I Read Odd Books reviews A HOLLOW CUBE IS A LONELY SPACE

"Foster fucked nothing up."

http://ireadoddbooks.com/a-hollow-cube-is-a-lonely-space-by-s-d-foster/

Review of PLACENTA OF LOVE by Spike Marlowe (Eraserhead Press, 2011)

Much like a feature-length, adults-only episode of Futurama, this novella is a deranged cartoon set in space. In an alternate future, the planet Venus has been transformed into a theme park catering for both big and small. On the one hand, it's a place of childhood fantasy, of laughter, light and life, where the atmosphere is made of cotton candy and every dream comes true. On the other, it’s a place of dark adult desire, of cabarets and fetishistic sex, of gruesome death and funeral pyres, where nightmares can’t be contained by sleep. This polarity is mirrored by the characters: a naïve, childlike pirate, Captain Carl, who uses a dildo as a finger; a worldly-wise cat, Jiji, who likes nothing more than a good spanking; an insatiable placenta, Helen, creator and destroyer. Here, the dividing line between friend and foe is indistinct. A supposed enemy may, in fact, be an ally; a lover may transform into a monster. And it’s rendered in brilliant, kaleidoscopic detail, the attention to color and texture akin to that in Carlton Mellick’s The Cannibals of Candyland, the horror as sticky and bloody and icky as Chuck Russell’s remake of The Blob. A book which is a pleasure—at times, an uncomfortable one—to read, a sickly sweet, sweetly sick love story.

Review of THE CRUD MASTERS by Justin Grimbol (Eraserhead Press, 2011)

The story of two competing gangs, the elite NOLA and eponymous Crud Masters, this novella crossbreeds 1970s exploitation movies—turf wars, sordid sex, a high-tech, dystopian future in which the noble poor are pitted against the undeserving rich—with some classic, Toho-style kaiju action. I love the setting: a coastal tourist hotspot whose waters are alive with giant monsters of every mutation. And, even more, I love the array of filthy yet sympathetic characters, whose perversions and personal habits are akin to those of the characters in a Jordan Krall novel: Boogers, the anti-hero with a nasal spray addiction; Soda Can, the sexbot with a pelvic fire hose; Bovy, the girl with big breasts and an even bigger body odor; Uncle Grandpa, the stubborn old redneck who is neither an uncle nor a grandpa; Pvssy Bear, the bear with…fur. Unlike the characters, the prose is clean. It reads very smoothly, and the narrative moves swiftly, building to a satisfying and gloriously over-the-top climax (the last and largest of many, um, climaxes, I might add). A book which is a distillation of all my favorite movies into sixteen short chapters of non-stop literary bedlam, and one I’ll definitely return to in the high-tech, dystopian future awaiting us all.

Review of A HOLLOW CUBE IS A LONELY SPACE and interview with S.D. Foster @ Butt Shark University

http://buttsharkuniversity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/hollow-cube-is-lonely-space-by-sd.html