Briar Ripley Page (Author of Corrupted Vessels)

Briar Page and 7 other people liked Sarah Cavar's review of Lupus in Fabula: "Highlights: “Therianthrope,” “The Witch’s Wife” (deeply powerful and will linger with me for along time), and “Desire in the Flooded World.”"
Apr 18, 2026 03:25AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Lupus in Fabula by Briar Ripley Page. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Lupus in Fabula by Briar Ripley Page <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Briar Page rated a book it was amazing Gore Poetics by Samir Sirk Morato	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Some of my absolute favorite horror and horror-tinged SFF short stories from the past five years or so! To be honest, I sometimes am envious of Morató because I think we’re often doing very similar things as writers, and I think they often do those t ...more
Feb 28, 2026 12:30PM · 7 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Gore Poetics by Samir Sirk Morato. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Gore Poetics by Samir Sirk Morato <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Briar Page rated a book really liked it Demon Engine by Marten Norr	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It took me a while to get into this, primarily because, while it is written in a perfectly serviceable prose style for an action-adventure/seastead and sorcery oriented fantasy novel, I was craving more elaborate and/or unusual uses of the English la ...more
May 08, 2025 04:15AM · 10 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Demon Engine by Marten Norr. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Demon Engine by Marten Norr <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Briar Page and 20 other people liked Nina The Wandering Reader's review of Corrupted Vessels: "“...I hear the angels now. I see them too. They’re writhing in the trees and the telephone wires. They’re lying slick as fish in puddles, all their lidless eyes looking back at me.” I read this in one sitting!!!! Ash and River are a tiny cult of two yo" Read more of this review »
Mar 28, 2025 09:20AM · see review
Briar Page rated a book really liked it Gyre by Dale Stromberg (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I read this very tight, very dark Mobius strip novella in one sitting, which I think speaks to excellent pacing. Although the twists are not especially difficult to predict after a certain point, I think that a reader is best served going into the st ...more
Mar 02, 2025 05:45AM · 5 likes · like · see review
Briar Page and 6 other people liked I. Merey's review of Gyre: "Chuck Palahniuk said something like, "Write about the day everything changed." In a modern story, the ability of the main character to finally, after much struggle, rise to the occasion after being thrust into a new situation, is a universal theme. W" Read more of this review »
Mar 02, 2025 05:28AM · see review
Briar Page and 2 other people liked Ava's review of Lupus in Fabula: "Thanks to BookSirens for an ARC! I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. I've read so much "queer body horror" that just turned out to be body horror about folks who happened to be queer, and it's always d" Read more of this review »
Feb 01, 2025 04:28AM · see review
Briar Page rated a book really liked it EUSECT by C.L. Methvin (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Despite containing fourteen stories, C.L. Methvin's debut collection clocks in at a brisk 82 pages. Most of these stories are short enough to arguably qualify as flash fiction, and they really shine: little parables, anecdotes, and shockers. The long ...more
Jan 09, 2025 10:33AM · 12 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of EUSECT by C.L. Methvin. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — EUSECT by C.L. Methvin <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Briar Page rated a book it was amazing Maej by Dale Stromberg (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It is rare that I encounter a novel like MAEJ: a doorstopper I found difficult to put down and finished inside a week; a work of very unapologetic genre fiction that’s equally unapologetic in its intelligence and dedication to doing strange, creative ...more
May 21, 2024 08:32AM · 12 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Maej by Dale Stromberg. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Maej by Dale Stromberg <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Briar Page has read The Book of Queer Saints: Volume II by Mae Murray (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 20, 2024 09:36AM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Book of Queer Saints by Mae Murray. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Book of Queer Saints by Mae Murray <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Briar Page and 7 other people liked Sarah Cavar's review of Lupus in Fabula:

"Highlights: “Therianthrope,” “The Witch’s Wife” (deeply powerful and will linger with me for along time), and “Desire in the Flooded World.”"

