve finished reading. A nightmare inducing tale set in one of the most surreal and chilling locations you’ll ever find, it’ll leave you wondering how you got there, what your next move will be, and, most importantly, how you’ll ever manage to get the fuck out. Opium fevers, black magic, strange customs and guards that piss on you while laughing, Osbourne has created a stunn...more
J.David Osbourne is an asshole. You know the type, The first time they
pick up a guitar they can play a power cord without any help. They
know how to ride a skateboard and do tricks the first time they try.
This is a first novel. An amazingly good, taunt fucked up mind binder
of Dark Bizarro that is so well crafted you wont believe it's a first
novel. I know, what an asshole. He should have to struggle through a
few good but not quite there novels before writing a masterpiece like
the rest of us. What...more
pick up a guitar they can play a power cord without any help. They
know how to ride a skateboard and do tricks the first time they try.
This is a first novel. An amazingly good, taunt fucked up mind binder
of Dark Bizarro that is so well crafted you wont believe it's a first
novel. I know, what an asshole. He should have to struggle through a
few good but not quite there novels before writing a masterpiece like
the rest of us. What...more
Wow. This is a great book. The writing is solid. The plot original and gripping. The characters realistic and strange. The setting (Siberian Gulag) is so realistically portrayed I read the bulk of the book with a sweater on. It is odd, beautiful and violent. It is also well-informed.
The book deals with prisoners in a Russian Gulag during the reign of Stalin. The men have a cast system in place, where one's transgressions can be read on their skin in the form of tattoos. Body art plays a large pa...more
The book deals with prisoners in a Russian Gulag during the reign of Stalin. The men have a cast system in place, where one's transgressions can be read on their skin in the form of tattoos. Body art plays a large pa...more
Imagine a Siberian gulag, but only if you dare. News of Joseph Stalin's death has reached the camps despite the continuous import of new prisoners. The plan, albeit risky, is to charge the prisoners as slaves. When the liberating Americans come, the guards will master the prison into a bustling town, with a school, and shops, and homes. As soon as the Americans turn to vacate the icy landscape, the fences go back up and citizens are once again slaves.Alek Karriker is betrayed by the tattoos cov...more
Fanfuckingtastic.
Of everything that I've read and reviewed over the past 2 or 3 years, this is the one book that deserves to be read by a larger audience. It won the Wonderland Award for best novel of the year, and there's no doubt it was an honor well earned.
Dense, dark, parasitic, drug-infused nightmare set in a Stalin-era Siberian prison camp. Cormac McCarthy fans take special note of this one - it's bleak both in its subject matter and its stingy use of language. Nothing extraneous in here,...more
Of everything that I've read and reviewed over the past 2 or 3 years, this is the one book that deserves to be read by a larger audience. It won the Wonderland Award for best novel of the year, and there's no doubt it was an honor well earned.
Dense, dark, parasitic, drug-infused nightmare set in a Stalin-era Siberian prison camp. Cormac McCarthy fans take special note of this one - it's bleak both in its subject matter and its stingy use of language. Nothing extraneous in here,...more
13 likes · like · see review
view 1 comment
What a better place to develop this story than a gulag. The main character is Alek Karriker and his life is in danger. Threatened by the climate, the inmates and the people who are "close" to him. I've always thought this environments bring out the worst in you. There were real cases of cannibalism in gulags of mothers who ate their children. No man should ever be forced to experience such extreme conditions, but the worst thing is that they've had.
This book is a must for anybody who enjoys grea...more
This book is a must for anybody who enjoys grea...more
A brutal story of prisoners escaping a Siberian camp via horrifying, opium-induced hallucinations that are still preferable to the everyday nightmare of Stalin's soviet Russia. I'd never really considered what it would take to survive a prison camp in the winter wasteland, but copious drug use would be a logical first step.
Dark and hallucinatory tale set in a Russian gulag post-WWII. Amid opium smoke, the prisoners display their capacity for cruelty towards one another amidst the divide between prisoners given a modicum of authority and the tattooed underworld gang members who plot against them. Supernatural phenomena and an original depiction of the afterlife materializes in what may only be opium delirium.
