Subscribe to Read | $0.00
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Read Anywhere and on Any Device!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
Another powerful collection by one of the field's best new talents.
There is no doubt that Michael Griffin is a skilled author of weird fiction. I loved his earlier collection, The Lure of Devouring Light. However, The Human Alchemy did not quite hit home for me. The writing is excellent, but I felt that some of the stories lacked resolution. Not the type of resolution that explains outcome in detail, but the kind of acuity that is felt intuitively. Still, this is a cosmic mélange worth exploring, especially for the inclusion of An Ideal Retreat, which was forme...
A fantastic collection of modern weird tales. I particularly enjoyed “The Slipping of Stones” and “The Tidal Pull of Salt and Sand” (what a title!). The absorbing and subtly powerful novella “An Ideal Retreat” was another favorite, along with “Endure Within a Dying Frame.”
It is rare that I have the urge to read more than one anthologie of an author in one year. Michael Griffin is one of the exceptions on my shelf. Like in "The Lure of Devouring Light" we are offered a collection of stories of quiet, intimate horror. Nothing in here is really scary but plenty of it is indeed disturbing, no less so when you start to see yourself in those narratives centered around relationsips, failure, dreams and delusions.
Thank you to Word Horde and the author for giving me a copy to read and review.3.5 stars!This is a difficult collection to review. Imagine, if you will, a target zone like a bullseye. Visualize me reading these stories and some of the stories landing right there in the center. The zone. Then picture other stories hitting those outer rings; still others were flying right outside the whole target into free space. This is how the collection feels to me. The stories that landed right there in the ce...
Stylish, literary dark fantasy (maybe?) that focuses on the inner lives and rationalizations of its characters. Michael Griffin is drawing on a Lovecraft-inspired tradition that foreground's Lovecraft's occasional philosophical asides by his characters. Thomas Ligotti is part of this lineage, as are people like Matt Cardin and John Langan. There are long passages of inner monologue in these stories, where characters think through their lives, their circumstances, and their beliefs. Sometimes I f...
Michael Griffin's new collection, The Human Alchemy, is visceral, cerebral, as if you're inside the protagonists' head through each story, along for the strange, maddening ride.Griffin's writing is more honed in this collection, and it's clear that he has improved his craft since The Lure of Devouring Light.My favorite stories from the collection are: Firedancing, The Smoke Lodge, The Tidal Pull of Salt and Sand, Delirium Sings at the Maelstrom Window, Endure Within a Dying Frame, and The Human
There is so much I want to say about The Human Alchemy. The prose are composed by one of the best writers currently out there, every story left me thinking about it well after I put the book down for the night. But then I think what can I say that isn’t better said in the introduction by S.P. Miskowski, which in a couple pages is a great examination of both the author’s work specifically and the state of weird fiction in general. She writes, “Often Griffin’s tales of longing and loss express a d...
English - Español———————————————”Away from the humdrum, toward the beautiful strange.”This sentence, taken from the story that closes the second collection of short fiction from Michael Griffin, sums up what you are going to find in these pages: a love for the strange - celebrated disturbingly in this turn of the screw to Frankenstein that puts an end to the book - stained always with poetry, with a devotion for crafting evocative sentences and atmospheres.Even if labels are always unfair, much
This is Michael Griffin’s second collection and I had a much easier time with this one. Lots of great ideas for stories with great atmosphere. The Novella ‘An Ideal Retreat’ felt like relaxing into a warm bath whilst reading as it had a great atmosphere you can soak in. Other faves include ‘The Only Way Out is Down’ and ‘Delirium Sings in the Maelstrom Window’ which I’m sure had a few Lovecraft references? Is the Music of Zahn from Lovecraft?Anyway ratings are below:- Fire Dancing (7)- The Smoke...
A remarkably cohesive collection filled with refined, flowing prose. The Human Alchemy is an impressive leap forward in terms of artistry and skill. Like most people, I was won over by Griffin's previous collection, The Lure of Devouring Light, and he's only gotten better. The style here is toned down a bit, more assured, and the themes of each story almost seem to nest within one another. I'd previously read many of the stories in this collection, and I was surprised by how much I got out of re...
At its finest, Griffin's fiction is poetic and provocative, populated by coarse prose and themes that are personal, sympathetic, and ardent. The stories in this collection which best represent this are 'The Slipping of Stones,' 'The Tidal Pull of Salt and Sand,' 'Delirium Sings at the Maelstrom Window,' and 'The Human Alchemy.' Independently, these stories playfully engage in Griffin's constant motifs, interests, and ideas -- artisan alcohol, experimental music and painting, lost and unobtainabl...
