... reaches below a dazzling surface of weirdness to illuminate subterranean emotions and circumstances from the real world that are rarely afforded precise language ... These stories sparkle with craft from first sentence to last line, careening through genres with prose that’s unexpected and satisfying ... Other fabulist stories are similarly incanted in a first-person plural perspective that builds not only worlds, but also political vibrancy ... Stories that lend themselves to layered interpretations are still shot through with mystery that eludes definition. Startling premises drive toward a nutty absurdity reminiscent of Nikolai Gogol, Kelly Link and perhaps George Saunders, which only enhances their emotional charge...However, there are also realistic stories and stories that resist purpose-built mechanics of extended metaphors. They’re dreamier and less cerebral, gaining emotional resonance with every turn ... Each of Peynado’s stories is finely formed as a diamond, grounded in unpredictable yet telling details. While they previously found individual homes in major literary magazines and received awards, they are spectacularly orchestrated here to form a coherent whole. Wily but throbbing with heart, they dart into unexpected crevices of human experience you may not have known you wanted to see ... They speak to our unkempt, scarred world, even as they reimagine it not just once, but repeatedly.
Brenda Peynado wastes no time in yanking her reader into her stories – and into the burning issues that consume her. Her debut collection, The Rock Eaters, demonstrate this superbly. Thoughts and Prayers and The Radioactives are the two tales that bookend The Rock Eaters, and they kick off and conclude the collection with punchy yet lingering impact ... As a member of the rare category of writer whose work wins an O. Henry Award as well as appearing in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology, Peynado flaunts breathtaking literary agility ... Horror creeps into The Rock Eaters with subtlety, but when it does, it's devastating ... Throughout The Rock Eaters, Peynado conjures both the playful sorcery of Kelly Link and the haunted atmosphere of Kali Fajardo-Anstine. But in her search for meaning in the immigrant experience — and the borderlands of emotion, possibility, and belonging — she populates a dimension all her own.
The majority traffic in science fiction, fantasy, fabulism, or the surreal, even as they retain an edge of cutting satire or searing insight ... For all their genre-bending brilliance, Peynado’s shape-shifting stories prove most striking when they deal in the uncanny, that gray zone between the recognizable and the repulsive ... produces a world that feels almost more real than our own, as if reality’s excesses have spilled over onto the page ... It’s this magic, the ability to lead her readers into worlds that are structured very much like our own, yet still deliver surprising punches, that sets Peynado’s debut apart. This is true of her use of speculative storytelling elements, as well as her incorporation of issues of ethnicity, class, and nationality. In every instance, it’s essential that her characters are Dominican or Mexican or white. The characters’ migratory decisions, and histories, and outcomes are crucial to the telling. The fantastic and the surreal are never incidental to the stories’ worlds; they always accentuate what’s already there. In this, Peynado’s harnessing of the diasporic imagination establishes her as a true magician of the marvelous real.
... a short-story collection that bounces around genres such as speculative fiction, science fiction and straight fiction, will definitely leave you deeply unsettled, though perhaps not always in a good way. Peynado’s is a gifted, imaginative writer and I admit I was prepared to be blown away after reading the book’s introductory story ... Peynado displays...brutal class disparity perfectly. Strangely, the two straight science-fiction stories in the collection, though solid, were not as compelling ... The Rock Eaters lacks a cohesiveness to help ground the reader in Peynado’s world. Whether by intention or accident, the stories’ broad sweep through different genres jostles you unnecessarily and keeps you from settling more deeply into what continually promised to be a truly stunning debut collection. Still, many of stories are engaging and original, so while not a knock-it-out-of-the-park victory, it is still a success.
... the two beating hearts of the book. One is a deeply literary look at issues of class, migration, culture, and history. The other is a high-concept journey through science fiction, magical realism, fabulism, and urban fantasy. The stories range from a realist accounting of a school tennis rivalry to a tale of kite-flying alien refugees, with many bracing detours along the way ... The breadth of Peynado’s imagination is miraculous, and her ability to execute her premises perfectly in so many different genres is astounding. The past, the future, the real, and the mystical are all within her control. It’s become more common for story collections to interrogate questions of genre, but The Rock Eaters doesn’t interrogate that question—it discards it as irrelevant and shows us the power of a versatile author making meaning every way she can. What’s even more impressive than her range, in the end, is her ability to craft heartwrenching tales ... something to savor.
In the hand of a less deft writer, the collection could have become a joyless read within a few dozen pages. Peynado’s penchant for fantastical reimaginings of contemporary ails, however, makes for a page-turner ... In centering these [Latinx] characters, the limits of who gets portrayed in speculative fiction—a genre notoriously lacking in diversity—are expanded a little further. The stories are all deeply grounded in struggles and questions from the culture, even when they don’t appear to be at first glance ... Pulsing with imagination, The Rock Eaters is a bold statement of intent from an emerging voice worthy of the hype. Peynado’s daring alchemy of literary styles into weird, funny and deeply, compassionate stories are only a hint of the intriguing mixtures to come.
Brenda Peynado’s first collection, The Rock Eaters, places her in that growing cadre of talented short fiction writers who seem equally comfortable in venues as diverse as The Georgia Review and Tor.com, and whose voice is just as distinctive when writing about real-world poverty and student debt or about grim futures in which people take refuge in VR while their bodies vegetate in clean rooms to protect from ravaging plagues on the outside. The latter story, 'The Touches', may be the most extreme example of the sort of compromises her characters make to survive in complex and hostile environments, but survival is one of the themes that connect her essentially mainstream stories with more bizarre tales of bodily metamorphosis. Another, closely related theme is marginalization, trying to find a place in a world that seems bent on betraying or even killing you.
Peynado probes the limits of reckoning with such dilemmas as otherness, loss, and love in her glorious debut, a collection of inventive and fabulist stories ... Rich social commentary on immigration, xenophobia, and right-wing Christianity underlie the title story ... These alluring stories make powerful use of their fantastical motifs, enhancing the realities of the characters’ lives. The author’s skillful storytelling soars.
... stories as substantial as they are superbly crafted ... Melding science fiction, fantasy, fable, and legend with atmospheric prose, these stories touch on a wide range of topics ... A sparkling, strange, and enthralling debut from a vivid new voice in contemporary fiction.
