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hartzy13's review against another edition
2.0
Great idea. Execution lacking : disjointed story telling, no coherent world building, difficult to understand actions.
zacko's review
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
barondp's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
readwithmeemz's review against another edition
3.0
I’m an Indigo Employee, and I received an advanced reading copy of this book, from Indigo Books & Music, in exchange for my honest feedback.
This book was dark, and gritty, and weird, and kind of gruesome - but it was also cool, and interesting, and action packed. I loved the concept - i really do love dark, weird sci-fi - but I don’t read a lot and of it (at least not adult sci fi) - and I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone with this one. This was a quick read - but still dark and pretty heavy. It’s a solid book, and I think it would be great for fans of The Walking Dead.
This book was dark, and gritty, and weird, and kind of gruesome - but it was also cool, and interesting, and action packed. I loved the concept - i really do love dark, weird sci-fi - but I don’t read a lot and of it (at least not adult sci fi) - and I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone with this one. This was a quick read - but still dark and pretty heavy. It’s a solid book, and I think it would be great for fans of The Walking Dead.
david_agranoff's review
5.0
I reviewed Brian Allen Carr's surreal horror novel "The Last horror novel in History of the World" back in 2015. I enjoyed it as a short but totally surreal novella. At the time I said I laughed alot reading this novel which is some kinda of supernatural small town siege tale set against the interesting back drop of a small border town in Texas. Given the title I expected a satire, or a bizarro send up of horror novels but that wasn't the case. This is more like experimental horror that based on the strength of the strong prose is a really cool quick read.
I was excited about this book and wanted to read it after hearing BAC on the JDO (J.David Osbourne) show podcast. Between then and actually getting around to the book I remembered nothing about it. I am glad I went in cold. SIP is a totally weird novel, those worried that BAC would lose his edge getting published by a traditional publisher - don't worry.
Sip is one of the weirdest horror novels I have ever read. The structure of the narrative is a little more straight forward there are no one sentence chapters, but the idea is plenty weird enough. It takes place in a post apaoclyse western setting, the world was not ended by nuclear war or climate change. In this future our world fell apart when junkies developed an addiction for consuming the souls of others through their shadows. Drinking the shadows gives you rest and the dreams of the person or animals you steal from but leaves the creature dry. Dry means you can't sleep or dream.
On a basic level you have great weird elements like shadow drinkers and limb scavengers, you have western elements with the train and the wasteland setting. Those are lots of neat-o elements but at the heart are human characters. At it's core friendship and loyalty plays as important a role as a mainstream YA novel. There is much to relate too at the heart of the story.
One neat aspect is how the concept and setting subverts the nothing setting or the dark or darkness being home to horror. In this world the sunlight and light in general is source of terror. The characters from Bale and Mira break the tension with momments of humor from time to time. The gee-whiz of the concept was enough to get my interest but it is Characters that made this a step-up from the BAC novel I read.
BAC is a talented writer and the very concept is strong argument for the book. At times the prose is poetic, but it is the world building and setting where the beauty lies. That is a neat trick. Overall I would say this is a weird fiction masterpiece if you like bizarro, horror or science fiction there is something here for everyone. If you think that all the ideas have been exhausted before 2017 then you need to read Sip. It is a book like no other and worthy of massive praise.
I was excited about this book and wanted to read it after hearing BAC on the JDO (J.David Osbourne) show podcast. Between then and actually getting around to the book I remembered nothing about it. I am glad I went in cold. SIP is a totally weird novel, those worried that BAC would lose his edge getting published by a traditional publisher - don't worry.
Sip is one of the weirdest horror novels I have ever read. The structure of the narrative is a little more straight forward there are no one sentence chapters, but the idea is plenty weird enough. It takes place in a post apaoclyse western setting, the world was not ended by nuclear war or climate change. In this future our world fell apart when junkies developed an addiction for consuming the souls of others through their shadows. Drinking the shadows gives you rest and the dreams of the person or animals you steal from but leaves the creature dry. Dry means you can't sleep or dream.
On a basic level you have great weird elements like shadow drinkers and limb scavengers, you have western elements with the train and the wasteland setting. Those are lots of neat-o elements but at the heart are human characters. At it's core friendship and loyalty plays as important a role as a mainstream YA novel. There is much to relate too at the heart of the story.
One neat aspect is how the concept and setting subverts the nothing setting or the dark or darkness being home to horror. In this world the sunlight and light in general is source of terror. The characters from Bale and Mira break the tension with momments of humor from time to time. The gee-whiz of the concept was enough to get my interest but it is Characters that made this a step-up from the BAC novel I read.