Briar Page rated a book it was amazing

Gore Poetics
by Samir Sirk Morato

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Some of my absolute favorite horror and horror-tinged SFF short stories from the past five years or so! To be honest, I sometimes am envious of Morató because I think we’re often doing very similar things as writers, and I think they often do those t ...more

Briar Page rated a book really liked it

Demon Engine
by Marten Norr

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It took me a while to get into this, primarily because, while it is written in a perfectly serviceable prose style for an action-adventure/seastead and sorcery oriented fantasy novel, I was craving more elaborate and/or unusual uses of the English la It took me a while to get into this, primarily because, while it is written in a perfectly serviceable prose style for an action-adventure/seastead and sorcery oriented fantasy novel, I was craving more elaborate and/or unusual uses of the English language. (Unfortunately for DEMON ENGINE, I was mentally comparing it to Hiron Ennes's LEECH, Herman Melville's MOBY-DICK, and Dale Stromberg's MAEJ on this count, which is probably not fair. Particularly in the last two instances!)

That said, once I did get into it-- once the moving parts of the plot clicked together and started really moving-- I had a blast and finished the book in an afternoon! It reminded me of reading as a child, when I didn't really care about prose but about mental spectacle and escapism via emotionally tortured, larger than life characters whose inner turmoil could at least be expressed through explosive bursts of magical power. DEMON ENGINE has some fantastic fight scenes that really take advantage of the whole "written fiction has no budgetary constraints" thing. All the main characters were nicely multi-dimensional, morally gray, and unique-- none of them came off as stereotypes or even archetypes, which is noteworthy in this type of fiction. It's also great (as in WRATH GODDESS SING) to see this type of larger than life fantasy character written as trans. The water world setting was cool, too-- Norr uses it to deftly chop and mix genre elements from pirate adventure stories, high fantasy, kaiju movies, science fiction, and Lovecraftian horror into a whole that feels original and pretty seamless, although occasionally it does beg the question "is EVERYTHING in this world somehow nautically themed?"

I was pleasantly surprised that the ending was as muted and bittersweet/downbeat as it was! I fully expected this novel to pull all its punches in terms of killing off main characters; it doesn't. Which is all I'll say about that.

Last thing, also hard to say without spoilers: I enjoyed the kind of...meta joke, almost?...about autistic masking/how autistic people are commonly portrayed or assumed to be versus how many actual autistic people need to learn to navigate life. ...more

Briar Page and 20 other people liked Nina The Wandering Reader's review of Corrupted Vessels:

"“...I hear the angels now. I see them too. They’re writhing in the trees and the telephone wires. They’re lying slick as fish in puddles, all their lidless eyes looking back at me.”

I read this in one sitting!!!!

Ash and River are a tiny cult of two yo" Read more of this review »

Briar Page rated a book really liked it

Gyre
by Dale Stromberg (Goodreads Author)

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I read this very tight, very dark Mobius strip novella in one sitting, which I think speaks to excellent pacing. Although the twists are not especially difficult to predict after a certain point, I think that a reader is best served going into the st I read this very tight, very dark Mobius strip novella in one sitting, which I think speaks to excellent pacing. Although the twists are not especially difficult to predict after a certain point, I think that a reader is best served going into the story knowing as little about it as possible: I had heard enough about it that I had an idea of the overall direction everything was going from the start, and I think it would have hit even harder if I hadn’t. This book is bound to make some people uncomfortable because it depicts a very abusive person with a lot of understanding and compassion (even as it is also unambiguously morally condemning that character). But personally, I think that type of portrayal is valuable— no one should ever get too comfortable with the idea that because someone is sympathetic, complicated, and frequently kind, it means they cannot also be abusive or could never become abusive. No one should ever get too comfortable with the idea that *they* couldn’t abuse anyone.

There are an *astonishing* amount of ideas crammed into this very short book, most of which are explored with nuance and subtlety in its succinct, straightforward prose style (the one flashy literary maneuver here is a late shift from first person to third person omniscient narration, which Stromberg accomplishes in a slick way). I wasn’t expecting, and enjoyed, the focus on how online fan cultures treat (or rather ignore/in some cases exacerbate) the emotional distress and mental illness of performers. There’s a subplot in here that made me wonder whether Stromberg had read the following r/HobbyDrama series of posts on the artist Emilie Autumn (the final post in the series here links back to the rest, the tl;dr is this is someone who rose to brief cult fame making [sometimes great!] music based on her extremely intense, extremely ongoing struggles with self-destructive behavior, various traumas, and bipolar disorder, then had a bunch of fans turn on her for Acting Like Someone With Poorly Managed Bipolar Disorder and/or C-PTSD): https://shorturl.at/OHb1T ...more

