Guest Review: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

I'm happy to be posting the first guest review! An anonymous reader sent in the following review:

          Forget Bladerunner. Sure, the book and the movie contain some characters with the same names in similar situations. You could probably write a plot synopsis that would work for both if you tried hard enough. There are even one or two familiar scenes. However, it will be easier for both of us if I stop writing about Bladerunner and you stop thinking about it.

          Philip K. Dick's novel is one of variety. In its short life it introduces a large cast and creates a rich and unique setting. The narrative is unpredictable which, at times, can seem capricious. Mood shifts frequently, characters are complex bordering on inconsistent, and the story slips into absurdity or surrealism more than once. However, I think this is all to its credit. It, unlike so much speculative fiction, does not offer up an obvious meaning. It leaves you with numerous questions and few, and contradictory, answers. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is art not fable.

          Unfortunately, there are also flaws to be considered. Some of the situations can seem unrealistically complicated. Saying gender stereotypes are overused would be an understatement. And there is sexual manipulation that, while somewhat critical, is treated more frivolously than it should be. With these caveats in mind, I do suggest reading it.

Read if you like: William Gibson, Isaac Asimov, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut

Review S4: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

          Auster tends to tell more than show, but his narrative is incredible—it is captivating, enticing, and effective. The entire book seemed to be a mystery in and of itself—each sentence was written in a way that made me believe that just maybe it was important to the story, maybe I should remember it and try to fit it in the the puzzle. This, and the interesting material, kept me engaged throughout the entire collection. There was minor crossover between the stories, with more solid thematic crossover between them—at times I found myself wondering if there was not more crossover that I hadn't connected. The three novellas all have references to things that truly happened, facts. I found myself pausing and putting the book down, when these interesting facts came up, to check to see if what was said in the book held any truth. Each time I checked, I was shown that the facts were true and the stories as interesting as they were portrayed in the book.

City Of Glass

          At times the story dives into the thoughts of the protagonist, or into the text of the book he is reading, and I would become absorbed in this secondary story, momentarily forgetting the larger story at play. While some may feel that this technique distracts from the story, Auster manages to do this in a way that, I feel, strengthens the story as a whole. This story may be disappointing for those who prefer a typical plot structure—the story builds up and the reader is given hints about what might be coming, but then the main story is pulled out from under the reader and the story just seems to flatten out. Then, the story ends without any real resolution, leaving the reader with many questions. One thing that I found to be really interesting and effective was that there is a story that sits on the surface, but there are many stories beneath that. Similarly, there are many things you could take from the reading, whether they are intentionally there or not. These elements are what, to me, brings the story to the level of exceptional.

3^rd person.

Ghost

         Never before has stagnancy been so entertaining and engaging. As a reader I felt, like the protagonist, stuck in a position—feeling trapped even though nothing has changed, waiting desperately for a change and for some momentous something. I was carried along with the story, and easily identified with the protagonist because the story caused me to feel so much of what he was feeling. Much of the protagonist's situation is the his own doing, which makes him a little less sympathetic, but a lot more interesting, in my opinion. He seems stubborn to a fault and relatively one dimensional, as he seems to have not before spent time with himself alone nor does he really seem to have many hobbies or interests that might be able to sustain him through the story. While the protagonist seemed somewhat one dimensional, I felt as though it worked in the story because the character was one dimensional in a way that I feel like many real people are—where they haven't spent enough time with themselves to know who they are and when they are forced to be alone without anyone telling them what to do, they are at a loss. Overall, for me, the author's ability to draw a reader in makes up for the character's downfalls.

3^rd person

The Locked Room

          This story begins in a way that makes it seem like it is the most like an actual mystery, or at least closer to what a person would normally recognize as a mystery. At some point the mystery seems to be solved, or maybe just forgotten and ignored; however, when everything seems settled, it then jumps up again with an answer, as well as more questions, and these things then command the reader's attention. There are themes of obsession and desperation. This last story gives a new way of looking at the story itself, as well as each story before it. With this last story, the book becomes whole and vibrant.

1^st person.

Trigger Warning: violent sexual thoughts and interaction. (Please email me if you would like more information.)

You might like this book if you like: Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Kurt Vonnegut

Contribute your reviews!

Hey, I'd like to invite everyone to contribute reviews of your own!

Have you read a book or short story recently that you think others should be reading, as well? If so, just contact me: literatureconnection (at) gmail (dot) com
I'll post your review and credit you, or credit anonymous if you would prefer.

Want to review one of the stories I have already reviewed? Go ahead and leave a review in the comment!

