Thoughts

This December, Kirkus published its annual list of ‘Best Indie Books 2021’, and Reality Testing was listed as one of them (replete with its old cover). So far this has opened zero new doors for me, but it’s a nice nod of recognition from one of the most prestigious book review magazines in the world.

From the review:

“Readers will find an instant echo of the invigorating cyberpunk territory famously birthed by visionary SF author William Gibson—and, not long after, written off by the novelist himself as a genre past its expiration date. But Price reboots the familiar noir scenarios of greedy multinationals, hero hackers, and freakishly augmented adventurers, upgrading the software with piquant bytes of green politics run amok and the unholy intersections of capitalism, recession, and transhumanism.”

The full list is here.

I swear that as soon as I’m done churning out novel after novel like I’m Barbara Cartland with a moustache, I’ll put together a few essays tackling the noble art of Writing, if for no other reason than this blog section doesn’t just become a parade of Chart entries. Fortunately, I’m almost done with the next draft of The Distance, so expect a treatise on why Henry Miller’s writing laid the blueprint for Coltrane’s Interstellar Space next month. I’m kidding. Even I’m not that much of a pipe-smoking, beard-stroking Whitester.

In pleasant Reality Testing news, I received a highly complimentary review from Justin over at 23rd Legion. The highlight: “This dystopia is an absolute chef’s kiss of “wow, everybody got fucked really badly.”” Now, this is going to sound a little bitter, but isn’t it funny how I can find people willing to read the book over in deepest, darkest USA, yet not a single publication I’ve written to in Berlin has responded to my noble entreaties? It was the same old situation with By the Feet of Men, but I thought that was because the book wasn’t set in Berlin. This time, though, I gots da proof: Unless you’re a cocktail maestro who thinks it’s a good idea to add a shiitake mushroom reduction to a rusty nail or a fashion designer whose latest collection is modelled on the balletic movements of the Brazilian wandering spider, this city’s blogging elite gives approximately zero shits about Berlin-based artists. Yes, yes, like I said, very bitter.

Book of the month: Slim pickings. I read The Warriors by Sol Yurick, which was disappointing (don’t get me started on the Afterword, in which he decides to start dissecting The Stranger for who-the-hell-knows-what reason) and Women Talking by Miriam Toews, which was, for my taste, poorly written. Let’s say this short story by Chaya Bhuvaneswar instead.

Album of the month: Hushed and Grim by Mastodon. One and a half hours of twisty riffs, three dudes singing and guitar solos. Just mainline it into my eyeballs.

Musique concrete:

1 DjRUM - Blue Violet

2 Timo Maas - Azamutha

3 Vesperi - Joyhauser

4 CINTHIE - Crystal Groove

5 Pavel Khvaleev - Unbroken

6 Pretty Girl - The Only Way Out Is Through

7 GHEIST - Zeit