James Reich’s new science fiction novel, the brooding Skinship (Anti-Oedipus Press, December, 2024) has received a rave review from the esoteric journal We the Hallowed. Eric Millar provides an excellent spoiler-free preview of the novel. Here are a few extracts:
I could easily see Skinship placed in an old spinner rack next to Norman Spinrad’s Bug Jack Barron or Michael Moorcock’s Behold The Man. It reads and feels vintage in its brief length and pulpy premise but deftly carries a contemporary story of economic and ecological perils that we teeter precariously toward in the here and now. That tone is only where the analgesic haze of hauntological nostalgia begins.
In Skinship, Reich doesn’t give his characters comfort in a nostalgic existence, he bridles them with it. Like their mandate to preserve and protect the legacy of humanity, it has become just another burden on their seemingly endless voyage. The Earth may have gone away but the past continues to haunt on.
Like much of the best speculative fiction, Skinship juggles a lot of interesting ideas: the end of the world and our legacy in the universe, inventive body horror, innovative technologies, backdrops that are alien but also eerily familiar at the same time, all wrapped up in a pastiche of intrigue and mystery. James Reich handles them all masterfully, all while maintaining a melancholy that feels lived in and crafting characters of great depth and complexity. There are no wasted words, no nagging exposition, and no stereotypes to do the heavy lifting. There are no easy outs in the way Reich brandishes his language and the story always keeps you guessing what will unfold next.
Order a copy of Skinship today.