128 pages, Paperback
Published at PKD Fest August, 2026 by Pink Beam Press
Full review coming...
Sunday, October 11, 2026
Book Review Bloody 13 by Sarah Langan
Book Review: I Who Have Never Known Men Jacqueline Harpman, Ros Schwartz (Translator)
Ros Schwartz (Translator), Sophie Mackintosh (Afterword)
173 pages, Paperback
Published May, 2022 by Transit Books
First published January 1, 1995
Full review on the way...
Book Review: Music-Machines: A Transatlantic History of German Electronic Music by Sean Nye
376 pages, Hardcover
Published July 17, 2026: by Oxford University Press
I admit I read the chapter on PKD more closely than the rest as it is my focus. Sean is a serious Dickhead and that first chapter is super excellent and taught me a few things about some of PKD's musical taste. The book goes deep with the influence of German music on Man on the High Castle and Martian Time Slip. That MTS stuff was most interesting to me as that is something I never would have noticed or discovered on my own.
The majority of the book is about the history of techno music from Germany. Sean is a genius for musical history. GREAT stuff. Short review, but it is an excellent text; stoked to have it on my PKD reference shelf.
Book Review: Hard Video by Keith Giles
140 pages, Paperback
Published At PKD Fest August, 2026 by Pink Beam Press
Known for his series of non-fiction books on various topics related to Christianity, I came to know Keith through PKD circles. I don't know whether I interviewed him first for the podcast or he asked me to write a foreword for a PKD collection reprint. Keith and I have now worked through Quoir or Pink Beam (an imprint of the larger press.) closely with Keith on many projects, and I find him to be a smart science-fiction mind as a reader, editor, and publisher. Along the way, he told me that he wrote a novella.
Well, shit I wanted to read it, but at the time he had no plans to publish it. Having not read a word, I trusted that it would be good, so I asked him if he was interested in doing novellas together for release at PKD Fest 2026. So let me first admit to that connection with this book. What started as two novellas turned into 7 for the fest.
That being said, if I didn't truly think this was a great work of science fiction, then I would just not review it. Hard Video is thoughtful, deep science fiction, and a great debut that only shows one or two tiny areas for growth, but a towering achievement for a writer with his fiction debut. Keith has written more than a few books, and in that sense he honed lots of skills. He is well-read in genre, passionate about creating SF-worlds that make the future a better place.
One of the only nitpicks is out of the author’s hands. Keith has said this idea is decades old; in some ways the world-building shows some age, but I think that is more of a feature than a bug. If you want to stay spoiler-free, here is your warning.
Hard Video is about our growing dependence on technology for all aspects of our daily lives, and it could be with existing technology, but the novella exists in a world where the online, and real worlds blur, and people even walk in the real world wearing digital avatars. Thanks to subtle but effective world-building, this novella feels like the work of an old pro instead of a debut. A life of reading sci-fi didn't hurt; it bleeds off every page. The HV addicted future feels real, and we understand on a deep level that it is a hard addiction to break.
¨I wondered if I could really live without my HV or not. I could always get a new one, but they’d want my identicode to authorize the unit, and then I’d be back on the run again. They were getting closer now. My heart thundered in my chest.
Goodbye, HV.”
The characters are well drawn, and despite the ways they hide from reality, Giles gives enough of them that we can see both the fake and real characters; that push and pull creates a very interesting dynamic that is most clear when they can even conceive of the idea of thinking for themselves.
¨Absalom had calmed himself enough to force a thin smile at me. You’ve given up trying to escape reality, haven’t you,That’s why you killed that cop. That’s why you ran away when any other person would’ve surrendered. Most people just want to numb themselves to the Truth. The real world is too much for them. Hell, they spend all their money to fill their every waking moment with non-stop chatter. “News, information, entertainment, and distractions, all designed to keep out the real world. All designed, he said, leaning forward, to keep out the Truth.
The Truth.”
The Truth, or real life, becomes a thing that creates pressure on the system and the characters equally. Rico and Nicotine become fugitives for their crime, rejecting the false reality. It might seem this is setting up a thriller, and a film could do that; KG is interested in the questions of emotions of the story.
The characters are made weaker and slowly destroyed by dependence.
¨This is killing you, Rico, you've got to stop it.¨
¨ It's not killing me. It's the only thing that keeps me from putting a bullet through my own head.
¨Dont you see, Rico you're still a slave to HV. You think you're free of that world out there because you're able to turn it on and off at will; you're kidding yourself.¨
They are kidding themselves because once disconnected, one of the novella’s strongest emotional beats happens. They see each other
“Her HV protection shimmered in the digital half-light, soft auburn curls, moviestar cheekbones, skin like satin.
