This book may clock in at 577 pages, but it feels like it’s so much longer. I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean that as a compliment. This book is This book may clock in at 577 pages, but it feels like it’s so much longer. I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean that as a compliment. This book is not a trifling thing–it’s a deep, dense, carefully-constructed, intricately-woven, and ineffably magical text that takes little to no time at all to sink a hook in you before reeling you into a story of an alternative history where Korea has had a shadow government at work behind the scenes since the 19th century. All of its members work to keep Korea unified, but not all of them agree as to how to do so. Some members don’t even know they’re members. Some become members posthumously. Some are tapped to be members, unwittingly, since birth. Cogs become sprockets that move the chain along the track.
To tell you the truth, it’s difficult to describe this book, because it’s not a singular book. There’s essentially four “books” inside Same Bed Different Dreams.
1.The present-day story of our main protagonist, Soon Sheen, a sometimes-author who works for a tech conglomerate called GLOAT;
2. The five “Dreams” that make up the “book” within the book, called “Same Bed Different Dreams”;
3. The story of Parker Jotter, a Korean War veteran/POW and author of a series of sci-fi novels;
4. A handful of miscellaneous stories about historical events that are tied to fiction and fact by tenuous yet absolutely fascinating strings, like absurd Reddit conspiracy theories or internet train wrecks you just can’t look away from;
There are two phrases repeated throughout the text, like magic, ritual, or religion. One’s a riddle and one’s evocative of an axiom or a proverb.
“Did the straight line murder the circle?” (Or variations on this riddle.)
“Same bed, different dreams.”
The first? Well, that you’ll have to figure out yourself, just like I did.
The second? Korea is the same bed. Everyone: the Koreans (North, South, or otherwise), Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Americans? They all have different dreams for that same bed. None of them involve unifying Korea as Korea. They all involve molding Korea into some kind of vision of what they think Korea should be.
This entire book is about the shadow government known as the KPG and their intergenerational efforts to bring about the unification of Korea no matter what. Kick everyone out of the bed. Same bed, same dream. No matter how delusional the vision, no matter how tenuous the ties. No matter how far-fetched the plans or how desperate the hope.
The research that must have gone into this book has to have been insane and had to have taken ages. From obscure film references to real and imagined Korean authors to real-life cults like the Moonies to American games shows to slapstick silent films to the assassination of President McKinley to the fate of KAL flight 007. The list could go on and on. What matters is that not only is the Korean War extensively researched for the purposes of this book (since a great deal of this book centers around the division of Korea), but that every real-life event and/or person has been extensively researched for the matter of this book so that when Park inevitably twists the narrative to fit his alternative history spin on matters, everything that needs to connect does so seamlessly, as if it was always meant to be that way.
Ed Park is an extremely talented author, deftly writing four books in one, all with different tones, tenors, and modes. Soon Sheen’s story of working at GLOAT and reading “Same Bed Different Dreams” in pieces is written like a contemporary fiction novel, with Soon playing the part of a beleaguered father and corporate drone that has become enraptured with a secret book that fell into his hands seemingly by accident. “Same Bed Different Dreams” has a harsh tone and clipped economy of words that reminds one of both a confession and a manifesto. The story of Parker Jotter, Korean War vet, POW, and sci-fi author is written almost like a psychological fiction novel where the protagonist is a psychologically-compromised war vet whose thoughts and ideas might not all be his own. All the miscellaneous stories about historical events and people sprinkled throughout the book here and there vary in tone and complexity but never vary in interest.
This book is a wonder, and one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s barely got a plot. It’s barely got a vibe. It’s barely got atmosphere. So what does it have? Beauty. The beauty of words. That’s all. It’s just a book that’s made up of beautiful words made into beautiful sentences made into beautiful pages made into a beautiful book.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without any offer or acceptance of compensation.
