“Chris Kelso’s technique, in A MESSAGE FROM THE SLAVE STATE, captures that most difficult and elusive quality I could never understand how to explain until a wise friend pointed it out elsewhere: He writes the way he talks. And not with phonetic spelling or bad punctuation or attempts to duplicate vocal speech.I mean he writes the way he talks, and does it with technical brilliance from the first page of this novella. Thoroughly engaging and wild… yet utterly sane, with martial precision. This work is a joy.”
–Edward Morris, 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee, 2009 Rhysling Award nominee, 2005 BSFA nominee, author of the BLACKGUARD series
‘Sparky, modern, avant-garde but accessible, Chris Kelso’s book is reminiscent of the most successful literary experimentation of the 60s and 70s, the sort of work that was published in the later New Worlds, but it’s also thoroughly contemporary, intimately engaged with modern life as it is right now. Kelso steams with talent and dark wit and his blend of anarchy with precision is refreshing, inspiring and utterly entertaining . . .
– Rhys Hughes, author of Mister Gum
‘This emerging journeyman of the macabre has wormed his way into my grey-matter and continues to seep noxious ichor. I feel like I must devour him. Every little bit of him.’
– Adam Lowe, author of Troglodyte Rose
Review here – A review by Joseph Wargo