A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

The sequel to The Darkness Outside of Us. I enjoyed it! It's both interestingly different from the first book and is satisfying on the level of "I want more of this," which is exactly what one wants from a sequel.

Literally everything about this book is massively spoilery for the first one, including its premise. I'll do two sets of spoiler cuts, one for the premise and one for the whole book.

( Premise spoilers )

Stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled for the entire book.


( Entire book spoilers )

One rainy day Kanade, a high school student, finds a mouse-sized cat in his room. It's a fairy cat or "palm-sized cat!" They are elusive magical creatures which sometimes adopt humans, but mostly behave like ordinary cats. Only extra-tiny!

That's about it for the plot. What this manga is actually about is showing an incredibly adorable tiny cat being an incredibly adorable tiny cat. It's an incredibly adorable manga. Proof:

Brom was a fantasy illustrator before he started writing his own books. They all contain spectacular color plates as well as black and white illustrations, which add a lot to the story.

Krampus opens with a prologue of the imprisoned Krampus vowing revenge on Santa Claus, then cuts to Santa Claus being chased through a trailer park by horned goblins, one of whom falls to his death when Santa escapes on his sleigh drawn by flying reindeer.

But he left his sack behind, which is promptly picked up Jesse, who just moments previously was considering suicide because he's basically a character from a country song: he's broke; his wife left him, taking their kid with her, and she's now with the town sheriff; Jesse never had the music career he wanted because of poor self-esteem and stage fright, AND he's being forced to do dangerous drug smuggling by the crime lord who runs the town with help from the sheriff. Santa's sack will provide any toy you want, but only toys; Jesse, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, uses it get his daughter every toy she's ever wanted, so now his wife thinks he stole them and the corrupt sheriff is on his ass again. And so are Krampus's band of Bellsnickles, who also want the sack because it's the key to freeing Krampus...

This book is absolutely nuts. The tone isn't as absurd as the summary might make it sound; it is often pretty funny, but it's more of a mythic fantasy meets gritty crime drama, sort of like Charles de Lint was writing in the 80s. Absolutely the best part is when Krampus finally gets to be Krampus in the modern day, spreading Yule tidings, terrorizing suburban adults, and terrifying but also delighting suburban children.

Ben is on a work trip, away from his wife and three young children, when he decides to take a hike through the woods by his hotel. Ben sees a man with a Rottweiler face disposing of a corpse, and flees into the woods with the dog man pursuing him.

The next thing he knows, he's trapped in a surreal world halfway between a nightmare and a video game. It often involves distorted reflections of his own past - Ben has a scar on his face from a Rottweiler bite and he keeps getting attacked by Rottweiler-faced men, an old lover appears at the age she was when he last saw her, and he befriends a talking crab that knows a suspicious amount about him. He has to stay on the path, or he'll die. A mysterious old woman gives him tasks and tells him the only way he can get home is to find the Producer. Things appear and disappear in a very dreamlike manner, the scene shifting from a cannibal giant's castle to a hovercraft to a desert. After each ordeal, he gets a banquet with champagne.

This extremely weird book is a bit like a dreamlike, horror-inflected Alice in Wonderland for bros. I almost gave up on it halfway through - it was so "one random thing after another and the whole thing is clearly not real" that I got bored - but that's when something happened that intrigued me enough to continue. It doesn't need to be as long as it is - it's a short book that would have been better as a novelette - but the ending, while not explaining all that much, still manages to be satisfying.

I wouldn't re-read this - the actual reading experience often felt like a slog - but it was definitely different and had some good twists, so I'm not sorry I read it. I suspect there's some overlap in readership between this and Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Don't read the spoilers if there's any chance you'll actually read the book.

( Spoilers! )

Probably it's all a metaphor for life.

Content notes: Horror-typical gore and gross-outs.

Mosscap and Dex's adventures continue from where they left off. They visit human places, including Dex's large and confusing family. Mosscap has a brush with mortality. Dex does not return to being a tea monk, their vocation still up in the air.

I enjoyed this novella for much the same reasons I enjoyed the first one, though I missed the tea service, which was my favorite part of the first book. Mosscap does turn out to be fallible and learns from Dex as much as Dex learns from it, which was nice. My favorite part of this book was the glimpses of the world, which still seems like an extremely nice place to live in.

