The Arden by L.S. Popovich

The Arden Reviews

• 
  David Katzman

  Disclaimer: L.S. asked me to provide an editorial read of this book and provide him a promotional blurb.
  
  Second disclaimer: I would not have provided him (or any author) a blurb if I didn't honestly like the work.
  
  The Arden is a great, weird read! It was fascinating and a hard-to-put down journey into an alternate reality. It did remind me a bit of Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer but different enough that it has its own voice, storyline, and themes. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys surreal fantasy. My blurb for the book is:
  
  This dark, environmental fable is a thought-provoking strange trip that I didn't want to end.
• 
  Bradley

  It's always a delight to come across an adventure with wit in its heart and a truly subversive eye to genre. And it's even better when the tale comes in a character-heavy cloak that demands sly attention to detail.
  
  Of course, I could just say this is a very fine example of weird fiction in the best tradition of Vandermeer, but it doesn't do Popovich justice. That's just a simple comparison. The reality is more complicated and rich.
  
  I was caught in a web of Kaneda's history and circumstance first, feeling a lot like I was siphoning off Akira's energy, but then I was one step away from being down and out, spitting in the eye of fate while losing the very last trappings of my modern life.
  And then I felt like I was living a modern, sly, and self-aware Peter Pan (Barre, not the Disney) while channeling Area X.
  
  And that's just the beginning. The world of the Arden is both a mystery of devious antagonism and a sanctuary. It's also a crazy adventure that consistently surprises and confounds.
  
  And then, of course, we get the really strange bits that delight my jaded reading soul. And it's these kinds of things that I happen to appreciate the most.
  
  It looks like I am going to have to become a big fanboy. I can't wait to read MORE. I live for this kind of thing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Rebecca Maye Holiday

  The Arden is by no means an easy book to describe. I was offered a copy to read, and being no fan of science fiction or environmental-themed books, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm glad to say that I gave this book a chance, because like Popovich's earlier novel Undertones, The Arden is grimly funny, brilliantly clever and impressively unforgettable. To anyone who reads its summary and suspects that it might just be another Greta Thunbergian echo chamber, rest assured that The Arden goes much deeper than that in its exploration of environmentalism themes. Some very complicated, harsh and bleak questions arise throughout about the delicate balance between industry and nature, greenwashing, the increasing powerlessness of the ordinary citizen, housing costs, and the ever-secretive nature of large corporations.
  
  Because we as readers live in an age of Amazon and Bayer and Tesla and such, we should all be curious about reading The Arden. The book also touches on themes of ecological hypocrisy among the pious when it comes to the environment, while protagonist and prolific blogger Kaneda reaches out for any lifeline left that will bring him back to some semblance of individuality. The Arden will mean different things to different readers, and it intriguingly blurs the line between utopia and dystopia. "Would there ever be solace or serenity in the Arden? In the peaceable deviance of its many wonders, human curiosity guaranteed our defeat by those forbidden cosmoses of speculation, our dreams, lodged within the crooked crannies of creaking lumber."
  
  Focusing on the writing style beyond the plot and themes, the style is excellent, with a strong balance of world-building, character development and ethical exposition. The Arden's characters are raw, flawed and human, perfectly so, and exist as individuals beyond mere figureheads in which to explore ideas. This is important, as it allows us as readers to connect to them and their situation. Set in a futuristic industrial San Francisco, a place already in current times considered the epiphany of strict authoritarian greenwashing in the west, The Arden is a powerful arena in which to not only explore sociopolitical ideas, but also to explore humanity and life itself.
• 
  Scott Kimak

  Get ready for an AMAZING adventure when Kaneda and his companions are transported into a future ruled by the Arden. Nature has a mind of its own in this exciting adventure and beware anyone that tries to use technology. This has to be the best written book I’ve ever read. Mr. Popovich is a master when it comes to vocabulary and it is on high display in this gripping novel. If you want to test your mind and at the same time enjoy an action-packed novel, then this is a must read.
• 
  Marc *Dark Reader of the Woods*

  In the pantheon of weird ecological speculative fiction, this falls somewhere in between
  Annihilation and
  Pounded In The Butt By The Sentient Manifestation Of My Own Ignorant Climate Change Denial. Probably closer to the former.
  
  This was a tough book for me. I had to push myself to get through at least the first half, returning to it as a backup book amidst other uncomparable titles during my current Kindle Unlimited trial. I've had this book in my intentional TBR for probably over a year now; the person I thought had recommended it was not, in fact, the person who recommended it, if anyone had. I probably first noticed it by virtue of a GR "friend" invite by the author, or maybe I reached out to them first. Whatever the history, this title survived TBR culls and a slow personal start and consideration of DNF simply because I wasn't latching onto it. I glad I didn't give up on it; I'm a rare non-finisher and this book did not remotely deserve to join the few titles I have pulled the stop on.
  
  Set in a recognizable near-future San Francisco, at least to start, The Arden is at heart a literary portal fantasy, time-travellish, arguably science-fiction story of the fucked-up relationship between humanity and nature, I suppose. I didn't feel like there was much going on story-wise until well into the second-half, despite the transition into an insane wilderness in the second of the book's four parts.
  
  It's very heavily, consciously written, by which I mean a lot of thought went into the words. The result is a dense, evocative, vocabulary-enriching miasmal prose, and this was the primary reason I struggled with much of the book. It's not bad writing; the adjectives, imagery, and comparisons were never ill-fitting, but neither were they le mot juste; it often felt like it was skirting the line between superb wordcraft and trying too hard. The language simply demanded a lot of me: acute consideration and conscious effort to appreciate the sense of the words. I shared some Kindle highlights, so judge for yourself, considering too if a full-length novel in this voice is right for you.
  
