thevampiremars's reviews
196 reviews

“This is not for you.”

House of Leaves is... a lot. I think its greatest weakness is that it’s just too damn long. I like the experimental stuff but it takes too long to get there and the characters we follow along the way aren’t particularly likeable. Johnny is the most fleshed-out character by far, but his tryhard irreverence tends to rub me up the wrong way, as does the way he talks about women. But there are glimmers of sincerity which make him a little endearing. And there are some really beautiful bits of prose. Some phrases I liked:

“that air was almost too bright to breathe”

“gut-wet docks”

“Possess. Can’t get that word out of my eye. All those S’s, sister here to these charred matches.”

But yeah. That experimental stuff I mentioned – playing with format and typography and whatnot – didn’t get under my skin the way it seems to have done with other readers. I can appreciate the way

the lines on pages 440-441 are arranged to resemble the rungs of a ladder, and force the reader’s eyes to scan upwards as though they were themself scaling this ladder like Navidson

– that’s good shit! But it’s not mind-blowing.

I’ve seen tons of poems where the stanzas are shaped like the subject – I’ve written poems like that. I’ve assembled collages. I’ve cut out sections in pages to leave empty gaps or to let other pages intrude. I love love love that stuff, but maybe I’m too familiar with it for it to shock me.

I remember reading one person’s account where

they realised that the word house had been blue the whole time (they hadn’t noticed initially and went back to check). The thing is, I’m reading the paperback edition where house is slightly greyed instead of bright blue, and still I picked up on it immediately.

So do you have to roll a nat 1 perception check for the mindfuckery to work? But also you need to have an impeccable memory to notice the contradictions and connections over the course of 700 pages?

I dunno. House of Leaves reminds me of both Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia and Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Both of those books, however, are around 250 pages long; House of Leaves is considerably longer than both of them combined, and it’s a slog. There are parts I really liked and aspects I can appreciate abstractly, but overall I didn’t like the book as much as I hoped I would.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

drugs and alcohol, dereality, hallucinations, body horror/dysmorphia, paranoid delusions, institutionalisation, guilt tripping, child abuse, violence, gunfire, injury, blood and gore, death (including animal death), suicide, grief, misogyny? (sexual objectification; incessant horniness, at least), sexual assault, cheating

First off, it’s worth noting this book was published in 2012. There have been several discoveries and new theories put forward in the decade or so since then that Martyniuk could not have known about. Hence no Caihong, no Serikornis, etc. He’s maybe a little too caught up in the romanticism of Archaeopteryx as the first bird, but, to his credit, he does acknowledge that “bird” is a concept based on extant species and the definitions get a little hazy and/or arbitrary when it comes to describing bird-like dinosaurs.

The guide itself is well-researched, with in-depth descriptions (including measurements where known) and notes on behaviour – speculative, of course, but always inferred from the anatomy of the animal and the environment in which it lived.

Martyniuk provides “common names” which are literal translations of the scientific names. Sometimes this works, but it’s often clunky and, quite frankly, it seems a little lazy. We end up with names like “Egg Seizer Fond of Ceratopsians,” “Thin Narrow Hand,” “Las Hoyas Dawn Bastard-wing Bird,” and perhaps the worst offender, “Lithographic Ancient Wing” (Urvogel, I’m so sorry...) It’s the little things like Caudipteryx being rendered as “Tail Feather” where “Feathertail” would make more sense as the name of an animal, yknow? And is it necessary to translate the species name when there’s only one species in the genus? Surely we wouldn’t need to specify which Utahraptor or whatever it is if it’s the only one.

The illustrations are nice, though. Generally speaking I prefer a little more detail in the integument but I recognise that 1) these images are small so detail would probably just muddy the design, and 2) Martyniuk had dozens of dinosaurs to draw and probably didn’t want to develop carpal tunnel syndrome.

As much as this book looks like a field guide, however, it doesn’t quite feel like one. The species described within its pages have all been dead for millions upon millions of years; I can’t go raptorwatching. The book could lean into that hauntological aspect but it doesn’t, for the simple fact that the text is written in the past tense instead of the present. There’s a passage in the introduction which encourages the reader to “imagine a time travelling paleontologist” – I think this book should have been written for her.

