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Boris Says the Words
Radioactive waste sites act as refugee housing. A giant metal bird grazes the countryside. A gelatinous body-switching drug is sought to help perform folk healings. Most of the world is unusable, a victim of runaway nuclear disasters. The future is a landfill. Read all about it...
In the ruined and irradiated village of Bulm, Pavel helps a drug-addicted witch and her deathly ill son survive. In the American Midwest, Katya Mirov falls in love with Alejandro Po, a baker coping with multiple sclerosis. Everyone is, in some way, tangled in a web with Boris, rural healer and speaker of "the tea words." When spoken the right way, the words can move disease outside the body--but the disease then must transfer into another innocent person. Those around Boris begin to learn the chaotic carousel of words, and the fabric of reality shreds. This is a cockeyed novel of lunatic speculative vision, touched by elements of horror and science fiction. And sad, sad, sad.
In the ruined and irradiated village of Bulm, Pavel helps a drug-addicted witch and her deathly ill son survive. In the American Midwest, Katya Mirov falls in love with Alejandro Po, a baker coping with multiple sclerosis. Everyone is, in some way, tangled in a web with Boris, rural healer and speaker of "the tea words." When spoken the right way, the words can move disease outside the body--but the disease then must transfer into another innocent person. Those around Boris begin to learn the chaotic carousel of words, and the fabric of reality shreds. This is a cockeyed novel of lunatic speculative vision, touched by elements of horror and science fiction. And sad, sad, sad.
- GenresFiction
307 pages, Paperback
Published May 31, 2022
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187 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 8, 2022
Boris Says the Words is a great story and perfect for the screen. I hope it gets picked up as a film. Despite the captivating story, I felt distracted by Winkler's sanity-shattering prose. There were sentences that just ate right through me and descriptions that lingered and troubled me in a good way. I was terrified by Winkler's grotesque description of otherwise basic items, places, and concepts. For example, Winkler's description of the seats on a train were an absolute horror! However, there were many spots of relief, which provided a smile or a chuckle, and I always appreciated the chapter titles. Independent artists like Kyle Winkler provide a fresh voice. A much needed book for the times!
January 20, 2025
I am sadly way overdue to read this novel. Every time I read about it, I knew I needed to read it, so I requested that my library buy it. I waited a bit to see if the library got it, but they didn’t. Eventually, I got it, and it sat on my TBR for about a year, and I have no idea why I didn’t get to it sooner.
Winkler first came onto my radar as the host of the short-lived but excellent Left Hand of Leguin podcast, which filled the space we were doing for the other science fiction writer from the Berkley high school class of 1947. I could tell he was an intelligent, thoughtful storyteller.
I am normally in favor of gatekeepers, and nervous about self-published books. I have been burned many times by novels that were not ready. Boris Says the Words is as independent as it gets, it doesn’t even have a publisher label. This is 200% the kind of book that justifies the democratization of self-publishing. Agents or publishers couldn’t possibly deny the quality of the writing but this novel defies simple marketing and I am sure sailed straight over the heads of many agents and editors. I don’t have to be in the room to hear “great stuff, but I don’t know how to sell this.” something to that effect.
What genre are we talking about? That is the first problem that shouldn’t be a problem this novel has. Boris Says the Words is many genres. Science Fiction, yes, but also Horror, but also Bizarro and surreal. All those labels are fair but also on their own would sell this novel short. Don’t think for one second that the literary or artistic merit is lacking because Winkler didn’t want to wait for the right publisher to figure it out. After all, I suspect that is why he decided to just put it out there. A book like is better than most of the stuff on endcaps at Barnes and Noble, but Winkler wanted it in front of eyeballs like mine, it was bet he made that waiting was not worth it.
The dreaded marketing comps are also strange with this one. You know when the cover blurbs says ‘ its this hit bestselling book meets this respectable literary masterpiece.’ Any comps come off as trite, and selling short a book that combines many genius things, nothing exactly commercial. A blacker-than-black environmental dystopia in the vein of John Brunner’s ecology SF horror masterpiece The Sheep Looks Up with the prose gravitas of an Evenson or Liggotti is an instant sell to me but won't get you on the rack at the airport.