  Is the following quote laudable creative writing, or does the second sentence start with an overwrought alternative descriptor?
  

  An irksome stream of leeches passed beneath us. The roving shag rug of gelatinous vermin spread an inch thick and receded, leaving a gleaming slime in their wake.

  
  I'm on the fence about that one. I did appreciate this simile after mulling it over a while:
  

  His hand was as rough as burnt toast.

  
  Perhaps you start to see the work that this book demanded of me. Otherwise, the only complaint I have is that the very ending was a soft finish.
• 
  M.M. Strawberry Library & Reviews

  Wow, what a mind-fuck. And I mean that in a good way :)
  
  The description on the back of the book sounded interesting enough and I am a big sciencen fiction nerd. I've read a wide variety of science fiction and I see a lot of tropes and cliches, either written well, or written badly.
  
  This story is certainly unique. I can honestly say I've never read anything like this, and for someone who reads a lot, that's a rare treat. What makes it even more of a treat is the fact that it's written well. Several sentences or descriptions actually had me chuckling out loud, and that's always an extra point for the author in my book, pun intended.
  
  This book works really well as a stand-alone and I would be satisfied if that was all there was to this mysterious world of the Arden and its plant/fungi overlords, but if the author were to write a sequel, especially regarding things that were revealed near the end of the book, I would absolutely be up to reading it.
• 
  TeaAndBooks

  FULL REVIEW TO COME
• 
  Sotto Voce

  Popovich brings us to the alternate future that looks back to our past and is full of mystery at the same time. A trio pushed by circumstances decides to rent a place together and find themselves sucked into a vortex of the future.
  
  *This is a spoiler review*
  I won't spoil the plot, but I will mention some contents about the book, some readers don't consider them spoilers, but I do.
  
  Overall, I enjoy the book, the idea, the creativity, the potential thought-provoking world; there are parts that I stumbled with, overloaded or wanting more. I will review it in fragments to try to explain that.
  
  The future world, The Arden is full of imagination and rich in descriptions; it gives us a refreshing look at the speculative future that ironically sets humans back in time. Buildings are in ruins, technologies are frowned upon, and we are 'back' to believing that elements and objects have spiritual essences.
  The horror of the world is revealed along with the protagonist's journey, and the most interesting concept to me is the Lethe. It sounds so mythical at first, but as I read on, it makes sense of how it fits into this world and even the actual world.
  
  I'm not a fan of magniloquence, and I wouldn't say that this book is a sure example of it, but it certainly gives me a lot of that vibe. However, in Arden, the style actually works quite well, it's descriptive, elaborate, fitting to the world that we are made to see, and it gives me my favorite term; I have to say I have chances to meet a lot of tangerine gargoyles in real life and will refuse to call them differently from now on.
  
  The funny bits. I appreciate the funny bits that catch you off guard at the time you least expect them, and they can be easily missed but not by me, as I like that kind of subtle wittiness, they give me chuckles; the analogies, comments, descriptions, like those funny lines that are delivered in flat expression that actually add to the humor for those who get them.
  I suppose this is the first book of a series planned, as there should be a lot more story to tell, it ends quite abruptly, and there are questions to answer.
  
  The story flows at a good pace, although imo, some parts can be slowed down or picked up as I personally got quite clear indications about which part is less important because we change scenes quicker and which part I have to pay attention. It works somehow, but maybe I enjoy guessing or learning more, which enables me to make some additional connections that increase the appreciation of the world and the journey.
  
  The part that could work better, there is a big chunk of exposition around the third quarter of the book, which I found somehow 'heavy'. It contains interesting backgrounds and information, but it is presented more as a coincidental overload of information that clogs the particular part of the book. Imo, it would work better to be woven throughout the story or revealed in other ways, perhaps as assumptions, theories by characters, descriptions, or mere passing by remarks that reward observant readers. The circumstances of these expositions also feel a bit detached, and the supporting characters involved are very obvious plot devices. I wouldn't mind knowing more about the 'current' world; there is an interesting gap to fill between the progression of the familiar world - the current world in the book to super-seed implementation, for example. Or perhaps, my imagination of Kaneda finding a lot of poor souls in Arden that would explain a detached sub-plot, maybe a confused shopkeeper riding a turquoise trojan horse. Maybe.
  
  The characters. I grow to become fond of Saras, one of the most important characters, but I hardly get a chance to know him because in this book, he is not even the second-tier character. Unfortunately I didn't get attached to the main character; I enjoy the prologue but find myself trying to find the connection to the same character portrayed throughout the book, there are, but I expect more with more connections to the story. Having said that, I do like his struggles, masked vulnerability, fear of inadequacy. I find his fear of Lethe very realistic and relatable.
  
• 
  Guillermo Stitch

  L.S. Popovich's novel, The Arden, is at least in part premised on a clever application of dystopia to utopian ideals themselves. On one level a rollicking, speculative adventure, brimming with Boy's Own ebullience, it is also an examination of potential and unforeseen consequences stemming from the violent destruction of our human habitat via technology and industry but also, conversely, from choices made within the environmental movement which seeks to confront that destruction.
  
