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Polymer
You've seen monster hunts before. You've watched as a guy with throwing axes and ninja stars ascends stairs to fight a big furry werewolf with tentacles or a floating head of indeterminate origin. You've seen hunters. But you've never seen Polymer. Polymer's got style, Polymer's got sex appeal, Polymer's got panache. And you, lucky reader, get to join us right behind the glass in Sickleburg Castle where the battle of the century is about to commence. Who is the man behind the music, the monsters, the guts, the gore and the glory? Get ready for an event like no other.
82 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2018
2 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 1, 2018
POLYMER is one of the most unique books I have read in a minute. Wilson weaves a surreal tale of monster-hunting and superstardom taking place in a Castlevania-esque world, filled with heroes/hunters and the fans that follow them religiously. Polymer, whose effortless, enigmatic cool is as enviable as it is unattainable, is the greatest of these.
With a unique, synth-driven story and sword-sharp sentences, Wilson makes certain the reader is drawn into the zeitgeist as well. If you're like me, you'll push yourself to the front of the crowd of Polymer's megafans, just to make sure you see what happens next.
I highly recommend POLYMER to fans of bizarro, experimental fictions, and the enigmatic existences of the celebrities we publicly adore.
With a unique, synth-driven story and sword-sharp sentences, Wilson makes certain the reader is drawn into the zeitgeist as well. If you're like me, you'll push yourself to the front of the crowd of Polymer's megafans, just to make sure you see what happens next.
I highly recommend POLYMER to fans of bizarro, experimental fictions, and the enigmatic existences of the celebrities we publicly adore.
October 28, 2020
I totally meant to review this when I read it and promptly forgot.
Polymer is fantastic, deftly written bizarro fiction with a heart that beats echoes of Castlevania, Purple Rain, and spooky synth sounds. It's easily in my Top 5 New Bizarro Author Series Books of all time. Highly recommended for its unusual atmosphere, experimental writing (told from the perspective of an audience!), and downright fun story.
Polymer is fantastic, deftly written bizarro fiction with a heart that beats echoes of Castlevania, Purple Rain, and spooky synth sounds. It's easily in my Top 5 New Bizarro Author Series Books of all time. Highly recommended for its unusual atmosphere, experimental writing (told from the perspective of an audience!), and downright fun story.
May 16, 2018
Castlevania by way of Repo the Genetic Opera by way of Phantom of the Paradise, with liberal helpings of anime aesthetics, cosplay culture, and social commentary, all mixed together with a pounding synth beat that will shred your brain and rebuild it into something newer, something better, something ready to face whatever lies at the heart of Sickleburg and the extradimensional castle that hovers next door.
To say that Caleb Wilson's Polymer is a fun, propulsive read is to both engage in understatement and do this thin volume a grave injustice. Because while it is all those things, it's also something more. Not a book beholden to the structure of video games or rock operas, but also a piece of classically weird fiction, endlessly inventive, stylishly subversive, and filled with perfect turns of phrase. It may be an inescapably contemporary fable, but it's also written with all the wit and invention of the best cosmic horrors of Jean Ray or William Hope Hodgson. It's not often that a book like Polymer comes along, but when it does, you want to shout it from the rooftops.
Literally my only complaint is that the copy I read had a few more typographical errors than I would generally prefer to see, which occasionally plucked me out of the otherwise entirely engrossing story.
To say that Caleb Wilson's Polymer is a fun, propulsive read is to both engage in understatement and do this thin volume a grave injustice. Because while it is all those things, it's also something more. Not a book beholden to the structure of video games or rock operas, but also a piece of classically weird fiction, endlessly inventive, stylishly subversive, and filled with perfect turns of phrase. It may be an inescapably contemporary fable, but it's also written with all the wit and invention of the best cosmic horrors of Jean Ray or William Hope Hodgson. It's not often that a book like Polymer comes along, but when it does, you want to shout it from the rooftops.
Literally my only complaint is that the copy I read had a few more typographical errors than I would generally prefer to see, which occasionally plucked me out of the otherwise entirely engrossing story.
