To read a Nick Mamatas novel is to encounter literary references and pulp storytelling smashed headlong into one another, then recombined in eminently compelling ways. His latest book is the novel Kalivas! Or, Another Tempest, which transposes elements of a certain Shakespeare play to a post-human California. I asked Mamatas some questions about the novel’s genesis, what drew him to The Tempest, and some of his other unlikely literary cross-pollinations.
In our morning reading: new writing by Ilana Masad, an interview with Kelly Moran, and more.
In our morning reading: thoughts on Nisi Shawl’s new book, an interview with Tim Kinsella, and more.
In our morning reading: pondering the work of Seth, exploring the craft of novellas, and more.
When it comes to literary techniques, pastiche can be one of the most subtly volatile out there. Most of the time when it’s utilized, it’s effectively invisible — effectively cloaking an author’s work in the voice of another. When it’s done badly, it can be utterly unbearable; I’ve still never been able to make it through the segment of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier in which Alan Moore channels Jack Kerouac. There’s something about Cthulthu mythos stories that brings pastiche to the foreground — there’s a Lovecraftian Wodehouse pastiche in the aforementioned Black Dossier, for instance, and it’s far from the only one.
In our afternoon reading: an interview with Elisabeth Thomas, new writing from Sarah McCarry, and more.
In our afternoon reading: a playlist from Leland Cheuk, a conversation with Deborah Levy, and more.
There’s a telling moment to be found in the history of one of the stories in Nick Mamatas’s new collection The People’s Republic of Everything, likely the only collection you’ll encounter this year that includes both a counterfactual account of Trotsky’s early days and an account of a garden gnome-turned-nuclear weapon. It comes after “Slice of Life,” a tale of a particular corner of medical research and the philosophical tangents it inspires among those involved in it.