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F4
A cruise ship on the back of a sleeping kaiju. A transgender bartender trying to come terms with who she is. A rift in dimensions known as The Sway. A cruel captain. A storm of turmoil, insanity and magic is coming together and taking the ship deep into the unknown. What will Carol the bartender learn in this maddening non-place that changes bodies and minds alike into bizarre terrors? What is the sleeping monster who holds up the ship trying to tell her? What do Carol’s fractured sense of self and a community of internet trolls have to do with the sudden pull of The Sway?
142 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
April 8, 2018
Something that I am greatly looking forward to this year is the new releases in the NBAS (New Bizarro Author Series). A new title will be released bi-monthly. The first, F4 by Larissa Glasser, is a wild trip on the back of a supermonster. In the preface, the editor states that this story is not a slap in the face with politics. However, every good story has its hero or heroine bucking the system, hence there is a political undertone here. This is an unorthodox journey into the nether regions of the author's colorful and exciting imagination. At the heart of this metamorphical trip is Carol, a transgender woman in search of confidence in a world where doing the right thing invites persecution. Carol may have to enter another dimension on the wings of a kaiju to discover her strengths and rescue the disenfranchised, but she faces her challenges with panache. And maybe a bit of anadaC. If you like what you've just read, by all means, pick up F4 and get lost in the frenzy.
January 16, 2019
"We were giving birth to our own version of what we'd wanted the monster to be, now that we seemed to be in control."
F4 by Larissa Glasser is one of the strangest and most entertaining books I've read. There's so much packed into this little book, and it's a wild story. There are three different sections of this novella, and I could have easily read a book for each section.
First off, kaijus have arrived, so of course humans have experimented on them and finally subdued the fourth kaiju (F4) so that a luxury cruise ship could be built onto its back. This immediately drew me into the story, and I've learned that I love cruise ship horror. The trapped environment is so unsettling to me. This is a bizarro book, and the cruise ship setting totally fits. Regarding the kaiju, there's a lot going on with how humans treat creatures that they don't understand, and how humans shape things to be what they want them to be. These are good points to think about, and I enjoyed Larissa's creativity in covering them.
F4 covers such a wide range of topics that I'm not sure how to touch on everything. There's a political aspect, relationships, family, a sci-fi aspect, and also discusses the main character Carol's experience as a trans woman & how trans people are treated in society while all of these storylines are going on. It was awesome, and I loved how everything pulled together.
As I said earlier, this is a bizarro book, and a super sexual one at that. I don't think I would recommend F4 for a first-time bizarro reader since it gets kind of intense, so read a few others first & come back to this one. Larissa's writing is humorous, and I was grossed out and amused at the same time.
The timeline gets a bit confusing at times, but I think I got it sorted out by the end. The wrap-up to this book is over-the-top and funny. I really enjoyed reading this one & I can't wait to read more from Larissa Glasser!
F4 by Larissa Glasser is one of the strangest and most entertaining books I've read. There's so much packed into this little book, and it's a wild story. There are three different sections of this novella, and I could have easily read a book for each section.
First off, kaijus have arrived, so of course humans have experimented on them and finally subdued the fourth kaiju (F4) so that a luxury cruise ship could be built onto its back. This immediately drew me into the story, and I've learned that I love cruise ship horror. The trapped environment is so unsettling to me. This is a bizarro book, and the cruise ship setting totally fits. Regarding the kaiju, there's a lot going on with how humans treat creatures that they don't understand, and how humans shape things to be what they want them to be. These are good points to think about, and I enjoyed Larissa's creativity in covering them.
F4 covers such a wide range of topics that I'm not sure how to touch on everything. There's a political aspect, relationships, family, a sci-fi aspect, and also discusses the main character Carol's experience as a trans woman & how trans people are treated in society while all of these storylines are going on. It was awesome, and I loved how everything pulled together.
As I said earlier, this is a bizarro book, and a super sexual one at that. I don't think I would recommend F4 for a first-time bizarro reader since it gets kind of intense, so read a few others first & come back to this one. Larissa's writing is humorous, and I was grossed out and amused at the same time.
