You will perhaps not read a more interactive and fascinating novel than LEOPOLD'S LABYRINTH this year.
LEOPOLD'S LABYRINTH puts the reader at the center of a story where they take shape as a recluse residing in the digitally-constructed environments of the future--the cybergothic landscape of the 2020s. It is Sunday evening and they just have begun their pilgrimage into a holy labyrinth, in the hopes that they will come upon new artifacts that radiate a simultaneously corporeal and astral aura. The reader is a miner who mines this place for its meaning. LEOPOLD'S LABYRINTH is a funhouse turned videogame for readers. They must interact with textual artifacts, deduct meaning, and grapple with the complex human issues turned upside down and inside out. You will perhaps not read a more interactive and fascinating novel this year.
"LEOPOLD'S LABYRINTH is a book that insists upon the second person: 'The labyrinth dominates your vision, ' and, as such, the book pushes outward to surround or swallow the reader. The 'user-body' moves through the labyrinth and toward its center. The 'user-body' goes left or it goes right, and each choice is accompanied by an epigraph. But these choices and epigraphs lead the user 'no closer to this perceived center.' Instead, choices lead to artifacts, which in turn raise questions about the shape, the purpose, the meaning of these forking routes. Why is 'you' here? In fact, why is 'you' at all? Corrao has devised a choose-your-own-adventure-sacral-sci-fi-mythemic staging area. This you pushes and pushes at all the lefts and at all the rights, but ends are elusive. The routes were predetermined, will was an illusion, and the labyrinth needed you so that it might see itself. In other words, Corrao's labyrinth is a machine for thinking-eating-being-finding."--Philp Sorenson, Embodies, Solar Trauma
"'The PYRAMID is a feature of my anatomy.' LEOPOLD'S LABYRINTH represents a game of sorts--a game that perhaps every work of art is playing. Here, the pursuit of meaning is condensed into a swirling dungeon crawl. 'The occult is the technology of the self.' Somewhat paradoxically, your build will fail if only comprised of What does this mean? However, What is this doing to me? is an incredibly potent instrument, and will see you to labyrinth's greatest depths, where true transformation may be possible. 'The SERPENT feeds me the data of my former configurations?' Will you uncover the end? Does this path truly belong to you? Can only the dead reach forward?"--B.R. Yeager, Negative Space
"A vast, virtual labyrinth full of many artifacts, epigraphs, and boobytraps, LEOPOLD'S LABYRINTH beckons the reader into its fertile depths, where we are free to touch and taste the objects on display. The risk is yours to take. Mike Corrao's latest is an essential entry into his oeuvre, a textual sculpture that rewards many returns. Speedrun or linger, haters and lovers of literature alike will find many delights inside the LABYRINTH." --Logan Berry, Run-Off Sugar Crystal Lake, Casket Flare
Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Hybrid. Art.