I’m among the few that didn’t really enjoy What Moves the Dead that much when it was released. I found it to be underwhelming when I reviewed it, but I’m among the few that didn’t really enjoy What Moves the Dead that much when it was released. I found it to be underwhelming when I reviewed it, but I like Kingfisher so much I decided to read the sequel anyway and I’m glad I did because I loved What Feasts at Night so much better than What Moves the Dead.
I think what threw me off with What Moves the Dead was the inevitable comparison with Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. I just couldn’t let it go and I think that may have compromised my ability to enjoy that story. With What Feasts at Night, we’re removed from the Usher household and on a new journey with Alex Easton. There’s no prior story association for me to be hung up on and so I got to enjoy this story just as it’s presented.
What I loved the most about this book was the dry witticism of Alex Easton. Alex’s voice is strong and clear and so funny to me. I laughed so many times reading this book because my sense of humor is skewed much the same way. Alex is a genuine character and one I loved reading. I could read an entire novel in Alex’s voice, but if Kingfisher wants to keep writing novellas featuring Alex Easton in creepy gothic occult horrors then I’ll totally keep reading them just to laugh the way this book made me laugh.
It was lovely to see the esteemed Miss Potter and the besotted Angus again, as well as meeting new supporting characters that made for a colorful and entertaining cast.
The world building and story in this installment were so much more my speed this time around. Some nice moth core (it’s a thing) aesthetics, nightmare lore, superstitions, folk treatments, and musings on PTSD. It’s well-constructed, even if I felt the writing could’ve been better in a few places. The imagery was top-tier though.
It’s a great sequel to What Moves the Dead. I totally recommend it.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I love T. Kingfisher. I love Poe and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. This novella should’ve been like macaroni and cheese, right? A match made in heI love T. Kingfisher. I love Poe and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. This novella should’ve been like macaroni and cheese, right? A match made in heaven, right? Nope. It struck a discordant note to me, like the kind of off-brand macaroni and cheese that just doesn’t taste as good as your favorite.
There’s about 50% of this book I love with all my heart, and about 50% I completely hated. The whole experience was like listening to someone who is playing a spectacular piano piece with their piano just slightly out of tune: it’s grating on your nerves, and not in that good way some horror books evoke. It’s in that way that you're glad for any distraction to take you away to have to keep reading the book because it’s exasperating you. I would read a passage or two I loved, and then I would get to a section that would make me want to DNF the book completely. Rinse and repeat.
Listen to me: I can read a 400-plus page book in about 6 hours if it’s good. This book is less than 200 pages and it took me almost 6 hours to read it because I was a willing participant in being dragged away from it.
It took me some time to analyze the division between the love and hate I have for this book, and I know what it is: I adore everything that’s trademark Kingfisher in this book and hate everything about pairing that with their take on Poe’s tale. Poe’s original tale is ultimately an allegory wherein the fall of the House of Usher is a stand-in for the apocalypse (other stories of the same tone and tenor were written around this time due to the news of a comet that would be passing Earth that caused many devout Christians to think about the end of the world). Indeed, some of the passages in Poe’s tale even slightly resemble verses from the Book of Revelations. Believe it or not, this aspect of Poe’s tale is what I love most about it, and removing that aspect of the story to exchange it for Kingfisher’s approach to the tale took much of the magic out of it for me.
Likewise, I did not enjoy the main character, Alex Easton. This shocks me, because normally I am all for a main character such as this (I’m leaving this vague because spoilers), but while Easton has kept all the logic and reasoning of the original material’s main character, they have lost his melancholy in exchange for PTSD and a rather blase attitude toward the world. I felt little warmth in their regard for either Roderick or Madeleine, making me wonder why they cared to be there at all.
Kingfisher kept the gothic house and its choking atmosphere, for which I’m eternally grateful. The addition of moisture, mold, spores, fungi, and more just added to the idea of the house being rotten to the core. This is where Kingfisher always shines: atmosphere, imagery, and sensory development. The rot, the spoiling, the decomposition, the sagging, the creaking, the spotty mold and fuzzy hairs of fungus. If you were one to have a weak stomach this book might give you some pause.