The timeline gets a bit confusing at times, but I think I got it sorted out by the end. The wrap-up to this book is over-the-top and funny. I really enjoyed reading this one & I can't wait to read more from Larissa Glasser!
June 25, 2018
HOLY HELL this book was crazy amounts of fun. Fast-paced, ultra-violent, funny, sexual, over-the-top. You read the back cover and say to yourself “how is all this nonsense going to gel together?” yet in Glasser’s realized world of F4 it somehow does. Not only that, it makes sense, in it’s own weird way, both as an allegory and as an insane kaiju sci-fi bizarro adventure. Yeah, I liked this book a real lot.
May 2, 2018
An impressive debut that is seamless despite how much there is to take in. A multitude of strange ideas abound with a bit of the sociopolitical underneath. This is an exciting and definitely twisted book but just enough of the subtext is there. The writing chops are also solid and refined. F4 maintains a genuine, believable tone throughout the multidimensional madness. I am excited about is to come from Larissa Glasser. This is a great start for the NBAS books this year.
June 5, 2019
Remaking the universe with love and spunk
This crowded, chaotic novella weaves kaiju, cybernetics, all sorts of monsters, culture wars between cis bros and magnificent trans dykes, and much more into a phantasmagoric, gory, spermy, sweary, sweaty fever-dream with the most heart warming climax. Highly recommended to fellow SJW metalheads, bizzaro fans, and perhaps someone looking to find something that evokes the queer, sfnal kick William Burroughs shorn of misogyny and with more gunplay than the old wife-killer ever dreamed off.
One complaint: this ebook needed another round of line editing.
This crowded, chaotic novella weaves kaiju, cybernetics, all sorts of monsters, culture wars between cis bros and magnificent trans dykes, and much more into a phantasmagoric, gory, spermy, sweary, sweaty fever-dream with the most heart warming climax. Highly recommended to fellow SJW metalheads, bizzaro fans, and perhaps someone looking to find something that evokes the queer, sfnal kick William Burroughs shorn of misogyny and with more gunplay than the old wife-killer ever dreamed off.
One complaint: this ebook needed another round of line editing.
August 30, 2019
Review to follow...
February 5, 2018
It is 2018 and this marks a massive shift in Eraserhead's approach to the New Bizarro Author Series. First and foremost, instead of the November release date, all books up for grabs, now they're trickling the titles out one by one throughout the year, giving each author the time to shine on their own and giving each reader time to digest each book as they come out. There's also a shift away from the standardized covers. The NBAS has always been about capturing a wider variety of voices and styles than you may see in the standard Eraserhead lineup, and I think allowing a greater variety in book covers was a big step in the right direction.
So what has this year's first NBAS title got to offer?
Well, it's a trans-female centred story about a kaiju which has been transformed into a luxury cruise ship. It's also about the struggle with identity in a world where there is so much prejudice against the trans community. If that description is a turn-off for you, you're probably not the target audience and may possibly be the type of human garbage F4 is attempting to stand up against. What's really impressive is that Larissa Glasser has managed to seamlessly integrate a story about gender politics and a story about giant monsters and evil corporations into one damn impressive book. It's crude and vulgar in that punk/outsider way that you find in the best fringe fiction. Think of Carlton Mellick III's Satan Burger, the book that kicked off this crazy bizarro movement. F4 is the next step in this movement. I can't wait to see where Glasser takes her work next, and I can't wait to see what the rest of the 2018 NBAS has to offer.
So what has this year's first NBAS title got to offer?
Well, it's a trans-female centred story about a kaiju which has been transformed into a luxury cruise ship. It's also about the struggle with identity in a world where there is so much prejudice against the trans community. If that description is a turn-off for you, you're probably not the target audience and may possibly be the type of human garbage F4 is attempting to stand up against. What's really impressive is that Larissa Glasser has managed to seamlessly integrate a story about gender politics and a story about giant monsters and evil corporations into one damn impressive book. It's crude and vulgar in that punk/outsider way that you find in the best fringe fiction. Think of Carlton Mellick III's Satan Burger, the book that kicked off this crazy bizarro movement. F4 is the next step in this movement. I can't wait to see where Glasser takes her work next, and I can't wait to see what the rest of the 2018 NBAS has to offer.