  But to dub Popovich's future a simple dystopia seems inadequate—it has too much autonomous reality to it to pass for a degraded version of our present, notwithstanding the cautionary framework the author develops through a series of twists and inversions. Reached through a decrepit TV screen by three San Francisco friends, each a misfit in their own time, place and way, the Arden is a forest world in a distant future where the scale has been tipped and what humans are left (or what passes for human) live at the mercy of the plant life that surrounds them. Much of the book's power lies in Popovich's many descriptions of this environment, themselves a knotty tangle of language that replicates the alien terrain—
  
  “The bulbous protrusions glistened like displaced eyeballs. As steadily as the minute hand of a clock, the life of the forest shifted and stirred. Its bloodcurdling crawl had an infinitesimal sound. I heard the light thrumming buzz of my blood, melding with the murmurous clan of trees.”
  
  Popovich's prose rolls in the mouth, sometimes clinging to the roof of it like peanut butter, but overall a satisfying chew. The Arden is imbued with a sickly physicality—Brian Catling's The Vorhh by way of HR Giger. You will not be speed reading, given the author's evident relish for the poetic—
  
  “Faint whispers rode zephyrs toward my buzzing ears. Such skies and silences as these, I thought, would break any city slicker’s heart. The belt of the Milky Way stood out like celestial marrow in the dense abyss of space. The moon rendezvoused with voodoo clouds. Its ruddy cheek was tinged with green.”
  
  And there are moments of humour to lighten the reader's load, like
  
  “What a great blog post I’d cook up from this charade.”
  
  and
  
  “Being trapped in a future without the internet was bad enough. Now we had to worry about losing our mind.”
  
  The Arden also provides what may be a compelling metaphor for writing itself. The inhabitants of this future are afflicted with a rolling amnesia that wipes out their shorter term memories, so that they must keep journals to 'refresh' themselves after each wipe. The reader is invited to consider the ramifications, and limitations, of the editing process involved. If we must, of necessity, commit memories to paper but must, also of necessity, limit ourselves to a selection of them—how to go about that? How do we ascribe significance?
  
  “Memories area photocopy of a photocopy.”
  
  This relationship between memory, writing and humanity is where the book is at its most intriguing. The forest is patrolled by something called the Hearch (an amalgam of heart and search?)—a device, literally, of the Arden which polices the new power boundaries that lie between humanity and an environment that favours forgetfulness and its easy relationship with ecosystem, and censures the human remembrance that makes technology possible. When the creature is hunted, killed and autopsied, we find that memory lies at its very heart.
  
  A work of livid imagination, The Arden will provoke thought in many a reader who might have been under the impression that their opinions regarding humanity, technology and our habitat were settled. Along the way it will dazzle with innumerable flourishes of verbal brilliance.
• 
  Ron Rayborne

  "The Arden" is funny, and I found myself laughing out loud. "I learned that all my father had been to my mother was a well-dressed ATM”, “When I heard him play, he impressed me with the extent of his incompetence” are examples. Three people, Kaneda, Gypsy and Gray come together to live near the top of a cheap, dilapidated hotel. “After browsing cut-rate housing for weeks, it was the cheapest place in San Francisco, and thus, the best option.", "You had to get your sea legs to live up here." says Kaneda, the lead character, and a sort of Macgyver, of the book.
  
  Then they met the Hearch, a real Hearse of a thing, which protects the forest or Arden (Garden?) of the future (kind of sounding like the Humbaba of Gilgamesh fame) about midway through and the book took on grim and terrifying tones. The Arden was thick and almost impenetrable, supercharged by Omnigreen’s genetic engineering to combat climate change. “A forest like this could never exist naturally. Whatever circumstances created it, humans are the ones responsible.” Gypsy says. I, too, have worried about G.E. People mess with genes at the earth’s and thus our own risk.
  
  One perhaps suspects an undercurrent of anti-environmentalism in the book. “I couldn’t stand tree-huggers.” Kaneda says. Aye, it has seemed like some people are really in it with, perhaps, non-environmental motives in mind. They don’t really care and you see right through them. Others seem to be in it because it’s trendy, a counter-culture fad. Fingers in the wind, do they really believe it though? Who’s to say? Others, though, are intelligent, do care and are trying to do it right. Fact is, we have altered the earth more and faster than it’s natural ability to fix things, and we know it. Death by a thousand cuts? It has been for a lot of species, at least. What a shame for them to have survived for millions of years only to fall so a new hotel can go where they lived.
  
  “The Arden” is fast-paced and leaves you with the warning that, if not done correctly and for the right reasons, some may alter the future at our demise. There’s nothing “wrong with responsible environmentalism, but we cannot neglect long-term effects for short-term gains.” it advises. That’s good advice.
  
• 
  D.R. Schoel

  While I initially felt this surreal, environmental-apocalyptic tale to be a little slow getting off the ground, I soon realized the initial chapters laid the ground-work for what’s to come. More importantly, the introduction added to the believably of the incredible, richly described world of the Arden. It’s so much better than Vandermeer. So if you’re a touch hesitant, stick with it! It’s a worthwhile trip. The Arden soars once our main characters transport themselves to the future Earth of the titular title. But it’s the three main characters, Kaneda, Gypsy, and Gray that really make this story shine. A bunch of misfits, it was surprising to see how the three evolved over the course of the tale (each experiencing a different sense of time -and aging- due to the temporal portals of the Arden). In particular, the character of Gray has a unique arc which I wasn’t expecting, and he’s nicely juxtaposed with our main protagonist; our eyes and ears in the world of the Arden.
  
  The Arden is filled not only with an evocative landscape, but equally well-defined cultures and populations; I normally don’t like to use the term, but there’s no denying the ‘world-building’ is effectively done here. And the supporting characters, in particular the mystic ranger, Saras, and the despicably creepy Alonso, are worthwhile –and very memorable- characters in their own right.
  
