Alexander Pyles's Blog, page 7
August 8, 2019
Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
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I’ve been waiting a long time to get to these books, and since the 3rd book was nominated for a Hugo this year, it seemed it was as good a time as any to start. And what a refreshing treat this was! I know that uplifting science fiction has been an ongoing trend for years, but considering this book came out in 2014, shows how long that trend has been going on.
THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET is an insanely inventive space adventure with a lovely crew of aliens and humans. I listened t...
August 6, 2019
A Small Reflection & Writing Stats
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So, I’m going to do something different with this writing update and talk about how I started writing. I honestly haven’t given it much thought, so this is as good as any to wax a bit on that escalation of events.
This was also partly inspired by a friend who recently gave an update on FB about his own word count and how it’s impacted him of the course of the year, so I wanted to take some time and think about this myself along with seeing where my stats have landed.
Now for some some cold h...
August 3, 2019
Review: Exhalation
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Ted Chiang is one of my all time favorite living writers of science fiction. He may even be my all time favorite short story writer. Ever since EXHALATION was released, I was chomping at the bit to read it, since while I could go elsewhere to read these stories, having a condensed book of just him, is so much more appealing, plus the two last stories in the collection were completely new. I do have his previous collection, but have yet to read it cover to cover after reading the utterly sou...
August 1, 2019
Review: Screechers
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I wasn’t sure what I was in for with a title like SCREECHERS and a tag-team of authors in Kevin J. Kennedy & Christina Berling, but the experience was a pleasant one, that is if you enjoy nightmarish hellscapes.
In SCREECHERS, we have two interweaving stories. One follows three men, Austin, Denver, and Brooklyn (gotta chuckle at the city theme) as they try to survive in a virtual post-apocalyptic hellscape of uncertain origin. Their community has been destroyed and everyone killed, but Austi...
July 30, 2019
Review: Sea of Rust
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Cargill doesn’t ease off the gas pedal, bringing a harsh, but fantastical post-apocalyptic world to life, well with chrome-embodied life. It has been a long time, since I read a 350+ book in less than four days, but SEA OF RUST from C. Robert Cargill broke that drought and I am absolutely thrilled about it.
Following Brittle, a Caregiver bot turned scavenger, they survive in a world of strife and dust. One World Intelligences (OWI) rule the earth now and it will take all the survival skills...
July 27, 2019
Review: North American Lake Monsters
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I’ve been on a bit of a collection kick, if you could not tell and I was unprepred for reading my first collection by Nathan Ballingrud. NORTH AMERICAN LAKE MONSTERS is a searing, uncomfortable taste of brutal humanity. Describing this collection of stories would be to say it is a splicing of Raymond Carver and Flannery O’Connor with a dash of Thomas Ligotti. There is not a single story that pulls a punch and Ballingrud is here to (through prose) pummel your heart into dust. Since the collec...
July 25, 2019
Review: Mapping the Interior
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MAPPING THE INTERIOR is a genre-blending novella of incredible depth. Stephen Graham Jones, an accomplished writer of horror, strives to present a heartfelt tribute with a variety of themes and messages that will sear the heart cold.
When Junior sees the ghost of his long dead father, he begins to unravel a mystery that surrounds his father’s mysterious death that led them to leaving the reservation. He finds their house may be far more than what originally meets the eye. And once he discove...
July 23, 2019
Book Release: ANGELS
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I said stay tuned and here is another of the Black Hare Press anthologies(that I’m in)!
It releases today from Amazon and contains another five of my drabbles! I’ll post the title list below as I did last time at the bottom.
My own drabbles for this edition cover angels of death, strife in heaven, and the little voices on our shoulders. I had a lot of fun messing around with angelic tropes, I think they ended up pretty okay overall.
Either way, if you decide to pick it up, you’ll also find 1...
July 20, 2019
Review: Dark Thoughts
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I enjoy horror and Kevin J. Kennedy provides some of the most twisted and pulpy stuff out there. This collection, the first I’ve had a chance to read is no exception. Not every story landed with me, but the ones that did were fantastic and I’ll discuss them in more detail in a moment.
DARK THOUGHTS is a collection that sums up a lot of concerns and worries of humanity. There threat of self annihilation, revenge, to escape pain, and ultimately death. The stories vary from general pulp horror,...
July 18, 2019
Review: Nobody Gets Hurt: And Other Lies
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Nicholas Day broke entirely new ground with his first collection, NOW THAT WE’RE ALONE, and he’s back with a more mature collection of stories in, NOBODY GETS HURT AND OTHER LIES. The collection is a smattering of pulpy horror, bizzaro moments, and literary sensibilities. Day seeks to subvert expectations and then lean into expectations in order to elicit that ever elusive catharsis a reader desires after reading a short work.
Day has never been an easy writer to pin down to any genre or ca...