January 23, 2018
The foreword to F4 says it "isn't about slapping you in the face with politics," and I suppose I can't fault a publisher for wanting to hedge their bets describing a book. But this novella features a transwoman with a plasma rifle fighting through a cruise ship full of demonic right-wing messageboard trolls like some super-aware lost level from Doom. So I need to echo Dril and say that politic's is back baby, and it's good again. Awoouu.
Glasser's voice is festooned in snark, and maniacal creativity stomps across every chapter of this Troma film/Evangelion/Under Siege hybrid clusterhump. Let it slap you in the face with its politics, its weirdness, or anything else it can wield that is remotely slappable.
Glasser's voice is festooned in snark, and maniacal creativity stomps across every chapter of this Troma film/Evangelion/Under Siege hybrid clusterhump. Let it slap you in the face with its politics, its weirdness, or anything else it can wield that is remotely slappable.
January 23, 2018
Larissa Glasser's debut is full-throttle down crazy street in a matte black van, a beer in the cupholder and thrash metal in the cassette deck. The brakes might be out, but you wouldn't know cause you'd never touch 'em.
F4 is the bizarro equivalent of a bad (but oh-so-good) monster movie from decades ago. It's full of surreal action, crazy creatures, queer eroticism, and social critiques of capitalism and transphobia in our culture. This book is a great addition to Eraserhead's New Bizarro Author Series, and I'm super excited to see what Larissa Glasser writes next. I loved F4. You should too.
F4 is the bizarro equivalent of a bad (but oh-so-good) monster movie from decades ago. It's full of surreal action, crazy creatures, queer eroticism, and social critiques of capitalism and transphobia in our culture. This book is a great addition to Eraserhead's New Bizarro Author Series, and I'm super excited to see what Larissa Glasser writes next. I loved F4. You should too.
May 30, 2018
If you’re looking to read a book about the trans experience, well, you’re probably not also after a book about crab-dog parasites and tentacle monsters on board a luxury cruise ship grafted into a kaiji’s body. No, F4 isn’t about “the” trans experience. It’s about a very specific experience within that whole broader spectrum of experiences - the type of personal and emotionally-charged story that can only be told through the warped glass of bizarro fiction.
The world within this horror novella is grim, gruesome and vibrant, like a swirl of different paints mixed to the point that it just starts to become a murky grey-green but with slits of the original bright colours still shining through the sludge. The mythology of this world is described just vaguely enough to evoke a certain mystique without bogging the reader down with plot points they won’t understand, although some of the real-world terminology used can be confusing if you’re out of the loop. On that note, the book could’ve used one more edit for typos, since a missing word here and there muddied my comprehension of some sentences. But it’s nothing to hold avid readers back.
The story is split into three parts, with the first and third being the strange, occult bread that holds this sandwich together. But the real meat of the story is in the tamer, more reality-based second act. This was probably my favourite segment, and it helped give a base of normalcy to the story which made the uncanny elements stand out more. There’s a fine line between “bizarreness” and “randomness”, and when a bizarro story has such a support pole of everydayness at its centre, I think it makes for better fiction because of it.
There’s certain bizarro that I’d recommend to people outside the genre’s target audience, and while F4 mightn’t be in that category due to its more extreme elements, this book is sure to please fans of the genre or anyone itching for something a little extra transgressive. Might not wanna read it on a cruise, though.
August 6, 2018
This was a fun, fast read with some unforgettable creatures. Glasser has a talent for introducing the kaiju, its predecessors, and the parasitic bugs in enough detail within a small amount of pages, that I could picture them perfectly and be fascinated by them as they wreaked havoc on passengers of The Finistrade. I also got a good sense of Carol and who she was, and was invested in her as a protagonist.
I didn't feel that same investment with the side characters. I would've liked to see a little more development for them - the story could've been longer and I wouldn't have minded being able to spend more time in this narrative, especially if that meant more time getting to know Chloe, Laura, Roz, and Jaden.
Still, it's a fast read and will be sure to please fans of creature horror, as well as fans of horrorotica.
My only other critique is for the publisher: my copy (the Kindle version) had lots of typos in it. I wish the publisher and editor had taken more care to catch these, as there were several to the point where I was often taken out of the story.
