This should be an instant classic. I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.

Brian Evenson has a knack for mood setting in his stories, and he delivers atmosphere for days in this existential psychological sci-fi portrait. It's a fascinating little mind-fuck that I'm not sure I fully understand but it definitely kept my interest. It defies description a bit but think of it in the same vein as the movies Solaris or Moon. However, you know how it can get super annoying when someone keeps answering your serious questions with other questions? That's also what this book felt...

Although The Warren is short – less than a hundred pages and compelling enough to read in a single sitting – I needed some time to digest its content and figure out what I wanted to say about it. Ultimately, I think the less said about it the better. (And I do mean this in all seriousness, and in the best way possible.)I went into this book blind, knowing very little about it other than it had a snazzy cover and was another release in Tor’s strong line of novellas. I think this is about all you

Left me wanting answers in the most deliciously frustrating way.

Like a future Sartre would never have wanted to experience, this is identity confusion as sci-fi horror. A quick read full of disturbing moments of being trapped, both physically and mentally, there are images that will prowl your nightmares like Freddy Krueger on intergalactic steroids. Get ready, because you probably won't stop reading once you start.I especially enjoyed sections II and XIII.

I love the work of Brian Evenson, as it's truly unlike any other, composed of a quality and class that makes me proud to read and write horror. I think he's an important author who can and has been acting as a bridge between speculative fiction and that deemed more "literary," which has benefitted both camps that are crossing over into rival territory more and more each day, softening the dividing lines. Evenson gets respect outside of the horror scene, and rightfully so, receiving reviews from

Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths.The Warren is a short, suspenseful novella which delivers heaping doses of loneliness, mystery, and utter alienation. Brian Evenson skillfully turning confusion, weirdness, and schizophrenic leanings into an existential horror, where desperately seeking answers and not finding them is all part of the delicious fun.Simply put, this is a tale starring X — though X isn’t even sure if that is really his name. He has many memories from other people imprinted within

Wow, so good. Disorienting, alarming, and intense.

I've been meaning to check out Evenson for a while and this tor.com novella seems like a perfect introduction, though not very auspicious as far as introductions go. It's a scifi story that deals with the nature of being (what makes a person a person, what is the definition of person and so on) and it is an intriguing concept, but the execution left me utterly indifferent. It wasn't the writing per se, not sure why exactly, it just didn't engage. Subjects like ontology and metaphysics should opt...

Haunting and brilliant dystopian story telling with the kind of ending that makes you want to make everyone you know read it so you can all shout WTF? together.

Another barren wasteland. Another amazing novel that probes deep into what it means to be human and whether what you think you are, and what you truly are, really makes that much difference in the long run.OK....DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THIS BOOK AND IMMOBILITY. If I'm right, I'm about to spoil a whole bunch of shit for you. Ok, you've been warned!Soooo many parallels to Immobility here. In that novel, the human protag Horkai had been awakened from storage to go on a

It makes sense that this is dedicated to Gene Wolfe, who I know is an influence of Evenson's going way back. It's sort of like a more phenomenological companion piece to Immobolity, with characters stranded in an unknowable, toxic wasteland full of barely functional technology, but this time rooted in the problem of multiple consciousnesses existing in one body. It's a familiar mode of storytelling for Evenson: to put his characters (who generally don't know who they are or where they came from)...

Ponderous. This reads sort’ve like an Asimov story, hearkening back to one of my favorite shorts of all-time, The Last Question, but, ya know, this is much WEIRDER. This novella poses serious questions with no easy answers, and for its brevity, it isn’t a light read. There’s a lot of thought gone into these pages, and a lot of reflection shining back off them. The Warren is an exploration of self in the abstract sense, science-fiction on the edge of a fever dream. I liked this book quite a bit.

Well, this one is extremely different, IMHO. Not just for science fiction either. It's short, a novella, but within those pages, not a one page is easy read/ simple understand anything. Lots of pronouns are quizzical. With a reread necessary at times.What this cores is the definition of what makes a person. The monitor or the beings or the entities all asked? Regardless, this is a parsing of their answers. And then the second question. Well, if that is a person in the affirmative posit definitio...

this quote from the book pretty much sums up my reading experience:At times, I become confused about the order in which things should be told. Parts of me know things that other parts do not, and sometimes I both know a thing and do not know it, or part of me knows something is true and another part knows it is not true, and there is nothing to allow me to negotiate between the two.i started off digging the premise and the intriguing vagueness of the opening, but i found myself floundering prett...

The nitty-gritty: A strange and thought-provoking story about loneliness and what it means to be human. For me, memory is not only at times flawed and corrupted but also overlapped and confused, one personality hiding parts of another, blending too, so that the selves within my head sometimes seem many-headed and monstrous or deformed and impossible to comprehend. It’s been a while since I read a Tor.com novella, but every time I read one, I’m reminded of how much I love these

'I am working against myself. There are parts of me ready to betray me, and I no longer have clear control over them, particularly when I sleep. If I am not careful, I will fall asleep and when I wake up I will not be the self that is currently spread over the body like sweat, touching all parts of it, but one of the selves held close within the skull of the body, locked inside.'

Well, this was terrifying in all sorts of unusual ways. A little short, maybe but heavy on the existential terror and alienation. This was my first Brian Evenson and I can't shake the feeling I've started with the wrong book, but I liked the hell out of it. The disembodied narration, the disorientation and loneliness of it were delightful if like me you're into this sort of thing. I haven't read or seen The Martian yet, but I suspect being left alone on a planet is a lot more like Brian Evenson

3.5, or thereabouts. A little esoteric. A bit bewildering. But happy I read it.

Supremely strange and surprisingly short (which makes the conceit easier to swallow), this diminutive tale is clearly designed to delight the reader who enjoys confusion, making you work for the answers (as very few are given). It's ultimately an unknowable tale, and that's half the fun; the other half is Evenson's skill at evoking existential horror through shifting perspectives, words unsaid and tales untold, and a fairly stark approach to narrative minimalism. The dedication to Gene Wolfe is