By The Time We Leave Here, We'll Be Friends has to be one of the most bizarre books I have ever read. The interlocked story's of Alec, Milena, Bogrov and Hipolit spare no details of their gruesome lives. The way the author describes the visions of the opium user's is breath taking, and incredibly imaginative.
Though I did enjoy reading this book I would suggest it to a man over a woman, though this is not to say a woman wouldn't enjoy it, because I did.
Though I did enjoy reading this book I would suggest it to a man over a woman, though this is not to say a woman wouldn't enjoy it, because I did.
Prepare to have your mind blown. Set against the desolate Siberian landscape, a cast of desperate characters live an experience that challenges humankind to test the very limits of survival. Superlative descriptions overwhelm the senses as you familiarize yourself with a tenebrous situation sprinkled with demonic forces. JDO does a remarkable job of interweaving storylines into a masterful piece of literature that will leave you no doubt convinced that he is more than just the Stephen King of th...more
Impressive debut novel. It's a difficult feat to write something so economical in language and yet so rich in symbols. This book is not for the easily offended but Osborne uses this tapestry of the extremity of human misery and depravity to tell an important story about the things that really matter once human dignity and social niceties have been stripped violently away. I am convinced that I could read this book fifteen more times and find some new layer hidden within its many clever layers ev...more
Ushankas off to Osborne for this frosty horror. The winner of 2010 Wonderland Award. And a well written, blood splattered, debut novel.
Set in the Siberian Gulag a slave labor camp. Slaves plan an escape into the freezing cold. Cold that would probably freeze you in place if hot water was thrown on you.
There escape becomes successful but now the four escaped slaves face nature in the frozen tundras. A small amount of food and some opium to smoke they start there trek to India.
If you want horror t...more
Set in the Siberian Gulag a slave labor camp. Slaves plan an escape into the freezing cold. Cold that would probably freeze you in place if hot water was thrown on you.
There escape becomes successful but now the four escaped slaves face nature in the frozen tundras. A small amount of food and some opium to smoke they start there trek to India.
If you want horror t...more
Osborne has solid writing skills, and I loved how he integrated the importance of tattoos to the Russian criminal element. However, it took about sixty or so pages for the story to get really rolling, but when it did, woah, crazy good. Really diverse characters. I believed the story.
Apr 02, 2012
Robot
marked it as to-read
Such an awesome cover! I must have this.
Harsh, brutal, dystopian as hell in a Kurt Vonnegut meets Bizarro way Osborne has crafted a wholly unique work of fiction. I actually read it twice out of pure enjoyment and to ensure I had everything straight. The enjoyment was still there but there is no straight with this book.
Set in the world of the Suberian Gulags and written by a guy from Oklahoma. Supremely screwed up for those who like their literature dark and weird and leaves you thinking.
Set in the world of the Suberian Gulags and written by a guy from Oklahoma. Supremely screwed up for those who like their literature dark and weird and leaves you thinking.
Osborne's tale of gangsters struggling to survive in a freezing Siberian prison camp is trippy, violent, and disturbing. Admittedly, it took me about 60 pages to figure out what Osborne was going for. But once it clicked, this spare, roiling page-turner stuck in my brain like a tumor.
Compelling read that I couldn't help but tear through all in one morning. But I am one of the people left scratching their head about the ending.
May 18, 2013
Rodney
marked it as to-read
May 12, 2013
Mort Chud
marked it as to-read
May 06, 2013
Rebecca Zavala
marked it as to-read
May 02, 2013
Kevin Clayton
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
J David Osborne is the Norman, Oklahoma based author of the Wonderland Award-winning BY THE TIME WE LEAVE HERE, WE'LL BE FRIENDS. His work has appeared in JOHN SKIPP'S DEMONS, WARMED AND BOUND, VERBICIDE, THE MAGAZINE OF BIZARRO FICTION, BARE BONE, and BULL SPEC. His second novel, the surreal Oklahoma noir LOW DOWN DEATH RIGHT EASY, is out now from Swallowdown Press.
More about J. David Osborne...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
