Strange and Wonderful
341712
Claudel's novel is a strange and wonderful parable of contemporary life in our industrialized, bureaucratized world.  It is "Through the Looking Glass" updated, a script for a David Lynch film, a surrealist nightmare, a mystery with no solution.
1348323
I read Chris Genoa's&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/FOOP/dp/0972959890/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">FOOP!</a>&nbsp;long ago and as I read it, I found myself sort of uncertain what I thought of it. It wasn't until I'd thought about it long after finishing, that I realized what a strange and wonderful tale it was, with a few similarities to Cat's Cradle that I still wonder whether they were intentional or not.

Lick Your Neighbor, his second published book, was not such a slow burn. I knew almost immediately that I loved it. Yeah, sure, it got a little weird near the end, but that's what bizarro is. This book was great fun.
2484146
Interesting,  strange, mysterious,  weird and funny as hell.
1305817
One of the strangest and wonderful coming of age stories that I have read in years, and one of the best novels I have read in the last ten years.  MO Walsh is  at the top of his game, and the world he spins is vibrant and rich and authentic and comic and lovely and tragic.  This should be at the top of everyone's reading list, and if it doesn't win a major award next year I will eat my hat.
3033053
This is a strange weird great short story with a hitchhiker's guide to the universe feel. I enjoyed the silliness of it and two main characters. It's a bit strange, but definitely worth the time to read it.
2379095
There is a short author's note at the end of "The Divinity Student" where Michael Cisco describes his notion that the act of reading induces a trance-like state, and how his ambition was to produce a work that made one feel as if the words were being dreamt rather than read.
He succeeded. Brilliantly.
This work stands as a bizarre exploration of the surreal and macabre. The story, set in a time and place which are indeterminate, revolves around a divinity student who has been reanimated from death. He is given a mission to move to an old city and take up work as a "wordfinder". That is to say, one who finds and records words which exist but are not official components of language. They are unconsciously written and spoken but never recognized or defined. This develops into a deeper quest to recover the contents of the Book of Words, which had contained the diction of a powerful, pure, and divine language but has since been destroyed. To do this, he must employ strange, mystical techniques on the decomposing corpses of the book's original compilers and thus retrieve this knowledge. As more information is acquired, the divinity student drifts farther and farther from our world into supernaturalism, black magic, and ghoulish power.
The narrative proceeds with an entirely unique cadence as there is a disquietingly smooth flow from one bizarre event to another. The pace and candor, which are sleepy and strangely matter-of-fact, sharply contrast the content, which is immensely dark and bloated with odd, frightening events and with starkly hallucinatory sequences. The reader feels as if they are drifting effortlessly and naturally from one deranged moment to the next, much as they would in a dream. Imagine a lake with a floor made from a giant kaleidoscope that is backlit with powerful lamps and has a black octopus living in the center; or perhaps a priest with eyes painted over his closed eyelids who can induce visions by blowing formaldehyde onto your face.
The details are blurry and vague at best, and much of the plot must extrapolated from the weird collection of information presented. The characters are strange and mostly two dimensional, but this level of depiction, I believe, is necessary to support the foggy, half-real atmosphere of the writing. The prose is, at times, absolutely gorgeous.
I do not recommend this book to anyone interested in a gripping narrative full of strong, memorable characters. I do not recommend this book to anyone who seeks explanation and closure from a story. I do not recommend this book to anyone with a weak stomach.
I do recommend this to someone who is willing to experiment with this odd form of escapism and experience the unique sensation of dreaming through the pages. The images that Cisco evokes are bizarre, but also fascinating in their frightening and psychedelic un-wordliness.
And then, at some point, the book ends and you simply wake up.
2878794
FOUNDLING is a delight - strange and gnarly, with a vaguely steampunk mentality.  The characters are incredibly vivid, physically and as personalities, and the worldbuilding is astonishingly deep.  Cornish takes a real delight in words - his language is fussy, prickly, onomateopoeic, as absorbing and tangled as his tale.

The twist in Cornish's world, the half-continent, is that it is on the eve of a technical revolution - but while ours was mechanical, theirs is biological.  It's an oddly believable theory, somewhere in between Dr Frankenstein and modern cloning techniques.  The result is both fantastic and ghastly - it's hard to call this world "magical" because the magic is so gruesome.

Rossamunde is small, and weak, and used to being bullied - in FOUNDLING, he must discover his courage.  It's hard to realistically transition a character from a meek beginning to a brave conclusion; Cornish does the job beautifully.  By the end, the reader sees in him a strength that has little to do with blustering and grandstanding; and has great hope for the man he will become.

The book reads like a fairy tale's evil twin.  Within the dreary, but safe, walls of his orphanage Rossamunde dreams of adventure - he idolizes the heroes who bravely sally forth to slay monsters and protect the realm.  But once he leaves the city, he discovers a very different reality.  The monsters are not all bad; and the heroes are not all good.  Which is not to say that there is any possibility of peace and cooperation between humans and the creatures who inhabit the wilds.  That would be too easy as well.

I thought often of Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy while reading FOUNDLING, and it's eerie, same-yet-different world.  I think Cornish's is better.  I look forward to finding out how the series evolves.
3056088
It is almost impossible to review this book without giving too much away. The book seems to have been written in three stages. The first stage is a humorous back story which sets the scene. The middle part reveals that these are real characters, and their seemingly humorous actions now have serious and sometimes heartbreaking consequences. The end of the story totally turns everything proceeding it on its head. At the end of the book, the reader will come to a startling and somewhat shocking realization. This book is such a strong mix of humor, horror, hopelessness and hope, that I don't think there is anything else quite like it. This beautiful book is bizarre in that it mixes feelings of dread and despair with such hope. What a powerful read.
4425440
This book isn't for everyone. The author has a way with words and his meaning that make you stop and think about what he is actually putting on paper. It is actually a strange but beautiful story. I liked it.
1896756
This novel is both wonderfully strange and wonderfully written, sort of literary fiction but with added comics. When I first heard about this novel I was worried that the comics would be cutesy or distract from the plot, but that wasn't the case at all, they fit in perfectly (especially when I got to know Stephen, the protagonist) and added much to the book, though I wouldn't mind if there had been one or two more. The subject of the novel is tough, the loss of a cherished son, but the writing is strong and the characters are endearing (though Gene, the father, will test your patience), and the art is as good as any comic book art you'll find. I read this book in two days instead of the more typical two weeks, probably because I had two concerns weighing on me, what happens to Stephen and girlfriend and his family, but also what happens to their comic book counterparts, the Laredos and Lila Butterfly. If you're looking for something unique and satisfying and a little bit odd, I'd highly recommend this book. I don't think you'll need to love comics to love this novel, since they only make up about 10-15 percent of the book. I've never seen anything like Wolf Boy and wonder if it will spur some imitations/rip-offs, and I do hope there will a sequel by the author (Kuhlman) and the illustrators before too long. Quite a debut.
4800537
I received a free copy of this paperback book from Strange Books in exchange for an honest review.

Nothing is Strange is the first collection of short stories by Mike Russell. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to read this weird and wonderful collection after having enjoyed his work in Strange Medicine. In this collection, we get to see a wider variety of his style with twenty stories. I liked all of the stories featured here, but my favorites are "The Warehouse", "The Meeting", "Barry and the Triplets", "Extraordinary Elsie", "Mask Man", "Stan and Stan", and "The Living Crown".

These uniquely surreal stories aren't for everyone, but all of them are really well put together. As for all of the stories I mentioned above, I wouldn't say no to hearing a little more from those worlds or having each of them expanded to something a bit longer. If you like Karen Russell's style from Vampires in the Lemon Grove, you may want to give strange, in the best way, tales a look.

Thanks again to Strange Books for this wonderful opportunity!
4863505
One of the best novels I've read in some time.  It is so unusual -- there's no way you can guess what's coming.  Although it is a very dark picture of a future world, within individual characters there is a lot of hope.  You've never read anything quite like this one.  The language is so lyrical and surprising.  The overall narrative and tone I would describe as dreamlike.
252792
Michael is living in a stage of upheaval and transition in his life: his parents have just moved to a rather derelict house, his unnamed baby sister is drastically ill, and the house is often visited by `Doctor Death', the doctor sent to check up on his sister. On top of this, he now has to bus for school; the previous occupant of the house was dead for a week before anyone found him, and the outside garden is a wilderness. The garage in particular is a nightmare - slumping over, filled with junk and dead creatures, and liable to fall over any second. But Michael decides to have a peek inside, and finds an amazing discovery...