BAC is a talented writer and the very concept is strong argument for the book. At times the prose is poetic, but it is the world building and setting where the beauty lies. That is a neat trick. Overall I would say this is a weird fiction masterpiece if you like bizarro, horror or science fiction there is something here for everyone. If you think that all the ideas have been exhausted before 2017 then you need to read Sip. It is a book like no other and worthy of massive praise.
jadelee_ls's review
3.0
Loved the idea, prose and weirdness but in the end it all kind of became pointless (violence)?
tiranamisu's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
themarce's review against another edition
1.0
Good premise. No plot. No character development. No lasting imagery.
Big points for the amazing Waiting for Godot reference.
Big points for the amazing Waiting for Godot reference.
thomaswjoyce's review against another edition
5.0
Carr does an excellent job of threading the separate narratives together to create a compelling and exciting story.
He won the inaugural Texas Observer Story Prize (judged by Larry McMurtry) in 2011 with his short story, “The First Henley”, and also the Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel for his book Motherfucking Sharks (Lazy Fascist Press, 2013). These two awards alone should tell you all you need to know about the range of work of Brian Allen Carr. Between December 2012 and November 2014, he published at least three collections and two novellas – an impressive rate of work by anyone’s standards – and Sip is his first published novel. It has been described as a “post-apocalyptic sci-fi Western” but the themes explored – including addiction, friendship and survival – delivered in Carr’s own unique style, means that one short description does it little justice.
The story is set on an Earth gone bad. The demise of the world began with a child exhibiting behaviour similar to someone suffering from rabies. But when the scientists and doctors witnessed him sipping from his shadow, the world changed. As it is with human nature, curiosity got the better of some folk and soon, divisions and factions began to appear between those that succumbed to their shadow addiction and those that abstained. The former became slaves to the taste of their own shadow, getting high on it, some even going as far as to steal the shadows of others, while the latter built massive domes to house their cities and adopted a militaristic and moralistic lifestyle, without natural light. What Carr has created is essentially a post-apocalyptic world without the cataclysmic event. Instead the world has steadily fallen into ruin as half of the world became junkies and the other half became scared.
One group of “Domers” have begun to venture out into the world, protecting themselves with a train that continuously encircles their encampments while they seek to make contact with the other domes. Life within the domes is shown to be regimented and uniform, where everyone has the same haircut and they are all given jobs and rations. But one soldier on the train, Bale, dares to defy his orders and the natural order when he witnesses the intriguing Mira and her mysterious shadow. Mira is a young lady who lives in a small farmhouse and has to care for her mother since the deranged criminal Joe Clover stole her shadow, forcing Mira to “borrow” shade from animals so that her mother can sleep. The premise is original, and delivered with a wonderful style. The way Carr depicts Mira and the burden she feels when having to steal from the animals, and the way she communicates with each species and the difference in the dreams depending on the animal, is nothing short of tremendous. His sentences read like poetry, sometimes dark and often extremely emotive, but always with a rhythm and fluidity that makes the words flow from the page to the reader’s mind.
(The full review can be found at the This Is Horror website.)
He won the inaugural Texas Observer Story Prize (judged by Larry McMurtry) in 2011 with his short story, “The First Henley”, and also the Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel for his book Motherfucking Sharks (Lazy Fascist Press, 2013). These two awards alone should tell you all you need to know about the range of work of Brian Allen Carr. Between December 2012 and November 2014, he published at least three collections and two novellas – an impressive rate of work by anyone’s standards – and Sip is his first published novel. It has been described as a “post-apocalyptic sci-fi Western” but the themes explored – including addiction, friendship and survival – delivered in Carr’s own unique style, means that one short description does it little justice.
The story is set on an Earth gone bad. The demise of the world began with a child exhibiting behaviour similar to someone suffering from rabies. But when the scientists and doctors witnessed him sipping from his shadow, the world changed. As it is with human nature, curiosity got the better of some folk and soon, divisions and factions began to appear between those that succumbed to their shadow addiction and those that abstained. The former became slaves to the taste of their own shadow, getting high on it, some even going as far as to steal the shadows of others, while the latter built massive domes to house their cities and adopted a militaristic and moralistic lifestyle, without natural light. What Carr has created is essentially a post-apocalyptic world without the cataclysmic event. Instead the world has steadily fallen into ruin as half of the world became junkies and the other half became scared.
One group of “Domers” have begun to venture out into the world, protecting themselves with a train that continuously encircles their encampments while they seek to make contact with the other domes. Life within the domes is shown to be regimented and uniform, where everyone has the same haircut and they are all given jobs and rations. But one soldier on the train, Bale, dares to defy his orders and the natural order when he witnesses the intriguing Mira and her mysterious shadow. Mira is a young lady who lives in a small farmhouse and has to care for her mother since the deranged criminal Joe Clover stole her shadow, forcing Mira to “borrow” shade from animals so that her mother can sleep. The premise is original, and delivered with a wonderful style. The way Carr depicts Mira and the burden she feels when having to steal from the animals, and the way she communicates with each species and the difference in the dreams depending on the animal, is nothing short of tremendous. His sentences read like poetry, sometimes dark and often extremely emotive, but always with a rhythm and fluidity that makes the words flow from the page to the reader’s mind.