  Ultimately, what most affected me, aside from the extremely well-thought out plot and story, was the heart at the centre of it all. There was a special bond between our principle trio, so much so that they felt like real, unique personalities… transcending the written page. Finally, I appreciated that even if questions about the environment were central to the premise of The Arden, the author never turned it into a parable, instead leaving the reader to come up with their own answers, as any good story should. I have to wonder, will we see Kaneda again?
  
• 
  James Pyne

  This is a awesome read. Period. My only gripe would be I wish the book was longer (purely selfish on my part) because I didn't want it to end. Possible Part 2 in the works?
  
  I generally don't read science fiction so wasn't sure what I was getting myself into but am I ever glad I got to read this! I am sucker for writing that takes me there and I was there, smelling, touching, seeing everything Popovich described. There are no blind spots in Popovich's writing. The author has an imagination to be envied, that's for sure.
  
  Kaneda is the most well-fleshed out character of the novel but Gypsy and Gray are believable characters, too, with their own personalities, ambitions, and imperfections. Popovich also did a great job making the lesser characters stand out as well.
  
  This just isn't a dark science fiction story. Fans of other genres like fantasy or literary may enjoy this book, too! For those environmentalists out there, I am confident they will love this book. Dystopian fans surely will add this to their most cherished.
  
  There is no need for me to give a synopsis of this book as I see others have gone into great deal. I will end this review with this, if you're looking for something unique, highly imaginative, with a dark feel to it, a narrator that will have you at times laughing aloud, give The Arden a try. I am not seeing you putting this book down once you start it.
• 
  Ted Myers

  This book has the power to blow your mind. It is one of the most innovative, original, hard-hitting works of science fiction I have ever read.
  
  It involves a young man and his two band mates who start off in a not-too-distant future where humans and technology have nearly obliterated nature and travels to two other futures: one distant future where nature prevails and one in the middle distance, where people are caught up in an almost-patriotic fervor to reverse the damage done. The unintended consequences of their fervor lead to a future fraught with perils for human beings.
  
  L.S. Papovitch beautifully crafts this odyssey that keeps you turning the pages late into the night. Highly recommended – and not just for sci-fi buffs.
  
• 
  John Jennings

  In 'The Arden' we are escorted around a dystopian future San Francisco devoid of all the beauty and sophistication, less of a tourist brochure and more the near-futuristic night-scape - Chandlerese cynicism punctuated with visceral vocabulary and miserable metaphor. Gone are the Golden Gate and cable cars, but the cold miserable wintry isolation remain. This is a world where corporate excess ran rampant, but where, at least, the sins of the father are paid for by a jaded Kaneda – an apt name alluding to our main protagonist's being North American, but lacking the outlook of those from the States. An outsider from the outset, he and his companions make up three musketeers wending their way between worlds - late-stage Capitalist and Gomorrah, as described by one.
  After exposing the corruption and general skulduggery that has raised his family above the dishevelled plebs, Kaneda drops out of college and takes his place amongst the populace, struggling through lonely homelessness, busking for change. Salvation, we hope, temporarily delivered by two fellow misfit band mates, and soon all three, along with an equally misfit pet cat, are wallowing in the seedy impoverished splendour of the top floor apartment of a less than fashionable condo, evading work and the authorities' spy-drones. If that sounds less than an ideal start, the plot soon thickens and things get decidedly worse for everyone – or so it seems. In the case of Kaneda and his dysfunctional adoptive family there is such a thing as too much TV.
  The moment the three follow the cat's progress in interacting too closely with their old-fashioned cathode ray tube telly, which offers a glimpse of the future through the dated tech of the past, we are taken into another more fluid and even stranger world, which immediately quickens the heart-beat in a subtle suspense-filled episode, a seemingly endless trebuchet into a distant future, San-Fran in almost everything but name. After time-bent weeks pass before mind-wrecking moon visitations, in a descriptive jungle landscape where Popovich successfully eclipses even Conrad's brilliance, Kaneda begins the seemingly impossible return through a carnivorous filth-ridden decaying forested miasma, stations transposed into island oases of sorts searched out whilst evading the clutches and jaws of the constantly threatening Hearch.
  Occasional cynically level-headed cool instead of panic-stricken urgency surfaced through the dialogue, but generally rich language, sensitively layered imagery and a stunning lexicon littered the pages of this exceptional episodic exploration, more Bradbury or Wyndham than the spacecraft feared from the mention of the sci-fi genre. Instead of space travel and remotely distanced adventure we are thrown into topical maybes and possible futures, far from remote but on everyone's minds lately and probably for much time to come. What if today's cruel profit-driven corporations attempt to fix or reverse, unchecked and unregulated, the very issues or woes they have manufactured for the age? And in the mistaken fear that Popovich's words alone would hinder the portrayal, the author threw in appropriately illustrative art-works to further enlighten.
  From start to finish, young characters interact with a range of characters of various stages in life attempting throughout to find their niches and evade the inevitable often fast approaching age-ridden slow-down. Drawn sympathetically but with a realistic inevitability, the author ensures, through subtly crafted techniques and marvellously florid language, that the reader invests heavily in their journey. Fear, struggle, disappointment, revulsion – a dystopian experience tackled by Popovich without cliché in a fantastic invitation into sharing repeated nightmares.
  Even the well read with a catholic taste will seldom if ever encounter a better novel. Truly impressive, the way we are drawn into the various settings forged by Popovich, so enamouring is the elegance of style and grace in forging a story, a marvellous adventure story which will surely stand the test of time – a modern classic whose final pages the only disappointment. Not disappointing in the form of a let-down, but because this tour de force had come to a close. Like every great novelist, Popovich leaves us wanting more. Fortunately, other works are already published. And, hopefully, many more will follow.
• 
  Grant Price

  "It's my first time forgetting".
  