What is the strange creature hidden beneath the cobwebs and the dead flies? Is it a human, a bird or something else entirely? Calling itself Skellig, the strange being seems near death, and Michael longs to help it, feeling that in some strange way its fate is wrapped up with the fate of his baby sister. He befriends the girl living next door, Mina, who does not attend school due to her mother's belief that school stifles children's creativity, and soon the two have plans to move Skellig to the house across the road which is inhabited only by birds.

As his baby sister deteriorates and the family is thrown into worry and turmoil, Skellig begins to make progress, leading Michael once more to the question - what exactly is this strange creature, and can he do something -anything - to help the baby?

It is a rare book that can tell what seems to be such a simple story in such a clear, yet intoxicating way. Told in first-person narrative by Michael, David Almond effortlessly creates the point of view of a young boy in a gritty, realistic world. The language and behaviour in particular is wonderful - you can really see real people speaking and acting in the ways that he describes, and the interaction with Skellig is so natural that you have no trouble believing Michael's words.

On reading it for the second time, I also realised that not a single word is wasted in the telling of this tale - every single one serves a purpose in connecting the ideas and themes that Almond shapes together. From evolution and science to faith and miracles, to blackbirds and owls, to love and friendship - each are closely entwined together to make a complete whole. Such a complex melding of ideas and possibilities told in such an impossibly simple way, a complete lack of sophistication and yet so much depth and meaning is not something you'll find in just any children's book. I say again: not a single word is wasted.

Sad and joyful, poignant and funny, thought provoking and mysterious - the only book that I could possibly compare it to is "The Owl Service" by Alan Garner. The two authors seem to have the same style and techniques - telling the reader only what they need to know and letting them discover the rest for themselves. And what is discovered are endless possibilities for humanity, life - and yes, even death. The winner of both the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and the Carnegie Medal certainly counts for something, and this deceptively slim novel certainly deserves more than one read and a permanent place on the bookshelf.
210191
This book is very unusual and so refreshing. The various aliens and their stories, a part I wasn't excited about when reading the description, were really great and properly sized sub-entries. It's hard to put my finger on it - but the mind-space this book generates is comforting, cozy, and still surprising. The characters are very odd, the dialog is open-ended and the sci fi elements are satisfying. I won't forget this one I'm sure.
4629560
I really loved this book. Weird and cool all in one.
1402651
Year of the Goose stands among the strangest and most pleasurable reads of the year for me--and I've read some pretty strange things! Hallman's book stretches in a million unexpected directions, displaying her rare talent for exploring the absurd while still keeping her reader enthralled. I gulped this book down in two long sessions because I so enjoyed the voice and didn't want the fun to stop. The book is divided into four fascinating and hilarious sections, each of them building on and transforming the depth and unusualness of the one before. I can't recommend this book highly enough. I can't recall a novel this funny that made me think as often as it made me laugh.
1373332
"Oh, monster's are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters."

This book was very strange, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It reminded me of a darker, more disturbing version of A Wrinkle in Time (one of my favorite books). Gaiman is extraordinarily creative; numerous times I wondered how he came up with things in this story. What kind of mind must one have to write like this?

I think the best way to describe this book would be as a dream-like, but bordering on nightmarish. Nothing is as it seems, and things don't follow the rules of this world. The nanny is evil, cats grow in fields, birds of prey seek to devour you, and the pond is really a deep ocean. It doesn't make sense, but, it doesn't have to. And trying to force it to make sense destroys the magic and the symbolism.

Some underlying themes that stood out to me: childhood is beautiful and should be cherished, good triumphs over evil, love is the ultimate healing and preserving force in the universe, adulthood is a state of mind more than anything else, just because you can't see something or explain it doesn't mean it's not true, and life is part of a larger picture, an over-arching story that we can't fathom.

I loved his way of describing childhood versus adulthood:

"Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences."

"Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one in the whole wide world."

"She really was pretty, for a grown-up, but when you are seven, beauty is an abstraction, not an imperative."

I really enjoyed Gaiman's use of imagery and way of describing deep concepts in simple, beautiful language:

"Memories were waiting on the edge of things, beckoning to me."

"I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were."

For a small book, this novel had some big ideas woven together in creative ways. If you like some deeper, darker themes with your fairy tales sprinkled with a bit of the absurd, this book is for you.