April 8, 2018
Polymer is a surprisingly fun, incredibly surreal read about one man's musical journey to slay mythical monsters. It's told in first person plural from the POV of Polymer's fans. It's a quick adventure story (under 100 pages) full of constant insanity. This book will make you a fan of Polymer, the hero you never knew you needed!
April 26, 2018
For a variety of reasons, the idea of experimental, "Bizarro" fiction doesn't necessarily make me think of something particularly fun or satisfying to read. But it kinda seems like it should, shouldn't it? Well, Polymer is the kind of riotously inventive, uninhibited bundle of constant entertainment that actually delivers on all that promise. It's unapologetically hammy, built on a masterful command of genre pastiche that never veers into overt winking or rests on the laurels of its references. And it all works because of the meta-fictional, Procrustean lens of the collective protagonist.
Quite the opposite of what I might have feared, the narrative gimmick of telling the story from the perspective of all of polymers fans at once provides not an absence of motivation, but an endless supply of it. I'm not sure this gimmick would work over a longer story, but for a novella, it's perfect. The whole thing feels very postmodern, of course, but more than that, very contemporary. If the base DNA of Polymer's world is Bloodborne, seeing the story from this point of view is like a Twitch stream. It's actually kind of a stroke of genius, considering how inimical the Soulsborne games are to adaptation in first person storytelling.
So instead of putting us in the hunter's shoes, creating dramatic justification for the endless slog of monster hunting, polymer explores the interesting drama of seeing that from a layer removed. As Polymer's fans, we see the story as lore hunters and bystanders and overzealous vicarious thrill seekers. The collective protagonist is a goopy, multifaceted thing driven by id (again, just like the comments in a Twitch stream). The way it casually abandons parts of itself to death and danger and then continues on, oblivious, reminds me of the blob thing from Inside. Moreover, it has the quality of a sports broadcast, a camera capable of jumping around from angle to angle, fight to home life to puff piece, that modulates tone and knowledge as needed to craft a compelling experience (if not a strong drama, per se) from the incommunicable grind of gamified hunting.
The experience of reading Polymer is thus surreal, intoxicating, familiar but disorienting. If the formula is familiar, the palate it is painted with is entirely unique. I often find books that rely heavily on describing experiences best suited to other media simply fail. And I can't say the glam rock synth magic really landed for me – it is so clearly something I would enjoy seeing actually executed with sound and video, but I can't do it justice in my head, or at least the effort distracts me from the story. All of the rest of the flavor is awesome. Potatomania, the glass fenced vents between worlds, the insane entertainment culture of Sickleburg in general, the performative violence of Lord Abisma, and the wild aesthetic of the cosmic horror monsters, which sits somewhere between the goofy chimaeras of Lovecraft, the colorful goop of the Candy Kingdom, and a vaporwave music video. In general I think of myself preferring horror aesthetics that are a bit more restrained, but the juxtaposition of elements in these monsters somehow feel both indulgent and creatively liberating and all the more disquieting for their tangible, almost edible plastic, sugar, and sweetmeat textures.
If there's anything lacking here, it's just that the story really does have the feel of a music video. Far more interested in tone and visuals and climax than anything else; what drama there is takes place on a stage, melodramatic, easily readable, digested secondhand. Similarly, history and world building are relatively shallow, and clearly feel like they stop existing shortly after the elements the book presents. That all makes sense for Polymer; it's clearly the extent of the books, ambition, and it delivers on it. My complete satisfaction. I guess I'm just thinking now about how well this storytelling technique might hold up over a longer story. I suppose in essence, the problem is that the fandom premise centers a story on the hunter himself, who would traditionally be little more than the transparent lens through which you viewed a more systemic story. Perhaps an alternative could work just as well, but the advantage of the fandom is that it implies an instant, potent emotional investment that might be difficult to justify otherwise.
