A review by scarfreads
Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was by Angélica Gorodischer

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

this was an interesting read, although i'm not sure how much of it i actually enjoyed. i liked several of the stories very much, had indifferent opinions about most, and profoundly disliked two. the last story in the collection, "the old incense road" was my favorite; i found it a delight to read the combination of myth and popular culture, which added to the general theater-of-the-absurd feeling. there's a fun plot twist in that one that really worked on me. i also enjoyed "down there in the south," the next-to-the-last story. apart from these two, it was actually a bit difficult to get through most of this book - maybe because of the long paragraphs of lists and descriptors, which are...certainly there. minor gripes aside, the premise of the whole book is fascinating, and gets underlined in the final story - the empire is the book, its existence subject to the eye of the reader. as the twentier tells the cat in the last story: that's how the world was made.