Pendarvis books know you're reading them

Your Body Is Changing by Jack Pendarvis, book cover image — Example of a book. Your Body Is Changing by Jack Pendarvis

Disclaimer: I am not a Pendarvis expert! I just buy his books sometimes and look at the pages sequentially. Is that reading? Am I “reading” his books? I haven’t figured that out yet, and I’m okay with it.

And you never tell people you finished a Pendarvis book. You tell people, “I think I actually just read this.”

It’s not the writing we see so much of today, in which the words squirm with joy when you condescend to glance at them. Bookstores can be like walking into an animal shelter: all the books are so goddamn happy to see you:

“See how ready I am to go home with you?”

“Watch me do an ingratiating thing!”

“Get close and I’ll lick your fingers through this fence.”

With Pendarvis writing, you’re aware of yourself reading it because it seems to know when you’re looking at it. The books have this woke air that says, “Yeah, I’m a book. You know what to do.” And when you read it, it starts air-quoting everything. It’s a lensing effect achieved through wholly literary means, just an all-around incredible accomplishment.

Picture of Adventure Time characters — TL;DR the above? Fine. Pendarvis writes for Aventure Time and SpongeBob SquarePants.

I’ll always admire The Dragon’s Hump, which

mocks early epic fantasy, written as Jack R.R. Pendarvis. Excerpt:

    <p class="right-align">
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        &mdash; Jack R.R. Pendarvis
        
            <em>via</em> 
            
                <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4wqwdn/the-dragons-hump-chapter-one" target="_blank">
            
            vice.com
            
                </a>
            
        
    </p>

Research portion of post: This LA Weekly review points out that Pendarvis is like a humorous Saunders.