(The full review can be found at the This Is Horror website.)
jenabrownwrites's review against another edition
4.0
“The sun was up, so the dark could start. All about the ground, all in the same direction, shadows sprawled. And this is what he was after.”
Oh how deliciously dark Sip is! A novel where we find ourselves 150 years in the future. A future where people can drink their shadows and change their bodies to float and distort in ways not possible before. But there is a heavy price. Once you drink, you must always drink. And if you drink too much, you are lost forever.
We follow two main characters, Murk, a shadow addict, and Mira, a girl who can hide her shadow. Mira’s mother is a shadow addict herself, but her fate is far worse than Murk. For when an addict sips your shadow, if they don’t stop they can steal the entire thing. And you are left the shell of who you once were, forced to sip shadows or face the madness beyond.
Of course, Murk doesn’t have life easy either. His leg was stolen from him. Chopped and taken, sold to the black market to be kept alive for a time on a machine invented for creating shadows. But he lost his leg before he lost his shadow, which offers him some protection as his shadow will never be whole.
This world is dark and gruesome, full of violence, and run wild with madmen. But within this world are pockets of people trying to live normal lives, away from these addicts. Called domers, for they live beneath a dome. Blocking the sunlight and moonlight so that the addicts can’t steal their souls. The perimeter blocked by a perpetually running train and guarded by soldiers trained to shoot if anyone gets too near.
“Bored soldiers slaughtering innocents predates the naming of war, will go on after the words we call it are broken.”
Mira’s ability to control her shadow catches the interest of a domer, Bale. But his interest is expensive, and he gets thrown out of his dome as a penalty for not shooting her on sight.
Now the three of them, an unlikely trio, set off to test the theory that if you kill whomever stole your shadow before Halley’s Comet appears again, after the comet passes, you will return to normal. Mira desperately wants her mother back, and so she sets off on her quest. Time running out, since the comet is due within days.
Sip does not hold back on the brutal reality of a world overrun with addicts. I actually found the use of shadow addicts an interesting way to show the desperation and extremes addicts will go through for one fix, for one more high, for just one more. In a world where they are the majority, things can become chaotic and bleak very quickly.
We don’t see the world outside of the rural Texas area that Mira, Murk and Bale live, but we hear hints of other dome communities scattered about. All with trains running in circles to protect them. I thought it was fascinating how the addiction was also like a virus, contagious and rampant, and hit before people knew how to fight it. It is a unique dystopian unlike anything I’ve ever read before.
This book is dark in nature but shines bright within the characters it creates. Mira and Murk, unlikely friends, but friends all the same. And even Bale, with his knowledge of nothing but life within the dome will cause you to root for them, to root for their success. Because the journey is difficult, and filled with unexpected stops and obstacles along the way.
If you can’t stomach gritty, raw violence or the stark yet simple brutality of an apocalyptic future dominated by ruthless addicts, this is not a book for you. It will make you cringe, and your stomach turn, for death and violence is simply the way of life in this world, and Carr does not shy away from immersing the reader into the full experience of it.
“Some madnesses are so bizarre that they entice witnessing. Those in the bar who had been preoccupied with debauchery, who had been lost in the melee of drinking and lustful deeds, tapered their pursuits in order to watch this grimy operation.”
It is a book that requires you simply accept things as fact without necessarily understanding them. I didn’t ever get the full sense of why people could drink their shadows, or how it made them addicts. It isn’t that Carr doesn’t offer a brief history through the characters eyes, he does. But it is done in the way you would expect stories to be told. Vaguely, details lost or misunderstood with each telling, the decades between the event and the present altering it, diminishing it, leaving only what they deem important. You don’t get science, or factual information. However, not understanding didn’t take away from the rich narration of this world, or make it’s reality any less detailed.
The before and the after are less relevant to this story than the here and now. Which, if anyone has ever dealt with addiction, first hand or otherwise, it felt like this focus on the present story was a nod to the adage ‘One Day At A Time’ that you hear in meetings and therapy over and over. For addicts, there is only today, and so in that same way, we get the present. It felt poetic to me.
If it feels that perhaps the book may be ‘too out there’, or ‘weird’, I assure you it’s my own reluctance to delve into too many details. The world sounds difficult to picture, and the concepts may be hard to envision, but once you dive into this world, as gruesome and violent as it is, it is worth the journey. Once you begin, the characters pull you in and the sheer determination they have to move forward will move you forward too. It is a dark world. A violent one. Full of mayhem and criminality that makes the Wild West look like playtime in preschool. But you still can’t help but hope with the characters that life can always get better.