Self E-Publishing -- a how to

          If you're thinking of self e-publishing there are several things you need to think about.

Obviously, one thing that you should decide is whether or not self-publishing is the way you want to go. There are a lot of arguments for and against self-publishing. I'm not going to go into all of the arguments here, so take some time, do some research and find out if it's right for you. If you've already done that, and you have decided you want to self-publish, keep reading.

          If you have any questions, or if you want help or clarification on any of these steps, please contact me and I will do my best to help!

Things to consider when it comes to self e-publishing:

1. Design of cover and layout of interior

2. Purchase of ISBN and copyright

3. Marketing (Getting people interested)

4. Distribution

1. Design of cover and layout of interior:

          -You can obviously do this yourself. However, I wouldn't suggest trying this unless you have a working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, unless you are looking for a very simple design. Learning how to work with InDesign and Photoshop can be extremely useful. InDesign allows you to design the layout, text, etc of your book, and Photoshop would allow you to make interesting covers for your book. It can be very useful to have a cover that looks good even as a thumbnail. A poorly done cover can lead people to believe that the quality of your writing might also be sub-par.

          -You will want to put your work into PDF format. Calibre, which is free and can be found here: http://calibre-ebook.com/download, is a useful, easy-to-use tool that will help you change the format to different e-book types.

          -You can submit your work to one of the companies below for help—fees differ from company to company. However, if you go this route, depending on the company, you may not have a lot of control over the layout or cover of your book.

2. Purchase of ISBN and copyright:

          -If you go through one of the self-publishing companies below—again, the fees and process are different for each company—and they can do this for you. Make sure you understand if you are giving up any rights to your work by doing this.

          -It is a good idea to do this even if you don't plan on having print copies available immediately. It secures your work and will allow you to more easily create print versions in the future. It is also important for selling your book in mainstream outlets and allowing the reader to easily find and access information about your book. This is different when you are only working with a single short story.

          -You can do this yourself pretty easily. It is going to run you approximately $100.00- $200.00 to do this, depending on how you go about it.

          - For more information on doing it yourself, go to this website: http://www.artbookbindery.com/ObtainCopyrightISBNCIP.htm

3. Marketing (Getting people interested):

          -It is suggested that authors set up blogs or websites for themselves. Put up samples of your work to let people know what your work it like.

          -Send your work out to blogs (like this one) for review! It may seem daunting, but it's a very good way to get the word out about your writing, and to gain readership.

          -Make a youtube video promoting your work. Sure, you won't necessarily get a lot of people to watch it, but if you gain even one reader, it's worth it—at least in my opinion.

          -Have your friends tell their friends. With social networking sites being as popular as they are, having your friends and family put the word out about your writing can be very helpful.

          -Goodreads is a really wonderful website (www.goodreads.com). Sign up, make friends, have people review your book (once your book is for sale, and after you have the ISBN). You can even put up giveaways for your book to get readers excited—everyone likes free stuff, right?

4. Distribution:

          -One somewhat controversial idea is to offer your story for free through a torrent site (such as www.piratebay.org) or on your blog. You can also leak your own work to torrent sites, rather than just having it be completely free. This can allow people to feel as though they are risking less in reading your work, and can help you gain readers. However, it has been said that potential agents will take you more seriously if you are charging something—anything—for your work, so if you're doing this, leaking it might be the way to go. If you go through a company and do not retain rights of your own work, I would warn against leaking your material or offering the entirety for free. However, I would first warn against giving up your rights to your work to a self-publishing company.

          -If you have hard copies of your book, which is generally suggested, talk to bookstores in your area. Many bookstores, big and small, have local authors sections and will be willing to carry your book.

          -Some companies that will help you with the printing of your book will help with the distribution, as well.

Companies to help you*: Lulu: http://www.lulu.com,Create Space: www.createspace.com, Dog Ear Publishing: www.dogearpublishing.net, Author House: www.authorhouse.com, X-Libris: www.xlibris.com, www.instantpublisher.com, Infinity Publishing: www.infinitypublishing.com, and www.iuniverse.com. **

There are lots of other companies. Look around and see what is right for you based on what they offer and what you would want them to do for you.

*Please do not take this list as my recommendations for you. I am not familiar with the majority of the companies above and do not endorse them. A lot of what company you use will depend on what exactly you are looking for the company to do for you. Please do your research—you can easily find sites that compare different self-publishing companies.

