Greetings fellow kids of Tumbr. I want to share gift links for my Medium reviews of a bunch of tRaum books.
The occasion: all tRaum titles, including my high fantasy MAEJ, are on sale for a dollar apiece on Itch through the end of the month: https://traumbooks.itch.io/
You should read them all. (The books. Not necessarily the reviews.)
“Only when two hearts synchronise, becoming ready to risk vulnerability at the same time and at the right time, can young souls finally meet.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/a-e-a-review-f79fc11b0f1c?sk=0fbfbeb9c81654a0317a8aec96f37c9d
Airy Nothing by Clarissa Pattern
“…explores blurred boundaries — between female and male, between gay and hetero, between the mundane and the fae, and between theatre and real life.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/airy-nothing-a-review-a784ede6bafd?sk=54379d6058f7d5f736eb9ca2e0c05c4f
It Helps with the Blues by Bryan Cebulski
“…to desire to relate to someone can be to burden them — to be infatuated can be to instrumentalise another — to long for another human, that most natural of impulses, can be dehumanising.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/it-helps-with-the-blues-a-review-8d3864dc5f6e?sk=f3e3dbb1998a5aeb7a003667947c0f56
Corrupted Vessels by Briar Ripley Page
This “quick read with strong prose […] maps the psychology of queer characters enmeshed in extremist mysticism against a backdrop of mental illness and the occult.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/corrupted-vessels-a-review-d8002cb567e6?sk=8abc14a90f58b4ef64890bf5b829bf36
The more we learn about Maya, “the closer we get to a picture of who she is: sometimes perceptible, sometimes oracular, sometimes murdered, sometimes a bird.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/noema-a-review-a9aabdea3a61?sk=e69e0446a03d2a78e5286274cacdd632
A “wickedly funny epistolary novella […] told entirely in the form of query letter after query letter” as well as an activist’s cri de coeur.
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/query-a-review-ac9227231ee0?sk=d184a7ace1a7922d9cfa3811138a59d5
Most Famous Short Film of All Time by Tucker Lieberman
“…a mélange of ideas in the best sense: not merely a jumble, but a philosophical corkboard bristling with a fantastical variety of pins, each connected to the other by a fractal web of coloured yarn.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/most-famous-short-film-of-all-time-a-review-f49998aa0631?sk=af2160f808928f4a82f2a07f11a46c17
Read and Then Burn This by Ryszard Merey
“No story quite grips me like one which I can imagine the author feeling a twinge of dread about releasing…”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/read-and-then-burn-this-a-review-e0f491283087?sk=fe76498d7abf06e4480d6743cdb3607d
Something’s Not Right by yves.
Stories “where the magical blends in to the humdrum, leaving you imbued with a mood of unease, or sombreness, or amusement, or half-smiling hope.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/somethings-not-right-a-review-6ab1363e694c?sk=e5e9f920029b96e175f7d0b54042a7b2
Darknesses by Lachelle Seville
A novel which “understands and subtly acknowledges this ambiguity of love. It is a tale of loving a creature whose manifestations are all illusions.”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/darknesses-a-review-a333e9291560?sk=317a73438ccaafe4a876e7bd464d060d
Love/Aggression by June Martin
“…a sugar-rush of situational absurdity, wicked satire, hallucinatory imagery, and maximally burlesque characters…”
Gift link: https://medium.com/@dale.stromberg/love-aggression-a-review-897ec31fbced?sk=2a4dd24477cab459c251b71001cb20dc