Quite the opposite of what I might have feared, the narrative gimmick of telling the story from the perspective of all of polymers fans at once provides not an absence of motivation, but an endless supply of it. I'm not sure this gimmick would work over a longer story, but for a novella, it's perfect. The whole thing feels very postmodern, of course, but more than that, very contemporary. If the base DNA of Polymer's world is Bloodborne, seeing the story from this point of view is like a Twitch stream. It's actually kind of a stroke of genius, considering how inimical the Soulsborne games are to adaptation in first person storytelling.
So instead of putting us in the hunter's shoes, creating dramatic justification for the endless slog of monster hunting, polymer explores the interesting drama of seeing that from a layer removed. As Polymer's fans, we see the story as lore hunters and bystanders and overzealous vicarious thrill seekers. The collective protagonist is a goopy, multifaceted thing driven by id (again, just like the comments in a Twitch stream). The way it casually abandons parts of itself to death and danger and then continues on, oblivious, reminds me of the blob thing from Inside. Moreover, it has the quality of a sports broadcast, a camera capable of jumping around from angle to angle, fight to home life to puff piece, that modulates tone and knowledge as needed to craft a compelling experience (if not a strong drama, per se) from the incommunicable grind of gamified hunting.
The experience of reading Polymer is thus surreal, intoxicating, familiar but disorienting. If the formula is familiar, the palate it is painted with is entirely unique. I often find books that rely heavily on describing experiences best suited to other media simply fail. And I can't say the glam rock synth magic really landed for me – it is so clearly something I would enjoy seeing actually executed with sound and video, but I can't do it justice in my head, or at least the effort distracts me from the story. All of the rest of the flavor is awesome. Potatomania, the glass fenced vents between worlds, the insane entertainment culture of Sickleburg in general, the performative violence of Lord Abisma, and the wild aesthetic of the cosmic horror monsters, which sits somewhere between the goofy chimaeras of Lovecraft, the colorful goop of the Candy Kingdom, and a vaporwave music video. In general I think of myself preferring horror aesthetics that are a bit more restrained, but the juxtaposition of elements in these monsters somehow feel both indulgent and creatively liberating and all the more disquieting for their tangible, almost edible plastic, sugar, and sweetmeat textures.
If there's anything lacking here, it's just that the story really does have the feel of a music video. Far more interested in tone and visuals and climax than anything else; what drama there is takes place on a stage, melodramatic, easily readable, digested secondhand. Similarly, history and world building are relatively shallow, and clearly feel like they stop existing shortly after the elements the book presents. That all makes sense for Polymer; it's clearly the extent of the books, ambition, and it delivers on it. My complete satisfaction. I guess I'm just thinking now about how well this storytelling technique might hold up over a longer story. I suppose in essence, the problem is that the fandom premise centers a story on the hunter himself, who would traditionally be little more than the transparent lens through which you viewed a more systemic story. Perhaps an alternative could work just as well, but the advantage of the fandom is that it implies an instant, potent emotional investment that might be difficult to justify otherwise.
March 17, 2018
I was blown away by this book. It’s the kind of book I read and think “this thing is tailored specifically to my reading tastes.” Because it does. It’s an often surreal, occasionally absurd epic fantasy which inspires awe and dread through the fantastic descriptions of synth waves, aural weapons which cut through the air and attack all sorts of haunting monsters. And if you were to throw around descriptions like surrealism and sound-weapons and strange and haunting monsters before I read Polymer I’d probably say it sounded like you were talking about my bizarro sci-fi novella, Girl in the Glass Planet. And I think this highlights a fantastic point as to why bizarro is such a fascinating and pleasurable genre to read and write in. While many books in general have a lot of themes (and sometimes a lot of plots in common), bizarro has a lot less books sharing those creative similarities, and the ones that do are often remarkably different.
Polymer and Glass Planet are two completely different stories as soon as you start digging into them, but I nevertheless found myself seeing those things mentioned above which drew me to write my book in the first place, and I loved how Caleb Wilson took them in a different direction, more medieval, more Castlevania-esque, and on top of all that, the way he framed the story and described so many elements of the narrative, and how the plot played out, it was just beautiful, such a wonderful sight to behold. Polymer is a gripping and sensational read, it delivered all the great things I relish in a good book holding specific interests to my own reading tastes. If you read Girl in the Glass Planet and you enjoyed it, you’re going to love Polymer. Wilson can do anything I can do, and he can do it better. Another fantastic read in the New Bizarro Author Series.
