Every story here can be summarized as, "There's something unsettling. Maybe it gets slightly more unsettling; maybe it just stays the same level of unsettling. The end."

Song for the Unravelling of the World is like a fever dream of nihilistic visions. It’s masterfully written, utterly captivating and there isn’t a bad story in the collection. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like your horror bleak and bizarre.

SONG FOR THE UNRAVELING OF THE WORLD is another stunning collection by Evenson, who is easily the modern master of the weird tale. I found this collection to be incredibly charming, with surprising moments of delicious snark and bowls full of unsettling creepiness. These stories take place in worlds we don't see until it's too late. These are harrowing stories that involve very real people, and at times you feel their despair and at other times they horrify you with their actions. A stellar line...

Full review on Ink Heist if you're so inclined, but seriously. No words are adequate to describe or praise the eloquence and beauty of Brian Evenson's wonderful narratives. Only a read of the book will give you an inkling of the magic it contains. I can't recommend it enough. Buy it. Read it. You will love it.

Maybe this is not the most appropriate time to write an elegy for a writer but hear me out. I know we have lots and lots of years left of Brian Evenson stories but last week we lost Dennis Etchison. If you are not familiar with Dennis he was a writer who despite a few novels, screenplays, and radio dramas was an absolute master of short horror fiction. As a short story writer few reached the level of balancing creepy, delusional and paranoid scares that Dennis Etchison did with 10 or so pages. A...

Starts off well, but soon after, the formula becomes apparent. "Trigger Warnings" is such a whiny boomer screed that it lowered my opinion of the entire collection.

3.5 starsThis was a bit more uneven than I've come to expect from Brian Evenson, with a surfeit of rather unengaging and surprisingly graceless stories at the beginning of the volume. I'll admit that I was almost ready to give up on the book when I came upon "The Second Door". I immediately remembered this as being an impressive story I'd already read in Looming Low:Volume I and Year's Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 5 and wasn't surprised that I liked it just as much on a third reading. After that, ei...

Brian Evenson On his new story collection, writing, recommendations, and inspirations | More2ReadGirl with no face, therapy, therapists and being born still, fathers search for daughter missing with hint of her singing there but not there, reflections on parents and a sister dead,a strange home and dilemma,filmmaking by any means necessary, Hrafndis stragglers and the tower, a guy with gold suite and face on wrong side of his head,Man feeling.. someone is watching me, Crew gone expect one or two...

4/5Brian Evenson's fit squarely in the surreal horror category for me. This collection has many tales (20+) with each story averaging around 6-7 pages. As such, it made for a refreshing reset after my longer reads. While on the shorter end of things, Evenson is a supreme talent in how much existentialism, mood, and aura of mystery that he can evoke. His prose is matter of fact but punchy. The way he frames his stories are always interesting as well: most of the characters have odd names, there a...

‘After all, I already know I am not as stable as I have been led to believe. How hard could it possibly be to no longer be me?’Brian Evenson has a talent for conducting tone while turning the screw of tension and terror until you want to scream out. Song for the Unraveling of the World, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, is an endlessly enjoyable fright fest that navigates the bleak corners of the human psyche as well as it does monsters and other menace. A girl is born without a face, a man t...

There's nothing more exciting than reading work by an author who's completely singular and unique, an author that almost defies description. Brian Evenson is one of those writers. Anyone who's ever read any work by him knows what I'm talking about. I'm not quite sure how to even catogerize the stories included here, which is the first full story collection I've read by him. They're mostly horrifying, but not quite standard horror, there are some pieces with aliens and spaceships but I wouldn't q...

Brian Evenson seems to have reached a plateau in his short fiction. It is a high plateau, for sure, but I don't know if it's possible for him to climb any higher at this point without expanding his repertoire. This collection is a pretty typical blend of styles for him. I like his absurdist tendencies best, and unfortunately there wasn't a lot of that on display here. Instead there is a lot of paranoia, a lot of characters catching glimpses of the unknown just out of clear sight. There are also

Brian Evenson doesn't exaclty break new ground here, but he knows what he's good at and he does it better than anyone else. This collection explores Evenson's familiar themes of unknowability and existential alienation in his one again fun, but familiar settings: empty buildings, desolate houses, a skyscraper's ruins, etc. Perhaps my two favorite stories were A DISAPPEARANCE, which explores grief, judgement and appearances and SISTERS, which is just downright freaky. It could've been a straight

Brian Evenson is the king of creepy fiction and this collection deftly displays his range - from science to speculative fiction and the more subtle paranoia of mental horror genres, every story packs a powerful punch. Eerie and urgent, these stories are drenched in ambiguity and dread. They are hypnotically nightmarish and ruthlessly tease the reader by witholding just the right amount of detail to keep us ravenously craving more without turning us off. Some of my favorites include "No Matter Wh...

Extremely cool nightmares!

This is my first experience reading Evenson, and these are fantastic stories. Pushing the boundaries between good old fashioned horror and something closer to Weird Fiction, the stories collected here are visceral and raw, yet the minimalist style only adds to the dread and forboding. I'll definitely be checking out more of his books after this one.

Probably my favorite literary horror collection to date.Evenson’s ideas and prose are to be envied. I’ve loved everything I’ve read by him and they’ve ranged from horror to sci-fi to crime noir. This collection was published 2018, so like a band or artist, I anticipate some new release of writing now that we are halfway through 2020 😋Standout stories for me were:No Matter Which Way We TurnedSistersRoom ToneThe TowerLord of the VatsLine of SightTrigger Warnings (lmao, what a riot)Kindred Spirit

As with most short story collections, these varied quite a bit in quality, and should probably have been spaced out further than I did - after awhile a sameness set in and they weren't quite as surprising as initially thought. It is appropriate that the author has won awards named after O. Henry and Shirley Jackson, as both seem to have been models for these. Fun to read during Halloween though, as most have a spooky quality - several would make great 'Twilight Zone' episodes.

Brian Evenson's stories are almost always excellent, and this collection is no different. More unsettling than terrifying, most of these tales turn on the uncanny, particularly by doubling ("The Second Door"; "Wanderlust"; "Kindred Spirit"), but also on the sense of dislocation and dread found in unreliable perception and sensory anomalies ("Smear"; "Glasses"; "Line of Sight"). Some do both, because Evenson is just that good. I would be remiss if I didn't also note that the short, sharp, "Trigge...

It’s always exciting when our library acquires something new and scary for their digital catalog and obviously I just had to check it out if only to show support for their choices. And then I went to amazon for the page count (never begin a book without it) and noticed a list of praise for this collection, it went on and on and on. I mean, the best of words, the highest of accolades from the most respectable sources/authors/etc. Can a book possibly live up to such praises? Seemed impossible and