Briar Ripley Page (Author of Corrupted Vessels)

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 · 9 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 21 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 · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Corrupted Vessels by Briar Ripley Page. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Corrupted Vessels by Briar Ripley Page <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
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 · 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 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 · 9 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 has read Fluids by May Leitz	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 08, 2024 11:20PM · 1 like · like
Briar Page rated a book it was amazing Failure to Comply by Sarah Cavar (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
Reading Cavar’s Failure to Comply, I couldn’t help but think of the recent David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future. Both deal with dystopias in which bodies and their modification are strictly regulated, and people with unauthorized bodies form a ...more
Mar 16, 2024 07:15AM · 22 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Failure to Comply by Sarah Cavar. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Failure to Comply by Sarah Cavar <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Briar Page rated a book really liked it

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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 21 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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Briar Page has read

Fluids
by May Leitz

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Briar Page rated a book it was amazing

Failure to Comply
by Sarah Cavar (Goodreads Author)

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Reading Cavar’s Failure to Comply, I couldn’t help but think of the recent David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future. Both deal with dystopias in which bodies and their modification are strictly regulated, and people with unauthorized bodies form a Reading Cavar’s Failure to Comply, I couldn’t help but think of the recent David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future. Both deal with dystopias in which bodies and their modification are strictly regulated, and people with unauthorized bodies form a vibrant, perpetually imperiled subculture on the margins. Both use this conceit to speak metaphorically about the plights of trans and disabled people, although Failure to Comply’s characters are also presented as literally, textually disabled and trans. But, although Crimes of the Future is often accused of being a “weird movie,” Failure to Comply is undeniably much, much weirder. Cronenberg is super normal compared to this.
A major theme of this novel is language as a shaper of possibility: the ways in which the words someone has learned to use to think about something can dictate their perception of that thing and the limits of what they believe that thing is able to do or be. To this end, Cavar invents eir own conventions of vocabulary, grammar, and tense, and often resorts to devices like staggered text, repeated text, font shifts, and large swathes of white space to indicate when the narrator is having difficulty thinking, having their rebellious thoughts intruded upon by conditioning from the tyrannical RSCH, or unable to conceive of something in words at all. Along with Failure’s frequent narrative dislocations, which blur the narrator’s memories, the narrator’s fantasies, hypothetical alternate (?) pasts and futures, the story’s “factual present,” and more, this makes it a challenging book to read at times. It demands a reader’s careful attention, and it demands the sort of understanding and interpretive lens that is more commonly asked of us by poetry. (Fitting, as Cavar has been writing and publishing poetry for years.)
Failure to Comply rewards this attention with a deft, intelligent sense of humor and wordplay, acerbic Kafkaesque (or maybe Gilliamesque?) satire, and uncompromisingly radical politics around mind/body autonomy and liberation. There were insights here that startled me! And the central romance is a compelling, honest depiction of t4t disabled love and connection, including betrayal, resentment, anger, and causing harm to one another at times. Above all, what a joy to read a work of fiction— something that could be called a sci-fi novel, no less— that positively revels in the fact it’s made of words, of written language. That knows how to use that fact to trick and destabilize the reader like a magician, instead of just (or, often, at all) trying to convey vivid mental images of the various characters and scenes. That’s an exceedingly rare quality these days, and it’s always been rare to see it done ostentatiously yet well.
Apart from Crimes of the Future, I would strongly recommend Failure to Comply for people who liked mid-2010s indie games along the lines of Porpentine's twines (With Those We Love Alive, etc.), We Know the Devil, and Heaven Will Be Mine. ...more

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Goodreads Librari...: [INCOMPLETE] Author Lists Missing Contributors	5	29	Oct 30, 2023 07:23AM
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Goodreads Librari...: [COMPLETE] Book Cleanup: The Book of Queer Saints: Volume I/Volume II	19	291	Jul 08, 2024 06:09PM

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	Corrupted Vessels 4.17 avg rating — 138 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
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