Book Review: Soft Invasions by James Reich

Soft Invasions by James Reich

Paperback, 150 pages

Published December 2017 by Anti-Oedipus Press

I read my first James Reich novel earlier this year shortly after recording a bonus episode of The Dickheads podcast with him about Barry Malzberg’s Beyond Apollo, a book we both love. I was not super familiar with JR’s work before that point. His novel The Song My Enemies Sing quickly became one of my top reads of the year. This book had been on my radar since it came out as I always thought it sounded incredible.

The back of the book calls for it to be marketed as “Literary Fiction” and rightfully so. It is so much more than that in fact I would consider it to be alternate history, paranoid multi-verse science fiction with hints of horror in all the other super weird moments. Meta-old timey Hollywood mixes with counterfactual Japanese bombing air raids of California, UFO abductions and the battle of the Midway.

In 140 short pages of elegantly surreal prose James Reich gets wibbley wobbly with space-time and reality and creates a one of a kind reading experience. It is perfect for anyone looking for something that gets on the level of weird that PKD and Malzberg reached when they chained them selves to their typewriters in the 60’s and 70’s and pumped out dozens upon dozens of mindfucks wrapped in pulp covers.

Sure it is literary fiction but lets be clear PKD always was lit fiction long before the establishment pulled their head out of their asses and realized it was more than JUST sci-fi. This book is Science Fiction, Horror and psychedelic mind-fuckery strained through straight up beautiful prose. Hyperbole aside James Reich is great. The story has multiple characters and the narrative goes back and forth between times and realities. Readers who want everything to make easy sense, and have everything explained perfectly should keep looking for another book. I always trusted that Reich knew what he was doing.

We mostly follow Max McKinney, his wife Joan and his son George. But we also get to know Hollywood screenwriter Sid Starr. George is at war, Max is a psychoanalyst whose many patients are feeding drama to Sidd. Along the way reality comes down and the war comes home. Some of the chapters about the Japanese planes over Los Angeles were as haunting as anything I read this year. With perfectly executed sentences Reich reached almost mystical level of unreality that left this reader wonderfully stunned. I am sure there were elements and levels working in this novel that flew over my head but damn it was great. I would read this again for sure.

I loved this book. Sign me up for anything James Reich wants to gift to this reality.