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briandice's review against another edition
5.0
I recall the day I finished my last H.P. Lovecraft story like some people do the day Kennedy was shot. Not unlike a rainy day slush fund, I saved it for that time when everything else I would try to read didn't even touch the sides going down; we've all been there and are grateful to that work of fiction that scours off the leprous words from books with no soul. (N.B. These were the Wilderness days, pre-GR when I was alone in my choosing of next read before I knew all of you wonderful people and your talent of providing recommendations that lead me back to the Path).
So I can't properly express how over-the-moon I was to find an author that writes Lovecraftian stories that echo H.P. - and yet are creations that stand on their own. This is no mere fanfic shadowing - Cisco has the chops and inventive imagination to world build (and destroy) in his own right. Cisco's writing might be an homage to the master but he brings the Reader to that same dark place via roads of his own paving.
I am so very happy there are more Cisco works for me to devour. And thanks again to Mark Monday for this recommendation (you have yet to fail me, good sir!)
So I can't properly express how over-the-moon I was to find an author that writes Lovecraftian stories that echo H.P. - and yet are creations that stand on their own. This is no mere fanfic shadowing - Cisco has the chops and inventive imagination to world build (and destroy) in his own right. Cisco's writing might be an homage to the master but he brings the Reader to that same dark place via roads of his own paving.
I am so very happy there are more Cisco works for me to devour. And thanks again to Mark Monday for this recommendation (you have yet to fail me, good sir!)
naokamiya's review against another edition
4.0
My first brush with Cisco and a really promising one. Some are stories, some are fragments and prose experiments, all are surreal and disquieting while never quite going for the jugular and it firmly lands them in the realm of weird fiction rather than horror. Cisco's writing isn't easy; stories are dense despite short lengths and flowing with layered metanarrative material to chew on for a long time, and there's no handholding in understanding exactly what is going on and for what reason, with the exception of perhaps a couple tales. But what Cisco nails most potently is atmosphere; liberation from the senses and floating into a dreamy negative space, it seems like all these stories take place in some nebulously defined alternate dimension that's just a few paces away from ours. Uncanny in the Ligotti/Kafka tradition while bearing enough interesting takes on Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cycle to achieve wonderful synchronicity between these styles of weird lit. Going to try something longer after this because I feel Cisco can only improve from this already great framework, thinking maybe "The Divinity Student" or "The Narrator" for my first taste of his full-length work.
mamimitanaka's review against another edition
4.0
My first brush with Cisco and a really promising one. Some are stories, some are fragments and prose experiments, all are surreal and disquieting while never quite going for the jugular and it firmly lands them in the realm of weird fiction rather than horror. Cisco's writing isn't easy; stories are dense despite short lengths and flowing with layered metanarrative material to chew on for a long time, and there's no handholding in understanding exactly what is going on and for what reason, with the exception of perhaps a couple tales. But what Cisco nails most potently is atmosphere; liberation from the senses and floating into a dreamy negative space, it seems like all these stories take place in some nebulously defined alternate dimension that's just a few paces away from ours. Uncanny in the Ligotti/Kafka tradition while bearing enough interesting takes on Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cycle to achieve wonderful synchronicity between these styles of weird lit. Going to try something longer after this because I feel Cisco can only improve from this already great framework, thinking maybe "The Divinity Student" or "The Narrator" for my first taste of his full-length work.
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