#alan deniro

[frumiousreads]

TOTAL OBLIVION(MORE OR LESS)-ALAN DENIRO REVIEW

TOTAL OBLIVION(MORE OR LESS)-ALAN DENIRO REVIEW

“War stuttered, repeated its sentences, forgot its lessons, over and over.” ― Alan DeNiro, Total Oblivion, More or Less This was a book recommended to me by a friend, who believed that it deserved more attention than it received and honestly I think I would have to agree! The premise itself was really interesting. The world ends seemingly overnight, when a Viking like civilization appears out of…

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[maroonedoffvesta]

In the contemporary science fiction field of my dreams, disliking this story would come to me very easily. Stories so aware of their own status — both as stories in general and as science fiction stories in particular — would be common, as would stories so willing to be sort of batty and borderline incoherent. As things stand, however, such stories are vanishingly rare, and as such the temptation simply to accept this one as it is and praise it for the ground it is uncommonly willing to occupy is strong; and it takes an effort to say, no, I can't get behind this.

rest at the link

[smallbeerpress]

The Flowering Ape by Alan DeNiro

I sprinted through the translucent tube with the curfew avatar slithering behind me. I had a date that night with Kathy at the Flowering Ape, and I wasn’t going to be late for him. Even if kissing him never materialized.

I could hear the avatar hiss. The foot traffic was light in the tube, just a few drunken lovers laughing at the mega-cobra as it tried to catch up to me. The previous year, in an effort to curb truancy from the Chartering School for Young Telepaths, they’d switched from a lumbering golem-type creature to a giant cobra for patrolling the tubes between the space stations. They thought it would be “scarier,” instilling fear in our young hearts. Whatever. The avatar was pokey, which was all that mattered to me.

Just as I was losing my breath, I finally saw the friendly confines of the Flowering Ape. I smelled it too. Hot taffy. Surface-distilled vodka. A perfume called Crushed Dreams. My monthly pass grafted to my pinky, I extended it and jumped inside the barrier, the door whisking me through. The cobra reached the door a couple of seconds later. Knowing it would be repulsed, it growled (a flaw in the gene design, I guess) and turned away.

—From Alan DeNiro's new collection Tyrannia and Other Renditions

More here.

[smallbeerpress]

Highly Responsive to Prayers by Alan DeNiro

It’s summer, but the air conditioning in the SuperCar is cold enough to kill tropical birds. I keep thinking of toucans and birds of paradise thrown into a meat locker. Not that those birds exist anymore. All the shoppers inside the SuperCar are wearing boxer briefs implanted with glowing crucifixes. They navigate between giant crankshafts. I’m wearing old-fashioned jeans and a sweater. My body’s always been colder than other people’s, like a reptile among mammals. I’m supposed to be meeting Fitch for lunch in the SuperCar supercafé, but he’s nowhere to be found and his cell is dead. It’s not necessarily a bad sign, but a weird one. I’m only using Fitch to get with his older sister, Abercrombie, who I’ve only met once. Fitch and I have been friends for about a year and I don’t know him very well. But he’s fine. We met at a prayer knot, both wanting some easy fundie action, not that we got any.

Abercrombie is quite simply the most beautiful girl in the entire Community. She’s not at all like everyone else.

I walk past the new line of Hummer lawnmowers toward the supercafé. The lawnmowers are also designed to kill intruders. Near the entrance of the café is a banner that reads HOW WOULD JESUS FINANCE? NO INTEREST UNTIL 2029! The booths are made out of open-faced NASCAR cars, vintage nineties, and inside those cars, the menus are set inside these toy cars on the table. And naturally, the entire store is the inside of a gargantuan stock car—you enter through the headlights and the emergency exit is the exhaust. It’s like a Russian doll or something. I took a year of Russian over the Internet, before the Community converted it—so to speak—to the Intranet. The old man behind the counter in the café doesn’t look like he wants to be there. But maybe this is the only employment he could get. He might not even be from the Community. I order something quick because I don’t want to make more eye contact with him than necessary. I also don’t want to look at his sad pit crew uniform. I take my cocoabubble tea out of the café and wander a bit more.

—From Alan DeNiro's new collection Tyrannia and Other Renditions

More here.

[smallbeerpress]

Dancing in a House by Alan DeNiro

We want to go dancing, so we approach a nice Cape Cod. The house has indigo aluminum siding and an imitation oak door with a gargoyle knocker. The gargoyle is sticking out its tongue. It’s nice. Once we’re inside we see that the living room has plenty of floor space for what we are going to do. The floors are hardwood, a rich dark cherry, and the rugs are only throws, so it doesn’t take any time at all to move them out of the way.

