Tag: Strange Horizons

Gliff by Ali Smith: Strange Horizons review

20th December 2024 / / 0 Comments

Over at Strange Horizons, I’ve reviewed the latest novel by Ali Smith. Gliff is the tale of two young siblings living in a future of banal oppression, and the ways they find to resist. I found its abstract dimensions strongest, the way it articulates that resistance must take place partly at a conceptual level. But the concrete aspects of its future are a bit too sketchy to have real heft. There will be a companion novel, Glyph, next year, which will apparently tell a story hidden in the first volume. I will be curious to see how that turns out.

Read my review of Gliff in full here. The book is published by Hamish Hamilton.

The Black Orb by Ewhan Kim (tr. Sean Lin Halbert): Strange Horizons review

28th October 2024 / / 0 Comments

I am back at Strange Horizons with a review of The Black Orb by Ewhan Kim, translated from Korean by Sean Lin Halbert. This is the tale of an unusual apocalypse, as mysterious dark orbs proliferate across the world, absorbing everyone who gets in their way. Our protagonist is Jeong-su, who may not seem to be cut out for surviving an apocalypse, but does so anyway. It turns out that the real danger in this novel lies on the inside.

To find out more of what I thought, read my review in full here.

The Black Orb is published by Serpent’s Tail.

The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer (tr. Jen Calleja): Strange Horizons review

1st September 2023 / / 0 Comments

I’m back at Strange Horizons with a new review. The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer (translated from German by Jen Calleja) concerns a woman who goes in search of her parents’ birthplace and finds a quaint little town in its own bubble of reality – with a giant hole in the middle, where the secrets of the past can be conveniently lost. Eddelbauer’s novel is a striking metaphorical exploration of how people may seek to ignore the past, and how it may catch up with them. Published by Scribe UK.

Click here to read my review in full.

Three new reviews: White, Mayo, Voetmann

29th April 2023 / / 0 Comments

Today’s post is rounding up a few reviews I’ve had published elsewhere. First off is an Irish novel from Tramp Press, Where I End by Sophie White, which I’ve reviewed here for Strange Horizons. This is the tale of Aoileann, who lives an isolated existence looking after her bedridden mother. It’s not until an artist and her baby son visit Aoileann’s island that she realises what she’s been missing in terms of human connection. What particularly struck me about White’s novel is the way it creates its own little fairytale horror world without ever invoking the supernatural. Aoileann becomes both a source and victim of horror in an intimate piece of work.

The European Literature Network has recently launched The Spanish Riveter, the latest issue of its occasional magazine on European writing. This one has almost 300 pages of articles, extracts and reviews of translated literature from Spain – including a review of mine. I’m looking at a Catalan novel from 3TimesRebel Press: The Carnivorous Plant by Andrea Mayo (tr. Laura McGloughlin). It tells of an abusive relationship, and challenges the reader to understand what it was like for the protagonist, and why she stayed in that situation. The Spanish Riveter is available as a PDF here; you’ll find my review on page 91.

My last stop is Denmark, and Awake by Harald Voetmann (tr. Joanne Sorgenfri Ottosen, pub. Lolli Editions). This is a novel about Pliny the Elder, and his attempt to catalogue the world and its knowledge in his Naturalis Historia. Voetmann brings Pliny’s world to life, and explores the limits of what he could achieve. I’ve reviewed this one for European Literature Network in their regular review section here.

Appliance by J.O. Morgan: a Strange Horizons review

25th August 2022 / / 0 Comments

I enjoyed J.O. Morgan’s debut novel Pupa earlier in the year. Now he’s back with Appliance, which I think is even better. It’s about the development of technology and how this can run away before people have a handle on the ramifications. Morgan’s new technology of choice is teleportation, but it could really stand in for any form of tech. The way Appliance moves from the specific to the general helps give the novel its power.

I’ve reviewed Appliance for Strange Horizons. You can read my review here.

Appliance is published by Jonathan Cape.

Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker: a Strange Horizons review

16th March 2022 / / 0 Comments

I have a new review up at Strange Horizons. This time I’m looking at Composite Creatures, the debut novel by Caroline Hardaker (published by Angry Robot).

Composite Creatures is set in a future where nature has mostly been replaced by artificial substitutes. Norah and Art are learning to live together with Nut, their “perfect little bundle of fur”, and Norah feels she’s presenting different versions of herself to the world.

I found that reading Composite Creatures felt like peeling back successive layers of the novel, so that’s how I structured my review.

You can read the review in full here.

Books of the 2010s: Fifty Memories, nos. 5-1

21st June 2020 / / 4 Comments

Here we are, then: my top 5 reading memories from the last decade. I knew how this countdown would end before I started compiling the list. The reading experiences I’m talking about here… more than anything, this is why I read.

The previous instalments of this series are available here: 50-41, 40-31, 30-21, 20-11, 10-6.

Continue reading

Three reviews: Ogawa, Dusapin, Mesa

4th June 2020 / / 0 Comments

Today I’m rounding up three reviews that I’ve had published on other websites in the last few months. I would recommend all of these books…

First, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder). It’s one of my favourite books from this year’s International Booker Prize, a tale of loss set on an island where things disappear from living memory without warning. I’ve reviewed it for Strange Horizons.

The second book is Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins). The narrator is a young woman working at a guest house in the South Korean tourist town of Sokcho, who’s ill at ease with her life. The novel is a quiet exploration of a moment when that might be about to change. I’ve reviewed Winter in Sokcho for Shiny New Books.

Finally, we have Four by Four by Sara Mesa (translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore). This is a novel about the use and abuse of power, set in an exclusive college. I’ve reviewed the book for European Literature Network.

The Dollmaker – Nina Allan: a Strange Horizons review

9th August 2019 / / 1 Comment

I’m back at Strange Horizons this week, with a review of Nina Allan’s latest novel, The Dollmaker.

Nina is a long-time friend of this blog, and one of the authors I’ve written about most often – but never quite at this length. It was a pleasure to spend time thinking through The Dollmaker: on the surface, the novel is about a maker and collector of dolls paying a surprise visit to a correspondent, but it also explores how lives lived beside each other can be as distant as parallel worlds.

Click here to read my review in full.

The Dollmaker (2019) is published by riverrun in the UK and Other Press in the US.

Some reviews elsewhere

16th December 2016 / / 1 Comment

I haven’t been posting links to my external reviews lately, so here’s a round-up of the most recent four: all books that are worth your time.

winterlingsThe Winterlings by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade (tr. Samuel Rutter). Twenty-five years after being evacuated to England, two sisters return to the Galician parish of their childhood. The place is otherworldly to them, but they also have a glamour of their own – and so mystery encroaches on the reader from all sides. Reviewed for European Literature Network.

 

beast

Beast by Paul Kingsnorth. Second part of the thematic trilogy that began with The Wake. This volume is set in the present day, and focuses on an Englishman in search of his place in the landscape. A strange creature haunts the corner of his eye, and his language grows more primal as he heads further into hallucination. Reviewed for Shiny New Books.

 

brussoloThe Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome by Serge Brussolo (tr. Edward Gauvin). A tantalising slice of weirdness set in a reality where art is retrieved from the depths of dreams. One man believes that the dream realm has its own objective existence – and he’ll risk his very self to prove it. Reviewed for Strange Horizons.

 

tobacconist

The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler (tr. Charlotte Collins). A new novel in English from the author of A Whole Life. The tale of a young man who becomes a tobacconist’s apprentice in 1930s Vienna and strikes up a friendship with Sigmund Freud. Love begins to stir, just as the shadow of the Nazis grows. Reviewed for European Literature Network.

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