Overall, it just wasn’t a marriage made in heaven. It was, at most, a weak alliance. There are sections that are stunning to read and then sections I wish I could flush. I just wish there were some other way this could have been written so I could have 100% loved it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. Due to personal policy, this review will not be posted on social media or bookseller websites due to the 3 star or lower rating.
Merged review:
I love T. Kingfisher. I love Poe and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. This novella should’ve been like macaroni and cheese, right? A match made in heaven, right? Nope. It struck a discordant note to me, like the kind of off-brand macaroni and cheese that just doesn’t taste as good as your favorite.
There’s about 50% of this book I love with all my heart, and about 50% I completely hated. The whole experience was like listening to someone who is playing a spectacular piano piece with their piano just slightly out of tune: it’s grating on your nerves, and not in that good way some horror books evoke. It’s in that way that you're glad for any distraction to take you away to have to keep reading the book because it’s exasperating you. I would read a passage or two I loved, and then I would get to a section that would make me want to DNF the book completely. Rinse and repeat.
Listen to me: I can read a 400-plus page book in about 6 hours if it’s good. This book is less than 200 pages and it took me almost 6 hours to read it because I was a willing participant in being dragged away from it.
It took me some time to analyze the division between the love and hate I have for this book, and I know what it is: I adore everything that’s trademark Kingfisher in this book and hate everything about pairing that with their take on Poe’s tale. Poe’s original tale is ultimately an allegory wherein the fall of the House of Usher is a stand-in for the apocalypse (other stories of the same tone and tenor were written around this time due to the news of a comet that would be passing Earth that caused many devout Christians to think about the end of the world). Indeed, some of the passages in Poe’s tale even slightly resemble verses from the Book of Revelations. Believe it or not, this aspect of Poe’s tale is what I love most about it, and removing that aspect of the story to exchange it for Kingfisher’s approach to the tale took much of the magic out of it for me.
Likewise, I did not enjoy the main character, Alex Easton. This shocks me, because normally I am all for a main character such as this (I’m leaving this vague because spoilers), but while Easton has kept all the logic and reasoning of the original material’s main character, they have lost his melancholy in exchange for PTSD and a rather blase attitude toward the world. I felt little warmth in their regard for either Roderick or Madeleine, making me wonder why they cared to be there at all.
Kingfisher kept the gothic house and its choking atmosphere, for which I’m eternally grateful. The addition of moisture, mold, spores, fungi, and more just added to the idea of the house being rotten to the core. This is where Kingfisher always shines: atmosphere, imagery, and sensory development. The rot, the spoiling, the decomposition, the sagging, the creaking, the spotty mold and fuzzy hairs of fungus. If you were one to have a weak stomach this book might give you some pause.
Overall, it just wasn’t a marriage made in heaven. It was, at most, a weak alliance. There are sections that are stunning to read and then sections I wish I could flush. I just wish there were some other way this could have been written so I could have 100% loved it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. Due to personal policy, this review will not be posted on social media or bookseller websites due to the 3 star or lower rating....more
Normally, I’d spend much of this review delving into the social, economic, cultural, and political ramifications of Universal Basic Income, because onNormally, I’d spend much of this review delving into the social, economic, cultural, and political ramifications of Universal Basic Income, because one of the hazards (I call it perks, but I’m a weirdo) of being a Geography major is taking Economic Geography, where you end up talking about the ups and downs of UBI programs the world over: where they have been implemented, how they’ve been implemented, and the pros and cons of each country’s UBI programs. But… no offense to anyone reading this review in the future, but I’ve had just about enough of anything political as of this date after the last few days and so I’m just going to stick by the brilliant manner in which Rachel Swirsky decides to explore a theoretical United States in the future where a UBI program has been implemented and how it affects the lives of four different women from four walks of life.
Some might consider this book a novella, but it’s really not. It’s simply on the shorter side of a novel at 242 pages (novellas are 200 pages or under). I’m glad Swirsky stuck to less than 250 pages for this book, set it all within one day, and split the narrative between just four characters and how they each spend their “Windfall Day” (AKA the day when every American receives their UBI payment). Any longer and it would’ve been milking the material. This format and length keeps the book moving, keeps the material fresh and crisp with no lag time. Clever move.
