This book is a beautiful character study, a haunting crystallization of AIDS and serial killers into a supernatural being, a testament to queer horror and queer resilience, a micro history of a Toronto neighborhood, and a memoir of a man haunted by his fears and loves. It’s a delicate balancing act, one that doesn’t always land the balance but its ambition is admirable.

THREE STAR REVIEW, READ FOR DETAILS

I can’t in good conscience give this rating higher than 1 star for its use of AI imagery, credited to Jett Jacobsen, her son and CEO + Cofounder of Onscript, an AI script coverage platform. It’s an embarrassment these images made it to publication. A generated image of a cruise ship with arrows depicting its height and length sitting above a paragraph where that is detailed below. A map of the world with connecting lines between countries and cities to emphasize communication. They make a book that should feel saturated with information feel like a college student scrambling to meet a page limit. After noticing the first OpenAI image generation credit, I couldn’t help myself from picking this thought experiment apart in an admittedly unfair manner. Left an incredible bad taste in my mouth, especially as Nuclear War was my favorite book of last year. Annie should feel bad because they do nothing to supplement her text. The publisher should feel bad about approving them.

Thoughts on the book as it doesn’t relate to AI usage: It excels in the same manner Nuclear War: A Scenario (NW) does in striking fear and panic in the reader. NW not having a clear modern parallel, it felt grounded in a level of seriousness. With Covid in the rearview mirror (objects closer than they may seem), you can feel Jacobsen having a little more fun here discussing the manner the hypothetical president speaks, the videos influencers would be sharing, clearly retrofitting events from that pandemic onto this fictional one. It’s a slightly less thrilling read than NW for that reason. An exaggerated experience from Covid, of course, but nowhere near the imaginary horror of NW.

This collection blew me away!

Richard Hell certainly knows how to write, but I just didn’t care much for the central story. Maybe it’s just because I’m not tapped in to the world of poetry. All of the side digressions surrounding it, however? Great stuff. Reminds me a lot of Burroughs’ Queer, though that was a more enjoyable read for me.

T, young and brash and stupid, was just too frustrating for me to find any real potential sympathy or adoration for, and made me question Paul’s judgement (which is intentional!). I just couldn’t find a way to grapple with T. Too young for his and my own good.

Had a blast with this. Extremely tight novel. We should actually delete all influencers accounts I think