If you've never heard of Carroll, he wrote odd, quirky, dark, magical realist/surrealist novels and short stories. Probably his most famous book was Land of Laughs. I found his style compulsively readable, though he was absolutely unable to write a satisfying ending to his novels, ever; generally there would be a fantastic buildup followed by either an anticlimax or the book just suddenly stopping or a conclusion where I'd have no idea what actually happened. Still, I did very much like his style and often enjoyed the first half or two-thirds or 99% of his novels quite a bit. (His short stories were sometimes fully successful and did have actual endings.)

I came across After Silence at a used bookshop, and was surprised as I'd never heard of it. I now realize there's a reason I've never heard of it. As far as I know, it's his only non-fantasy work. At least I think it's not fantasy. It has a solid build-up, then completely falls apart in the final third leading to a truly bizarre ending. Definitely my least favorite book of his.

It begins in a somewhat Carroll-typical fashion, with the main character, a cartoonist named Max, having a meet-cute with a woman, Lily, and her young son Lincoln in a museum. It's Carroll-typical because Max's somewhat successful cartoon is deeply weird, Lily takes him to the restaurant where she works which is charmingly weird, and there's hints that something odd is up with her and Lincoln that deepen as the three of them have quirky adventures and form a family.

( Huge spoilers )

To be fair to Carroll, this really isn't typical of his writing. Even his best novels feel a bit dated in addition to always imploding at the end, but I do still like Bones of the Moon, Land of Laughs, and the first half of Outside the Dog Museum. His short stories are worth reading and hold up better. I especially like "Friend's Best Man" and "The Sadness of Detail."

It's a zombie apocalypse, only instead of zombies, there's cats.



In a future in which 90% of the population owned a cat, a strange virus spreads. If you cuddle a cat, or a cat nuzzles you, you turn into a cat! It's a catastrophe! A catlamity! A nyandemic!





Not only are cats everywhere, but the cats are either instinctively trying to turn humans into cats, or they just want to be petted. Cue every zombie movie scene ever, but with cats. Cats scratch at the doors! Cats peer through the windows! Groups of cats ambush you in tunnels!

The characters are all very upset by this, because they love cats! And now there's cats everywhere, just begging to be skritched! And they can't skritch them! "We can't even squish their little toe beans!" The horror!

Needless to say, they would never ever harm a cat. In fact they feel bad when they're forced to spray cats with water to shoo them away.

I'm not sure how this can possibly be sustained for seven volumes, but on the other hand I could happily read seven volumes of it. The cat art is really fun and adorable. I would definitely do better in a zombie apocalypse than a cat apocalypse, because I would never be able to resist those cats.

Content notes: None, the cats are fine.

This is a difficult book to review as almost all of the plot is technically spoilery, but you can also figure out a lot of it from about page three. I'll synopsize the first two chapters here. We follow two storylines, both set in an alternate England where Hitler was assassinated in 1943 and England made peace with Germany.

In one storyline, a young girl named Nancy lives an isolated life with her parents. In the other, which gets much more page time, three identical young boys are raised by three "mothers," in a home in extremely weird circumstances. They rarely see the outside world, they're often sick and take medicine, their dreams are meticulously recorded by the "mothers," and all their schooling comes from a set of weird encyclopedias that supposedly contain all the knowledge in the world, which are also the only books they have access to. There used to be 40 boys, but when they recover from their mysterious illness, they get to go to Margate, a wonderful vacationland, forever.

I'm sure you can figure out the general outline of what's going on with the boys, at least, just from this. What's up with the girl doesn't become clear for a while.


( Spoilers through about the 40% mark )



( Spoilers for the entire book )



This book was critically acclaimed - it was a Kirkus best book of 2025 - but I thought it had major flaws, which unfortunately I can only describe by spoiling the entire book. It's not at all an original idea, and I do think we're supposed to be ahead of the characters, but maybe not that much ahead. It also contained a trope which I hate very much and its thesis contradicted itself, but how, again, is under the end cut. It's a very serious book about very serious real life stuff, but that part really didn't work for me because of spoilers.


