Paul JessupCritiques

Overall, I think I enjoyed this book. At first, I wasn't completely on board (or convinced) with the internal dialogue of each character. But, as I got to know them....and the house....I was drawn in. This is a fun haunted house, chilled out, psychedelic turned frenzy romp. I particularly enjoyed how the book challenged my view of beauty within the grotesque. Full disclosure: I haven't read much horror (only watched). Glass House made me want to read more, both generally, and from this author.

I won this as an Early Reviewer copy.
I hate writing bad reviews, honestly I do. But I promised a review.
I liked the premise. The execution was not good. (I don't review for typos because I know they aren't the author's fault, so I'm not even taking those into account.)

First there are a few errors that boggled my mind. Getting the wrong poison used at Jonestown (cyanide, not arsenic) and implying that those who died there died a painless death staggered me. And it was Theseus in the maze with the minotaur, not Icarus. Even if somehow these were errors in a character's thinking, there's nothing that implies such and therefore it looks like nobody bothered checking anything out.

Characters. The dialogue is awful. It doesn't sound like anyone's speech that I ever heard. The points of view of the characters blend together. Nobody has a distinct voice. The two girls--I have no idea how old they are supposed to be. Sometimes they seem quite young, other times a bit older.

I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't.

Thank you Librarything for allowing me to get an arc of Glass House by Paul Jessup. I did try to read this book but I found myself having to reread a few things here and there but I just could not fully get into it. The concept is great and I think this could be such a fun book but this one was not for me. I know I cannot win them all but I still would say give it a chance.

Close Your Eyes is more than just weird scifi. It's a bit space opera. It's about family, the one you're born into and the one you make. It's about all the pitfalls of family. But most of all...it's about love.

Go in to reading this book as if you were simply a fly on the wall, as an observer. Do not try to solve anything. Do not try to figure anything out. It will all come to you.

And don't try to escape uninfected. It's impossible. From page one, the sakre is inside you. Don't try to hide from it. Don't close your eyes.

I really enjoyed this! A believable story that truly reads as a found journal, with an open ended finish and plenty of missing information for you to wonder about. The illustrator Allyson Haller brings the story to life with talent and attention to detail.

I really enjoyed this! A believable story that truly reads as a found journal, with an open ended finish and plenty of missing information for you to wonder about. The illustrator Allyson Haller brings the story to life with talent and attention to detail.

I received this book as a Library Thing Early Reviewers giveaway. I really enjoyed this book. Although I am not generally a fan of this genre, this book definitely kept my attention. I liked the creative storyline. I hope he writes a sequel.

Very confusing cyber punk space opera. I really had no clue what was happening.

Interesting is the best way to describe this novel. It was poetic in a way. The scenes were fantastically described. Despite the story being bizarre and somewhat cryptic (which some readers would be put off by) I felt engaged due to the lyrical voice.
Sci Fi / Literary readers may enjoy.

I received this book as an LT Early Review give away.

I love mixed genre books and Close Your Eyes is a perfect example for me. If I had to describe it I would probably go for Fantastical SciFi, with a tinge of Cyberpunk, or maybe Post Cyberpunk and for some people there might be a smidge of horror / suspense.

A lot of concepts from different specific genres are used in this book without any explanation. This does not bother me at all or even better I am grateful that it is expected of the reader to know what is going instead of a rambling explanation. If you do not have any previous readings (or understanding) of concepts like AI, human-machine interfaces, virtual reality and maybe even singularity (the IT variety), you might struggle with the story. The same is true if you have a hard time with fantastical or mythical stories. For me the combination worked extremely well and I did not have a boring moment in the whole book.