A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and Other Winged Dinosaurs is... alright. I think it’s a great concept that just wasn’t realised to its full potential. 

“Ghosts in the water, ghosts in the blood. Everything, once you start to look, is haunted.”

A beautifully written memoir, moving and evocative. I love the water motif, the way the weather sets the mood, the gothic quality of ghosts and graveyards. It feels right reading it at this time of year; I don’t often reread books, but I could see this becoming a late autumn tradition for me.

Hewitt is sympathetic – more so than I would have been in his situation, I know. He’s honest about his fear and anger without getting stuck in it. His writing is deeply personal but he also relates his experiences to The Queer Experience more broadly, with musings on the closet, on assimilation, and how our survival strategies protect us at the cost of eroding our Selves.

It hits like cold rain. I needed it.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

depression, suicidality, grief, guilt, paranoia/panic, dependence on alcohol and smoking, unhealthy relationship, homophobia

 

“Most of the time, the future felt like an obscure projection I was afraid to want because there wasn’t evidence of future me anywhere, in life or in fiction. I just knew Jack Halberstam and I were the same, so I existed there, in theory.”

You know when it’s evening and everything’s just so clear but also hazy? This book is like that. The text is split into small chunks, which makes it easier to swallow.

The first two thirds of the book are eclectic and frenzied and the last third feels like it’s settling. It works well thematically, but the book had relied so heavily on its writing style until that point. I wasn’t invested in the characters so much as the prose. So when the prose changes shape and we see the characters more clearly, it feels odd. I stuck around for the purple, so why is it fading now? The ending is sweet, though.

Ponyboy isn’t for everyone but it (mostly) worked for me.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

lots of drug use and drinking, addiction/alcoholism, bulimia, dissociation, suicidality, dysphoria, transphobia, sexual assault (including csa), cheating

 

“It’s hard to just look, isn’t it?”

To describe Irina, the protagonist/narrator of Boy Parts, as unlikeable and unreliable would be an understatement. “Cruel” is a word that comes up a few times. She’s sadistic. She’s irreverent. She’s, uh... messy. She’s also a photographer, which is neat. Clark does some interesting stuff with this; the camera producing a perfect record vs the human mind distorting images, Irina’s need to be seen vs the way she situates herself behind the camera, documenting. There’s a lot to interrogate thematically.

Since there’s not much in the way of plot, I’m compelled only by the quality of the prose. Fortunately, I really like the way Clark writes. I’ll keep an eye out for her other work.

Unfortunately, I don’t like the way the story starts to form

as the titular(?) “boy” is revealed and Irina’s delusions become more severe as she fixates on him

but that belated momentum goes nowhere. It just... stops. There’s no satisfaction in the ending.

I liked most of it. I’m giving Boy Parts four stars because it is good, but not spectacular.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

violence, murder, sexual harassment and assault, grooming, verbal abuse from a parent, classism, body image stuff, self harm and self-destructive behaviour, drugs and alcohol, vomit, some blood and gore, hallucinations

 

Too gratuitous and melodramatic for me. The shed scene in particular felt very writhing-on-the-stage-pulling-red-handkerchiefs-from-my-armpit. That said, I know this sort of thing can be cathartic; sometimes you need to indulge in a bit of woe.

The concept is decent. Internet celebrities are forced to reckon with the horrors of meatspace, and the pervasive terror of existing as a woman in a misogynistic world.

And the experience turns Angie into a man-hating lesbian. Good for her.

What happens to Wes makes a lot more sense if you interpret him not as a person but as a personification of heteronormativity. Angie isn’t killing her husband, she’s killing comphet; she’s killing her straight persona to set herself free.

I assume that was what Leitz was going for? That’s how I’ve chosen to read it, at least.

But I don’t like it, and I don’t know why. I can’t quite articulate it. There were lots of little issues that bugged me – pacing issues, backstory exposition interrupting the actual story, etc. – but I can’t pinpoint exactly where or why it falls apart for me.

