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Surreal Worlds
From beyond the boundaries of the imagination and the universe… An anthology of surrealistic compositions created by some of the finest names in genre fiction. A showcase of international talent undaunted by the conventions of language and common narrative structures. Here is timelessness. Here is Surreal Worlds.
270 pages, Paperback
First published June 23, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 10, 2017
These stories cannot be contained in a box. Instead, they take the proverbial box, break it down, then rebuild it in twisted dimensions. Each exists independently as an excursion into another reality. Labels are useless.
Climb aboard the Bipolar Express and meet Manic Claus in the Middle Pole. Is the whole world on drugs? Follow Pain Pig in his excursion across the Faecal Fields. Absorb the detailed illustrations. Flee the antihero aflame on the back of a robotic rainbow trout while experiencing the Noise That Stains. Love among clones is strong as snowflakes fall and pages turn. Vision transcends the body with the invention of an extensive prosthetic. Shots are fired amidst the chaos of a desert nightmare. The rattlesnake bones cannot protect you.
This collection succeeds in stimulating the open mind. The surreal nature of each story rejects rationality in favor of the dreamlike subconscious. Each reader's opinion is subjective. Some scenarios may not strike a flame, while others will completely ignite. Put aside logic and surrender to impossible geometries.
This review was jointly written by Rodney Gardner and myself. We were both quite impressed with this book.
Climb aboard the Bipolar Express and meet Manic Claus in the Middle Pole. Is the whole world on drugs? Follow Pain Pig in his excursion across the Faecal Fields. Absorb the detailed illustrations. Flee the antihero aflame on the back of a robotic rainbow trout while experiencing the Noise That Stains. Love among clones is strong as snowflakes fall and pages turn. Vision transcends the body with the invention of an extensive prosthetic. Shots are fired amidst the chaos of a desert nightmare. The rattlesnake bones cannot protect you.
This collection succeeds in stimulating the open mind. The surreal nature of each story rejects rationality in favor of the dreamlike subconscious. Each reader's opinion is subjective. Some scenarios may not strike a flame, while others will completely ignite. Put aside logic and surrender to impossible geometries.
This review was jointly written by Rodney Gardner and myself. We were both quite impressed with this book.
August 10, 2017
These stories cannot be contained in a box. Instead, they take the proverbial box, break it down, then rebuild it in twisted dimensions. Each exists independently as an excursion into another reality. Labels are useless.
Climb aboard the Bipolar Express and meet Manic Claus in the Middle Pole. Is the whole world on drugs? Follow Pain Pig in his excursion across the Faecal Fields. Absorb the detailed illustrations. Flee the antihero aflame on the back of a robotic rainbow trout while experiencing the Noise That Stains. Love among clones is strong as snowflakes fall and pages turn. Vision transcends the body with the invention of an extensive prosthetic. Shots are fired amidst the chaos of a desert nightmare. The rattlesnake bones cannot protect you.
This collection succeeds in stimulating the open mind. The surreal nature of each story rejects rationality in favor of the dreamlike subconscious. Each reader's opinion is subjective. Some scenarios may not strike a flame, while others will completely ignite. Put aside logic and surrender to impossible geometries.
This is a joint review from Janie C. and myself. We both really enjoyed this one.
Climb aboard the Bipolar Express and meet Manic Claus in the Middle Pole. Is the whole world on drugs? Follow Pain Pig in his excursion across the Faecal Fields. Absorb the detailed illustrations. Flee the antihero aflame on the back of a robotic rainbow trout while experiencing the Noise That Stains. Love among clones is strong as snowflakes fall and pages turn. Vision transcends the body with the invention of an extensive prosthetic. Shots are fired amidst the chaos of a desert nightmare. The rattlesnake bones cannot protect you.
This collection succeeds in stimulating the open mind. The surreal nature of each story rejects rationality in favor of the dreamlike subconscious. Each reader's opinion is subjective. Some scenarios may not strike a flame, while others will completely ignite. Put aside logic and surrender to impossible geometries.
This is a joint review from Janie C. and myself. We both really enjoyed this one.
August 24, 2015
Surrealism in its traditional definition is a form of writing and art that expresses thought through strange and often irrational imagery and a contradiction of free association and linear thinking that often crosses the boundary between dreams and reality. Andre Breton called it a philosophical movement rather than an artistic one and Salvador Dali described it as "destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision." Literary Surrealism can be frustrating and difficult to read but the effort leads to not only Dali's descriptive sense of annihilation but a liberation of how we think and how we perceive.
Surreal Worlds is an anthology edited by Sean Leonard and published by Bizarro Pulp Press. It mainly but not exclusively includes contemporary writers who write in the more modern Bizarro movement. Bizarro is a close cousin to Surrealism. Bizarro is more closely aligned with Sci-Fi, horror and even the pulp comic/graphics madness of the last few decades. But as weird as Bizarro can get, it is usually still grounded in a world that we can identify. Surrealism plays with our mind with free association, a non-lineal process of descriptions and a weirdness that is set more in our quirky dream state rather than any reality we know. A good example of this is the very first story of the collection. Steve Rasnic Tem's "Paul Breaks" is only three pages long and is very much in the feel of a dream state not really making sense but latching on to a strong sense of human emotion. It moves us but we may not be able to verbalize why.