The only minor let down for me was the end. Not that the ending was bad, but for me the story could have continued longer. I am not left with hugely open questions, but I could easily see more explorations of this world. But maybe Paul Jessup is working on a sequel, which I would snap up the moment it hits the shops.½

A book that opens with a woman having sex - and an orgasm - with a black hole - and getting pregnant and that finally ends with a woman of pure spirit and her avatar dolls escaping a spaceship/space station overrun by a linguistic virus in an escape capsule should grab most people but not me. I have to admit that my forays into reviewing science fiction as opposed to fantasy are dogged by an unremitting voice in my head that says "Why? and "What?". This is so not for me. Your mileage might vary but I can't see me ever getting my literary taste buds accustomed to such fare.

This is a science fiction novel in Gothic horror style featuring Victorian-steampunkish human/machine hybrids. It also probably qualifies as fitting into the "bizarro" genre. Initially, I thought Close Your Eyes had an appealing grim, poetic atmosphere. But as the book dragged on, it far overstayed its welcome. The writing style went from atmospheric embellishment to a goth teen writing bad poetry in his bedroom while cutting himself. Close Your Eyes felt like wading through molasses of words by the second half. Boring despite the extreme weirdness. Not my style.

Note: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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I received a copy to review. More art than novel. Creative SF writing set in the far distant future in which language is an invading virus, and dolls are avatars. It was a difficult book to review, as on the one hand the writing is very good and creative (5 stars), but in terms of personal reading preferences, this was a difficult book (3 stars), especially the second half (which is a sequel novel to the first half of the book). I would guess that readers of SF anime graphic novels, such as Blame, would identify with the distant future universe created in this novel, but the world of the novel was far too distant for me to fully appreciate - but that's a reflection of me, not a creative author. A final comment - For me, what seemed out of place was the use of contemporary expletives. The constant use of f*ck seemed out of place in the futuristic feel of the book, and in my opinion, unnecessary.

Cover Art by Chris Harvey -- Zombies. Pretty Buff silhouette there, but Zombies come in all shapes and sizes. Don't be a hater. Good job!

In regards to the story -- Reading his dedication, acknowledgment and author Bio, this guy has a good sense of humor, so I am going to look at this story as a very tongue-in-cheek take on the world of the zombie and the apocalypse that is going to happen any day now, right?

We're on a college campus with this one. One girl sees and talks to ghosts. Another girl explodes zombie heads by the power of her own mind á la Scanners style. We have a huge Ren Faire presence of students on campus who want to return to medieval times -- wenches and maces and no cell phones, Twitter, Facebook, or internet! I think this was set in a world of cell phones and internet???

There was so much packed in this little chapbook, I just suspended disbelief and went for the ride. You would think the Zombies would be the hardest thing to accept, but no. It was the fact that a huge group of college students would turn their back on social media! No selfies? The horror!

This was a tough one to like, but again, going with the silly fun. It was okay. Zombies have always been a hard sell for me.

plot? does it have one? DIdn't have a clue what was supposed to be going on here, or what the rules of the universe were.

Some woman has sex and doesn't die, but meets some people who want to have sex, and do die - infected by a random word virus that turns their brains to milk? They all run away. And die. Even the robot AI stuff who one would have thought couldn't catch viruses.

utter claptrap. Go read Babel 17 it's the same idea, but 30 years earlier much better written, and it makes sense.

“Cosmic” and “intense” are just two of the words that come to mind after reading Paul Jessup’s Open Your Eyes. Wasting absolutely no time, the story opens with a woman named Ekhi and her lover, a star about to go supernova in the last gasp of their last union, and it goes at warp speed from there. Jessup immediately sets the scene for a story that you will not want to put down.

The style is prose that, unlike much of contemporary science fiction, is intelligent and visually dynamic. I could see the bones of the space ship, see the butterflies in the cage that made up half of Mari’s face, and feel the crackling skin of the centuries old captain Itsasu. Each character has his or her own motivations for being on the scavenger ship. If Ekhi’s case, she was rescued after her lover went super nova, but there was one thing none of them suspected, that the Heart of the ship had its own plans. Beware a space ship that has a mind of its own. Read More