Friday, August 22, 2025

Book Review: Pam Kowalski Is A Monster by Sarah Langan

 

Pam Kowalski Is A Monster by Sarah Langan

120 pages, Paperback
Published May, 2025 by Raw Dog Screaming Press
 

Is it possible to win three Stoker awards and still be underrated? Sarah Langan has been on a roll with socially important science fiction. Good Neighbors was a smart hybrid of cli-fi, The Burbs, and  Twilight Zone’s The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. A Better World was a Phil Dickian sheltered reality in a dying Earth. Deep thinking books.

PKIAM is a short and fun little bizarro horror tale that can be read in a single sitting, although I did it in two, mostly sitting in the park. So it was a fun reading experience.  I know I often complain about first-person narratives, but this was a perfect example of a good time for first-person. It is a bit of a spoiler, so you want a totally cold entry, know that I loved this novella, A very character-driven story of Janet Chow, who is drifting through life, suffering from a bunch of various setbacks. She is really bothered by the success of a high school classmate who has become a TV psychic. Janet believes she is unique position to out her former friend.

What makes this novella so entertaining… It starts with the tone.

“Some context: back at Sewanhaka Senior High, Pam was one of those agreeable girls everyone liked. She wore witchy black broom skirts and carried A tarot deck to fool people into thinking she was deep. Her crew was an assortment of mid-level popular, moderately but not especially athletic norm-cores. in other words, she was Wonder Bread. Tapioca. The extra rice you get at a Chinese restaurant that you don't want.”

Janet’s personality comes through each page that is supposed to happen in first person.  One of the important things is that Janet is not exactly the best judge of what happened in the past, or in the story as it unfolds. Langan really does cool things with ooey-gooey ooey-gooey-ness of reality. 

 He chuckled. “Don't worry about it. It was a great story, though. You know when you've got a tiger by its tail. You can feel it. I had that. They come fewer and farther with age, but my Madam Pamela exposé had it all. I'll send it to you. You should use it. Just remember to credit me.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

Someone has to expose her, if it can't be me, I'd be happy for it to be you. So what are your questions?”

Outside, Dean was hacking up blood and possibly a literal lung. I was sitting on my small bed. Below, like dangerous lava, was the rotten carpet. I was aware that reality remained reality; it wasn't breaking or slipping into some new and horrific iteration simply because Pam Kolowski insisted it was.”

By the end, Pam and Janet are not who we think they are, a short book that touches on epic scope. It has a cool design, which didn’t prepare me for what was coming. That said, I trust Sarah Langan; this novella again proves she is worth following to any genre.


Sunday, August 17, 2025

Book Review: Luminous by Silvia Park

 


Luminous by Silvia Park

391 pages, Hardcover

Published March, 2025 by Simon & Schuster
 

Every once in a while, you read a book that shatters lofty expectations and becomes one you think about long afterwards. Luminous by Silvia Park has a good chance of being the best new release I read this year. As a PKD-guy, I was pleased to hear Park acknowledged his influence, and even more exciting was the subtle but very cool ways she was inspired by Philly D.

Since I finished reading this novel and started to write this review, I saw a movie that this novel is very much in conversation with. Accidental zeitgeist stuff, but we will get back to that. I am sorry to compare this book to anything. One thing that makes this novel amazing is how one-of-a-kind and unique it feels. I make the PKD comparisons because I know many of my peeps will be interested.

Luminous is a novel set in a unified future Korea where robots are fully integrated into this society. It is a family story, and Park does a fantastic job introducing the unit at the center of this tale. Jun and Morgan are siblings who have not spoken in far too long. Morgan has fallen into the family business; their father designed robots, and now she does. Growing up, they had early robots in their family, in Yoyo, whom they loved but disappeared.

Morgan’s story opens when a child-like robot in her building goes missing. When the Robot-crimes unit comes out to investigate her brother, Jun shows up. It is not just that Jun was Morgan’s sister when they last saw each other, Jun nearly died in the war and was transhuman as much as gender.