BSW is a dystopia but if you're not careful you might miss the slow-developing apocalypse of radiated villages and dying Russian countryside. It is done subtly and taken matter-of-factly by the characters. There is so much great stuff going on in this book it is easy to miss some of these aspects, I often re-read pages because of gorgeous prose or weird WTF I just read moments ago. Let's start with the opening line that sets the tone.
“Bulm was unmoored. If strangers asked, Pavel said it was the village where cats refused death. Or he said it was the village where men lose fist fights to dogs. But it didn't matter; both were true statements.”
What an opening salvo that tells you a lot about the vibe Winkler is going for. This sentence sets the tone as both dark and weird, and those feelings radiate off every page. He also tells the reader to expect off-color commentary throughout. I enjoyed this opening. Right away I was excited about this book.
Once we meet the cast of characters we see that Winkler is no slouch at writing characters either Alexander and Katya Mirov who meet in Muncie, Indiana where they run a bakery and try to deal with an MS diagnosis. Did I mention that parts of the first act take place in my home state? That is crazy.
“Winter set into East central Indiana. Chill and frost bedecked the shiny-then-matte picture windows of Muncie. The dying tracts of grass. E bulbed St. lights. The homeless gathered around the physical plants' exhaust grates. Winter, as a season, crowded and elbowed into festering corners, into small damp spaces, into cramped quarters like a dispirited tune accustomed to doom. People broke apart or laid down and dried up.”
Of course, the winter in Indiana can be lifeless and bleak but that serves to counter the dying landscape of the radioactive Russia. We are introduced to this dying Russia through one key character. Pavel is fascinating, he works answering hotline phone calls about radiation issues in Russia essentially melting down. What unites the characters, is the shadow of a drug-addicted witch named Boris. It is his magic that makes him a presence in the book. I love how this is expressed.
Boris. She said the name once, accidentally, in the car. She said his name now is if the letters themselves had fangs. As if the man had a mouth hidden in the back of his head that he reserved for eating children period to her Boris wasn't the boogeyman period to her, he was what the boogeyman shies away from. How else to describe it? Boris crept into her life like a slow growing tumor or an old swamp monster.”
The effect the words have is creepy of course this runs parallel to the harsh environment of the radioactive dystopia. It heals but it harms others. Making the words an ethical dilemma and spiritual cousin to Matheson’s button box. Boris becomes a bogeyman because he can heal but at what cost? What does the ability to heal one at a time mean in a dying world?
“Boris snorted in amusement. “We will be radioactive messiahs. We will glow in the dark period” he cocked his head as if to decide on something Pavel thought: the words are like invisible priests. Then Boris nodded and revealed that Pavel's father - the seeming teetotaler- nearly drank himself to death.”
The increasing horror of the landscape is realized through dense but readable prose that constantly demands re-reads, as you find the strange turn of phrase shocking. Beautiful language that sugarcoats ghastly horror. I dog-eared tons of pages that had moments like those of filthy beauty. The novel paints a grim world, but those who find such things entertaining.
That said it is never humorless. Consider this opener for a chapter. “Boris hadn't healed anyone in a week except that guy with the broken dick. But it wasn't really broken, just jammed. Or sprained. It was a sprained dick. Slightly bruised. Too much vigorous jacking off. So Boris healed the dick.
Healed that was a joke. Boris understood his job as delaying the inevitable.”
In the grim details, you might miss some of the humor, but you catch much of the message. Another thing that makes this novel different, a serious work of genre fiction is the levels of commentary throughout. This novel has a point of view and I like that. Consider this scene when Pavel talks about the travel of the local evil to America. IT just makes sense to him that it would thrive in America.
“You'll kill yourself on that.” Han flinched at the mention of suicide. “God's teeth,” Pavel said. That's what they call it? I knew someone who did more than her share of it.” he paused, turning back to Boris he remembered Polina's terrible, shiny mouth, crooked with the drug. “Spoon after spoon of it in her tea. All day it didn't kill her but it didn't do her any favors. I had no idea it got to America so fast. But that is a stupid thing period of course it's in America. It's in America like toothpaste, yes? Like French fries?”
