Inspires...rangy feelings ... It’s a whirlwind tour of thought that develops into a philosophy of ecosystems fiction, and the notion that we might alter the centrality of the human in storytelling to find other, more profound conclusions ... Wilk’s first-person perspective is pervasive amid all the disparate references. The tangible sense of questing is relatable, but as a result, at times the book has the feel of something in progress ... I wish Wilk had gone a bit further ... It’s a book about the collision between Wilk as a writer and Wilk as a character.
Intellectually rigorous, unassumingly lyrical, obliquely intimate essays ... Wilk...has a deep and wide knowledge which brings forth many other examples—both past and contemporary, sci-fi and otherwise—of stories that evoke a weird disintegration of the plant-human distinction ... I would like to go on and on about this very fertile book, but TLDR: You should read it. You will want to reread it. Maybe you will want to kiss, lick, and cry over it; to eat it, break it down and re-form it into new ideas, new writing.
... argues compellingly that giving more space to the weird can help us reconsider our relationships to nature—and, even in the face of institutional inertia, exercise greater responsibility to each other.
Superb ... Her fiery intellect touches on ecology, dystopia, the female experience, virtual reality, and fiction writing ... Taken together, the essays are elegant and powerful. This one packs a punch.
