RavePRISM... a weird, mind blowing examination of identity and human relationships within the swirling black hole of modernity ... What might seem like a series of smart, Black Mirror style vignettes, Fu’s dystopian fables run much deeper; they aren’t actually about technology or disease, those well known monsters of the 21st century, but tales of the human condition, tattered and uncertain of itself. Over a dozen stories, characters fail to connect to one another or themselves, awash in dream states, consumed by lassitude, despairing or disinterested in who they are ... Despite the futuristic magic realism of many of the stories in Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Fu’s message is urgent, relevant, and real—she is interested in the way relationships enrich, damage, and mislead ... The dualism of mind and body, the way our physical and internal selves alter in the wake of biological and technological change, is beautifully laid out. Fu’s prose is bright and lyrical; she makes the supernatural every-day with clarity and ease reminiscent of Kelly Link or Samanta Schweblin. Her stories have a deep level of understanding of what the future could mean for the people trapped inside it. Fu is a writer out there on her own, investigating the places in time and space that require our attention.
Natalie Bakopoulos
RaveFull-StopBakapoulos’ prose has a detached clarity that makes room for emotion and feeling. Like a surgeon performing on their own heart, she is beautifully precise yet unafraid to reveal all in her storytelling ... Bakopoulos’ writing manages to be both intimate and amplified, she excels at creating inner worlds whilst simultaneously examining the wider society they inhabit. By granting us access to Mira and the Captain, Bakopoulos reveals broader truths about the immigrant experience, political power, art, history, childhood, the city and the sea. The elegant, direct prose style is so stripped of artifice the reader becomes fixed in the storytelling — there is simply no option to turn away. Nor is there any need to get distracted by contrived plot lines or decorative excess. Despite being rich in detail, Scorpionfish is also bare and essential in its message. Like all good books, it doesn’t seek answers but knows how to ask all the right questions.
