I'd only known Stålenhag from seeing his art pop up here and there while getting sucked into the digital pull of online forums. His art evoked feelings of nostalgia while inserting elements that were completely foreign. I enjoyed imagining the greater alternate past he was creating beyond what was contained in his paintings. I wholly expected his writing to fall short of the benchmark he had set visually, but of course, I wound up being wrong. The story was just as satisfyingly bleak and full of wonder as those pictures I saw on the internet without context.
4.5/5