My cheeks are a hot crimson red with embarrassment at the very kind glowing praise of the editors at Fleas on the Dog in their introduction to my story, KAIJU! Will my social anxiety, coyness and modesty prevent me from reproducing their words? We’ll have to wait until the next paragraph to find out …
WHY WE LIKE IT: As lovers of all types of writing we raise a middle finger to the notion that genre specific storytelling is not the equal of literary fiction. Is the overcooked steak superior to the perfect hamburger? KAIJU! formidably acquits itself of this prejudicial charge and then some. Through burnished prose non-human creatures passionately convey distinctly human qualities and with no back story or indication of what’s ahead, the mystery of the tumultuous present we find ourselves in only deepens. There are humbling passages throughout, and the surgery scene is startling, like nothing we’ve read before. KAIJU! is stellar fiction (genre or otherwise) and if, in Pound’s words ‘the age demanded an image of its accelerated grimace’, we’re pretty sure this juggernaut dystopian fantasy would be one of them.
No they didn’t stop me. Whew. And, Yay! You can quote Ezra Pound about my stuff any day of the week, Eds, and feel free to call all my stories a juggernaut dystopian fantasy, even the ones that aren’t. Especially them.
Nobody is looking 