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Cataclysm Baby (2012)

by Matt Bell(Favorite Author)

4.45 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0983026378 (ISBN13: 9780983026372)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Mud Luscious Press

review 1: I'm a sucker for poetic descriptions of the end of the world and you'll get that in spades with Cataclysm Baby. But that'll only carry you so far. In these stories, the real human dread of being a parent, of introducing some defenseless child into a world that will immediately start trying to kill it and who will in turn seem to try to kill you, is reflected in that fun-house mirror way of magical realism. Sure there's an element of Invisible Cities/Sum/Einstein's Dreams in the highly conceptual structure of the book, but that just means it's in good company, right where it belongs.
review 2: It is to Bell's credit that he can upend the reader's expected emotional response. For example, in "The Collectors," the reader is made to understand the emotional impact ... moreof hoarding, empathizing with characters whom we might have otherwise written off as disgusting, not worthy of mention, etc. Certainly in CATACLYSM BABY we should empathize with these parents, literally & figuratively torn apart by their Children of the Apocalypse. But Bell is a master of absence - what we don't know is how the world got this way. But it is surely a world of the parents' making. That subtle shift of empathy, from parent to child, makes this a conflicted/ conflicting read. And that little bit of unstated truth, a truth that defines & confines his characters, is what makes all of Bell's works oh, so special. Brilliantly executed, sir. less

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