Beautiful. Untouchable. Unreal”
I tend to look for mission statements in stories, and this one is close enough to the surface it is no mystery, but I think these scenes being the emotional core of the novel is a more important talking point. The human connection is the heart of this story.
“Not Nicotine, the HV-constructed femme fatale. Not the edgy rebel badass.
Just a girl. Dark hair, still damp from the shower. Eyes too large for her face. A small scar bisecting her left eyebrow. Her lips, chapped. Her skin had texture, warmth, and flaws.
She looked at me like I was a ghost.
öh, she said.
¨What?¨
Ÿou look different.¨
¨Good different or…¨
Hard Video is excellent SF that is thoughtful with a really humane core. That is the mission should you choose to accept it. I loved it
Book Review: Lunagrad by Andrew Joron
364 pages, Paperback
Expected publication: November 15, 2026 by Anti-Oedipus Press
Some books are so good or original that it is hard to believe it even as you read them. Lunagrad is one of those novels that walks a tightrope between science fiction and experimental literature. I found myself pulling many quotes because there were so many pages that I dog-eared.
Set on a very wintry planet called Hurth, colonized by the Soviet Union far into some alternate future, the founders of this desperate colony barely remember how they got onto this planet. More on that later. More on the surreal end of weird SF, this novel fits into different SF subgenres at different times.
Colony World novel. Yes. Alternate History, sorta. Planetary Romance, in a way, but Hurth would not be a fun place to live. Cyberpunk living city…oh yes. All that and more. With lots of excellent prose…
“Mek Sat locked in his thought cabinet, discontent with the content of his thoughts. He was thinking of five perfect solids. He imagined them hovering as pure ideas; they were weightless above an endless plane, perhaps the snow-swept plains of his ancestors. Yet he detested the simplicity of the cube he could understand it only as a perversely modified spear, overloud in its appearance, a composition for trumpet and drum. In the tetrahedron, now, he detected the trade of rays-.”
The alternate history stuff is merely suggested; the founding of the colony was over lost generations, but we know this was a Soviet program.
“Lunagrad itself may be just such a model. A toy of God Roscosmos.”
That certainly is interesting enough of a story on its own. The operation of this city, which is conscious and thinking, is one thing. But the “workers” of this post Soviet society also create interesting moments in the narrative.
“Comrades of Umma! Is a machine writing the story of Lunagrad?
The boiler man putting on his cap again: “My boy, you know the official doctrine. The God Roscosmos - the God common to all tribes - first constructed the world, and finally the city as a world within a world, for the benefit of all humanity.”
“Not everyone shares your city mysticism.” Natalia looked back at Vepp, lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “Yes, the city is shaping us. Yes, the yellow-eyed ones can let's not say read can inspect the scroll script without harm. But they merely fly above the surface of the script! They cannot penetrate its depths. A reader is like,” she searched for the proper term, “a defective product. Lula, the city is malfunctioning!”
I love this idea of the city shaping the people. As readers, we understand this as technology, but the residents debate whether it is mysticism. IS the city malfunctioning or adapting to the harsh conditions and the slow changes of the workers of Lunagrad.
The novel has elements of Soviet culture; I loved the idea that the sculptures were built for important people, likely Roscosmos founders lost to time.
“The artisans of Lunagrad would sometimes create sculptures in the shape of human figures, often larger than life, to commemorate important people. These statues would eventually melt down, the way Lunagrad's buildings did; probably they were never very popular anyways, appearing to many people not to be idealizations but travesties of the people they were intended to honor. But while they lasted the statues played into the social life of the city, petitioning the regard of passersby.”
I really loved it, but if there is any weakness, I feel the length of the novel was more than the concept needed. Don’t get me wrong, I loved most of the excellent prose, but I felt we could have gotten to the point quicker.
Of course, that is a minor thing. I thought this was an excellent experimental cross-genre speculative fiction, exactly the type of novel the Big 5 publishers would not know what to do with. Publishers like AOP, Stalking Horse, or Pink Beam Press help keep weirder SF in print. Lunagrad gets my highest recommendation; fans of SF in a high-end literature mode should not miss this one.
Friday, October 2, 2026
Book Review: Phantom Limb by Brian Evenson
200 pages, Paperback
Expected publication: October 27, 2026 by Coffee House Press
Two Brian Evenson books in a row. Last Days was my introduction to Brian Evenson, who is one of the most reviewed/interviewed authors across my various blogs, columns, and podcasts. That first experience 17 years ago began when I attended a reading event in Portland at Powell’s, although I had never heard of Brian before that day. I went home with a copy of The Last Days. At the time, we lived near a high school stadium and track; I used to walk laps of the track reading. I have a distinct memory of reading some of the most disturbing moments of Last Days on those summer walks on the track. One of my strongest sense memories with a novel.
