Jason Pettus's Blog, page 4

Book Review: "Next Year, For Sure," by Zoey Leigh Peterson

Next Year, For Sure By Zoey Leigh Peterson Scribner Reviewed by Jason Pettus I admit, I thought I was in for trouble when reading the first chapter of short-story veteran Zoey Leigh Peterson's debut novel, Next Year, For Sure, as we get introduced to a cutesy-wootsy-patoosie perfect little twentysomething hipster couple, and witness the cutesy-wootsy-patoosie perfect little twentysomething hipster things that constitute their relationship; but then in the very next chapter we get a complicat...

Book Review: "The Fairytale Chicago of Francesca Finnegan," by Steve Wiley

The Fairytale Chicago of Francesca Finnegan By Steve Wiley Lavender Line Press Reviewed by Jason Pettus I'll admit, although the premise of Steve Wiley's The Fairytale Chicago of Francesca Finnegan is a really clever one that will immediately appeal to locals -- basically, that there's an entire urban-fantasy secret history of the city, including an underwater "lavender line" el train that runs through a submerged east side of Chicago -- I had been half-expecting the actual book itself to be...

Book Review: "Faller," by Will McIntosh

Faller By Will McIntosh Tor Reviewed by Jason Pettus Although it's certainly a valid trick that can occasionally be put to very good use (Memento comes to mind, for example), genre authors need to be very careful when when deploying the "selective amnesia" trope within their fantastical stories; because when done wrong, you get something like Will McIntosh's disappointing science-fiction novel Faller, whose logic often feels like the author just flat-out confessing, "For the purposes of my b...

Book Review: "Milwaukee Mayhem," by Matthew J. Prigge

(CCLaP is dedicated to reviewing as many contemporary books as possible, including self-published volumes; click here to learn how to submit your own book for possible review, although be warned that it needs to have been published within the last 18 months to be considered. For the complete list of all books reviewed here, as well as the next books scheduled to be read, click here.) �� �� Milwaukee Mayhem: Murder and Mystery in the Cream City's First Century By Matthew J. Prigge Wisconsin H...

Book Review: "In the Mountains of Madness," by W. Scott Poole

In the Mountains of Madness: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of H.P. Lovecraft By W. Scott Poole Soft Skull Press / Counterpoint Reviewed by Jason Pettus As W. Scott Poole rightfully says in his new book, In the Mountains of Madness, despite how we long-time fans might still think of him, there is just no way anymore to describe Early Modernist horror writer HP Lovecraft as "obscure" or "unknown;" with his concepts popping up in things like Guillermo del Toro movies, top-40 music albums...

Book Review: "If This Is Home," by Stuart Evers

If This Is Home By Stuart Evers Picador Reviewed by Jason Pettus Definitely the most interesting thing about Stuart Evers' new novel If This Is Home is the ultra-rich Las Vegas condo complex Valhalla where our narrator is working as the book opens, a great symbol for everything wrong with America right now: a glittering house of cards designed expressly to fleece the empty consumerist one-percenters out of their money, prospective buyers are shuttled around to what they are told are the "mos...

Tales from the Completist: "The New York Trilogy," by Paul Auster

The New York Trilogy (1987) By Paul Auster Reviewed by Jason Pettus In a few weeks I'm going to have the opportunity to read Paul Auster's surprise new novel, 4 3 2 1, which has already been gathering up tons of accolades from early reviewers; but I've never actually read any work by Auster before, so I thought I'd start with the very first thing he published, The New York Trilogy which originally consisted of three separate small novels in the 1980s, but is now only sold as a one-volume set...

Book Review: "The Impossible Fortress," by Jason Rekulak

The Impossible Fortress By Jason Rekulak Simon & Schuster Reviewed by Jason Pettus Ever since James Woods accused Donna Tartt's Pulitzer-winning The Goldfinch of being "the world's most overhyped Young Adult novel," back in the pages of The New Yorker in 2014, there's been an ongoing debate in the literary world about just how much the Great Dumbing-Down of America has or has not reached its tentacles into the normally safe world of intellectualism; I mean, sure, we all just rightly accept t...

Book Review: "Utopia is Creepy," by Nicholas Carr

Utopia is Creepy and Other Provocations By Nicholas Carr W.W. Norton and Company Reviewed by Jason Pettus To be clear, I would've loved to have read a book of insightful, thought-provoking essays about how everything we assume about the internet is in fact wrong, as Nicholas Carr promises with his new book, Utopia is Creepy and Other Provocations; so what a profound shame, then, that what this book actually consists of is a bunch of reprints of three-page blog posts from Carr's website, a wh...

Book Review: "Ames," by Jeremy Andrew Whitehead

Ames By Jeremy Andrew Whitehead Self-published Reviewed by Jason Pettus To review Jeremy Andrew Whitehead's Ames is an inherently frustrating experience, and a great example of why it can be so difficult to give a fair shake to self-published literature. Because to be sure, there's a great science-fiction novel buried within this manuscript, based on a really thought-provoking premise that brings to mind Charles Stross' cult favorite Saturn's Children -- namely, what would happen if a ship f...