The 25 writers in the anthology range from the established (Tem and John Palisano), to talents quickly rising in notoriety (Seb Doubinsky, Max Booth III, Gabino Iglesia) to quite a few I am not familiar with. Whether they are regular writers of Bizarro and/or Surrealism or not, they all take on the challenge with a passion. Some of the stories have more grounding in reality than others and I must admit I am drawn to a little grounding. My favorite story in the book is one of those. John Palisano's "The BiPolar Express" is a retelling of the classic children novel The Polar Express except the train picks up a boy in a psychiatric facility and transports him to the Middle Pole. It is clever, funny and eventually very sad. Wol-vriey's "End of the World Pie" is also a story that, despite its utter strangeness, uses a metaphor that links us to a grim reality. "aaaaaaaaa" by Gabino Iglesia is somewhere in the middle. It is very surrealistic but in a other-world adventure sense, like a cross between Dali and William Hope Hodgson. I loved "House Party" by Dustin Reade because it almost reads like a parody of Surrealism. Much of the fiction here is best described as "Don't try to figure it out, just go with the flow" Finally of the ones I will mention, Carter Rydyr's "Pain Pig's Pilgrimage" is one of the longest and strangest tales. I cant say I liked it. It tended to be out of control much of the time. But it is certainly memorable especially since it is accompanied by equally surreal and troubling illustrations.
Surreal Worlds is ultimately an experimental collection and as such it doesn't always work. But the sheer audacity of the anthology makes it essential. It is a delight to read so it becomes a successful collection of strange ideas and creative madness. Equally impressive is the book itself with its odd cover and inside illustrations. Even if you consider yourself a mainstream reader, this is a great book for challenging your boundaries.
Surreal Worlds is an anthology edited by Sean Leonard and published by Bizarro Pulp Press. It mainly but not exclusively includes contemporary writers who write in the more modern Bizarro movement. Bizarro is a close cousin to Surrealism. Bizarro is more closely aligned with Sci-Fi, horror and even the pulp comic/graphics madness of the last few decades. But as weird as Bizarro can get, it is usually still grounded in a world that we can identify. Surrealism plays with our mind with free association, a non-lineal process of descriptions and a weirdness that is set more in our quirky dream state rather than any reality we know. A good example of this is the very first story of the collection. Steve Rasnic Tem's "Paul Breaks" is only three pages long and is very much in the feel of a dream state not really making sense but latching on to a strong sense of human emotion. It moves us but we may not be able to verbalize why.
The 25 writers in the anthology range from the established (Tem and John Palisano), to talents quickly rising in notoriety (Seb Doubinsky, Max Booth III, Gabino Iglesia) to quite a few I am not familiar with. Whether they are regular writers of Bizarro and/or Surrealism or not, they all take on the challenge with a passion. Some of the stories have more grounding in reality than others and I must admit I am drawn to a little grounding. My favorite story in the book is one of those. John Palisano's "The BiPolar Express" is a retelling of the classic children novel The Polar Express except the train picks up a boy in a psychiatric facility and transports him to the Middle Pole. It is clever, funny and eventually very sad. Wol-vriey's "End of the World Pie" is also a story that, despite its utter strangeness, uses a metaphor that links us to a grim reality. "aaaaaaaaa" by Gabino Iglesia is somewhere in the middle. It is very surrealistic but in a other-world adventure sense, like a cross between Dali and William Hope Hodgson. I loved "House Party" by Dustin Reade because it almost reads like a parody of Surrealism. Much of the fiction here is best described as "Don't try to figure it out, just go with the flow" Finally of the ones I will mention, Carter Rydyr's "Pain Pig's Pilgrimage" is one of the longest and strangest tales. I cant say I liked it. It tended to be out of control much of the time. But it is certainly memorable especially since it is accompanied by equally surreal and troubling illustrations.
Surreal Worlds is ultimately an experimental collection and as such it doesn't always work. But the sheer audacity of the anthology makes it essential. It is a delight to read so it becomes a successful collection of strange ideas and creative madness. Equally impressive is the book itself with its odd cover and inside illustrations. Even if you consider yourself a mainstream reader, this is a great book for challenging your boundaries.
December 22, 2015
I will start off by clarifying my 5 star rating. There were a couple of stories in the collection that would have been better suited in a Bizarro anthology and there were a couple I was not keen on. With saying that I thought this book was excellent and deserves full marks for putting together a diverse mix of modern authors take on Surrealism.
I was going to give more details on my favourites but will instead say that if you enjoy surreal, Bizarro, experimental fiction (etc, etc...) then you will get a lot of joy from reading this book.
I was going to give more details on my favourites but will instead say that if you enjoy surreal, Bizarro, experimental fiction (etc, etc...) then you will get a lot of joy from reading this book.
April 24, 2016
From beyond the boundaries of the imagination and the universe… An anthology of surrealistic compositions created by some of the finest names in genre fiction. A showcase of international talent undaunted by the conventions of language and common narrative structures. Here is timelessness. Here is Surreal Worlds.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews