May Books 2022

Once upon a time I regularly posted my favorite reads here every month. Then for no reason at all I stopped. Now for even less reason I’ve decided to start again. A reminder that these aren’t reviews so much as reactions. And I likely read other stuff during the month, but these are what I finished and now admit to having read.

Viscera by Gabrielle Squailia
Take a bit of Leiberesque sword & sorcery, mix it with Patricia McKillip style fantasy by way of William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch, let ferment, and serve with slivers of calcified god-flesh. There are bug-drugs, cults, gender identity exploration, and a whole lot of grotty weirdness. If you like your fantasy world to make sense (who’s growing the grain in this world?) and have logical magic rules than you won’t much enjoy this. But if you like reading things and saying “That’s messed up” then give this a shot. It’s a book that’s much more about the ride than the destination.

Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica
This book is not at all pleasant. Remove all the humor of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” and replace it with the all brutality of McCarthy’s The Road and Orwell’s 1984 and you’ll have some idea of what to expect. A plague causes the death of all animals, but it’s okay because we can just eat people. But first we must change the language so we can differentiate between people and “special meat”. Yes, Tender is the Flesh is also satire, but in a horror movie way. The whole book is one grisly depiction of dehumanization after another until an ending that leaves you feeling awful. Despite all that, if you appreciate how horror let’s us explore our own broken world, then give it a read.

The Saga of Grettir the Strong by Anonymous
This is a must-read for anyone into low-fantasy or sword and sorcery. Grettir’s not a bad guy, he just solves all his problems with violence. The setting’s decidedly local despite international travel occurring. Many of Grettir’s adventures detail him trying to get a position in some lord’s household and failing due to bad luck or his bad temper. The whole thing has a Western feel to it with one gang of landowners fighting against another for grazing rights and each supplementing their households with violent men except when ghosts, trolls, or berserkers get involved. If you’ve ever been curious to read a Viking Saga, then Grettir’s absolutely the place to start. I read this copy off Gutenberg and had no complaints with it.