I can see how Girl Flesh might resonate with other readers. I thought it was okay.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

stalking, kidnapping, drugging, alcoholism, disordered eating, self harm, suicidality, death (including animal death), violence (including gun violence, sexual assault, and torture), blood/gore/injury, vomit, misogyny, transphobia

Corrupted Vessels is disturbing. I mean that as a compliment.

Page has a way with words, conjuring evocative imagery and reeling the reader in as the tension mounts. There are some brilliant phrases that have stuck in my brain (for example: “Ash came back like the flame on a trick candle”) and some interesting worldbuilding concepts too. I like the idea of

angels being primordial beings who created God to govern humanity because they were spread too thin across the universe.

But then I wasn’t at all disappointed when it turned out to be

a fiction that sprung from Ash’s psychosis. I think their schizophrenia(?) was handled quite well. Their hallucinations were vague and intertwined with their delusions, their beliefs are “confirmed” by voices and visions, and they are convinced that they have power but obviously not in a way that can be proven or (more importantly) disproven. Ash does some awful things, in large part because of their mental illness, but the narrative neither demonises nor exonerates them fully. It’s a sympathetic portrayal of a deeply fucked up person.

All in all, it’s an enthralling and sickening exploration of the human condition.

My copy pairs the titular story with a short story called “New Eden.” It’s fine. I don’t have a Christian background so it doesn’t resonate with me as deeply as it might for other readers, but even then I just don’t think it’s as strong as Corrupted Vessels.

I intend to seek out more of Page’s work and I look forward to reading it.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

drug use/drugging and overdose, seizure, psychosis (hallucinations and religious delusions), cults, verbal abuse/manipulation, physical violence, rape of a minor, non-consensual groping and voyeurism, stalking, suicide attempt, death, body horror/gore (corpse decomposition), cannibalism, vomit

 

“The room was filled with about forty or so people of all ages, races, gender expressions, doing all manner of things.”

I think The Seep is the worst book I’ve ever read.

It’s very... affected? Diversity purely for the sake of scoring representation points, jarring weirdness that comes across as lol so random XD, therapy-speak dialogue at all times. I dunno. It’s over-the-top and totally underdeveloped, maybe even undeveloped. The author hardly engages with her own worldbuilding. Nothing is explained or explored. The protagonist, Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka, is hard to root for. She has this general attitude of distaste and her motives are inscrutable. The central message of the book – that life isn’t perfect and that’s okay – is fine, I guess. The execution is clumsy to say the least.

I could dissect it further but frankly I just want to move on to something else. I had a miserable time reading this book.

This edition also includes “And the World Was New”, a sixty-six page “short story” which I cannot bring myself to read. Sorry. I’m done here.

CONTENT WARNINGS: alcoholism, suicidality, death

It’s Maus. What is there to say?

CONTENT WARNINGS: war, the holocaust (antisemitism, deportation, genocide, starvation), stalking, violence including lynching, racism, domestic abuse, self harm, suicide

Cheap and contrived. It felt as though the writers regretted having a disease storyline which coincided with a real world pandemic and rushed to wrap things up as quickly as possible – I don’t know if that’s true, that’s just the impression I got.

One anticlimax after another, man. One plot point in particular that I want to mention is

Sonic’s amnesia after eradicating the Metal Virus. The writers could have explored the parallels between Mr Tinker and Mr Needlemouse. Or maybe the memory loss could have represented a sort of post-pandemic trauma, with Sonic not understanding that the Virus had been defeated and being mentally stuck in this state of desperation. Or, in any case, the Restoration could have been forced to seek out Dr Starline, not to neutralise the threat he poses but to beg for his assistance. This memory loss could have set up an entire arc but instead it’s resolved in the very next issue. I guess the writers just wanted to give Blaze something to do.

The whole thing was kind of pointless and a missed opportunity.

Also the artwork in the first issue was really substandard (though the rest of the collection looked good).

CONTENT WARNINGS: infectious disease, zombie mindlessness, violence, mass panic, evacuation