Re the Taylor Swift quote- I read someone’s argument that Elle Woods from Legally Blonde is an autistic person whose hyperfixation is SoCal femininity and it made so much sense!
I have a couple of books I keep in the very specific mental file folder of "deeply affective to me, well written, but intensely fucked up and I will never actually recommend to anyone else". One is a self-published novella called The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, by Roger Williams -- though I haven't read it in many, many years, and it might not hold up, but the impression has stuck with me all this time; and the other is Blindsight by Peter Watts, which I can't even call good, I hated everything in it and in ways it is formulaic even but I read it all the way to the end. Both probably belong in the weird venn diagram sliver of scifi horror. But a lot of things in that sliver are really good, for some reason..
I think the things that I find myself reluctant to recommend usually are either movies like The Night Porter which are deliberately very offensive or books like Earthlings that are all kind of sui generis but it’s like I just don’t want to feel responsible for bringing that into your life lol.
OTOH (thinking of sci fi horror) you can never quite predict how things will hit people. For me Event Horizon was just a good time.
You are brilliant. Those are some great recs. I’m reviewing Chung’s new novel for Locus and I just finished my review of Vanishing World which I liked a lot (but for me nothing beats Earthlings). Oh, and you’re spot on re: Murata-she loves deconstructing our perceptions of normality. (I was surprised to find out that Murata hasn’t written a new novel, in Japan, for at least five years).
I have to get my hands on Red Sword then! Until you mentioned it in the post I didn’t know she had two novels coming out. I’ve actually never read her, so will be reading her collections and might as well add Red Sword to the list.
reading A Little Life and Earthlings back-to-back left me shellshocked for a week.
Re the Taylor Swift quote- I read someone’s argument that Elle Woods from Legally Blonde is an autistic person whose hyperfixation is SoCal femininity and it made so much sense!
lolllll
"Reading [Earthlings] and shaking my head the whole time so the people on the bus know I disagree with it"
have you seen the cover of earthlings? most evil part of the book 😭
I have a couple of books I keep in the very specific mental file folder of "deeply affective to me, well written, but intensely fucked up and I will never actually recommend to anyone else". One is a self-published novella called The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, by Roger Williams -- though I haven't read it in many, many years, and it might not hold up, but the impression has stuck with me all this time; and the other is Blindsight by Peter Watts, which I can't even call good, I hated everything in it and in ways it is formulaic even but I read it all the way to the end. Both probably belong in the weird venn diagram sliver of scifi horror. But a lot of things in that sliver are really good, for some reason..
I think the things that I find myself reluctant to recommend usually are either movies like The Night Porter which are deliberately very offensive or books like Earthlings that are all kind of sui generis but it’s like I just don’t want to feel responsible for bringing that into your life lol.
OTOH (thinking of sci fi horror) you can never quite predict how things will hit people. For me Event Horizon was just a good time.
You are brilliant. Those are some great recs. I’m reviewing Chung’s new novel for Locus and I just finished my review of Vanishing World which I liked a lot (but for me nothing beats Earthlings). Oh, and you’re spot on re: Murata-she loves deconstructing our perceptions of normality. (I was surprised to find out that Murata hasn’t written a new novel, in Japan, for at least five years).
My copy of the Chung novel shipped early but I haven't started it yet!
Yeah, I’ve got my PDF (Midnight Timetable). I think it’s out in September so I won’t be reading it for a couple of months.
oh the one I have is Red Sword. I did write to the publisher for an ARC of Midnight Timetable because I remembered that I can do that lol.
I have to get my hands on Red Sword then! Until you mentioned it in the post I didn’t know she had two novels coming out. I’ve actually never read her, so will be reading her collections and might as well add Red Sword to the list.
I don't know if you do ebooks but you can get one direct from the publisher here: https://honfordstar.com/products/red-sword?variant=53987462381953
Thanks! (And, yes, I do ebooks).