by George Saunders, Joshua Ferris
Great biting satire. Unsettling how its dystopian future is rapidly becoming our present. Recommended.
My current entry for my annual litmus test to evaluate whether or not I've transformed into a Short Story Reader. This one didn't convert me, and failed to be one of the rare exceptions of the genre that excites. Loved: the surreality of the settings, the dreamy decay of it all. Hated: the unexplore...
As soon as I finished Tenth of December, I immediately wanted to read another collection by George Saunders. I chose CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, and from my understanding this was his first collection. And what a helluva collection it is. These stories may have shades of Vonnegut to them, but Saund...
I had no idea what this was. This book was bought for me as a gift because of the civil war painting on the cover and the gifter and I didn't bother to read anything on the back. Anyway... The comparisons to Vonnegut are pretty accurate, only Saunders is darker and more offensive. As someone who use...
This month's post-apocalyptic book club selection...A slim collection of seven short stories... well, six short stories and one longish story. Individually, every one of these stories was very good. However, in the end, I wound up deducting a star because, well, they're all kind of the same story.Do...
I was waffling between a 4 and a 5 on this one, but after letting the short stories and novella sink in a little bit, I lean more towards the 5.Mostly following the downtrodden and oppressed in slightly surreal near-future dystopias, these unrelated and well-written stories pack a lot into them. Ha...
In retrospect, I wish I hadn't read this from front cover to back. I should have picked stories at random over a period of time, maybe while reading something else, so each piece would stand out as an individual work in my memory. Saunders is a fantastic writer, with a feel for gritty humor and wo...