  The future is green, but not as those who place their faith in green tech magic bullets would want it. The Arden offers a dramatic look at one of my favourite themes: our prolonged failure to curb nature to our needs, wishes and whims and our increasingly destructive behaviour as we double down on those efforts. We may think we've 'conquered' the world as a species, but what we still largely fail to understand is that every ecosystem has an extremely delicate, intricate balance; adding an extra ingredient, trying to streamline or upgrade the process, or putting our faith in lab-grown solutions over natural reactions is never going to end well. The fallout of our interference is evident in everything from
  Silent Spring to
  The Road, and The Arden by L.S. Popovich picks up the torch and runs with it.
  
  We follow Kaneda (Akira reference?), the son of a money man who turns against everything his father has worked for and ends up on the mean streets of a future San Francisco. He joins up with Gray, a pudgy wannabe artist who, like many others, has fallen through the gaps of the system and is effectively waiting either to 1. fade away or 2. have somebody jolt him awake, and Gypsy, a spirited counterpoint to the sarcastic Kaneda whose words and convictions can never truly be trusted. After moving in on the top floor of a close-to-being-condemned skyscraper, they set about trying to find some purpose in their lives while the world below them continues to act out the same destructive patterns as it always has. That is, until the three of them enter the world of The Arden (I won't say how, but it's a good old piece of symbolism): a Triassic era, archaeopsychic jungle hellscape straight out of Ballard's
  The Drowned World. The question is whether it is a glimpse into a far-flung past or a sign of things to come.
  
  Human beings are great at realising - just too late - what they've lost, and the characters of The Arden are no different. Memories, comfort, youth: Kaneda, Gray and Gypsy surrender them all when they enter The Arden. But they also gain new qualities: spirituality, resolution and purpose. I think that's the message of the novel - that in order to combat the climate crisis, we're going to have to throw a lot of comfort blankets into the fire, but that we'll gain a great deal more in the process.
  
  I guess people are going to compare this to
  Annihilation, but although The Arden does have some horrific passages (any time the Hearch appears, for example, or the engineer kid who has jury-rigged some kind of exoskeleton for himself), it's more philosophical in tone, and dwells primarily on nature's ability to bounce back from our efforts to destroy it and become an all-encompassing, all-saturating presence where humans are an afterthought. We are well on our way.
  
  A sequel would be welcome.
• 
  Sam Isaacson

  The Arden is structured in four parts, in which the protagonist, Kaneda, along his two friends Gypsy and Gray most of the time, experiences (minor spoilers):
  
  1. a dystopian future version of San Francisco, which they all want to escape from
  2. a mysterious location known as the Arden, which two of the three want to escape from
  3. back to San Francisco, which Kaneda wants to escape from,
  4. finally back to the Arden, in order to escape from it
  
  The story was compelling and made me want to keep on reading. The mystery of precisely what the Arden is, while hinted at and unravelled steadily throughout, isn't fully revealed until really the final couple of pages. The pace is very good.
  
  It contains bigger picture messages about the relationship between humans and technology, our place within creation and the role that we ought to play in the natural world...and yet it isn't preachy at all - different characters within the story have different perspectives, but these are always presented as their own opinions, and the author never imposes their own ideology on the reader. I felt intrigued by them and enjoyed some of the original thoughts they developed.
  
  That said, I found the stubbornness of some characters - particularly Kaneda, whose voice it's written in, who was extremely annoying at times. His wilful blindness seemed intentionally disruptive, narrow-minded and selfish at certain points, which I didn't enjoy.
  
  At some points, the structure of the language threw me off a bit. There are several conversations between three people where the speaker isn't indicated, leaving me wondering who was saying what. But in particular, certain descriptive sections either moved too fast, or used so many synonyms and metaphors that I ended up losing the thread of what was actually happening. Here's what I mean:
  
  "A charred canyon loomed ahead. Deep in the misty ravine a frozen patch of light blossomed. Precambrian crags protruded from rolling dunes. The descent was long and treacherous. Granules of multicolored sand wafted upward in a continual swell of increasing heat. I formed a theory, that we encroached upon some dense energy pocket of radiation. The architecture of the Arden was unadorned and raw. Gypsy placed a hand on the singed wall of the immense cavern."
  
  When did we enter a cavern? The landscape seems to shift around the characters at some points. Perhaps that's because of the mystery of the Arden, which certainly wouldn't be surprising given its nature - and yet that shifting world beneath colourful description led to me not being able to build up a good enough mental picture of what was going on. One of the key locations for the central part of the book I never managed to visualise - it was only after the characters had left it that I realised they'd been inside a building, which is a shame.
  
  But I did keep going all the way to the end, which was a very satisfying one. I mentioned the mystery is only unravelled on the final pages, and I did find it a little abrupt, with one particular plot element left still wanting to be dealt with more fully in my opinion, but all of my big questions around what on earth was going on were answered.
  
