Fewg Stayt

That would be my rap name if i were a serious rapper and not just a drunken free-styler. I finished Brian Evenson's Fugue State this morning. I really liked it, but at the end I was left wondering, what is the difference between theme and redundancy? The stories in this collection are all pretty damn good on their own with some of them tying together, or at least feeling like they do later on. But I did feel, at the end, that I would've liked a little more variety thrown in. Especially towards the end, when I want to ride the common wave of the work as a whole while reaching to that next step to finish it off right. Paranoia and unreliability ooze from both "Fugue State" and the last story, "The Adjudicator". I got the same feeling from a lot of the stories.


There were definitely some gems, though. I would say that "In the Greenhouse" was the scariest story in there. Without the right pacing, I could see this story reading like an episode of Scooby-Doo, but Evenson knocks it out of the park. "Ninety Over Ninety" takes a step away from suspense and shows the reader a different kind of horror story: the publishing industry.


My final verdict is that I will read it again, but one story at a time, at sporadic intervals. The writing is very tight and can teach me a lot. But it needs a break. Up next is The End of Faith by Sam Harris.


There is also this:



Looks a little more practical to me. They're at least trying to show us things it can do that their other products can't.


Going to start playing this soon: