Boston Book Bums on Metrophilias

Boston Book Bums has a nice review of Metrophilias up here.

In it they say, amongst other things:

“After reading the first story we were hooked.  Athens, in just over a page, was like drive-by fiction.  It was over before we knew what happen and in that brief time, Connell successfully introduced us to a new world, a world that included the crime of statuary prostitution, literally statues.”

Wonderwaan Mesh of Veins

The Dutch magazine Wonderwaan picked up my story Mesh of Veins for translation.

Poetry Salzburg

Poetry Salzburg, the poetry journal of the University of Salzburg in Austria, just picked up four poems of Swiss poet Alberto Nessi that my wife and I translated. Due for Fall publication.

Cover Blurb by the great Rhys Hughes for Unpleasant Tales

“Every generation throws up a few genuine Masters of the Weird. There simply is no hyperbole in the statement that Brendan Connell is a member of this elite group right now, perhaps the most accomplished of them all. His work is very strange but always proceeds with rigorous logic and his use of language is original, concise and often startling, employing the alchemy of a ferocious intelligence to create dreamscapes that have the solidity and cruelty of stone and iron. The blend of profound melancholy, decadent atmosphere and abstruse erudition work beautifully and the magic of his prose gets under the skin of your soul and remains there forever.”

—Rhys Hughes, author of A New Universal History of Infamy

Cover for Upleasant Tales

This book should be available very soon.  Official release date July 1, 2010.

At what age do writers write their best books?

This is in response to this article in the New York Times. All the books I mention in the list below are, arguably, more famous (certainly more iconic) than those mentioned in the Times.

Authors and their greatest books:

James Joyce: Finnegans Wake (arguably his best book) Age 57

Dostoyevsky: Brothers Karamazov (arguably his best book)  Age 60

Tolstoy: War and Peace (arguably his best book) Age 41

Balzac: Cousin Bette (arguably his best book) Age 47

Zola: Germinal (arguably his best book) Age 45

Victor Hugo: Les Miserables  (arguably his best book) Age 64

Dante: The Divine Comedy  (his best book) Age 65

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (arguably his best book) Age 48

Daily sPress/Metrophilias

Daily sPress, a small press promotion site, ran a little thing on Metrophilias here.

Agony Column Review

Rick Kleffel, over at the Agony Column, has a double review of Animythical Tales by Sarah Toton and my own Metrophilias.

In it he says:

“‘Animythical Tales’ and ‘Metrophilias’ are both sturdy, slim books that you’ll read quickly but not forget soon. There’s a feeling that these books were thoroughly vetted, that the publishers made a deliberate decision to publish them with the idea that they would find an appreciative audience.”

Click here and scroll down to read the whole review.