I have to imagine one of the tougher parts for Swirsky was to pick the four women and their backgrounds to give us readers a diverse set of characters to see a few possible perspectives of how a UBI could affect people in the US. There’s Hannah, a single mom who’s hiding from her abusive, stalker ex-wife who always manages to find her on Windfall Day; there’s Janelle, who used to rage against the very political machines who thought up the UBI legislation even though it was evident it was skewed to (once again) give minorities and marginalized peoples the shaft but has since lost all her passion to fight; there’s Olivia, who’s a wealthy college kid who hangs out with other wealthy college kids on what other people call “Windfall Day” but they call it “Waste Day” and simply spend the day blowing all their UBI on the most absurd things they can think of; and there’s Sarah, a FLDS child-bride who’s 15 and very pregnant and may be considering leaving her husband and sister-wives after they lied to her and took her brother away late one night. In the course of one Windfall Day, all of these women see their lives changed: not because of the money the UBI brings, but because of how the UBI affects either their lives or the lives of people around them.
This book is the kind of pure speculative fiction I love, where anthropology, philosophy, thought experiments, and poignant prose come together to create entertaining and palatable prose that will linger in your brain and keep you thinking for a very long time.
Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for granting me early access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
There has been an influx of YA novels in the past nine months or so that deal with the subject of memory loss by both organic and inorganic means and There has been an influx of YA novels in the past nine months or so that deal with the subject of memory loss by both organic and inorganic means and memories being tampered with, and had this book been able to throw something new to the mix (instead of relying on parallelism as a crutch for world-building and plot development) it might have had a good amount of potential.
But there’s the rub: It might have had a good amount of potential… if there weren’t also other distinct issues wrong with the book.
For instance: The blurb essentially gives away every single bit of the first half of the book without reticence. Also, it took until about 45 pages into a 269 page book (so, about 17% of the way through) to come even close to clearly introducing the conflict. As I once discussed with an author and creative writing professor: If it takes you more than about 30 pages into a book for readers to get a solid idea of the world you’ve built and to introduce the central conflict, then your book already has issues.
Think of it this way: A page of dialogue in a script takes up about one minute of screen time. A movie (just like almost every story since the plays of Ancient Greece) has three acts; and in a 2 hour movie, those acts end at the 30 minute mark, the 60 minute mark, and the 90 minute mark. By that 30 minute mark, you need to have established your world, introduced all your main characters, introduced the antagonist, and solidified the central conflict of the plot.
And yes, books are a different animal, but by 30 pages into this book I had no solid grip on the world the author had built, had no solid idea of who the main character was as a person, had no clue who or what the antagonist was, and had only a vague idea of what the central conflict was save that it sounded like the same central conflict as many other books in this genre.
Then, we have the second half of the book, which changes gears almost entirely from the first half and is rife with flashbacks. This narrative shift doesn’t come across as a genuine effort at trying something new–it feels like the author didn’t know what to do with all the exposition necessary for the book to end up making sense, so it all ended up in a second half full of telling us how the first half got to where it is. I didn’t like it.
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Book for allowing me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. As per personal policy, this review will not appear on any bookseller or social media site. ...more
I was reading some reviews for this book after I had finished it to see what other readers and reviewers had thought of it, and I think one’s enjoymenI was reading some reviews for this book after I had finished it to see what other readers and reviewers had thought of it, and I think one’s enjoyment of this book may be related to how much one enjoys the classic book, “The Great Gatsby”. “Wild and Wicked Things” may as well be a straight-up queer gothic fantasy remix of Gatsby, for the two books have so very much in common, right down to Francesca May’s evocative prose (and a purple light instead of green).
