L.S. Popovich's Blog, page 7

Review of The Architect by Brendan Connell

Connell delivers another absorbing fictional account of bizarre people acting in satirical fashion.  This is a baroque and elegant gem about a brilliant architect driven mad by his vision of the greatest edifice ever to be imagined. His eldritch genius spreads to others, infecting them with illusions of grandeur, leading them to fall under his […]

Review of Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan

The supremacy of storytelling. A fantastic and magic realist tale about a giant, a movie theater and a lot of other things. The author managed to conjure a surreal setting, painting sympathetic characters I will never forget and tying seemingly disparate events together through unbelievable, but clever, coincidences. The writing was super smooth throughout. I […]

Review of Mystery Train by Can Xue

Can Xue is one of the recurring nominees for the Nobel Prize. I can see why. Her body of work is varied and unique, relevant, and large. This short novel takes place mostly on a train. One of my favorite literary settings. The main character undergoes a kafkaesque series of mishaps, ending up in a […]

Review of Authority (Southern Reach, #2) by Jeff VanderMeer

I am sad to say I did not get any entertainment out of this one.  Sure, it put a few of the pieces into place, but the ever expanding mystery of Area X remains largely unexplained. But we did not go into it hoping for explanations, I would think. We went into it for that […]

Review of Himmler and the Handmaid by Erik Martiny

Martiny has put out a lot of books recently. I was surprised to find another one coming out this year called Bloodberry. I’ve written reviews of all his previous productions from River Boat Books. This one was engrossing and historically intriguing. It offered a well-researched fictional look at a mistress of Himmler’s. The short chapters […]

Review of Creepy Sheen by Rebecca Gransden

An entertaining and thought-provoking collection of scary stories to peruse in the half-light of sun-baked twilights. A moody, unhurried taste of dreamy apocalyptic nostalgia. With an appreciation for film and music, the author frames the scenes in enigmatic layers of imagery, where molting skyscrapers and abandoned stores abound, where dead rats leak opioid crystals into […]

Review of All The Lovers In The Night by Mieko Kawakami

A slowly paced romance.  The sheepish first-person narrator lives a solitary, repetitive existence, two-steps away from becoming a hikikomori. Her relationships are explored in several unremarkable scenes containing a lot of small talk and quaint dialogue. The author has a tendency to conduct most scenes at restaurants, with two characters having a dialogue, which ranges […]

Review of The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

The book is not long enough. To read it is to drink at the firehose of Burton’s accumulated research.Reading about the book can scarcely convey the experience. Many reviews of it quote from the first 50 pages, where Burton describes his own method and mentality, his madness and genius, the form and structure of his […]

Review of City of Mann by L. Ross Coulter

The author poses an interesting thought experiment and uses it as a vehicle to make many utopian s-f speculations about humanity, the almighty, and modern society. One must ponder the concept of intelligent design, entering into the strange world of sentient cities he created. Though lacking in action and traditional genre plots, there is enough […]

Review of Neo-Decadence Evangelion

I don’t summarize plots in my reviews. (Some of these tales do not contain plot). But I do offer impressions.  This volume compliments the Neo-Decadent canon curated by Justin Isis, enlarging and enriching the aesthetic and providing a unique form of entertainment which will surprise and challenge any brave reader. The Slug – Brendan Connell: […]