Starred Review in Publishers Weekly

I am incredibly pleased to report that Publishers Weekly has just given The Great Frustration a starred review. In fact, "pleased" might be underselling it. All day long I have been climbing skyscrapers and swatting at biplanes. PW had this to say:

The 11 stories in Fried's debut have the vigor of adventures, taking place in settings as disparate as Spain in the time of the conquistadors, a king's harem, a city under siege, various scientific setups, and--in the case of the title story--the Garden of Eden. Such an imagination is refreshing, but even more rewarding is that the stories don't rely solely on concept or conceit, and trudge forward into the lovely mess of strong characters wedged into dramatic circumstance. The scientists in "Those of Us in Plaid" have a simple, though not easy, objective involving an obstinate monkey and a space capsule. Science is clearly one of Fried's major interests: "Loeka Discovered" follows a team of researchers reconstructing ancient history from bits of bone and other artifacts. The lengthy "Animalcula: A Young Scientist's Guide to New Creatures" offers 15 scholarly descriptions of minuscule fauna, creating a fictional microcosm and illuminating it with the surprisingly poetic inner life of the scientist studying his subjects. While Fried's stories run to the historical or technical, there's a strain of absurdism in his prose that combines pathos, unease, and dark humor to add depth and give these stories a sense of modernity and relevance. (May)

This means one of two things: 1.) Publishers Weekly got the cigars I sent, or 2.) Publishers Weekly liked my book. Either way, I haven't received a star on a piece of writing since grade school and it still feels pretty great. Huge thanks to PW!

Animalcula: A Young Scientist's Guide to New Creatures

The new issue of The Kenyon Review is about to drop, as the kids say. The issue will feature a sizable excerpt from my epic, pseudoscientific work, Animalcula: A Young Scientist's Guide to New Creatures. So get ready for twelve (count 'em, twelve) short stories about some exciting microscopic organisms that I'm pretty sure I made up.

The issue will also feature a bunch of amazing work from some incredible people (including a bona fide hero of mine, Albert Goldbarth).

In the next few days The Kenyon Review will also be running a micro-interview with me on their blog. It's not an interview about microscopes, though that would have been completely awesome. It's just called micro because it's short. They've already posted two great interviews with contributors from the issue. Be sure to check them out: Ted Wheeler, Robert Yune. I'll link to my interview once it's up, as is my wont.

Also, while you're waiting to get your hands on a copy of The Kenyon Review, I encourage you to enjoy the work of some actual young scientists over at the Oklahoma Microscopy Society, from whom I borrowed the above picture of a wheel bug.

Blurb Attack: Endorseapocalypse

There's only 74 days (or, 6,393,600 seconds) left before The Great Frustration is released. In anticipation of this culture-changing event, Counterpoint Press/Soft Skull has put together the greatest team of blurbers ever assembled in the long, storied history of jacket copy.

All of these writers are people I admire to a ridiculous degree. It's a total thrill to see them say nice things about TGF. As a thank you, I've written this blurb blurbing their blurbs:

"The blurbs for Seth Fried's debut short story collection are transcendent, each a triumph of the form. This is the most electric set of blurbs I've read in years. I cannot recommend these endorsements enough."

--Seth Fried

And now, the actual blurbs:

"Seth Fried has a wildly humorous imagination, but also sharp technical skills and beauty of language that weaves deep examinations of self and humanity into the inner folds of his crazy worlds. He’s channeling Saunders by way of Barthelme and Kafka, but also clearing a whole new territory of his own. Listen up and open this book: Seth Fried is the future of fiction."

--Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief

"Seth Fried's stories are laugh-out-loud hilarious and wonderfully weird, yet his many strange worlds also have the power to haunt, echoing the sorrows and yearnings of ordinary life in the way dreams can. This is an inspired and inspiring collection from an important new young writer."

--Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply

"In The Great Frustration, Seth Fried creates elaborate set pieces, populates them with living, breathing characters, arranges them for maximum chaos, and then sets it all in motion, inviting you to watch catastrophe and disaster and ruin. Even if you wanted to stop reading, you couldn't: his sentences drive you forward with a relentless rhythm, breaking your heart, then reassembling it, then breaking it again, and you don't even mind, because, oh yeah, while he's doing this he's also making you laugh out loud."

--Charles Yu, author of How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

"These stories are joyful, breathtaking, and ridiculously funny. Yes, there is darkness and violence and the constant threat of unhappy endings, but Fried is such a stunning writer, you actually love the coming disaster because it is so perfectly presented on the page."

--Kevin Wilson, author of Tunneling to the Center of the Earth and The Family Fang

"Seth Fried should not be read by those with a heart condition, or by women who are nursing or pregnant. Do not read Seth Fried when driving or operating heavy machinery. Because his stories are not only addictive, but dangerously good. He will make your heart stop and your jaw drop. You will suffer from bouts of thoughtful silence and seizures of hilarity and may even soil yourself with pleasure. Consider yourself warned."

--Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh

"These powerful and beautifully absurd stories create poetry from the collected voice of those who love and hate and dream and yearn. They stirred my imagination and time and time again seduced me into reflecting on the hopefulness and vulnerabilities of being human. The Great Frustration is a wonderfully original debut."

--Alan Heathcock, author of Volt

"Seth Fried’s stories have extraordinary range, reminiscent of Borges, allowing the reader to become a time-traveler in a world populated by 21^st century misadventures with prehistoric bones and a bestiary of microscopic beasts. You will enter the Garden of Eden the very moment before disasters began. His voice and imagination will dazzle you."

--Thaisa Frank, author of Heidegger's Glasses

Q: Interview? A: Interview!

As many of you know, I rarely give interviews -- possibly because people rarely ask me to give them interviews. Whatever the case, I just did one with Shawn Vestal over at Bark. Topics covered include: Axe body spray, short story trailers, and the Civil War. Huge thanks to the awesome Shawn Vestal, and everyone at Bark for turning out one of the most consistently great lit blogs on the interweb.

The Missouri Review's textBOX Anthology

The Missouri Review is about to launch textBox, their new online anthology. The site -- which goes live tomorrow morning -- will feature a selection of fiction, essays and poetry previously published in The Missouri Review.

TMR has spent over three decades putting out one of the best print journals in the country, so, as a reader, I'm incredibly jazzed (yes, jazzed) to see them take this exciting new step. As a writer, I'm even more jazzed (jazzeder?) to point out that the anthology's debut will feature Loeka Discovered, a story of mine that TMR originally published in 2008.

Needless to say, I'm honored to be included in the first installment of this soon to be beloved anthology. Make sure to check it out!