B. R. Yeager’s novel Negative Space (Apocalypse Party, 2020) caught me utterly unprepared this year and easily maintained a spot in my top ten “Best of 2020” list. Ever since putting it the book down, I’ve been aching to pick the mind behind the novel. I genuinely can’t thing of a better way to inaugurate
Aki Kaurismäki’s films were bizarro before bizarro became a thing. I can think of no other auteur who has done for the motion picture what authors like Kevin L. Donihe have done for alternative fiction—consummately married the mundane to the peculiar. If there’s one thing that our readers will find appealing about Hamlet Goes Business,
by Jeff O’Brien Back in 2002 I was something of a scenester. The term “hipster” wasn’t really being thrown around back then but “scenester” certainly was. Looking back, I suppose it was the same thing. It was a term applied to someone who spent the majority of their nights either playing at rock clubs or
Duncan P. Bradshaw’s Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space is exactly what the title suggests and so much more. Yes, it’s a pastiche of both the demonic possession and nunsploitation genres, but it’s also unlike anything you’ve ever found in book form in the past. As he did with the charmingly cheeky killer vacuum novella Mr.
Impossible James By Danger Slater Fungasm Press, 2019 Reviewed by Gordon B. White Impossible James, Danger Slater’s latest novel, is a book about the tensions of finding meaning in an absurd world, about tensions that rupture into paradoxes. It’s about growing larger, but also becoming smaller. It’s about fighting a system, but surrendering to it.
by Zakary McGaha Up until now, Ben Arzate has only written shorter works of fiction and poetry. Now, his first novella-length work has been unleashed into the wilds of the small press scene. Although still rather short, The Story of the Y is written in a minimalistic, to-the-point way that makes it play out like
by Ben Arzate Matthew was once a keytar player for a synthpop band. After he got his girlfriend Karen pregnant, he was forced to marry her, get an office job, and move to Suburban Hell. He keeps his keytar, as much as Karen wants him to get rid of it, and jerks off over
Written by Bob Freville Illustrated by Brian Glossup
Review by Ben Arzate The Isle of Flowers is covered with cherry blossom trees, the primary resource of its inhabitants. Every winter, or “the Cold” as they call it, freezing lotus flowers bloom, requiring them to burn the trees for warmth. The trees, however, are starting to thin out. What’s worse, sea creatures called “tourists”
