Weird, Experimental...
Review: Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov
Barsukov is an excellent writer, but I didn’t need this book. Why? His award-nominated novella “Tower of Mud and Straw” was already perfect on its own. It had a great ending. Sticking on a second half wasn’t needed and weakened the original.
I suspect people who didn’t read the original will enjoy it more. The second, newer half, is even more surreal and honestly quite interesting in its own way. But the survival of the protagonist was too much of a stretch for me.
Honestly, so was the cosmology and philosophy. It didn’t fit, it didn’t make sense, and I just found myself wishing Barsukov had written something else.
If you like really surreal stuff, you’ll definitely like it better than I did, but I’m finding it hard to recommend. I recommend finding the novella instead.
I received a copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: Failure To Comply by Cavar
This book is described as literary sci-fi, but it’s also body horror. It’s queer, it’s trans, and for some reason Amazon is ranking it in Sociology Reference. Oh dear.
It’s also highly, highly experimental. Too much so for my personal taste – this book flickers between traditional narrative, stream of consciousness, poetry, and fake entries in a database. Despite that, everything but the ending makes sense.
(At one point the level of surreality made me wonder if it was actually a simulation, but apparently that’s not the author’s intent).
(Amazon’s algorithm has gone insane…related items to this book are a prepper book, what appears to be a PUA manual, and a book on reading other people’s body language better).
I didn’t like this book, but I didn’t like it because of a pure aesthetic. It’s hard to write experimental stuff that a reader can easily follow, and Cavar has that. The themed time jumps, with the story told out of order but echoing to itself remind me of The Handmaid’s Tale.
So, if you do like it, you’ll probably like this. Some of the body horror content might be slightly triggering for some, and the policing of bodies may also trigger some trans and disabled people…but this is not a book meant to be comfortable.
It’s a book that might well make cis and abled people uncomfortable too, and that, I suspect, is the author’s intent.
Recommended for people who like experimental narratives done well.