Briar Page and 6 other people liked I. Merey's review of Gyre:

"Chuck Palahniuk said something like, "Write about the day everything changed." In a modern story, the ability of the main character to finally, after much struggle, rise to the occasion after being thrust into a new situation, is a universal theme. W" Read more of this review »

Briar Page and 2 other people liked Ava's review of Lupus in Fabula:

"Thanks to BookSirens for an ARC! I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I've read so much "queer body horror" that just turned out to be body horror about folks who happened to be queer, and it's always d" Read more of this review »

Briar Page rated a book really liked it

EUSECT
by C.L. Methvin (Goodreads Author)

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Despite containing fourteen stories, C.L. Methvin's debut collection clocks in at a brisk 82 pages. Most of these stories are short enough to arguably qualify as flash fiction, and they really shine: little parables, anecdotes, and shockers. The long ...more

Briar Page rated a book it was amazing

Maej
by Dale Stromberg (Goodreads Author)

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It is rare that I encounter a novel like MAEJ: a doorstopper I found difficult to put down and finished inside a week; a work of very unapologetic genre fiction that’s equally unapologetic in its intelligence and dedication to doing strange, creative It is rare that I encounter a novel like MAEJ: a doorstopper I found difficult to put down and finished inside a week; a work of very unapologetic genre fiction that’s equally unapologetic in its intelligence and dedication to doing strange, creative things with language; a high fantasy story I actually liked. The setting is the city of Sforre-Yomn, in the country of Hwoama, whose culture combines elements from across the continents of Asia and Europe. But Hwoama is matriarchal: men are subordinate to women, who dominate politics, business, the military, and nearly all other professions. As a result of this fact, almost all the major characters in the novel are female. By turns this presents a fun, simple, mischievous inversion of maleness as the unmarked default state for fictional characters, and meaty commentary on the social construction of sex, sexuality, and gender. Stromberg has cited Le Guin as an influence on MAEJ and, in the most complimentary way possible, this influence is evident.
The plot of MAEJ is a delightful Rube Goldberg machine too elaborate and surprising to go into here, filled with political intrigue, action, twists, tragedy, and even a touch of romance. It involves the plight of the Ilas, a ghettoized minority ethnolinguistic group whose oppression at the hands of the dominant Sforrings and Yomnings brings to mind several contemporary and historical analogues. Once again, there’s pointed and poignant social commentary akin to Le Guin, or Octavia Butler, or China Mieville. There’s also what I consider a wonderful linguistic gimmick: the Hwoamish language is represented by a rollicking pastiche of Early Modern English in roughly Shakespearean style. (Other languages are represented by standard, albeit formal, contemporary English.) This would be insufferable if it were done badly, but Stromberg absolutely knows his stuff and carries it off with aplomb.
Other things you may find in this unique, complex fantasy: gryphons, berserker rages, fate-worship, anthropologists, hallucinogenic flower wine, poetry battles, flying contraptions, an underground city, a gaolbreak, and an awful politician getting assassinated while using the toilet.

* * *

I received an ARC of the novel in exchange for an honest review. Please, read this book! I would love to see it become even a twelfth as popular as a lot of way worse fantasy novels I won't deign to actually name. ...more

Briar Page has read

The Book of Queer Saints: Volume II
by Mae Murray (Goodreads Author)

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Goodreads Librari...: [INCOMPLETE] Author Lists Missing Contributors	5	30	Oct 30, 2023 07:23AM
Goodreads Librari...: [INCOMPLETE] Kindle Edition Needed: The Book of Queer Saints: Volume I	3	149	Mar 30, 2024 06:34AM
Goodreads Librari...: [COMPLETE] Book Cleanup: The Book of Queer Saints: Volume I/Volume II	19	292	Jul 08, 2024 06:09PM

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	Corrupted Vessels 4.15 avg rating — 157 ratings — published 2020 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lupus in Fabula 4.12 avg rating — 86 ratings — published 2025 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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