Simon’s Reviews > Welcome to the Arms Race > Status Update

reading "The Willow" right now, this is the one that probably the most plays like a traditional science-fiction short story that could have been printed in a 1950s pulp magazine

last two short stories have both been of the magic realist metafiction type where stories that are fictional in-universe end up shaping reality in some way (like the movie "In the Mouth of Madness") one is a pastiche over Soviet social realism complete with a Mikhail Bulgakov cameo and the other does the same with Bob Heinlein American pulp science-fiction, very interesting - can't wait to see what comes next!

every new story in this absolutely wows me both in writing style and concept, first a delirious crossover fanfic between science-fiction characters from various rock lyrics then an ancient astronauts story told from the viewpoint of the sufficiently advanced aliens, both full of vivid and strange imagery - this is what New Wave SF must have felt like in the 1960s

the story I finished is written as a nonfiction article about an artist whose work caused audiences to commit suicide, very Lovecraftian without having to talk about gods from outer space with unpronounceable names, this short story collection is shaping up to be very unpredictable

there is some very beautiful descriptions of scenery and poetic lyrical insight into the main characters' emotional lives here I usually don't see in dystopian SF of this variety, another aspect where this feels like the parts of William Gibson few imitate - reminded of the scenes in "Count Zero" where Turner reconvalesces on a beach resort actually