Without diminishing that larger disaster, ZoBell moves as deep into the repercussions of what happened to those on the ground as any writer would ever dare. She allows the drama, horror, humor, and humanity one would expect of those who experience something like this event to occur naturally.
How do you even describe How I Met the Apocalypse? It’s a dream that you get when the couch has eaten half your spirit, the cough syrup is drowning your organs, and there are too many things to watch on TV. It’s haunting a lot of time, but quite frankly hilarious in a number of places, as well.
What makes the content of The World of Ice and Fire twice as interesting is that we don’t get all the information we might desire, as odd as that might sound. The maester writing admits that it is impossible to fully know all historical events and that some records contradict one another and he therefore gives us both. There are certain events that appear concrete, but some are still ambiguous enough to keep us wondering.
It was 2009 when Reif Larsen’s debut novel, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, first appeared. The novel follows the accomplishments and journey of a young, intelligent, and brave mapmaker named T.S. Spivet. Besides the glorious words, T.S. Spivet uses a variety of sketches and charts to tell its story. The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is the kind of novel that signals the arrival of a unique talent—the kind of writer you can’t wait to read more from. It took six years, but, finally, Reif Larsen is back with his follow-up.
Through it all, Larsen remains a trusted storyteller. His prose is remarkably clean, and the way he paces his mammoth novel is rather impressive. He even includes maps and diagrams. In a lesser-talented writer’s hands, such inclusions might come off as pretentious gimmicks, but here they seem like necessary additions.
There’s a common theme running through most of the poems in Clouds of Hungry Dogs, and it’s as difficult to pin down as the affection that replaces love when mutual respect is obstructed by a sudden onset of mental illness and/or other catastrophe, or the simple and less-exciting slow fade of love that follows a slightly disappointing wedding, or the desperate love between an unfit mother and her surviving children.