How about some examples of the wonderful weird prose:
“The sun died in the sky when Boris reached over and handed Han the crinkly loaf of zu-bo. Han coughed up his tea. Pavel went bloodless. He wanted to stop the exchange but froze. All he could think of was the mangled mutant rabbit and a necklace of bloody rabbit teeth scattered about Polina’s linoleum floor. The smell of greasy smoke. Too-sweet tea.”
I mean what the fuck Winkler? But also hell yeah Winkler!
“Boris terrified Yelena. Not by the way he looked, but by the way he spoke, slow and plodding, as if each word was the foot of an ancient pyramid. She liked Pavel, though he took her aside and asked her if she was worried about her father.
“No, he will be fine. My father has a protective husk around him.”
There are probably one hundred examples of world similes like each word was like the foot of an ancient pyramid. Hilarious similes are something that reminds me of Cody Goodfellow, the best in the biz at the hilarious use of them. Winkler is right there.
“You're delusional. The Raptor assessed the world and found it lacking. It's dying. Deep down, on a day-to-day level, I think everyone on earth knows this. There are whole swaths of Rhos one cannot step foot in for the zone of radioactivity. The same in Africa, China, India. In America there has long been the abandonment of the South and the West. The Irish moved to Greenland to save their culture. Desperate people will preserve their way of life.”
Don’t forget in the middle of all this creepy and great prose why we are here, ecological terror. Boris Says the Words is a miracle, a box that feels market researched to appeal to this fucking weirdo so I can’t really say if you will find it as genius as me, but goddamn this book is amazing.
“Pavel turned on him like a kindergartener in a shopping mall. “don't touch anything. Don't eat anything, don't drink anything. Mercury levels in a place like this are crazy. If we get out of here without being poisoned I'd be surprised.”
“We just left a radioactive apartment building,” Han said.
Yeah, bottom line Boris Says the Words is a modern masterpiece and probably the single best self-published book I ever read.
Winkler first came onto my radar as the host of the short-lived but excellent Left Hand of Leguin podcast, which filled the space we were doing for the other science fiction writer from the Berkley high school class of 1947. I could tell he was an intelligent, thoughtful storyteller.
I am normally in favor of gatekeepers, and nervous about self-published books. I have been burned many times by novels that were not ready. Boris Says the Words is as independent as it gets, it doesn’t even have a publisher label. This is 200% the kind of book that justifies the democratization of self-publishing. Agents or publishers couldn’t possibly deny the quality of the writing but this novel defies simple marketing and I am sure sailed straight over the heads of many agents and editors. I don’t have to be in the room to hear “great stuff, but I don’t know how to sell this.” something to that effect.
What genre are we talking about? That is the first problem that shouldn’t be a problem this novel has. Boris Says the Words is many genres. Science Fiction, yes, but also Horror, but also Bizarro and surreal. All those labels are fair but also on their own would sell this novel short. Don’t think for one second that the literary or artistic merit is lacking because Winkler didn’t want to wait for the right publisher to figure it out. After all, I suspect that is why he decided to just put it out there. A book like is better than most of the stuff on endcaps at Barnes and Noble, but Winkler wanted it in front of eyeballs like mine, it was bet he made that waiting was not worth it.
The dreaded marketing comps are also strange with this one. You know when the cover blurbs says ‘ its this hit bestselling book meets this respectable literary masterpiece.’ Any comps come off as trite, and selling short a book that combines many genius things, nothing exactly commercial. A blacker-than-black environmental dystopia in the vein of John Brunner’s ecology SF horror masterpiece The Sheep Looks Up with the prose gravitas of an Evenson or Liggotti is an instant sell to me but won't get you on the rack at the airport.
BSW is a dystopia but if you're not careful you might miss the slow-developing apocalypse of radiated villages and dying Russian countryside. It is done subtly and taken matter-of-factly by the characters. There is so much great stuff going on in this book it is easy to miss some of these aspects, I often re-read pages because of gorgeous prose or weird WTF I just read moments ago. Let's start with the opening line that sets the tone.