  I'd thoroughly recommend this to anyone looking for a book that broadly speaking could be classed as scifi, but refuses to be put into a category - it's creative, easy to read, mysterious, and presents characters that stick in the mind.
• 
  M.L. Little

  I didn't think I would love this book; then I read most of it in two sittings. Here's why I loved it:
  (Also I pretty much only write disjointed reviews these days so this is very disjointed)
  
  --As I read, it powered up my own imagination. I was engaged. An engaging book is, to me, a good book.
  --The narration was hilarious. There were so many parts that were so genuinely funny, it would take me too long to list them all. ("What, pray tell, would qualify as a big deal?" was one of my favorites.) The dry sarcasm and wit pulls you in, and then, without you even realizing it, the tone becomes more serious over the course of the book.
  --The humor is a little bit Nihilistic, but not as much as I expected. It's also not politically correct at all sometimes, which is honestly refreshing.
  --The second they went through that TV, in an adult version of Narnia, I escaped with them. In 2021, having survived 2020 like the rest of you, I'm aiming to read basically two things: happy books, and escapism. This was pure escapism and I loved it.
  --I want to add that when I read books, I often overlook the descriptions and imagine things the way I want to. But in The Arden, the descriptions from page one to the very end are so vivid and explosive, I found myself picturing everything exactly like it was written.
  --Kaneda was a very real character to me, and very believable as he faces the frustration between one bad place and another. Also I pronounced his name right from the beginning.
  --I also found the plotting genius, with the sinister layers beneath, and the overlap of The Arden and San Francisco. Gray's transformation was unexpected and made perfect sense.
  
  Basically, the bottom line of all of this is that I love The Arden. I'd already read Undertones and was a fan of L.S. Popovich the person, and now I'm an equally big fan of L.S. Popovich the author.
  
  I received a PDF of this book to provide an honest review, but halfway through I preordered a physical copy for myself, if that tells you anything.
  
• 
  C.J. Rune

  I feel I can best describe 'The Arden' by L. S. Popovich as a jubilant, dynamic libretto.
  
  Never have I read a book written in such a way so that not only the story itself keeps one's interest, but the diversity in the words used to convey it also inspires awe. Every scene of the two worlds in this novel are presented to the reader as if pieces of art being described not only through words, but more like one might experience ever-changing measures of music.
  
  The story begins set in the near future - a polluted, over-crowded world already succumbed to both a crumbling economy and the ill effects of years of neglect for environmentalism. As the primary characters, three young friends known as Kaneda, Gray, and Gypsy, struggle to find their place in this world, they happen onto an escape from their realities. A portal to a future world where the author explores one possible outcome if nature were allowed to flourish, unhindered by mankind, and in a fantastical way. What I liked most about this story, beyond the always-diverse ways in which it is described, is the author could have easily gone the self-indulgent route and used it as a platform to promote their own views on conservation. Instead, L. S. Popovich presents arguments for both sides of the issue only briefly through the characters' points of view, and only as a means to allow the characters to both learn and grow, all the while keeping the story's focus on escorting the reader through a unique, truly imaginative world.
  
  If you are a lover of fiction and fantasy, you'll not only enjoy the truly creative worlds presented in this story, but also the variety of the 'lyrics and melodies' the author uses to deliver them to you.
• 
  Daniel Ståhl

  Arden's protagonist, the jaded and until-recently homeless Kaneda, and his two bandmates notice a peculiar feature of their antiquated TV set: you can literally crawl into it. On the other side waits an alternate reality - or is it?
  
  Arden is a lovingly crafted and polished work. It exhibits mastery of the language, with many beautifully painted images and colorful metaphors, compellingly woven into an imaginative and thought-provoking story.
  
  The one thing I find myself wishing for as a reader is characters I could more easily relate to. Even in life-and-death situations and facing mind-bending breakdowns of reality, the characters seem bottomless reservoirs of polished (albeit often funny) one-liners, more than they do human beings of flesh and blood. Then again, this is a matter of personal taste as much as anything.
  
  That being said, anyone looking for a fantastical, weird and inspiring take on dystopian sci-fi would do well to pick this one up.
• 
  Alex

  The Arden by L.S. Popovich
  
  Several recent books bemoan fiction’s historic lack of concern with the destruction of the environment. Why didn’t writers in the 19th and 20th centuries notice what was happening around them? I’m not so sure fiction past was so oblivious, Germinal and Bleak House come to mind. But if novelists did once ignore the destruction of the environment (and its co-conspirator climate change), in the last decade many novelists have made it a central theme of their fiction. A welcome addition, L.S. Popovich’s The Arden explores the environmental theme, but obliquely. The story is about a possible outcome of our misadventures.
  
  It begins in a futuristic San Francisco. The city has gone to hell, and the only positive tourist attraction might be the snow that falls, prettifying the buildings. Our main character is Kaneda, which is not pronounced Canada (KAN/UH/DUH) but KAY/NAY/DAY, and our hero will promptly correct anyone who mispronounces. Hero might be a misnomer. He’s a wiseass anti-hero who brought down his father’s business empire, is estranged from his family, and now gets by blogging and scavenging the streets. If he hates the rich, he goes none too easy on the poor, disdaining the city’s riffraff. In San Francisco, he will hook up with two other bohemians: One is Gypsy, a 17-year-old musician who meets Kaneda when he was about to hock his Rickenbacker bass. He plays a couple of chords for Gypsy, who’s so impressed, she suggests forming a band with her friend Wolfgang Gray, a heavyset drummer and aspiring artist. The three form a band, practice in Gray’s family garage until Gray’s parents kick them out, then together they move into La Vie Exquise, a decrepit “condominiumopolis” as Kaneda puts it, with a view. Gypsy complains as much as Kaneda, but she has a job (guess who pays the rent), spends freely and owns an ancient Yugo to haul them around SF to the jeers of the street-corner environmentalists. Up on the roof of La Vie Exquise, they meet Oswald, an artist, pigeon fancier, and possible seer. Oswald will disappear, but will reappear on the other side.
  
  The other side is The Arden.
  
  Although the first thirty pages reflect the aesthetic of Rent and of Les Mis, Popovich is slumming to document the world Kaneda will encounter on the other side.
  