Polymer and Glass Planet are two completely different stories as soon as you start digging into them, but I nevertheless found myself seeing those things mentioned above which drew me to write my book in the first place, and I loved how Caleb Wilson took them in a different direction, more medieval, more Castlevania-esque, and on top of all that, the way he framed the story and described so many elements of the narrative, and how the plot played out, it was just beautiful, such a wonderful sight to behold. Polymer is a gripping and sensational read, it delivered all the great things I relish in a good book holding specific interests to my own reading tastes. If you read Girl in the Glass Planet and you enjoyed it, you’re going to love Polymer. Wilson can do anything I can do, and he can do it better. Another fantastic read in the New Bizarro Author Series.
March 18, 2018
Really exciting, interesting, haunting, WEIRD. I absolutely loved the communal narration, the present tense, the bizarrely human ways these people react, as a group, to the insane splintering of their world. The hero worship, almost like a reality tv star, feels so real that I'm probably guilty of it more often than I even admit to myself.
There were elements of this story that felt a little like the parts I liked of Wolf in White Van (and avoided the stuff I didn't like.) The sport fan aspect made me think of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect and the death jockeys that were my favorite parts of that story.
It was also very thrilling to have a story that was so inherently tied to destruction and some existential horror manage to remain really funny throughout. Things managed to stay lighthearted - or maybe that was just me having too much fun - even as the imagery transcended the limits of my imagination into sheer visceral terror.
There were elements of this story that felt a little like the parts I liked of Wolf in White Van (and avoided the stuff I didn't like.) The sport fan aspect made me think of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect and the death jockeys that were my favorite parts of that story.
It was also very thrilling to have a story that was so inherently tied to destruction and some existential horror manage to remain really funny throughout. Things managed to stay lighthearted - or maybe that was just me having too much fun - even as the imagery transcended the limits of my imagination into sheer visceral terror.
July 8, 2019
This book is a lot of fun. It's one of the few stories told from the POV of "us" and "we." It's told by the hivemind of the audience as they watch their favorite monster hunter, Polymer, go into action. It even has a tabloid reporter who explains Polymer's unseen adventures through the use of a crystal ball. Sometimes they get a first hand look at the action, and often members of the "us" POV get killed. It's crazy fun, and I highly recommend it.
March 29, 2018
Not just weird for weird's sake, but formally and narratively inventive at every turn. Also, just really really funny.
December 18, 2022
POTATO MANIA FOREVER
November 12, 2018
Polymer by Caleb Wilson: Gladiators in video games, lost in the synth notes. We do battles to ram though these castle walls. Otherworldly creatures are encountered in this surreal, 8-but world. A Max Ernst-like nightmarish figure, a skeletal machine draped in reg rags, are two such monsters who follow our crew. Why can’t video games be riddles like this, like the alien lands 80s synth pop could sometimes dream about? Surreal battles with little at stake shatter into beautifully alien descriptions. Repetitive destructions with nothing gained yet shimmering with a fiendishly articulated beauty, slathered in the aesthetic of synth pop which Wilson continually evokes in his world-building. Here’s an example: “With the fingers of his impaled arm he touches his synthpad and the petals of his sword unfurl, they snuck outward, a rat king made of switchblades, and the louse is cut into six wedge-shaped pieces which drift sideways, drizzling little clots of white jelly segments like the fragments of a tapeworm.” The loopy design of this book at times reminded me of Raymond Roussel’s work.
October 13, 2019
Told from the collective perspective of his fans, this is the tale of Polymer. When the music form New Synth rends the world, hunters must battle the monsters inside these vents. Among these hunters, Polymer has attracted an ultra-loyal following, obsessed with his every action.
As you can tell, this is a ridiculously creative story, in some ways bringing to mind S.T. Cartledge’s The Orphanarium. It feels like wandering through a bizarre dream, but one that is carefully constructed and beautifully written.