“Bulm was unmoored. If strangers asked, Pavel said it was the village where cats refused death. Or he said it was the village where men lose fist fights to dogs. But it didn't matter; both were true statements.”
What an opening salvo that tells you a lot about the vibe Winkler is going for. This sentence sets the tone as both dark and weird, and those feelings radiate off every page. He also tells the reader to expect off-color commentary throughout. I enjoyed this opening. Right away I was excited about this book.
Once we meet the cast of characters we see that Winkler is no slouch at writing characters either Alexander and Katya Mirov who meet in Muncie, Indiana where they run a bakery and try to deal with an MS diagnosis. Did I mention that parts of the first act take place in my home state? That is crazy.
“Winter set into East central Indiana. Chill and frost bedecked the shiny-then-matte picture windows of Muncie. The dying tracts of grass. E bulbed St. lights. The homeless gathered around the physical plants' exhaust grates. Winter, as a season, crowded and elbowed into festering corners, into small damp spaces, into cramped quarters like a dispirited tune accustomed to doom. People broke apart or laid down and dried up.”
Of course, the winter in Indiana can be lifeless and bleak but that serves to counter the dying landscape of the radioactive Russia. We are introduced to this dying Russia through one key character. Pavel is fascinating, he works answering hotline phone calls about radiation issues in Russia essentially melting down. What unites the characters, is the shadow of a drug-addicted witch named Boris. It is his magic that makes him a presence in the book. I love how this is expressed.
Boris. She said the name once, accidentally, in the car. She said his name now is if the letters themselves had fangs. As if the man had a mouth hidden in the back of his head that he reserved for eating children period to her Boris wasn't the boogeyman period to her, he was what the boogeyman shies away from. How else to describe it? Boris crept into her life like a slow growing tumor or an old swamp monster.”
The effect the words have is creepy of course this runs parallel to the harsh environment of the radioactive dystopia. It heals but it harms others. Making the words an ethical dilemma and spiritual cousin to Matheson’s button box. Boris becomes a bogeyman because he can heal but at what cost? What does the ability to heal one at a time mean in a dying world?
“Boris snorted in amusement. “We will be radioactive messiahs. We will glow in the dark period” he cocked his head as if to decide on something Pavel thought: the words are like invisible priests. Then Boris nodded and revealed that Pavel's father - the seeming teetotaler- nearly drank himself to death.”
The increasing horror of the landscape is realized through dense but readable prose that constantly demands re-reads, as you find the strange turn of phrase shocking. Beautiful language that sugarcoats ghastly horror. I dog-eared tons of pages that had moments like those of filthy beauty. The novel paints a grim world, but those who find such things entertaining.
That said it is never humorless. Consider this opener for a chapter. “Boris hadn't healed anyone in a week except that guy with the broken dick. But it wasn't really broken, just jammed. Or sprained. It was a sprained dick. Slightly bruised. Too much vigorous jacking off. So Boris healed the dick.
Healed that was a joke. Boris understood his job as delaying the inevitable.”
In the grim details, you might miss some of the humor, but you catch much of the message. Another thing that makes this novel different, a serious work of genre fiction is the levels of commentary throughout. This novel has a point of view and I like that. Consider this scene when Pavel talks about the travel of the local evil to America. IT just makes sense to him that it would thrive in America.
“You'll kill yourself on that.” Han flinched at the mention of suicide. “God's teeth,” Pavel said. That's what they call it? I knew someone who did more than her share of it.” he paused, turning back to Boris he remembered Polina's terrible, shiny mouth, crooked with the drug. “Spoon after spoon of it in her tea. All day it didn't kill her but it didn't do her any favors. I had no idea it got to America so fast. But that is a stupid thing period of course it's in America. It's in America like toothpaste, yes? Like French fries?”
How about some examples of the wonderful weird prose:
“The sun died in the sky when Boris reached over and handed Han the crinkly loaf of zu-bo. Han coughed up his tea. Pavel went bloodless. He wanted to stop the exchange but froze. All he could think of was the mangled mutant rabbit and a necklace of bloody rabbit teeth scattered about Polina’s linoleum floor. The smell of greasy smoke. Too-sweet tea.”
I mean what the fuck Winkler? But also hell yeah Winkler!
“Boris terrified Yelena. Not by the way he looked, but by the way he spoke, slow and plodding, as if each word was the foot of an ancient pyramid. She liked Pavel, though he took her aside and asked her if she was worried about her father.
“No, he will be fine. My father has a protective husk around him.”
There are probably one hundred examples of world similes like each word was like the foot of an ancient pyramid. Hilarious similes are something that reminds me of Cody Goodfellow, the best in the biz at the hilarious use of them. Winkler is right there.
“You're delusional. The Raptor assessed the world and found it lacking. It's dying. Deep down, on a day-to-day level, I think everyone on earth knows this. There are whole swaths of Rhos one cannot step foot in for the zone of radioactivity. The same in Africa, China, India. In America there has long been the abandonment of the South and the West. The Irish moved to Greenland to save their culture. Desperate people will preserve their way of life.”
Don’t forget in the middle of all this creepy and great prose why we are here, ecological terror. Boris Says the Words is a miracle, a box that feels market researched to appeal to this fucking weirdo so I can’t really say if you will find it as genius as me, but goddamn this book is amazing.
“Pavel turned on him like a kindergartener in a shopping mall. “don't touch anything. Don't eat anything, don't drink anything. Mercury levels in a place like this are crazy. If we get out of here without being poisoned I'd be surprised.”
“We just left a radioactive apartment building,” Han said.
Yeah, bottom line Boris Says the Words is a modern masterpiece and probably the single best self-published book I ever read.
May 26, 2022
The world is irradiated and mid-apocalypse, but it goes. What else can you do? With this slow decay comes a bit of magic, as certain people use special words to heal the sick at great cost. A strange, dark tale that weaves together storylines from the Russian countryside and Indiana, coming together on a fateful train ride into oblivion. You can't put a genre on this tale, it won't allow it. Five stars, enjoy something truly original.
July 21, 2023
Kyle Winkler’s BORIS SAYS THE WORDS is a blazing, poisonous adventure through former Russia, a place decimated by radiation, superstition, and real, unwieldy magic. This magic, known as the tea words, can cure and kill in equal measure, a perfectly imperfect phenomenon. Winkler’s original and bizarre novel is most concerned with the humans struggling to understand the crumbling world they find themselves in. They connect, break apart, encounter terrible violence and illness, and come together changed. BORIS SAYS THE WORDS is a genre-defying (and defining?) work of imagination and intelligence.
Read it!
Read it!
September 17, 2022
damn he has such a way with words (sorry) (Kyle is an amazing writer, just trust me)
August 18, 2022
Much like it’s setting in an alternate world where Russia as we know it is no more and folk healers walk the earth, Boris Says the Words is a book that is weird and unsettling, but familiar and comforting. The characters might be going through things you can’t imagine, but their interior lives are very real. This is a book about Words, the immense power they have, and the powers they *don’t* have.
September 3, 2022
This toxic wasteland dreamscape is the perfect read for when you’re in one of those FUCK ME UP RIGHT NOW PLEASE kind of moods. This is, without a doubt, one of the most beautifully psychotic adventures I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. It’s got quite literally ✨everything✨ I can’t imagine you voluntarily following a book page like mine and then not enjoying this book. It’s fucked. In the most amazingly poignant, prosaic way. Boris is beyond genre and won’t go gentle into that good night. This is just one of those books that will be taught in schools in the future and kids will go home and cry to their parents that Ms. Jacobson is making them read it.
Ms. Jacobson is fucked up and enjoys watching kids squirm. Ms. Jacobson has good taste and so do you.
Pick it up right now.
Ms. Jacobson is fucked up and enjoys watching kids squirm. Ms. Jacobson has good taste and so do you.
Pick it up right now.
July 8, 2023
This is one of those books that exists outside of classification. Is it horror? Is it satire? Is it... something else? Well, the last one, certainly, but it has elements of so much else.
One of the things that stood out to me most when reading was that this story, overall, was one of despair with an undercurrent of denial. That everything was awful, but the characters were trying to convince themselves that there was something worthwhile in this world succumbing to too many nuclear meltdowns. They give themselves little quests to keep them going, and attach themselves to people who need them without fully understanding why.