“I purchased a bolt of skyn in her coloring and stapled it to the canvas. It burns like human skin. But you can smell the preservatives. Like chicken nuggets.”

“Why didn't you replace the skyn on her back?”

“Couldn’t you have replaced the flesh on your face?”

He ducked his head. “Okay, good point.”

“Is it a war injury?”

“It was a robot, carrying an IED until she dropped it. Homemade bomb.”

She stared at him, wide burning eyes. “How must you despise them.”

Jun was injured and almost killed by a robot; he has every reason to hate robots. His estranged father and sister make robots, but that is not how Jun operates. I love this reunion and the amount of unsaid world-building between the lines of dialogue here.

The novel opens with the mystery of the lost robot child. It is not a huge spoiler to say we follow the mystery, and as readers solve it long before the characters. We are led to a junkyard where the long-lost Yoyo is looking for parts to repair itself. The junkyard becomes the disposable dumping ground for the robots in this culture. Hard not to think of the homeless encampments and the way the Trump government has been talking about the poor in the last week.

Morgan now has her sibling back in her life has to come clean about her relationship. She has been in love with a robot Stephen, designed to fit her younger fantasies. As she gets older, and under the notice of her brother, she begins feel unfulfilled by Stephen. Of course this gets into all the questions of what is real, what is human. These are PKD themes Park is playing with and the opposite of the horror version of the story we got the same year from the movie Companion.

When Stephen begins to question, if he loves Morgan or just programmed, you can’t help but think of Philip K. Dick. That is because he broke that ground. Probably the PKD when she writes about the smart toilet.

“I’m sorry your date was so unkind.”

“I don’t care about that. I sat on the toilet after to take a breather. And then it flushed at me. The toilet was acting so damn hostile, I put my foot through it. The bowl shattered like sugar, which was kind of cool. I felt like a superhero, but I also broke the toilet.

The layers of AI, and robotic themes taken to a 21st century lens make this an amazing read in general. The characters and setting are well handled. There is one scene so clearly in conversation with PKD, who ultimately saw Empathy as the lynch pin of humanity. The trolley problem and robots is brought up late in the novel. The discussion of empathy and how these robots is the most powerful moment in the novel for this reader. How does the robots in this story solve the Trolley problem?

“Our robot made a utilitarian choice. He also knew the purpose the four remaining rabbits would serve. The way our robot rationalized, it wasn't practical. It was moral. He saw no difference between the rabbits, the one in the house and the four in the lab, between the pet and the subjects. Their lives were of equal value.”

“He made an unfeeling choice.”

“When you say unfeeling, you mean this robot was unempathetic. I think robots are capable of greater empathy than us, although that demonstrates the limits of my linguistic faculties. We anthropomorphize them. We say they empathize, they hallucinate, they need positive reinforcement. They do not possess emotions the way we do. The way we are connected it goes beyond our capacity to imagine. The robot understands that how we love isn't divine. It's meager, selfish, and exquisitely cruel. Think of any time of war erupts. Who among us would not sacrifice the lives of many to save the one person we love? When I lost such a person, I wished the world would end.” He held up the handkerchief and, pinching the corners, he started folding it. Back then, it was the senseless rage of a child, but then I lost my son and I would have made the same choice. But a robot, incredibly, the robot will choose right.”

Luminous is a deeply thoughtful science fiction novel, with grounded and fully realized characters. The setting is powerful, the themes are rich with emotional depth. One of the best reads I have had this year.

 


Friday, August 15, 2025

New Articles and Events I am going to be at in August and September

 

Hey there folks, I have two new big articles I have published and a couple really important public events coming up.

New Articles:

The Waking Nightmares of Philip K. Dick on Nightmare Magazine 

I Am A Person and You Are Not: PKD themes in Severance for Reactor 

UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS: 

KPBS Book Festival 


I will be at The San Diego HWA (Horror Writers Association) Table. Have limited copies of Last Night to Kill Nazis but lots of Great America in Dead World. I am hanging until I sell out of books.