The beauty is, none of us have to ever bring our own stereo. It’s a perk that comes with most houses: the voice of a house. We do however bring our own knapsack of CDs, because you can never trust peoples’ tastes. The stereo is one of those upper middle class jobs—large but not ostentatious. There are a few boring family pictures on the wall, cluttering the future path of the sound, as well as a magazine rack, a coffee table—easily disposed of. After that happens, * goes to the kitchen to make sandwiches and ** warms up the stereo. I root through the backpack to begin things.

Enjoyment of music depends a lot—maybe entirely—on environmental conditions. Because this is a clean house, and because twilight creeps through the bay windows like ivy, I decide we should dance to Steely Dan. We all have our own tastes, and that’s fine, but we all really like Steely Dan. The thing we like about Dan most is how the Eagles sing about him in ______. It’s during the part when the Eagles are talking about steely knives being unable to kill animals. A heartbreaking moment in code, especially if you’ve danced to Steely Dan lots of times in houses, listening to dogs barking in the basement.

—From Alan DeNiro's new collection Tyrannia and Other Renditions

More here.

[smallbeerpress]

Plight of the Sycophant by Alan DeNiro

The border between the two worlds is hard to describe but easy to feel under the skin. Even a few miles away, you can sense its effect, in ways that you’ll probably never understand. Much like when a person puts a gun in your mouth (though this has never happened to me). The bullet doesn’t leave the gun—anticipation is its own weapon. And fear. One must never forget fear.

You can have this unsettling feeling on either side of the border, though you will likely prefer one side to the other. One world to the other. The sun will be bright, as it always is in this part of the world—except, perhaps, for September—and the giant angels will be patrolling the mist, as they always do. There will often be rainbows, on account of this bright sun and the mist. They grow boring.

The border is not actually a wall but a waterfall. No one knows where the water comes from; there is never a cloud in the sky. But the water comes. The angels are rather mean and swear a lot. They wear bright, yellow ponchos, with a red script in their language up and down the sleeves. There is only one checkpoint, one place to cross by foot (although it is not advised) or car. The cars have to be coated in a certain type of myrrh, or else the border patrol would not even consider letting you cross. And even then you have to have the right kinds of papers, the right bribes. And—the hardest part—the right attitude. Angels will detain a person trying to cross for months, sometimes years, trying to find out what attitude a border-crosser might have. What desires they have. Their prisons near the gate are little cottages and are actually kind of cute.

—From Alan DeNiro's new collection Tyrannia and Other Renditions

More here.

[smallbeerpress]

"Walking Stick Fires" on All Hallows’ Eve Eve by Alan DeNiro

On All Hallows’ Eve Eve, Parka sat on his motorcycle in the unending desert. The moon was a low-hanging fruit. The blue fires of Casino were off in the far distance to the north. Parka pulled an apple out of his jacket pocket, cut it in half with his claw, and offered one half to his fellow traveler Jar.

“The apple has a pleasing scent,” Jar said before he ate it, crushing the apple into pulp with his mandibles.

“I would have to agree,” Parka said.

“Where did you procure it?”

“In a house outside of Casino.” He indicated the blazing pyramids and monoliths with his claw. “Two days ago. I forgot I had it. There it was, sitting on a kitchen table. Red and perfect.” When he finished eating the apple, Parka brushed off a posse of stick insects that landed on his shoulders.

“Hey, cool, walking sticks,” Jar said, brushing them off Parka’s jacket.

“Is that what the locals call them? I just don’t know where these bugs come from,” Parka said.

“They are everywhere,” Jar said, cleaning his mandibles with his fingers afterward.

Parka watched the walking sticks rattle on the hard desert ground.

“All right,” Parka said, kicking his motorcycle to life. The reactors shot into clutch for a second and then hummed. Jar followed with his. “Santa Fey then?”

—From Alan DeNiro's new collection Tyrannia and Other Renditions

More about the book here.

(And read more of the story here.)

[smallbeerpress]

Cudgel Springs by Alan DeNiro

Things aren’t working out too well here, are they? Or is it aren’t they. You’ll find out soon enough. Looks like there’s a train here. Let go of my hand, now. Now! My train of thought leads upstate, to your camp. It’s good you’re going. It’s a good camp. I’ll try to impart some advice in these few minutes we have left together.

For starters, it helps to dress like everyone else and speak like your friends. Or don’t speak at all if that floats your boat. Which is easier if you don’t have friends. It’s not advised where you are going. Finding friends, that is. I know this, I lurked there in my salad days. Don’t self-edit, but avoid embarrassment. Don’t assume everyone is staring at you because you’re crazy. You might be crazy, but that’s probably not why they’re staring at you. There are beasts in the old growth forest where you are going, and not all of them are quadrupeds. I’ve packed Deep Woods Off. It could help. What we’re talking about is honesty. An honesty in assessing situations you don’t understand.

— From Alan DeNiro's new collection, Tyrannia and Other Renditions

Moar: http://smallbeerpress.com/forthcoming/2013/03/14/tyrannia-and-other-renditions/