  Scavenging through the stuff Oswald left behind, Kaneda appropriates an old but functioning television. In the tradition of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, a small animal will trigger the adventure of our bohemians. When Gypsy’s cat Oliver disappears into the television, Gypsy pursues her into the screen. Concluding that the old TV doubles as a portal to . . . somewhere, Kaneda and Gray soon follow.
  
  Emerging from the portal, Kaneda and Gray confront a mysterious forest that they will learn is called The Arden. Beginning as a search for Gypsy, the story tracks Kaneda’s efforts to unlock the forest’s secrets and survive its many hazards. Kanada’s initial reaction: “The arrangement of trees was different. The forest was like a jumbled Rubik’s cube, a self-distorting tessellation of organic circuitry.” For an opening sally, Kaneda’s description left me chewing my lip. How do I visualize this? A jumbled Rubik’s cube? A self-distorting tessellation? (tessellation is the covering of a surface with one of the more geometric shapes with no overlaps and no gaps). It’s intriguing but baffling. As Kaneda’s adventure unfolds, he’ll voice similar Delphic descriptions. He is definitely a logophile: word happy, but in effect is he also an unreliable narrator? That said, many of his descriptions of The Arden are dazzling:
  
  The floating heads of children, disembodied in various stages of decay, conglomerates of roots and grass, crusted bone and mildew sticking to me … flesh extruded raw from gaping holes, bubbling pustules roving over woven tree limbs ,eyeless worms rolling over our train, like knotted animate yarn….
  
  I can both see it and feel it. Popovich sensualizes the environment his hero passes through, bringing to mind Verne and Wells, but most emphatically Burroughs of the John Carter novels
  
  In The Arden, we’ll encounter plenty such scenes of horror, madness and monsters, mysterious remains of technology, indigenous people, rituals and cultural artifacts, astronauts from the future, a not-quite -defined Lethe that threatens memories. But the forest, The Arden , remains inexplicable. Kaneda will escape once, returning to San Francisco to seek answers, but the answers are unsatisfying, prompting his return through that damn television. Back to heroic action.
  
  The Arden may provide answers only in the way a nightmare does.
  
  A provocative imaginative, and important read.
• 
  Tyler Edwards

  I can’t decide if this book is more of a crafted story or a piece of art painted with words. The imagery and development of the story feels more painted than written. Some of the descriptions remind me of Dean Koontz’s work (he has some great descriptions). There’s a real vividness to this future world Kaneda lives in. The writing is very crisp and it’s an easy story to get lost in. The more I read, the more I found myself struggling with how to classify The Arden. Is it a story for entertainment or is this all an allegorical warning about the dangers of becoming too dependent on technology, or chasing after cheap fixes rather than searching for real solutions? Everything is layered well creating a lot of points were the reader must stop to consider what more is being said. Some areas read almost like poetry. Others like warnings. Still others like philosophy. They are all wrapped in this strange, fast-paced, interesting story.
  
  The Arden, which governs the future, uses short-term memory loss as a tool to keep humanity from returning to technology and the harmful things that come from it. Thus, creating a delicate balance between man and the environment. This is just one concept that really stood out to me. Ever since I played the game telephone as a kid, when you get a group of people together and one whispers as message and that message is relayed down the line until the final person hears it. Then you compare the final message to the original. It always amazed me how far off the two were. Perhaps the reason the legal system doesn’t put as much stock in eye-witness testimony. The questions posed about this touch one of the most fascinating things: how do you know you can trust your own memory? The truth is, even if you saw something, you don’t know that you saw all of what happened. You don’t know what you didn’t see. You don’t know how much of what you saw you interpreted without evening meaning to. Yet, you trust that memory that is surrounded by mystery, uncertainty, and fallibility as it were truth incarnate. That’s the kind of rabbit trail thought process good science-fiction is meant to take you on. That’s the rabbit trail I spent a long time on here.
  
  In The Arden people in the future had a sort of repeated memory loss. They had to keep journals to reminds themselves of what happened. Now you have memory, being written down after being interpreted, then read and being reinterpreted. It’s a society playing telephone with themselves every day. It reminded my of the premise of one of my favorite movies: Memento and I was thrilled to revisit the quandary of short-term memory loss and the practical implications of everyday life.
  
  What I found particularly interesting is the Kaneda, Gypsy, and Gray are not just taken to one future to show what happens to the world when everything goes wrong, we are taken to two futures – one far distance future and one in between. Here’s why that intrigues me: there are plenty of stories that write about future worlds. Most dystopian/utopian books are built around that genre. Sprinkle in a lot of science-fiction in general and imagining what could happen to the world or what the future could look like, is a relatively common idea. What makes the book stand out is what the future looks like and how it’s different from our own. The Arden jumping to the middle, a future between the final reality and our present one provides an element I’ve not seen before: how we got there. It’s a clever warning of what the next milestone in the road might look like and what that road might lead to if we don’t course correct.
  
  This was not at all what I thought I was getting into. I am delighted to be surprised by it.
  
• 
  Anthony DiMaria

  The Arden is a gem.
  
  The Arden is a wonderful story, dense with life and the action of interpersonal camaraderie, compromise and conflict. It is written with perfect economy and delightful buoyancy, while consistently presenting the characters and story in clear focus. These characters are strong, charming, impish, quick with hilarious retorts and completely relatable. We become instant partners on a beautiful journey in the new explorations of our three bandmates.
  
  Within the first few pages one is immediately a gleeful partner in this world. The hook is quick. It does not let go. The world created grants instant access to the valor and energy of the sharp and lovable characters that, by end, one hopes to encounter again.
  
