"Thought-provoking, inspired and inspiring... a choice pick for connoisseurs of nuanced literary fiction. Highly recommended." — Midwest Book Review
"From the darkest corners of the human mind, to the threads of dark humor that buoy perseverance... unforgettable from cover to cover." — Small Press Bookwatch
"Subdued, insightful tales of characters at dark points in their lives... Silver aptly couples sharp prose with playful narrative formats throughout this collection... There are intriguing thematic links among the tales..." — Kirkus Reviews
"...incisive, searching character-driven fiction with premises that touch on science-fiction... Silver proves adept at the speculative elements... But his heart is in those lowdown characters, whose cruelty and suffering prove harrowing - Silver's people struggle to retain their humanity in a society set up to stub it out." — Booklife by Publishers Weekly
This is a collection of stories, of words and ideas that flow like a dream, but is there anything less predictable or quite so fickle as a dream? Ken Silver creates narratives that are decidedly daring, and he is never afraid to reach, but never beyond the point at which (with lawyerly precision) he is unable to support his conclusions, scientifically or otherwise. Make no mistake though, it is hardly a tame piece of writing, but a rich harvest of beautifully imagined and thoroughly engrossing tales conceived by an original thinker who refuses to be shackled to curatorial conventions. Accordingly, each and every story, and the novel that follows, has a mind of their own.
The novel itself could only have been written by someone who had actually been there. It took more than research. It took a fashion designer, lawyer, and rainforest radical, but, most of all, it took a poet. Sip it slowly. It is a bold and complex selection and wants to be savored.
We offer some personal insights from an author who charts his own course:
“To write it is to live it. I only became the explorer I am when I conquered my fear of the dark. There are times my writing frightens me, but I never turn back. I follow the road wherever it takes me, to Dystopia’s doorstep – Utopia’s opposite – and beyond. My work is stripped of the innocence where fewer of us continue to reside, and is very much in the moment, in the darkest corners of our minds. And yet, wherever time takes us, laughter is sure to follow. It is part of the human paradox. Hence, much of the writing you see before you is garnished with humor. No one ever said that you can’t laugh in the dark.”