But, despite that, the story never feels depressing, because it is written with this sarcastic/sardonic/satirical voice that is fully aware of how ridiculous it is that these people act like the world isn't on the edge of oblivion.
That's how I felt, anyway. And, I suppose, in that way it reflects reality. People seek purpose and create hope (or hide in delusion and denial) to escape the inevitable.
I honestly don't really know what to say about this. It's unusual, it's its own thing, and the characters feel both real and outlandish.
The world-building is effective whilst leaving much unsaid, the rules of the tea words are consistent yet unknowable, and the ending leaves much unsaid yet is also, somehow, satisfying.
And whatever flaws this book has work in its favour. They add to the experience. On one hand, this doesn't feel like a five-star book...yet on the other, it totally does. I can't think of a reason to mark it down.
This is an EXPERIENCE, so I say read it. Now.
One of the things that stood out to me most when reading was that this story, overall, was one of despair with an undercurrent of denial. That everything was awful, but the characters were trying to convince themselves that there was something worthwhile in this world succumbing to too many nuclear meltdowns. They give themselves little quests to keep them going, and attach themselves to people who need them without fully understanding why.
But, despite that, the story never feels depressing, because it is written with this sarcastic/sardonic/satirical voice that is fully aware of how ridiculous it is that these people act like the world isn't on the edge of oblivion.
That's how I felt, anyway. And, I suppose, in that way it reflects reality. People seek purpose and create hope (or hide in delusion and denial) to escape the inevitable.
I honestly don't really know what to say about this. It's unusual, it's its own thing, and the characters feel both real and outlandish.
The world-building is effective whilst leaving much unsaid, the rules of the tea words are consistent yet unknowable, and the ending leaves much unsaid yet is also, somehow, satisfying.
And whatever flaws this book has work in its favour. They add to the experience. On one hand, this doesn't feel like a five-star book...yet on the other, it totally does. I can't think of a reason to mark it down.
This is an EXPERIENCE, so I say read it. Now.
September 14, 2022
Those who read Kyle Winkler already know. Those who don’t? Prepare yourself to be (pleasantly) struck by buckshot bursts of beautiful language and ineffable insight. In 2022’s Boris Says The Words – Winkler’s most recent novel – readers engage an incredible story, set in impossible times, in rugged terrain, told with empathy, wit, and vision. Possessing an incomparable imagination, Winkler creates heroes (and anti-heroes) who inform (and, at times, ride a carousel of words), navigating, in the tradition of Joy Williams and Don DeLillo, a world where the fabric of society, so torn and frayed, leaves all in peril, wielding only words as weapons against one another, and the trap of “falling” into space. Both urban and folksy, urbane and fantastic, Boris Says The Words, “a cockeyed novel of lunatic speculative fiction, [graced] by elements of horror and science fiction,” is sad in the happiest of possible ways. Ranging in mood from deep levity to great pathos, here is a novel achingly of, and for, our times. Minding "God's teeth," read, share, and discuss "the words" with your friends - you'll be better off for having done so.
May 26, 2022
Right place, right time.
I was lucky enough to receive a digital ARC of this book. As someone that reads much, MUCH slower from my phone than I do from physical books I balked initially at the longer page count, thinking I’d be reading it the rest of the year.
But I could not put this down.
I read it on lunch breaks and before bed. I carried it around with me and was basically glued to my phone until I had completed it, because it was the only thing I could think about.
This book is strange. It’s ethereal. One would be tempted to point out the surrealism, but the characters and attitude of the crumbling settings keep it firmly rooted in a reality we can comprehend — if not exactly share.
The realistic approach to the book’s unique magic gives the reader a feeling of having something wonderful, and terrible, just out of reach at all times. As though there are powerful words on the tip of your tongue just waiting to be said.
This is one I would highly recommend now that it is finally out. If there are other titles like it, I have yet to find them.
I was lucky enough to receive a digital ARC of this book. As someone that reads much, MUCH slower from my phone than I do from physical books I balked initially at the longer page count, thinking I’d be reading it the rest of the year.
