peapod_boston's review
3.0
Translated by the author from Finnish (or sometimes written in English), this collection of weird short stories is a window into the fantasy of another country. Tidbeck's voice is unique and eerie. Recurring theme's include creatures growing from seeds and the vittra, sort of Scandinavian elves. A few of the pieces are simply enjoyable, but the bulk of the stories are strange and haunting. Standout stories include "Beatrice" (the brutal love story of a man & his airship), "Rebecka" (a haunting tale of despair), the Kafkaesque "Who is Arvid Pekon?", the well-documented cryptid story, "Pyret", the creepy fairy tales "Augusta Prima" and "Aunts", and the title story, a science fiction piece of sorts. If you're looking for something a little different, look no further.
thisotherbookaccount's review
2.0
Rebecka and the titular Jagannath are the only short stories worth your time in this collection. The others are either forgettable or weird for weird's sake. Coming from a small press set up by Jeff VanderMeer, the other new weird writer who is prone to write weird for weird's sake, this shouldn't come as a surprise for me. The saving grace is the fact that this book isn't very long. Spent two days on this, which is really more time than I'd like.
bfmermer's review against another edition
5.0
Karin Tidbeck'in kalemi ne kadar güzelmiş gerçekten de. Normalde kitapların önünde arkasında yazan yazar övgüleri çok bir şey ifade etmez bana, ancak Zeplin için ne söyleniyorsa eksiği var fazlası yok. Kimi öyküler şahaneyken kimileri haliyle daha zayıf, ama içlerinde burun kıvırabileceğim tek öykü dahi gösteremem. İskandinav filmlerinde gördüğümüz o melankolik, büyüleyici ama bazen de ürkütücü atmosferi Tidbeck kelimelerle yaratmayı başarmış.
Başka nasıl anlatabilirim bilmiyorum ama öyküleri okuduktan sonra damakta kalan o his de çok güzel, sanki bir Sigur Ros şarkısı dinlemişsiniz gibi. Özellikle bir doktorun zepline olan aşkını anlatan "Beatrice", bir kadının ansızın ortaya çıkan Tanrı'nın dikkatini çekmeye çalıştığı "Rebecka", tuhaf bir çağrı merkezinde geçen "Arvid Peron Kim?" ve nasıl anlatacağımı bilemediğim ancak kitaptaki favorim olan "Jagannath" en sevdiğim öyküler oldu.
Çeviri de çok iyi bu arada, Tülin Er'in ellerine sağlık.
Zeplin tuhaf kurguyu sevmemi sağlayan her şeye fazlasıyla sahip. 2021'e şahane bir başlangıç oldu.
Başka nasıl anlatabilirim bilmiyorum ama öyküleri okuduktan sonra damakta kalan o his de çok güzel, sanki bir Sigur Ros şarkısı dinlemişsiniz gibi. Özellikle bir doktorun zepline olan aşkını anlatan "Beatrice", bir kadının ansızın ortaya çıkan Tanrı'nın dikkatini çekmeye çalıştığı "Rebecka", tuhaf bir çağrı merkezinde geçen "Arvid Peron Kim?" ve nasıl anlatacağımı bilemediğim ancak kitaptaki favorim olan "Jagannath" en sevdiğim öyküler oldu.
Çeviri de çok iyi bu arada, Tülin Er'in ellerine sağlık.
Zeplin tuhaf kurguyu sevmemi sağlayan her şeye fazlasıyla sahip. 2021'e şahane bir başlangıç oldu.
lfraire's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
A fantastic collection of short stories. Each intriguing and addictive, mysterious and complete. The best collection I have read this year - just my cup of tea. Desire to read much, much more.
leviathandreamer's review
4.0
I absolutely love short stories. Some find them difficult to both read and write (I feel the opposite), but I like the trickiness and sense of fragmentation they tend to have. You get only a glimpse of a story, you don't know anything about the characters, you're confused about what's happening and you might not find an explanation, but that's good - instead of being faced with a definite conclusion which you have to accept, you can make sense of it yourself.
Having said that, the short stories feature people falling in love with machines, failed suicide attempts, a ''call centre'' which would be Kafka's choice of employment if he lived in the 21th century, a die hard fan of the Cure who disappears into a forest (of course she does) with a group of elfish race whose most characteristic trait is insanity, a lot of actual body horror and an obligatory womb level you'd find in any 90's/early 00's horror game... but beneath all this surreal madness, one can sense much more ''trivial'' and very palpable problems - parent/child relationships, the loss of security, questions about identity, the desire to leave something/somewhere/someone and leave something here.
Also, massive plus points to the author for touching on the subjects of language and translating her own work (I read a translation of her translation, so... meta?) to her non-native tongue. I wish I could read it in Swedish, so the reindeer mountain would come alive in all its northern glory.
Having said that, the short stories feature people falling in love with machines, failed suicide attempts, a ''call centre'' which would be Kafka's choice of employment if he lived in the 21th century, a die hard fan of the Cure who disappears into a forest (of course she does) with a group of elfish race whose most characteristic trait is insanity, a lot of actual body horror and an obligatory womb level you'd find in any 90's/early 00's horror game... but beneath all this surreal madness, one can sense much more ''trivial'' and very palpable problems - parent/child relationships, the loss of security, questions about identity, the desire to leave something/somewhere/someone and leave something here.
Also, massive plus points to the author for touching on the subjects of language and translating her own work (I read a translation of her translation, so... meta?) to her non-native tongue. I wish I could read it in Swedish, so the reindeer mountain would come alive in all its northern glory.
phngtrnreads's review
3.0
This felt like a fever dream. You'd be either stumbling upon a Love, Death and Robots' rejected script or the most random Adult Swim video ever. All I can tell is lots of these stories were loosely connected with more than one theme, some I lowkey enjoyed and some just made me think wonder if I was illiterate.