Publisher’s Weekly has some things to say, some good, some not, which is what I would expect from a collection that has a lot of stylistic variety. Collections can’t please everyone. For example: “Weaker pieces rely on repetitive motifs and uncanny concepts stretched too-thin” but “The strongest entries allow Wexler’s accomplished prose ample elbow room.” I don’t agree with the part about weaker pieces, yet, obviously the reviewer is correct on the praising bits. Full review here.
Which is, well, in French. Google translate gets some of it. I liked this bit: “Robert Freeman Wexler cleanses your eyes and makes you more alive than you did before opening his novel.”
Larry from OF Blog of the Fallen has posted a very positive review here.
Also, Brendan Connell recently finished an interview with me that will be posted at Fantasy Book Spot in the next few weeks.
I’m pleased to find out that The Painting and the City is on the list Best Experimental Novels for 2009 at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography web site. And also pleased that The Babylonian Trilogy is on the list too.
I don’t think of my novel as experimental, but I’m glad to see someone notice it. He says: “One of my favorite genre authors out there right now, and it’s a shame that he’s not as well-known yet as many of his peers.”
I’m unfamiliar with most of the other authors but will have to look for them.
And in the googling oneself department…a new-to-me review of In Springdale Town from 2004, in Issue #269 of the journal of the SFRA (Science Fiction Research Association), available as a pdf.
From Michael Levy’s wrap-up of some small press publications:
“Robert Freeman Wexler’s quietly effective In Springdale Town from PS Publishing, concerns a peaceful New England village with a dark secret. The tale is beautifully written and reminded me a bit of the work of Elizabeth Hand. It received a rather odd mixed review in The NY Review of SF earlier this year which it didn’t really deserve, largely, I think, because the reviewer was offended by Lucius Shepard’s somewhat strange introduction.”
New review by Peter Tennant in Black Static 12 of The Painting and the City, part of a group of reviews of three other recent titles from PS. He says: “Wexler’s novel is uniquely his own, a slippery thing that, just when you think you’ve got a firm hold on it, is off somewhere else entirely.”
The Painting and the City reviewed by Lisa Tuttle in the Sunday Times: A “haunting tale from a distinctive new voice.” Read the whole review here.
New Painting and the City review by Amy Dodge at online magazine Mass Movement.
Laconic Writer 