What did I say back then? “The story is of a former undercover cop, Kline, who in his last mission had his hand cut off by a “man with a cleaver.” He lives on, but he is lonely and depressed. All that changes when he gets a phone call asking him to go undercover again. The job: investigate the murder of a cult leader; the cult is made up of Christians who take Matthew so literally that they cut off their hands to get closer to God.
Once inside the cult, we learn that they have taken multiple amputations and have set a hierarchy based on who has the most body parts sacrificed. The world in the Brotherhood of Mutilation is both disgusting and darkly comedic. By the second half, when we meet their rival breakaway group, it gets even more amusing. That is not to say that the book is slapstick; it's a brutal horror bizarro detective story. Evenson's dialogue in this book is perfectly choppy noir with lots of short, snappy comical exchanges. The suspense is handled with a minimalist flair, and the moments of gruesome reveals are plentiful. This is a strange and wonderful piece of horror literature that should not be missed.”
What I didn’t know at the time was that type of dialogue was specific to this noir novel. I assumed that the first time that Brian Evenson, like Elmore Leonard, was always writing this kind of dialogue. As I read the sequel, however, I had almost two decades of reading Evenson to understand better what he was doing. Last Days and Phantom Limb are very noir, but that is not a natural style for Evenson. Chandler and Hammett wrote in that voice naturally; it was their voice. Evenson is a writer of many styles and voices; he does great at it, but this is a very intentional vibe. “Last time I saw you, you were carrying one head too many. Then you decided maybe you’d leave your spare head under my hospital bed.”
He leaned closer. “You know what it’s like knowing there’s a severed head under your bed?”
“Probably unpleasant,” said Kline.
“That’s it?” said Frank. “No, sorry about the head, Frank?”
“I already apologized for the arm,” said Kline.
“Last conversation we had,” said Frank, “you, me, and the head, you said you wanted to turn yourself in.”
“Change of heart,” said Kline.
That tells me that these two novels, described as literary horror by most, are the blackest of the black comedies, and I am not sure if Evenson considers them to be noir parody, but I do. Don’t get me wrong, they are horror novels for sure. I mean, these books make you cringe and laugh at the same time, and I think satire can be overlooked because it gets so gruesome at moments.
The Phantom Limb is a direct sequel, starting shortly after the first book's events. Kline is in prison, although the full extent of what he did is not known. He killed many in the Brotherhood and burned down their property. He doesn’t regret his actions but prison is not fun. This is depicted in a scene I just thought was excellently written. “Six months later, he was serving a five-year term. With good behavior, apparently he might be out in three. When he was processed, he was braced to have someone mess with him over his missing arm, but they left him alone. Apparently he was too beat-up, too scarred, to smell of anything but trouble.
The cell they assigned him had a lock that squealed when you turned the key in it and slid it open. He felt it every single time, gouging its way deeper and deeper into his brain.”
He is doing his time when a man shows up who knows who he is.
“You tell them,” said Kline. “Tell them that there’s no Kline here. Only Werner.”
“They already know who you really are,” Orst said.
“Werner,” Kline repeated. “And even if I were this Kline, judging by the looks of you I’d never come back to their goddamn fold.”
“You really want me to tell them that?”
Someone comes for Kline and regrets it. I love this description of solitary confinement. “Orst didn’t rat him out, but he still got two days in solitary. He was, after all, covered in blood. On the second day, in the darkness, just as he was getting used to the people he had killed circling around him, was almost ready to start having meaningful conversations with them, a guard released him, took him back to his cell.”
Kline is of course, dragged back into it. He is hired by the very people he tried to destroy who get him released and he is suddenly back in the strangest of all holy wars between the Brotherhood of Mutilation and the Pauls. That is when the gruesome deaths start up again.
This leads to a great line of noir dialogue.
“The thing I can’t figure out is why every time it’s either them or you it always ends up being them.”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
The religious cult that believes you are closer to god by cutting off body parts seems crazy to us, but Kline has gotten stronger and survived so much after losing part of his arm. Is he tempted?
“The question is not whose hand was it, but whose hand can it be?”
“Whose hand can it be?”
Grida smiled with half her face, spread what remained of her arms. “Whoever desires it,” she said. “Perhaps, great doubter, even you.”
I won’t say why, but Phantom Limb and Glitch Evenson’s fantastic novella from Pink Beam has couple of things in common, including a stunning last page. This novel is fantastic. An amazing sequel to the first insane horror-noir body-horror detective classic. Since that was a fix-up of two novellas, can we call this the Brotherhood of Mutilation trilogy? Must-reads.
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