naokamiya's review against another edition
4.0
My first brush with Cisco and a really promising one. Some are stories, some are fragments and prose experiments, all are surreal and disquieting while never quite going for the jugular and it firmly lands them in the realm of weird fiction rather than horror. Cisco's writing isn't easy; stories are dense despite short lengths and flowing with layered metanarrative material to chew on for a long time, and there's no handholding in understanding exactly what is going on and for what reason, with the exception of perhaps a couple tales. But what Cisco nails most potently is atmosphere; liberation from the senses and floating into a dreamy negative space, it seems like all these stories take place in some nebulously defined alternate dimension that's just a few paces away from ours. Uncanny in the Ligotti/Kafka tradition while bearing enough interesting takes on Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cycle to achieve wonderful synchronicity between these styles of weird lit. Going to try something longer after this because I feel Cisco can only improve from this already great framework, thinking maybe "The Divinity Student" or "The Narrator" for my first taste of his full-length work.
mamimitanaka's review against another edition
4.0
My first brush with Cisco and a really promising one. Some are stories, some are fragments and prose experiments, all are surreal and disquieting while never quite going for the jugular and it firmly lands them in the realm of weird fiction rather than horror. Cisco's writing isn't easy; stories are dense despite short lengths and flowing with layered metanarrative material to chew on for a long time, and there's no handholding in understanding exactly what is going on and for what reason, with the exception of perhaps a couple tales. But what Cisco nails most potently is atmosphere; liberation from the senses and floating into a dreamy negative space, it seems like all these stories take place in some nebulously defined alternate dimension that's just a few paces away from ours. Uncanny in the Ligotti/Kafka tradition while bearing enough interesting takes on Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cycle to achieve wonderful synchronicity between these styles of weird lit. Going to try something longer after this because I feel Cisco can only improve from this already great framework, thinking maybe "The Divinity Student" or "The Narrator" for my first taste of his full-length work.
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