  The author immerses us in the immediate, energizing pace of a bustling city, but contrasts the associated stimuli with subtle, personal relationships made along the way. The transitions between large and small scale environments are done with such wonderful ease that we drift from world to world with a constant, grounded understanding of our characters in their new challenges. They lead us into new worlds with a core consistency that affirms our deeper understanding of their character. We run readily through the difficult challenges facing them.
  
  The imagery is clear and vivid in the many immersive worlds. The author provides a wonderful reverence to the unique, fantastical objects that range from the nostalgic to the modern.
  
  The Arden is told with a seasoned voice, but it is easy to absorb. Popovich writes with a keen eye, economic style, and syntax to match the mood and energy of each situation. There is an elegance in the writing that allows the reader the freedom to become a direct participant of the experience, rather than wade through any barriers of contrived magniloquence.
  
  The Arden is a beautiful, humorous fantasy grounded in the real world.
• 
  Vider Leprav

  WARNING: Spoilers
  
  “The Arden” is a sci-fi novel that introduces itself as a type of cyberpunk novel about the hardships of a trio of misfortunate, dysfunctional souls that try to survive in an already broken city. However, the book quickly transforms itself into a futuristic adventure meditating on societal demise and human kind’s hand in it.
  “The Arden” has many strengths. The most prominent being its humour, as sarcasm and punch lines are spouted left and right mainly by the main character that we follow throughout the narrative. Its comedy adds an extra flavour to the book’s overall allure as well as allowing the reader to distance themselves from the dark nature of the events occurring.
  Another strength is its world-building. The books vivid descriptions of the environment and atmosphere makes it easy to imagine the unique vision of the future that the author is painting. The many details added, especially regarding the lives of the tribes, add to the richness of its world.
  I also like the pace of the story and how it shifts and changes throughout and never seems to slow down long enough to become stagnant, and especially like the short “interview” section of the book.
  Many of the details included bring ideas across that further the depth of the novel. The annual amnesia that affects the citizens of “The Arden” and the idea that memory of his previous world is the only thing that keeps the main character from surrendering to the new one. The monster of the Arden, that functions as a necessary evil in order to keep the human race in harmony. Or that the reason the world got engulfed into nature was because man tried to keep it flourishing while also not having to adjust his behaviour and that the end result is a supreme semi-being that can be nothing but obeyed.
  Overall, this is a great novel for those who like their sci-fi filled with comedic elements and a heavily subversive attitude.
• 
  Jackie Hovorka-Anders

  Another great ready by Popovich! The Arden was not what I expected at first. I originally figured it would be a typical dystopian novel with superficial characters, but no way! The characters were what pulled me in from the beginning! So much depth and background work went into forming these characters way before the new/parallel world was revealed.
  
  The Arden starts in a dystopian future San Francisco where we meet three seemingly unambitious characters that aggravate, yet interest the reader in their own unique ways. However, when they enter what they called the Arden, you see them change to fit their new situation. Gypsy, who was my favorite, immediately shines and handles their new situation like she was always destined to do so but never had the chance until faced with something so unimaginable as a parallel world scenario. It was almost like this anomoly was exactly what the three of them needed to pull them out of the rut that the futuristic and very sad San Francisco society possibly attributed to.
  
  The characters drive the plot, but the world building is superb, too! This is definently a must read book by this talented author.
• 
  Chris Wright

  The Arden was a joy to read from start to finish. Popovich has a wit and flair with his words that instantly draws you in to a dynamic and detailed world. You can almost smell the mold on the condominiumopolis’s walls and vividly see the overgrown and alien landscape of the demonic jungle as he brings a world to life where nature has the upper hand. The characters are another element that reel you in, with three unique and well-rounded persona’s that bounce off each other brilliantly. The Arden was complimented by an engaging and original plot, one that could literally take you anywhere, and that was part of what made it so much fun. Featuring wry observations about the world we live in now, Popovich weaves a beautiful and thought provoking tale. It feels like there is so much more that Popovich could give us in the future with The Arden, as the world he has created is so vivid, richly detailed and boundless that there must be many more tales to tell. I thoroughly recommend this book, one which left me wanting to read much more from this talented author.
• 
  P.D. Kuch

  The message “Arden” conveys can be summed up by its quote, “you can never vanquish the human spirit, even in captivity.”
  A bit neurotic and full of extremes, the book tells a story of existential ambiguities and, to some extend, escapism.
  “Our culture is silly when you’re standing on the outside it.” We start in a steampunk reality of the socially excluded friends who find a portal to another world. The new realm is built on a paradigm that impends anthropocentrism – a concept of human supremacy in the universe. Outwardly environmental, the book is about defiance. Defiance understood as the core and intrinsic part of human personality but also as an essential requirement for change, development and evolution.
  A must-read for any philosophically inclined sci-fi fan.
  I love the answer the main protagonist gives when asked: “What are you going to do with yourself?” “I’ll start a band [and] steal lyrics from Pink Floyd” – a recipe for success in any world.
• 
  W.M. Akers

  Sleepy, strange, and captivating!
  
  The Arden is one of those rare books where I was never sure what was going to happen next. From the the opening pages, which launch the reader straight into a truly unique vision of dystopian San Francisco that called to mind the best of ‘90s cyberpunk, I had no idea where the story was going to go, but I couldn’t wait to find out.
  
  The magnificent ruin of Kaneda’s half-finished penthouse is exactly the kind of dirty urban wilderness that I love reading about, and every inch of it is rendered so clearly that once the story’s supernatural elements began to creep in, I didn’t doubt them for a second. I won’t spoil what happens when the TV starts to act up, but I will say that you’ll never forget it—and you will find yourself desperate to learn what happens next.