 

 

Dread Coast Launch Parties

Mysterious Galaxy - Saturday, August 30th at 2pm with several authors reading, followed by a group signing. After the signing, authors and friends are encouraged to reconvene at Liberty Station Stone Brewing around 4pm, where we will meet out in the back and take over an outdoor corner to continue the celebration! 
 
You can order copies of Dread Coast and have them signed by all the author through the MG website.
 
 
 

Artifact Books - September 27 from 3-5pm with select authors reading and then a group signing. (I will miss this one for reasons listed below)

Warwick’s - September, exact date and details TBA.
 


 

 
I am presenting a paper at a conference and hosting a panel...
 
Speculative Fiction Across Media 2025: Artificial Intelligence: Fantasies, Realities, Futures, will be held September 25-27, 2025, in Los Angeles. 
 

 I will be moderating a panel on Severance: I Am a Person and You Are Not

My paper is called "Artificial Empathy, Animal Rights, Robots and the Fake Humans of Philip K. Dick"

 

Thursday, August 14, 2025

Book Review: A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang

 


A Palace Near the Wind by AI Jing

192 pages, Hardcover
Published April 15, 2025 by Titan Books
 

AI Jing has been an author on my radar for a while. I was there when she won her Stoker award, and had read a few short stories. I know I am more in touch with 1960s SF scene than the current one but something about the online description of the novel made me feel very out of touch.

“A story of family, loss, oppression and rebellion for readers of Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Neon Yang's The Black Tides of Heaven and Kritika H. Rao's The Surviving Sky”

I have never heard of all three books Titan Books felt were marketable enough to compare this book with. Let me be clear, I'm putting that on myself.  That is besides the point. That also made me question if I was the right reader to understand this book. It has a fairy tale feeling to it. Going into it cold, I thought it was a fantasy novella taking place in the ancient past, and eventually it felt like a reveal to me when I realized that this was a far future tale. That is not exactly right because there are pure fantasy characters made up of trees, which gave it a new-weird early China Mieville feeling. I like that I am not entirely sure, I believe that is a feature, not a bug.

“In Gear, Wind Walkers, and Water Shifters work in harmony with the Land Wanderers and the Desert Shredders within factories, ensuring smoother inner workings of the city of Engine.

Harmony. I wondered how true that was.

Engine is a vibrant city that will fulfill its citizens' wildest wishes. Browse the glorious selection of movies, shows, and subscribe to comvid with your family and friends! The online mega shots are great for the latest deals and products!

It has a couple of royal families, arranged marriages, and fascinating kingdoms, which are not exactly the type of stuff I normally read. This is out of my comfort zone for sure. A woman from the tree-people has to marry a human king. She thinks she can slow the human destruction of nature if the families come together. A plan that is not appealing eventually…

“What would happen if we broke the contract? Fled? Hid?”

Her smile was the dreaming stem of a river weed scorched by the sun, unseen by the rain for too many moons. “Death.” She paused. “Not for us, but for Fang, though we’d likely be found out quickly and brought to the prison in engine, like Shanshu, though she was able to escape.”

That is the intrigue at the heart of this story. Considering the short 192 pages, plenty of story happens in this short novel. I was a bigger fan of the world-building than anything else. The message is great, but I suspect it will fly over the heads of many readers. That is not Jing’s fault; she did her job. The metaphors and analogies are delicately laid out. The point is that that different from the highest-grossing science fiction movie of all time but limitless human greed and the impact on nature is a point that cannot be made enough. Apparently.

One major problem. 192, and split into two books. It felt incomplete, this story with such an epic was likely a single 400-page novel. Conventional wisdom right now that 330 or shorter books are more marketable, unlike the old days when publishers wanted doorstops. Not sure if turning this into two novels was the right choice.