The action, at times, bored me—even taking me out of the story. But that is more of a personal preference than a fault of the book. Other than the aesthetic similarities to Cartledge, this was a unique experience, like nothing I’ve read before and a gem in the bizarro fiction genre.
As you can tell, this is a ridiculously creative story, in some ways bringing to mind S.T. Cartledge’s The Orphanarium. It feels like wandering through a bizarre dream, but one that is carefully constructed and beautifully written.
The action, at times, bored me—even taking me out of the story. But that is more of a personal preference than a fault of the book. Other than the aesthetic similarities to Cartledge, this was a unique experience, like nothing I’ve read before and a gem in the bizarro fiction genre.
July 2, 2018
Take one of those hour long "Glitchwave/Retrocore MEGAMIX" videos from Youtube, pour it into a form fitting yet breathable jumpsuit, and make it the protagonist in a sidescrolling beat 'em up arcade game.
There's some wonderfully clever stuff going on in this book: the first-person-collective narration, playing with ideas of spectacle and celebrity culture, but even if you aren't into those high-falutin' concepts it's still ridiculously fun and fast-paced and the closest thing to 80's anime in text form that I can think of.
There's some wonderfully clever stuff going on in this book: the first-person-collective narration, playing with ideas of spectacle and celebrity culture, but even if you aren't into those high-falutin' concepts it's still ridiculously fun and fast-paced and the closest thing to 80's anime in text form that I can think of.
August 11, 2018
Wilson is a poet of the surreal, and Polymer is an inventive, mind-bending, pleasantly disorienting trip through a mash-up world of Castlevania, synth music, fame, rockstardom, cosplay, and some gruesomely descriptive video game combat. (One villain has an inverted face who sucks/swallows the life force out of his victims; another has the delightful name “Shhoggafrog,” the exact pronunciation of which is a debate among the first person plural narrator.) Polymer playfully evokes many things while creating its own wonderfully twisted universe.
January 15, 2019
It's like if you drank a bunch of coffee while listening to New Wave and got sucked into the Flipside from the 80's cartoon, Kidd Video. That happens to me everyday, but it's probably a new experience for most people. Try it, you'll like it.
June 20, 2019
This is the first book I've come across that's written in first person plural. It works very well, driving the excitement right into me. Just a great read.
January 14, 2022
I liked the villain, but the convoluted sentences stopped me from immersing myself in the text. The writer also relies on to-be verbs that make for a passive reading experience.
August 21, 2018
“We are in denial, watching our Polymer sex tapes like they are barrels full of burning trash, desperate for a bit of warmth, tainted as it might be.”
The New Bizarro Author series brings us a tale of fandom and fanboyish obsession brought to a boiling point, mixed with a neon-tinged eighties aesthetic, gothic castle-storming adventurism and body horror - with even an abstract mathematical sci-fi element being hinted at, lingering on the borders of a universe that it could at any moment crush to a pulp.
This novella makes use of some interesting methods of narration, coalescing a group of nameless, featureless fans into a single narrator, helping them and the reader to keep an eye on almost every corner of the story’s setting. It’s all quite stylistic and effective at world-building (especially towards the end, with one scene involving a journalist getting a glimpse of something esoteric and deadly and relaying it to the reader). Having said that, the dialogue from the individual fans that have been amalgamated into the narrator could have been put within quotation marks, just to help with the story’s flow.
The story could also have used a stronger human element, something deeply emotional and personal; something more than mystery and pure style to connect me to its hero. I was still hooked, make no mistake. This book conveys a tantalising sense that there’s always something weirder and more awe-inspiring around the next corner without ever giving you too much of an answer, dragging you through its narrative with a carrot on a synth-stick, until you arrive at a climax that’s explosive and unconventional even by the standards of bizarro fiction.
Now that I’ve finished reading Polymer, I feel it’s like one of those weird dreams that you want to delve deeper into but which you wake from before you can turn the surreal into sense. If you don’t mind when these dreams are mixed with some flesh-tearing, bone-crushing violence, you might want to pick it up.
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