All posts tagged: speculative fiction

Stunningly shocking and terrifying, and so good, FEVER DREAM is haunting and magical and I am obsessed

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By Leslie Lindsay  A blazingly stark yet lush and surreal tale that will shock and injure your world, no matter how comfortable you think it is.  ~WeekEND Reading: Spotlight~ I’m dubbing this week, “Fantastical Fiction Week.” I mean, wow. I read two books (see Wednesday’s interview with Vikram Paralkar on NIGHT THEATER) that absolutely blew me away and are very closely related in terms of themes, writing style, and genre. And this genre is a slippery one to pin down. Some call it speculative fiction, others say it’s magical realism.  Others still might liken it to horror or gothic or even a fairy tale. All agree it’s imaginative and stark and might include elements of science fiction.  I find it thought-provoking, literary, dreamy, hallucinatory, mysterious, and at times, terrifying. “This is a weird hallucination of a book—reading it feels like an experience, like something that happens to you, as infectious and mysterious and unstoppable and possibly magical as the disease that powers its plot.” —LitHub A  young woman called Amanda lies dying in a rural …

Sharp, stunning, and surreal story of an isolated physician on the outskirts of town in which he must bring life back to the dead; morals and medicine and miracles in Vikram Paralkar’s NIGHT THEATER

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By Leslie Lindsay  A surgeon in a remote clinic must bring the dead back to life by dawn in this fantastic, wholly unique read filled with existential angst, magical realism. ~WEDNESDAYS WITH WRITERS|ALWAYS WITH A BOOK~ Set in rural India, NIGHT THEATER (Jan 14, 2020 Catapult) is such an exquisite read unlike anything I’ve read before. Vikram Paralkar was born and raised in Mumbai and now resides in Pennsylvania as a physician-scientist and his expertise absolutely shines. A bitter surgeon flees from his former job as a coroner/pathologist to a small village clinic where the conditions are poor–he’s constantly cleaning and sterilizing, squashing roaches, and buying supplies out of pocket. He has a little help–a woman he calls a ‘pharmacist,’ but her credentials are questionable and she serves many roles: nurse, confidant, clinic manager, assistant. One night, a teacher, his pregnant wife, and their 8-year old son appear at the clinic as the surgeon is finalizing some paperwork. They were killed in a violent robbery, but tell the surgeon they have been offered another chance, ‘sent …

DECEMBER SHORT STORY SERIES: Karen Russell’s exquisite imagination flares with mundane moments turned surreal in ORANGE WORLD

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Stunningly surreal and mystical stories from literary great, Karen Russell, captures a vibrant imagination with a dash of outlandish. DECEMBER SHORT STORIES SERIES From the Pulitzer finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellersSWAMPLANDIA! and VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE, a stunning new collect ion of short fiction that showcases Karen Russell’s extraordinary, irresistible gifts of language and imagination.  I’m a little late the the game here on Karen Russell, but rest assured, she’s been on my radar for some time. Russell’s her wild, brilliant imagination (which is completely unique) fuels my own (more tame) vault of weirdness. ORANGE WORLD (May 2019) completely captured and intrigued me. Eight stories in all–almost all have an ecology connection, they also interweave a series of surreal moments, almost as a melding of Salvador Dali meets literature. I enjoyed all the stories in ORANGE WORLD–even the hard-to-fathom ones–because Russell’s writing and observations are razor-sharp. But they’re not for everyone. I found I ‘connected’ most with “The Prospectors,” and the title story, “Orange World,” most, but you may feel differently. I also …

Emma Sloley talks about how it’s difficult for humans to escape their own nature, how Margaret Atwood influences, plus pastoral ideas and more in DISASTER’S CHILDREN

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By Leslie Lindsay The deterioration of the natural world and a coming-of-age story set in the very near not-so-distant future.  In her prescient debut, DISASTER’S CHILDREN (Little A; November 5, 2019),  Emma Sloley seamlessly weaves together an apocalyptic novel with cultural commentary to producing a memorable narrative both searing and tender. Raised in a privileged community of ultra-wealthy survivalists on an idyllic, self-sustaining Oregon ranch, Marlo has always been insulated. The outside world, which the ranchers nickname “The Disaster,” is ravaged by environmental suffering and situated precariously on the brink of global catastrophe. There are stunning modern homes, clear skies and abundant flora. Everyone’s happy because they have a shared agreement to disengage from news and politics, abstaining from information and the internet, instead investing in the development of their own exclusive society. Can it outlast impending destruction in the world beyond? But Marlo has long been intrigued by the chaos and opportunity beyond the confines of her picturesque community,  fueled by occasional trips to major cities and correspondence with her two childhood best friends, who have …

Helen Phillips on THE NEED: how she couldn’t have written this speculative fiction if she wasn’t a mother, reconciling love and loss, a fabulous reading list, and so much more

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By Leslie Lindsay  Eerie, speculative fiction with a slight thriller aspect, THE NEED is existential, mind-bending, and gloriously rendered.  I have a very teetering TBR bookshelf at home and on it are several Helen Phillips novels. Her stories are wild and brilliant and a bit eccentric. That’s what I like about her work. It’s not the mundane. It’s like a fever dream, those little bits of oddities that keep us awake at night, but we don’t do anything more with because, well…we don’t know how. Or we think they’re ‘too minute’ to flesh out into a whole story. THE NEED (Simon & Schuster, July 2019) is clever and strange and distorted, but I loved it. You may read the first lines of the synopsis and see that Molly is a mother of young children and there’s an intruder in the house and automatically think this is domestic thriller. It’s not. THE NEED is a literary exploration of what it means to be a mother, but also a study in identity, empathy, fear, the joys and insecurities and also the miseries of motherhood. It’s gorgeously, lushly …

A magician with words, poet Sarah Blake wows the world with her her debut fiction, based on the ancient re-telling of Noah’s ark from his wife, NAAMAH’S, POV

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By Leslie Lindsay  Exquisitely rendered, astonishing read about the mother of all great disasters–the Great Flood–NAAMAH is as gorgeous as it is frightening. Teeming with allegory, metaphor, and more.  Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by THE RUMPUS,  THE WEEK,  READ IT FORWARD,  THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER,  and more ….And Blake is named one of BOOKPAGE’S  FIFTEEN WOMEN TO WATCH IN 2019 This book. This book. THIS BOOK!! I am in awe. I can’t stop thinking about it. NAAMAH (Riverhead, April 9th) is a stunning foray into one of the oldest and most well-known Bible stories–that of Noah and the Ark, but this telling is from the POV of Noah’s wife, Naamah. In the Bible, she is unnamed, but in Sarah Blake’s hands, she is truly actualized. She’s a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law, a lover, a caretaker, and she has worries– struggles on what it means to be a woman, faith, her purpose, and so much more. Sarah Blake’s background as a poet is evident. Her prose is lush but stark, weaving in plenty of lyricism, but make no mistake, NAMMAH is …