For my dark readers out there, this is a novel you do not want to miss! I will be reading Carr’s short stories and will for sure read anything he puts out next. I am a fan!
Thank you Soho Press for sending me a copy to read and review.
Oh how deliciously dark Sip is! A novel where we find ourselves 150 years in the future. A future where people can drink their shadows and change their bodies to float and distort in ways not possible before. But there is a heavy price. Once you drink, you must always drink. And if you drink too much, you are lost forever.
We follow two main characters, Murk, a shadow addict, and Mira, a girl who can hide her shadow. Mira’s mother is a shadow addict herself, but her fate is far worse than Murk. For when an addict sips your shadow, if they don’t stop they can steal the entire thing. And you are left the shell of who you once were, forced to sip shadows or face the madness beyond.
Of course, Murk doesn’t have life easy either. His leg was stolen from him. Chopped and taken, sold to the black market to be kept alive for a time on a machine invented for creating shadows. But he lost his leg before he lost his shadow, which offers him some protection as his shadow will never be whole.
This world is dark and gruesome, full of violence, and run wild with madmen. But within this world are pockets of people trying to live normal lives, away from these addicts. Called domers, for they live beneath a dome. Blocking the sunlight and moonlight so that the addicts can’t steal their souls. The perimeter blocked by a perpetually running train and guarded by soldiers trained to shoot if anyone gets too near.
“Bored soldiers slaughtering innocents predates the naming of war, will go on after the words we call it are broken.”
Mira’s ability to control her shadow catches the interest of a domer, Bale. But his interest is expensive, and he gets thrown out of his dome as a penalty for not shooting her on sight.
Now the three of them, an unlikely trio, set off to test the theory that if you kill whomever stole your shadow before Halley’s Comet appears again, after the comet passes, you will return to normal. Mira desperately wants her mother back, and so she sets off on her quest. Time running out, since the comet is due within days.
Sip does not hold back on the brutal reality of a world overrun with addicts. I actually found the use of shadow addicts an interesting way to show the desperation and extremes addicts will go through for one fix, for one more high, for just one more. In a world where they are the majority, things can become chaotic and bleak very quickly.
We don’t see the world outside of the rural Texas area that Mira, Murk and Bale live, but we hear hints of other dome communities scattered about. All with trains running in circles to protect them. I thought it was fascinating how the addiction was also like a virus, contagious and rampant, and hit before people knew how to fight it. It is a unique dystopian unlike anything I’ve ever read before.
This book is dark in nature but shines bright within the characters it creates. Mira and Murk, unlikely friends, but friends all the same. And even Bale, with his knowledge of nothing but life within the dome will cause you to root for them, to root for their success. Because the journey is difficult, and filled with unexpected stops and obstacles along the way.
If you can’t stomach gritty, raw violence or the stark yet simple brutality of an apocalyptic future dominated by ruthless addicts, this is not a book for you. It will make you cringe, and your stomach turn, for death and violence is simply the way of life in this world, and Carr does not shy away from immersing the reader into the full experience of it.
“Some madnesses are so bizarre that they entice witnessing. Those in the bar who had been preoccupied with debauchery, who had been lost in the melee of drinking and lustful deeds, tapered their pursuits in order to watch this grimy operation.”
It is a book that requires you simply accept things as fact without necessarily understanding them. I didn’t ever get the full sense of why people could drink their shadows, or how it made them addicts. It isn’t that Carr doesn’t offer a brief history through the characters eyes, he does. But it is done in the way you would expect stories to be told. Vaguely, details lost or misunderstood with each telling, the decades between the event and the present altering it, diminishing it, leaving only what they deem important. You don’t get science, or factual information. However, not understanding didn’t take away from the rich narration of this world, or make it’s reality any less detailed.
The before and the after are less relevant to this story than the here and now. Which, if anyone has ever dealt with addiction, first hand or otherwise, it felt like this focus on the present story was a nod to the adage ‘One Day At A Time’ that you hear in meetings and therapy over and over. For addicts, there is only today, and so in that same way, we get the present. It felt poetic to me.
If it feels that perhaps the book may be ‘too out there’, or ‘weird’, I assure you it’s my own reluctance to delve into too many details. The world sounds difficult to picture, and the concepts may be hard to envision, but once you dive into this world, as gruesome and violent as it is, it is worth the journey. Once you begin, the characters pull you in and the sheer determination they have to move forward will move you forward too. It is a dark world. A violent one. Full of mayhem and criminality that makes the Wild West look like playtime in preschool. But you still can’t help but hope with the characters that life can always get better.
For my dark readers out there, this is a novel you do not want to miss! I will be reading Carr’s short stories and will for sure read anything he puts out next. I am a fan!
Thank you Soho Press for sending me a copy to read and review.