**Before deciding to go through a company pay close attention to the rights you retain, the royalty you will receive, if there is a price you must set your book at, any other costs, and any other small print agreements. You might also want to look into the type of paper that they use, and, if you can, get your hands on a copy of a book they've printed and check out the quality. The books I have seen printed through Lulu's look fairly nice and were printed on nice paper and the author's I spoke to seemed happy with their choice.  

Review S3: The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

         Overall, I really liked The Hearing Trumpet, though there were a few things that are negatives for me. The Hearing Trumpet starts out with a little too much back story—and what turns out to be pretty unnecessary back story. It seems to be intended to set up the rest of the story, however, because of my lack of emotional tie to the protagonist, the beginning of the book, the spillage of information, was mostly just confusing. I ended up having to flip back to the first part of the book throughout my reading in order to seek out more information about things referenced later on in the book. It would have been nicer for the first part of the book to be interwoven with the rest of the book, so you could learn more as time went on, a little at a time.

         All that being said, the story gets more and more surreal, absurd, and impossible (and in my opinion, much better and stronger) as time goes on. While the story started out a little too normal for me, the way in which Carrington ramps up the strangeness made the beginning work for me, though I still would have preferred less of an information dump at the beginning. The impossibilities are of a somewhat ridiculous and bizarre nature, and the events that take place are born from a wild imagination—truly reminiscent of a dream.

         Two things that might be negative to some, though were positive to me, are the use of a sub-story and the ambiguous ending. At one point the story shifts and you begin reading a secondary story—one that the main character is reading—which continues for about 1/6 of the book. This dragged for me a bit for the first couple pages, but then picked up quite a bit and became extremely interesting. After that I was as engaged in this sub-book as I was in the main book. This sub-story was integrated in with the rest of the story, as well, though at the time you are reading it, it seems at least somewhat unrelated. The end of the story leaves many things without proper conclusions. I tend to like unclear endings, and I feel as though it was done in a way, in this story, that added to, rather than detracted from, the story as a whole.

         One thing that I would have liked to see more of is the integration of things that the author set up in earlier parts of the book, in the later parts of the book. This happens at times and the author does it masterfully, but a lot of things seem created and then forgotten when they could have been used wonderfully throughout the book.

         All in all, it is an easy and short read, and an entertaining one, as well. I would recommend it to people as such.

You might like this book if you liked: Alice in Wonderland, Jane Bowles

Review S2: Little Kingdoms by Steven Millhauser

All of the stories in this collection of three novellas revolve, in some way, around a relationship in turmoil and there is also obliviousness (be it self-imposed or not). But the three novellas have more differences than they do similarities. The styles in which the author chooses to tell these stories shows his wide range of ability. What is most unique about the second and third story is the styles in which they are written and the forms they take. They are certainly experimental structures. Steven Millhauser is a strong writer, though the second and third story lacked in plot and well-developed characters, resting a bit too much on the experimental structures of the stories themselves. All three stories seem to include an overlapping of imagination and reality.

The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne

There was too much narrative and back story at the beginning—the back story seemed largely unnecessary and reading that part seemed dragged out. It seemed to me that the back story could have been removed entirely, or at least condensed. Later, the narrative is strong and the story begins to come to life. A glimpse near the beginning of the story of the world this man sometimes lived in, or rather the world he saw in the place of his mundane world kept me interested through the more dragging parts of the story. There were a few times when I did not feel that Millhausers narrative was effective. I often like large chunks of telling, and often like useless details, but in the useless details, Millhauser seems to also lose his touch for effective narrative. That being said, once the story picked up, I fell further and further into this world, and didn't want to put the book down (unlike previously, where I had to keep re-focusing on the story because my mind would wander.) There are many long complex sentences that occasionally required re-reading and long daunting paragraphs that could overwhelm. All in all, the negative aspects of this story are minor and the strength of the story and the writing are well worth the read.

The Princess, the Dwarf and the Dungeon

This story is a series of short sections that tell of the different parts of the castle and kingdom, and through these sections, a story is told—both of the town and the people within, and of a tale they tell over and over again of the prince and a princess. Many different versions of the fairy tale are brought up throughout the story, which led me to look more closely at the relationship between the fairy tale being told and the descriptions of the town. The sections are short and easily digested. Much of it is told bluntly as if someone relating possible facts of a story, rather than attempting to hold you in the clutches of the story. However, through these small portions, the language and choice of details paints a clear picture and I found myself very curious as to what was going to happen next. There is not a typical story arch, though there is a story arch in the fairy tale. Overall, it is a dark tale, woven well.

