David W > Recent Status Updates

Probably going to DNF. The previously published "Rest Stop" is the only fun one so far, yet even it reads like one of those cheap, dollar store, VHS-filtered horror games that swarm Steam.

Elsewhere, these are kinda like the horror stories I wrote in middle school (derogatory).

The way Cassidy externalizes inner monologue with dialogue is sloppy and cringe-inducing (same problem as in WHEN THE WOLF COMES HOME).

Already shaping up to be a favorite of the year.

The slump hits hardest in the form of multiple days gone by without a sliver of reading. But when I do pick this up: ravishing, even if the pacing is fiercely glacial.

I've been straddling, these past few weeks, what may or may not be the threat of a reading slump. So, what better way to stave that off by reading a 1200-page alternate history, sci-fi novel about epistemology, math, physics, and a million other things?

Erm.

The set-up and writing style alone is enthralling. As if Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, and Lem are in conversation with Wittgenstein.

May be with this one awhile.

I do my damndest to not DNF anything, but this one is threatening it. The characters are all baffling, strangely drawn, and I just... don't care about what is happening.

Move over Lispector and Bolaño, I'm in my sicko era.

Very Michael Crichton-coded, meaning low sci-fi adventure, techno-ecocatastrophe, loads of technical jargon and exposition, but surprisingly even MORE verbose. Over a third of the way into the book and nothing of note has really happened... but the central trio of characters are interesting, and the cold isolation of the Antarctic is palpable.

Pretty skeptical of this one so far. White comes from YA (this is apparently his first foray into adult horror) and it shows. Extremely inspired by Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild," I'm sure.