Forrest > Recent Status Updates

This principal of "editing" is a keeper. I use it in my writing, of course, but applying it to "life" is a potential gamechanger. I've dabbled in it, inadvertently, in my work life and the older I get, the more I see it as essential to my mental health.

The poetic reaching of "Dark Starlight" is about right, but maybe a smidge over the top. I still like the thematic thread and the central conceit of the discovery of one's own clone (and the fact that the narrator may have unwittingly been replaced by and become that clone) is original, if familiar. Three stars.

I'm feeling much more validated about my slowness to respond to some requests. It seems so "anti-business," but it frees me up to take care of important business and gives the asker a chance to think about how important their request really is . . . or is not.

I am enjoying my second reading of Malpertuis even more than the first. As a result, the books in my "currently reading" list are going more slowly than usual. And I couldn't be happier about that. I'm really learning the joys of slow reading, rather than frantically feeling like I "ought" to read more quickly. Screw hustle culture.

Had this been the first horror story I ever read (say at age 13), I would have been very impressed by "Nightgrim," a tale of being absorbed into, then becoming nightmares. Alas, this isn't my first horror story, and the most horrible thing about this story is the obscene abuse of adverbs. 2 stars.

Grains' profuse usage of adjectives can be overwhelming, at times, but in "Metamorphosis" the style works perfectly well. Here, in an apocalyptic horror story somewhere between Clark Ashton Smith and China Mieville, the narrator embraces the inevitability of change on the cosmic level, accepting fate with a philosophically stoic attitude that masks the shock of an undeserved fate of extreme horror. Five stars.

"The Dreamer Awakens" is sometimes beautiful wordcraft and at other times just a wilty vocabulary salad. I liked the richness of the presentation, but the narrator behind the words comes across as excessively expressionistic and narcissistic. As a story, it is flat. As a weird prose poem, it's adequate to the task, if needing another editorial pass. 3 stars.

Reminder: Play. Play a lot. Play for real.

We begin with an appetizer in the form of "How the God's Feast," a decadent tale with a mildly-surpising ending, probably not as shocking as intended, but effective nevertheless. I'm trying my best to ignore any quirks of translation, as Grains' English is much better than my German will ever be. Kudos to him for hiring good translators to assist. This is, I can see already, a labor of love.

These roman boys need, in the words of my late father, "an ass whuppin'".

And now is the part where I reread a book. Probably Malpertuis, but maybe The Jade Cabinet or Tristram Shandy - which one would you pick for a reread (or to read for the first time)? I'm genuinely curious.

Ever contemplated choosing homelessness? I have (when it's warm out). In "What the Vagabond Sees or The Parish Coda," an entire society and cosmology is outlined for English Vagabonds, whose motto is "No Parish But Albion". If you know, you know.

I'll be referencing my Cotswolds trip in this review! Also referencing Grasscut's

I found "A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish" deeply moving. First, it created a deep psychogeography of a particular house seeping with sadness, longing for company. I thought of my parent's home, but more of that at a later time. I also thought of my own childhood and the deep impressions of place I felt.