Lots of people loved it though. It would probably make an interesting paired reading with a certain very acclaimed spoilery book (( Read more... )), which I have not read as I have been spoiled for the entire story and it doesn't really sound like something I'd enjoy no matter how great it is. But I suspect that it's the better version of this book.



Content Notes (spoilery): ( Read more... )

My New Year's resolution is to attempt to review every full-length published book that I read this year. We'll see how it goes. For my first full-length read of 2026, which is obviously highly symbolic, I have of course carefully selected a beautifully written novel with deep themes and social importance.

Just kidding! I randomly picked up a trashy beach read novel from the 80s, purchased at a thrift shop, while in the bathroom, got surprisingly engrossed in it, and took it out of the bathroom to read on the sofa. Which, to be fair, is probably symbolic of both the year to come and my reading habits in general.



Above an exclusive men's store on Rodeo Drive there is a private club called Butterfly, where women are free to act out their secret erotic fantasies.

I have a thing for "fancy sex club/brothel with highly-paid sex workers who like their jobs and fulfill your erotic fantasies." So I bought this book (50 cents, at a thrift shop) and actually read it even though it's in a genre I almost never read, which is the fat beach read about rich people's sex lives written in the 1980s.

Butterfly follows three women who patronize the club, Butterfly. It's named for the beautiful little butterfly charm bracelets women wear to the store to identify themselves to the staff as patrons of the club, so they can be whisked upstairs to have their sexual fantasies satisfied (just by men, alas), whether that means recreating a cowboy bar complete with sawdust on the floor to a bedroom where a sexy burglar breaks in to a dinner date where you argue about books, yes really. The women are all accomplished and successful, but have something missing or wrong in their lives: the surgeon can't have an orgasm, the pool designer deals with on the job sexism, and the lawyer is married to an emotionally abusive asshole. Their time at Butterfly leads, whether directly or indirectly, to positive changes in their lives.

( Spoilers are almost certainly not what you're expecting. )

This novel, while dealing seriously with some serious topics, is also basically a fun beach read. I read it in winter with a space heater and hot cider, which also works. I'm not sure it converted me to the general genre of 80s beach reads, but I sincerely enjoyed it.

Content notes: Child sexual abuse, child sexual slavery (not at the Butterfly sex club, everyone's a consenting adult there), forced abortion, emotional abuse.

2025: A horrible year! Except for reading.

I see that I got increasingly too busy to actually write reviews, and also that the better a book is, the harder and more time-consuming it is to review. I will try to review at least some of these this year, and also to be more diligent about reviewing books soon after I actually read them.

The Tainted Cup & A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Very, very enjoyable fantasy mysteries set in a very, very odd world whose technology and science is biology-based magic and kaiju attack every monsoon. The detectives are a very likable odd couple thinker/doer in the tradition of Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin or Hercule Poirot/Hastings, except that the eccentric thinker is a cantankerous old woman.

The Daughter's War, by Christopher Buehlman. This is a prequel to Blacktongue Thief; I liked that but I loved this. A dark fantasy novel in the form of a war memoir by a woman who enlisted into the experimental WAR CORVID battalion after so many men got killed in the battle against the goblins that they started drafting women. War is hell and the tone is much more somber than the first book as Galva isn't a wisecracker, but her own distinct voice and the WAR CORVIDS carry you through. You can read the books in either order; either way, the ending of each will hit harder emotionally if you've read the other first.

Arboreality, by Rebecca Campbell. I like to sell this in my bookshop as a mystery parcel labeled, in green Sharpie, "A green book. A mossy, woodsy, leafy book. A hopeful post-apocalyptic novel of the forest."

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty. The heroine is a middle-aged, single mom pirate dragged out of retirement for one last adventure, the setting is a fantasy Middle East, and it's just as fun as the description sounds.

The Bog Wife, by Kay Chronister. When the patriarch dies, the oldest son summons a wife from the bog to bear his children. Only the family is now in modern Appalachia rather than ancient Scotland, they're living in miserable conditions, and the last bog wife vanished under mysterious circumstances. Is there even a bog wife, or is this just a very small cult? (Or is there a bog wife and it's a very small cult?) A haunting, ambiguous, atmospheric novel.

