Had to take some time to sit with this. It's a fun read but one that requires your focus. A lot of the psychological and metaphysical aspects flew over my head, but Cisco's prose kept pulling me in and I found myself lulled by the cadence of the writing and the pacing of the story. A good read for fans of weird fiction and sci-fi!

This book is ambitious and fun but for me I found it very hard to stay the course. I was often struggling to understand what was going on And while I believe that's largely the point I was starting to feel left behind and couldn't continue

"Black Brane" by Michael Cisco is an intriguing blend of psychological science fiction and eerie, almost paranormal undertones. Set in a contemporary world, the novel follows Gross, the protagonist, whose life takes a dramatic turn while working at an unconventional institute. The institute is led by a scientist with an obsession for studying mysterious "holes." Now mostly bedridden, Gross recounts his story entirely from his own perspective, which amplifies the sense of isolation and depth that permeates the narrative.

The novel delves deep into complex physics and metaphysical concepts, which left me reflecting long after I’d put the book down. To be honest, the experience of reading "Black Brane" can feel almost maddening at times. Its exploration of abstract, intangible ideas is both disorienting and fascinating. This approach, while overwhelming at times, is part of what makes the book so compelling. The characters are diverse and quirky, from the eccentric scientist to a psychic medium, each adding their unique flavor to the story.

While I found the characters intriguing, I was more captivated by the narrative itself than by individual relationships. The narrative's smooth pacing and meticulous editing contributed significantly to its readability, making even the most complex themes easier to follow. What truly drew me in was the book’s exploration of deep and often uncomfortable themes—pain, solitude, and the search for meaning in a chaotic world. Despite the book’s surreal tone, some of its moments are surprisingly poignant, particularly when Gross reflects on his inner struggles.

Where the novel fell a bit short for me was its ending. It left me grappling with a sense of confusion, as I struggled to fully grasp the conclusion. Still, the journey itself was fascinating enough to keep me hooked.

Overall, I enjoyed "Black Brane" and would recommend it to fans of science fiction who appreciate stories that venture into the strange and surreal. It's definitely not a book for everyone, but if you enjoy weird fiction, "Black Brane" is worth checking out.

A widower seeking to forget his painful past, Mr. Gross finds employment at the TISH Institute, established by Dr. Shitansky to study holes. During his tenure, Gross finds himself mired in a quantum entanglement with the black hole NGC 1313 X-2.

He is a prisoner, a ghost, suffering constant pain in the unrelenting void of the black brane.

With elements of occultism, science fiction, horror, and philosophy, this bizarre, stream-of-consciousness manuscript is at best Lynchian and disorienting, and at worst punishingly incoherent. Quite possibly a triumph of “weird lit”, this is definitely for somebody, I’m just not entirely convinced that that somebody is me.

Thank you to CLASH Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

“Black Brane” by Michael Cisco is a wild, disorienting ride that can be overwhelming, especially for first-time readers of his work. The novel’s dense, abstract prose and hallucinatory narrative make for an intense reading experience that demands full immersion. While Cisco’s signature blend of horror, philosophy, and the surreal is intriguing, the book’s complexity and lack of clear structure made it difficult to fully grasp at times. I can see why some reviewers have said this isn’t the best entry point into his work. That said, I appreciate his unique style and will give another of his books a try in the future.

big thanks to CLASH and Netgalley for the arc.
I’m not saying I enjoyed this book as a piece of literature, but I enjoyed it as an experience in twisting my brain every which way it would go.
Two things I like thinking about it:
⁃ what this book is saying about the limits of knowledge, sanity and understanding
⁃ what this book is doing with plot. it’s not that the plot is difficult to grasp — no matter how long you take there just is no Fragrant Thread to grasp.

A poetic mindf*ck of a tale. At times reminded me of that poster which simulates what someone suffering from a stroke would visualize. I’ll have to admit my understanding of zero-point particles and string theory perhaps hindered my understanding of what transpired the second half but the flowery prose kept me following along, if not truly knowing the path.

Hi! This is my review of Black Brane by Michael Cisco.

I try not to do this very often, but I was not able to finish this book. I was captivated at the beginning by the flowery words and well-executed storytelling through the stream-of-thought format. As it went on, however, the plot seemed to halt and the book was filled with long descriptions of science that didn’t seem to pay off in any way. The mystery that has been built up since the beginning does not feel compelling or suspenseful. It has started to feel like a chore to read. I only got roughly halfway through.

I’m not sure if it picks up in the second half or if I didn’t like it because I’m not as accustomed to more unconventional weird fiction like this. I’m sure there is an appeal for books like this, but the plot didn’t seem to be moving very well.

Thanks!

If a fever dream were written down, it might feel something like this story. It’s surreal, abstract, and often disorienting, blurring the lines between pain, memory, and speculative science. The narrative doesn’t follow a traditional path, instead pulling the reader into a fragmented, dreamlike reality where meaning ebbs and flows.

The themes—existential dread, the limits of understanding, and the interplay of science and the occult—are fascinating and layered. The writing style mirrors these ideas, looping and spiraling in ways that feel deeply tied to the protagonist’s experience of pain. At times, this approach feels immersive and intentional, almost like an invitation to step into their fevered state of mind. But the repetition of phrases and ideas can dull their impact over time, making the narrative feel less dynamic in places.

This is a story that leans heavily on atmosphere and abstraction, encouraging readers to surrender their need for clarity and simply experience its strange, unsettling world. It’s a bold, unconventional style that might not work for everyone, but for those who enjoy experimental, thought-provoking fiction, it’s an experience worth exploring.

