Battle without Honor or Humanity: Volume 2

by D. Harlan Wilson

J. G. Ballard once confessed that his worst fear was an atrophy of the imagination brought on by anti-intellectualism and the dumbing down of culture. D. Harlan Wilson’s ferocious innovations remind us that the powers of the imagination remain very much alive. In the follow-up to his critically acclaimed fiction collection, Wilson makes good on what Publishers Weekly called “a lingering threat to do it all again.” These stories of ennui, terror and jouissance foreground a raw existential absurdity that siphons energy from the specter of media culture, technology and ultraviolence. Dreamlike and satirical, theoretical and obscene, they navigate the riverworlds of the cinematic unconscious, reminding us just how profoundly the real has become the reel.

124 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2016

About the author

D. Harlan Wilson is an award-winning American novelist, literary critic, editor, playwright, and college professor. He is the author of over thirty book-length works of fiction and nonfiction, and hundreds of hist stories, plays, essays, and reviews have been published across the world in more than ten languages. Recent books include Strangelove Country: Science Fiction, Filmosophy, and the Kubrickian Consciousness, Minority Report, Jackanape and the Fingermen, and Outré.

Reviews

[Donald Armfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imaginative, absurd and Wilson assault power, in overdrive.

[San Diego Book Review · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by Hubert O'Hearn

I actually went and looked this up on Google which at least shows you that research might not be my life, but it is occasionally my obligation. I was curious as to how many random thoughts a person has per minute and the answer was 50,000 a day. Off to the calculator I went and that number broke down to 2083 per hour or 35 per minute. (Yes I rounded the numbers off, no I don't care if that offends you.) That sounds just about right.
You can read this entire review and others like it at San Diego Book Review.

[Heidi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really didn't like this book. It was all too "out there" for me.
I can appreciate that some people would find it clever but it was not the type of literature I enjoy.