The Paintings

This story consists of descriptions of paintings, the people they portray, and the artist. The sections of description vary in length, but I found all of a length that was easy to digest. Together they tell a story of the artists life. The descriptions are a little frustrating in their inconsistency. Some tell a lot about the painter, some about the subject of the painting, some a history of the painting itself, and others what the painting looks like. Some serve more than one of these purposes, but often not in the same order, or in the same manner, as other passages. It is as though the descriptions are a compilation of gallery descriptions, descriptions in a book of paintings, descriptions from a biography, Wikipedia articles, and just descriptions as though someone was just telling a friend what something looked like. There were times that the “obsessed historian” who seemed to be giving the descriptions would slip and reveal conjecture as though it was fact, or tell more about the relationships between the individuals than would likely be known. Despite this, all of the descriptions were effective in their purpose. The inconsistency made it hard for me, at the beginning of the story, to pick the story out of the descriptions. This isn't to say it's poorly done, but simply that it did not work very well for me. I was able to take, from the piece, enough of a story to be satisfied and interested, but with a feeling that there was more out of my reach. By the end of reading, I was fully engrossed in the story. I feel, for myself, it could have been more engaging, but it was certainly effective and powerful and worth reading.

Trigger warning: description of a visual of someone being assaulted. Please email me for more information.

You might like this book if you like: Paul Auster, Italo Calvino, Vladmir Nabokov, Mark Helprin

Review S1: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

          From the beginning of The Unconsoled, it is clear that the story is unique, though Ishiguro manages to ease the reader into the absurdity. The book is extremely surreal, often times nightmarish (the kind of anxiety nightmare where you realize you're late to school and forgot you have a math test, and when you get to class, just barely on time, you look at the paper and you don't understand a thing on it). However, in some way, things seem to work out relatively well, or at least have little negative consequence when they don't. Despite the resulting too familiar anxiety, the story manages to be quite humorous at times. Ryder, the protagonist, seems to move through the book in a stream-of-thought manner, going from one situation to the next without pause. Many times I found myself cheering on Ryder as I read, hoping he would remember different obligations, so as to not disappoint certain characters. There were also times when I was dragged away with the turn of events, forgetting what led to the situation Ryder was in at the time until he remembered what he previously agreed to do.

          Many people in the story, if not everyone, seems to be at least a little strange. However, despite their quirkiness, many of the characters seem almost indistinguishable at times in terms of their neediness and tendency to talk endlessly, which can make them seem pathetic at times. They often speak as though Ryder understands what they are talking about, and as he very rarely seeks clarification, we rarely get it. At times, Ryder seems to have a link into the minds of other characters, as he seems to know too much of what they are thinking at times. Perhaps he can see into the minds of others who, in some way, represent himself throughout his life, but perhaps not.

          This book has received many negative reviews, often claiming that the book is frustrating. While I do not agree with the assessment, there are certain aspects of the book I could see might be frustrating for some. Time and place are very warped and inconsistent throughout the story, often wandering into the impossible. The protagonist also seems to suffer from some sort of memory loss and is, throughout the story, remembering various important things that seem unlikely for one to forget. At times I even wondered if there might be a conspiracy at play. There were a few places where run-on sentences caused me to re-read a sentence several times, but overall they didn't affect the flow much.

          Overall, this is the best book I have read this year. I highly recommend it.

You might be interested in this book if you like: Proust, Franz Kafka, William Faulkner, and James Joyce

Purpose and Submissions Information

        The goal of this blog is to create a space for readers and writers to build a community around types of literature that are under-represented. For the time being, this site will focus on absurd, surreal, and speculative fiction. Mass-produced fiction often leaves behind very talented writers because there isn't as much demand for their work (as they aren't producing mass-market fiction).

        I hope to allow for a space that directly connects readers and writers, as well as a space for authors to share their work for a small fee to the reader, or even for free. Included on this blog is information about self-publishing and self-e-publishing.

        I am currently accepting surreal, absurd, and speculative fiction, of any length. I will read the pieces and write up reviews as time allows. I will also post reviews of already published works to give examples of the type of review I will be giving the pieces sent to me. The idea of the review is not to tear apart your work, but to give readers an idea of what the piece is like and whether or not it would be something they would have interest in reading. However, constructive critique will be available for the author if they so desire.

To submit your work, please email: literatureconnection (at) gmail (dot) com

Please enter your piece into the main body in the text. If your work is available for download or purchase, please include a link to your work to be put on the post with your review.

If you have concerns about the content of any piece I review, please feel free to email me and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.