I’m actually a fan of “The Great Gatsby” and all its overall grey morality. “Wild and Wicked Things” is in much the same vein, with a narrator that can, at times, be unreliable and a cast of characters whose moral compasses possibly don’t care which way is north. Like Gatsby, it takes place on an island seemingly segregated by class (in this book the island is called “Crow Island”, while in Gatsby East Egg and West Egg were inspired by the Hamptons) and by prejudice. There’s plenty of alcohol, a sprinkling of illicit substances, and a whole lot of charisma to be found in the mysterious Emmeline (who stands in for Gatsby in this book), a queer witch with many secrets to be kept and mysteries to unravel.
Was this book the most excellent Gatsby-inspired book I’ve read? No. Was it the most entertaining? Yes. It was a page-turner that drew me in and kept me there. I expect that if you didn’t like Gatsby you may not like this book as much as I did, but I hope I’m wrong.
Thanks to NetGalley and Redhook Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
This book is more than a little thought-provoking. It’s an absolute mind screw. That’s not a bad thing at all. Books should make us think every once aThis book is more than a little thought-provoking. It’s an absolute mind screw. That’s not a bad thing at all. Books should make us think every once and a while. I’m all for escapism in my books, but every once and a while we need books to come along that make us think in a different way and to make us look at things through a different lens. Books that make us tilt our heads slightly and question how we see each other and the world. This book is one of those books, but it’s not going to be for everyone, and it’s not the easiest book to read. I’m going to dare you to try, though.
This book is in no way pretty. It’s unapologetic in its filth, gore, and violence. If you go into this book expecting sunshine and roses, at any point, you’ll be sorry. This is, overwhelmingly, a horror story. It’s also dystopic and splattergore. The violence is extreme and no one is spared from either being the perpetrator or the victim. No matter the sex or gender, violence touches everyone on both sides. That’s part of the story, though. I cannot and will not spoil any part of this story. It’s best to go into this story knowing only what the blurb provided by booksellers or the back of the book. Knowing anything else will ruin all the fun.
There is fun to be had. I know what I’ve described so far paints a bleak picture, but there is a lot of sharp, satirical humor to be found in this book. It’s a dark, morbid humor. Maybe even gallows humor, at times, but it’s there, and it will allow you to snicker and giggle at times in a book that would be too sad and heavy otherwise. There are also razor-sharp barbs of wit that add levity at just the right moments in time to keep scenes from getting too heavy.
This is bound to be a controversial book. People will hate it. It will be divisive. It will be banned in places. But it’s brilliant work. And it needed to be written. And it needs to be read.
Thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tor Nightfire for the ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!...more
What I love about short story collections is that you get smaller, more condensed, more tightly edited stories that have to get across what they have What I love about short story collections is that you get smaller, more condensed, more tightly edited stories that have to get across what they have to say or whatever message they want to convey in a much smaller amount of pages than a book would, and often it seems to me that a short story can seem much more satisfying in many ways to a book when you are looking for something to make you think. (Novellas do much the same thing, sometimes.)
Charlie Jane Anders is no stranger to science fiction, no stranger to short stories, and certainly no stranger to combining both. As such, it’s unsurprising that this collection is outstanding. I’ve long admired her work, and I think the manner in which she approaches science fiction (especially when it comes to gender, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexuality) is truly the perfect combination of something omnipresent and futuristic. We’re told science fiction has led to a lot of what has become science fact, and with her musings on everything from how robots might have gender and sexual orientations once they have sentience to how MMORPGs run by people whose brains work differently could be used to possibly solve global issues speak to questions scientists have only began to touch on, which makes these stories even more interesting to read.
There are a few stories that verge closer to horror or fantasy in here, including one laugh-out-loud funny TV vampire drama parody that had me snickering like crazy, but mostly this collection stuck to the science fiction path.
It was a well-rounded collection, with only one story I had to skip because Anders admitted that if you hadn’t read another title of hers you wouldn’t get it (probably). As always, her skills as a writer grow, and they’ll continue to grow. I look forward to it.
Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge for granting me access to this title for the purposes of reading and reviewing. ...more
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