A bizarre (or, more accurately, bizarro) and horrific
science fiction tale of this giant planet-eating thingamajigger that uses people
as sort of willing slaves to keep it cruising around the galaxy, doin’ its thang.
That’s all you’re going to get from me about plot on this
one. Otherwise I’ll just do it a disservice (if I haven’t already). But you can
read about the plot on Amazon or Goodreads if you want to know more. Let’s talk
about other things related to this book instead. I want to talk about Trevino’s
warped mind and how he applies it to his debut novella. He has a few obvious
strengths and likes to play to them (as any writer should). One of those
strengths is the ability to describe various grotesqueries with wicked style.
And, yes, thankfully there are a lot of those moments here. If you appreciate
body horror, there is much to relish in King Space Void. When Trevino goes full-blown
carnal is when the book really shines and gets extra wild. Maybe I’m just a
pervert, though. Stylistically, I think his prose works best when he’s doing
these short, sharp, almost rhythmic sentences. It happens pretty frequently, so
I have to believe it’s intentional. Overall, the prose is tight with only the
rare stray bit of vocabulary going to waste.
My only real complaint about King Space Void (at least on a
storytelling level) is its length. I know many would say it’s better to “leave
‘em wanting more,” but I think this book is an exception to that rule. Trevino
has created a potentially rich world here, but I think a lot of it remained in
his mind when it really deserved to be on the page. The vision was obviously
vast. I think this could have easily been a 300 or 400-page novel instead,
giving the characters and the overall strangeness of this book some more
breathing room. Is it a bad book at just under 100 pages? No. However, I think
it could have been even better with some extra girth, possibly fantastic.
Now I must move on to something that has nothing to do with
the story itself. A rant if you will. Maybe you’ll say this is nitpicking, but
I believe in my last post I already warned that could happen. Anyway…the
copyediting in this book is pretty much nonexistent. As someone who edits and
proofreads for a living, I can’t let this go unsaid. It irks me. Now, I’m not
perfect. I make editing mistakes (knowing my luck, there’s probably an error or
three in this post). It happens. Hell, I’ve caught a typo in a Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel before. But King Space Void has grammatical, spelling, and punctuation
errors on nearly every page. It’s a real bummer because it takes me out of a
story I’m enjoying because I have to figure out what went wrong, what was
trying to be conveyed, etc. I hate to call Eraserhead Press out on this, but
I’ve seen this happen in other books they’ve published. Guys and gals at
Eraserhead: you put out some cool, otherwise high-quality products…why is the
copyediting getting left behind? If you need a freelancer or something, hit me
up! Who needs sleep? Not this guy.
Leave it to me to cry for almost half the review about
errors. That’s how I roll. Trevino and his book don’t deserve that, though (but
that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make, you dig?). Don’t sweat the small
stuff…this book is worth picking up even if you don’t normally read bizarro
fiction. In many ways it’s more grounded than some of the other titles in the
genre (not TOO grounded, mind you). But it still has that sick, humorous edge you
might expect. It’s a satirically surreal trip down the mind of someone who
certainly has some more sickening tricks up his sleeve, and I’m looking forward
to seeing those.
Anthony Trevino also recently released the first issue of
his comic book, Fruition, which was illustrated by Kai Martin (who also did the
cover to King Space Void). Seek that sucker out. It’s an odd one and it’s
really, really cool.
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