But I could not put this down.
I read it on lunch breaks and before bed. I carried it around with me and was basically glued to my phone until I had completed it, because it was the only thing I could think about.
This book is strange. It’s ethereal. One would be tempted to point out the surrealism, but the characters and attitude of the crumbling settings keep it firmly rooted in a reality we can comprehend — if not exactly share.
The realistic approach to the book’s unique magic gives the reader a feeling of having something wonderful, and terrible, just out of reach at all times. As though there are powerful words on the tip of your tongue just waiting to be said.
This is one I would highly recommend now that it is finally out. If there are other titles like it, I have yet to find them.
January 13, 2023
The world of Boris Says the Words, the new novel by Kyle Winkler, is breaking down. But this is by no means a sad occasion. While it’s true that the book depicts a dystopia at times gloomy, banal, and grotesque in its own way, Winkler manages to hit a perfect note of existential despair and at the same time, introduce an unambiguous sense of hope and humanity to the work. As Winkler traces the lives of a group of desperate and ailing people who all have interactions with a strange healing language and its shadowy folk-healer practitioner, it becomes a work about people searching for a way out of the toxic situations they’ve found themselves in, a journey to grow beyond their awful circumstances and finally set themselves free in whatever ways they can. It requires its bleakness and melancholia to make it that much clearer that it’s bright and uplifting. It’s weird, wonderful, dark, hopeful, and deeply empathetic all at once, and absolutely demands your attention.
(Full review at https://www.strangelibrary.com/post/7...)
(Full review at https://www.strangelibrary.com/post/7...)
July 27, 2022
A sad journey of words, pain and misery
This was a magnificent read into some future possibilities of the carelessness of power and the pervasive consequences of nuclear accidents and radiation. And yet it is also deeply about personal connections, the difficult choices to be made in situations of misery and moral quandaries of using powers that can both help and harm.
A sad, albeit not bleak, journey, through so so many trials, but where we can still find simples and lovely moments of joy and hope. Maybe not a read for everyone, but maybe a journey worth undertaking into difficulties and possibilities.
This was a magnificent read into some future possibilities of the carelessness of power and the pervasive consequences of nuclear accidents and radiation. And yet it is also deeply about personal connections, the difficult choices to be made in situations of misery and moral quandaries of using powers that can both help and harm.
A sad, albeit not bleak, journey, through so so many trials, but where we can still find simples and lovely moments of joy and hope. Maybe not a read for everyone, but maybe a journey worth undertaking into difficulties and possibilities.
June 26, 2022
The closest comparison I can make to Boris says the Words by Kool Guy Kyle Winkler is that it genuinely feels like Terry Pratchett and Don Dellilo sat down and talked about the apocalypse. A weird book in the best way with a writing voice that is just as odd in many places. The blend of speculative, science fiction, horror, and even fantasy makes this book read like a milkshake made of a bunch of different flavors that shouldn’t make sense yet somehow do because the guy putting it together says the right words over it. K thx.
May 29, 2025
This books is weird in all the best ways. An incomprehensible wasteland that everyone is just doing their best and their best is also incomprehensible. And the treasure of it is, Kyle tells the story and trusts his reader to actually figure it out, or not.
June 27, 2022
There's nothing else out there that's similar to BORIS SAYS THE WORDS.
It's weird, literary, and pulpy.
I hope there'll be more stories to come set in the BORIS universe, because I feel like we can only see the surface of the tea words and how they could be used.
It's weird, literary, and pulpy.
I hope there'll be more stories to come set in the BORIS universe, because I feel like we can only see the surface of the tea words and how they could be used.
December 14, 2023
This novel is a joyously strange book to read. A touch of folk mysticism, romance, Eastern Europe small town gossip. The characters are bright, expressive, and the unknown lurks on every page. Pour yourself a cup of tea and read the words out loud! :D
Update: an extraordinary book to read. Wild, captivating. I found myself re-reading lines for the pleasure of reading them again.
Update: an extraordinary book to read. Wild, captivating. I found myself re-reading lines for the pleasure of reading them again.
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