A wonderful stream of consciousness story of science pain and black bane. I thoroughly enjoyed this brief deep dive into these odd and focused characters!

Black Brane
Michael Cisco

Ok, so ...

Thomas Ligotti is one of my favorite literary horror authors.
Michael Cisco has now taken that spot.

Nihilistic, hallucinatory, poetic, horrific, absurd.

If you're in to "weird fiction" trust me when I say just read it.
Thank me later.

5 / 5

I would like to thank NetGalley and Clash Books for the ARC. I greatly appreciate it.

“Black Brane” is an absolute mind trip! I couldn’t even tell you what exactly I read, other than the fact that people were studying black branes and everything went terribly wrong. It’s weird fiction at its finest. This is a book that I’ll definitely revisit one day, and really, seriously dissect every line because there’s so much going on! I highly recommend “Black Brane” to those who enjoy weird, thought-provoking fiction.

It was a bit hard to follow, but I know that was part of the point. Really imaginative and clever! A lot of great imagery, too. I would have liked more chapters to break it up to give me more time to absorb what I’d read.

A truly dizzying experience of a novella, Black Brane is a surreal exploration of the self, science, and language. Gross as our main character guides us through past, present, dreams, and alternate universes through a stream of consciousness that is all the more surreal with the subject matter, or the lack thereof through the science of black branes. The central ‘matter’ or subject being nothing makes for meaningful connections to the human condition and prompts us to ask questions of meaning and importance. I imagine that this book only improves upon rereading and offers similarly intense surrealism and postmodernism as writers such as Iain Reid, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Thomas Pynchon. A truly feverish, rich novella that implores the reader to hunt for meaning rather than to be fed it.

Weird, feverish, and often nearly inscrutable. This novella is helped by its short length. The author takes big, delirious swings that sustain intrigue in this form would demand more clarity and/or payoff in a longer work.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Though there are instances where the novel delighted me with insightful philosophy, incisive images, and evocative prose, I am not enamored by it holistically. I could feel it sliding off from my attention span too frequently for my comfort and ended up eventually shortchanging me for all the efforts that I invested in it.

If you love a twisting turning stream of consciousness monologue, this is novella is for you.This book is a fever dream, with barely a thread to hold onto to keep you from being untethered and sucked into a black hole of your own. Weird lit is my jam. But even I felt completely unmoored in this plot.

Jeff Vandermeer and China Mieville are two of my favorite authors and even I struggled to follow this narrative. That will either sell you on this completely, or steer you in another direction. I will let you decide if you haven’t found lit weird enough yet that this could be the hallucinatory story you were looking for today.

If you've never read Cisco before, well, this is definitely NOT the book to start with: "Black Brane" employs standard fictional techniques to provide an atypical, wildly inconsistent, multiply non-linear, reading experience, blending body horror, hard science fiction, and occult mystery in ways noone has even imagined before! The writing technique is (for lack of a better word) 'blurry': scenes fall on top of each other, flashbacks become flashforwards without warning, the pacing occasionally cancels itself out, stuttering through weird deformations of philosophy and physics jargon - and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The plot (to the extent that there's such a thing as a plot in a book that feels like falling into a black hole) revolves around a man who once worked for an institute studying holes, whose director (a homeless woman who won the lottery, studied physics and philosophy and then revealed she has a talking pencil-shaped hole in her brain) has devoted herself to uncovering the mystery of holes by studyong Levinas's "Escape" and eschewing easy summaries of her investigative devices.

Told in first-person, the man narrates his story while suffering from foot pains throughout, pains often exploding onto the page and messing up his narrative. There's no point summarizing further the book, since once the cast is introduced (his colleagues in the institute) the plot thickens, to the point that every little detail starts giving the impression of conveying some great significance, though never actually going where the indications provided might lead you to expect.

"Black Brane" (brane being the word for black holes in string theory) demands investment and terrific reading energy, offering the promise of a unique reading experience reminiscent of Deleuze, Joyce, Barker, and Ligotti. It's a cathedral made of shells you have to climb over without bloodying yourself. If you feel what I'm saying, I recommend giving yourself to the book wholeheartedly!

Black Brane is a wild ride of science, weirdness, and horror, interwoven in a cleverly written story that requires readers to think abstractly. This follows our main character ‘Gross’ who suffered a terrible accident and now lies in crippling pain. We learn through a variety of dream sequences and flashbacks, exactly what happened at the TISH institute, and to the study of Black Branes.

This is a very abstract novel that tells the story, mainly, through flashbacks and dream sequences to eventually understand the true extent of what is happening to Gross. Although this was clever in theory, in actuality I found it very confusing. There were no chapter titles, or clear transitions between some scenes. At one point it seemed like two scenes were blended into each other.

I believe the nonlinear format is a signature of this author. It was a unique experience that made me feel as lost as the main character when he was in a half dreaming state.
While this book was not for me, I can certainly see that it will appeal to some that enjoy weird fiction, literary fiction, science, and horror.

This book was cleverly written to be nonlinear and abstract, telling the story of black brane studies and experimentation. It deals with themes of loss, trauma, unreliable memories, and many more. Overall I have given this a 2.5 star rating,
Thank you to Netgalley and CLASH Books for the Advanced Reader’s Copy (ARC) of this book. All opinions are my own.

I’m sincerely sorry, but this novel was completely lost on me. A string of run on sentences of scientific jargon mostly, the plot lost somewhere in there. The beginning in particular read very strangely and felt very strange but not in a good way.