The Everlasting, by Alix Harrow. This is probably my favorite book of the year. It's a time travel novel that's also an alternate version of the King Arthur story where most of the main characters are women, and it's also about living under and resisting fascism, and it's also a really fantastic love story with such hot sex scenes that it made me remember that sex scenes are hottest when they're based in character. (If you like loyalty/fealty kink, you will love this book.) It's got a lot going on but it all works together; the prose is sometimes very beautiful; it's got enough interesting gender themes that I'd nominate it for the Otherwise (Tiptree) award if I was a nominator. An excellent, excellent book.

King Sorrow, by Joe Hill. I've had mixed experiences reading Joe Hill but this book was fantastic. It's a big blockbuster dark fantasy novel that reads a bit like Stephen King in his prime, and I'm not saying that just because of Hill's parentage. Five college kids (and a non-college friend) summon an ancient, evil dragon to get rid of some truly terrible blackmailers. King Sorrow obliges, but they then need to give him another name every year. It's an enormous brick of a book and I'd probably only cut a couple chapters if I was the editor; it's long because there's a lot going on. Each section is written in the style of a different genre, so it starts off as a gritty crime thriller, then moves to Tolkien-esque fantasy, then Firestarter-esque psychic thriller, etc. This is just a blast to read.

Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones. Another outstanding horror novel by Jones. This one is mostly historical, borrowing from Interview with the Vampire for part of its frame story, in which a Blackfeet vampire named Good Stab tells his life story to a white priest. It's got a great voice, it's very inventive, it has outstanding set pieces, and it's extremely heartbreaking and enraging due to engaging with colonialist genocide, massacres, and the slaughter of the buffalo.

Hemlock & Silver , by T. Kingfisher. A very enjoyable fantasy with interesting horror and science fiction elements.

What Moves the Dead, What Feasts at Night, What Stalks the Deep, by T. Kingfisher. A set of novellas, the first two horror and the third mostly not, with a main character I really liked who's nonbinary in a very unique, culturally bound way. I particularly liked that this is lived and discussed in a way that does not feel like 2023 Tumblr. They're also just quick, fun, engrossing reads.

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle. An excellent historical fantasy with elements of horror, based on Montana's unique homesteading law which did not specify the race or gender of homesteaders, allowing black women to homestead. So Adelaide flees California for Montana, dragging with her an enormous locked steamer trunk, too heavy for anyone but her to lift, which she never, ever opens...

We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough. What can I say? I really enjoy a good twist, and this has a doozy. Also, a great ending.

Pranksters vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Nonviolent Activism, by Srđa Popović. How to fight fascism with targeted mockery and other forms of nonviolent actions designed to put your opposition in an unwinnable situation. This costs five bucks, you can read it in less than two hours, and it was written by the leader of one of the student movements that helped overthrow Slobodan Milošević. This is not a naive book and it is very much worth reading.

Under One Banner, by Graydon Saunders. Commonweal # 4. Don't start here. I liked this a lot, hope to write about it in pieces when I re-read it, and was surprised and pleased to discover that it is largely about the ethics of magical neurosurgery and other forms of magical mental/neurological care/alteration.

Troubled Waters, by Sharon Shinn. A lovely, character-driven, small-scale fantasy. I wish this book had been the model for cozy fantasy, because it actually is one, only it has stakes and stuff happens. Also, one of the most original magic systems I've come across in a while.

Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. An outstanding first-contact novel with REALLY alien aliens.

Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. I guess the premise is spoilery? ( Read more... ) That's not a criticism, I loved the book. Funny, moving, exciting, and a perfect last line. This is probably duking it out with The Everlasting for my favorite of the year.

I also very much enjoyed American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett, The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman, Dinotopia by James Gurney, Open Throat by Henry Hoke, When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb, Elatsoe by Darcy Little Badger, The Bewitching & Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Sisters of the Vast Black, by Lina Rather, Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, Liberated: The Radical Art and Life of Claude Cahun, by Kaz Rowe, Into the Raging Sea, by Rachel Slade, The Haar by David Sodergren, The Journey by Joyce Carol Thomas, Strange Pictures/Strange Houses by Uketsu, Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig, and An Immense World, by Ed Yong.

I'm probably forgetting some books. Sorry, forgotten books!

Did you read any of these? What did you think?