I didn't feel that same investment with the side characters. I would've liked to see a little more development for them - the story could've been longer and I wouldn't have minded being able to spend more time in this narrative, especially if that meant more time getting to know Chloe, Laura, Roz, and Jaden.
Still, it's a fast read and will be sure to please fans of creature horror, as well as fans of horrorotica.
My only other critique is for the publisher: my copy (the Kindle version) had lots of typos in it. I wish the publisher and editor had taken more care to catch these, as there were several to the point where I was often taken out of the story.
February 7, 2018
A gory, sticky, pulpy rollercoaster. Imagine if the movie Society took place on a cruise vessel built on the insides of a kaiju, featured strong transgender women as the heroes, and included a cult of alt-right internet trolls. This roughly sums up F4, but barely scrapes the amount of weirdness trapped between these pages. This is violent, bonkers fun, and worth your time if you're looking for something far out of the ordinary.
February 26, 2019
My review: http://raforall.blogspot.com/2019/02/...
Three Words To Describe This Book: Fun, Speculative, Compelling
Three Words To Describe This Book: Fun, Speculative, Compelling
July 16, 2019
This book has so much going on - but in a good way! It never stops being entertaining while at the same time pushing the boundaries on what you might come to expect from a story with this synopsis. This book has creature feature elements (I mean there are kaijus, after all! OOOH and little parasitic bug monsters!), claustrophobic suspense, themes of trans acceptance and understanding, humor, sex, and LOTS of other sexy things! And all of these things DO end up going together quite nicely to tell one amazing bizarro story!
I definitely need more bizarro from Glasser! 4 stars - highly recommended for fans of bizarro and erotic horror!
I definitely need more bizarro from Glasser! 4 stars - highly recommended for fans of bizarro and erotic horror!
May 9, 2018
You can read my full, illustrated review here: https://diversityhorror.blogspot.com/...
I really, really wanted to love this book. As you can see, most of the reviews are positive, which is awesome, and I feel like a jerk only giving it two stars. But I suspect bizarro fiction just isn't for me.
The horror genre is not generally kind to trans-women, frequently depicting them as serial killers and/or sexual deviants. Hell, fiction in general doesn't treat trans people well, forcing them into a victim role, and focusing on their angst and dysphoria. So you can imagine how unbelievably excited I was when I learned that Eraserhead Press was publishing a horror story about a bad ass trans woman who fights monsters and alt-right trolls, and, even better, it was being written by a trans woman. Glasser is also a librarian from Boston which makes her five-hundred times cooler in my eyes (I love librarians, they're like keepers of secret knowledge and they know everything). The reviews for F4 have so far been unanimously positive, the premise sounded weird and awesome, and it promised representation rarely found in the horror genre. F4 was like everything I had wished for and I could not pre-order it fast enough. Well, apparently whatever jinni decided to grant my wish for an awesome trans-lady horror story written by a trans person was one of those dick bag jinn who likes to pull that Monkey's Paw shit, because I haven't been this disappointed since I first saw Star Wars Episode One after months of hype.
In addition to her bartending duties, Carol also makes sex videos on the side with her friend Chole, another transwoman whom she's slightly obsessed with. Carol's wait staff of trans women, or "lady dicks" as she calls them, also make extra cash "servicing" the passengers of the Finasteride. This is the part that made me feel really weird. Frequently when trans people appear in fiction, it's as some sort of sex worker, and they're being written by cis folk who have littler understanding of, or respect for, either trans women or sex workers. It's such a cliché that cops will actually harass trans women on the street because they assume they're prostitutes. So having the majority of the trans women in a story do some sort of sex work, felt problematic, especially since most of the clients appeared to consider them a fetish rather than real people. It certainly doesn't help that Carol doesn't even seem to like doing web-cam work, and is only tolerating it because Chole pressured her into making porn. I enjoy naked people having sexy fun times as much as the next person, especially when those people are queer and/or non-binary, and one of the things that originally drew me to F4 was the promise of erotica with trans-ladies, but when the participants are being pressured, exploited, or fetishized, porn is just gross. F4 felt more like the later. The sex scenes aren't even arousing. One involves a toothless dude drooling on Carol's as she feels uncomfortable and wishes for it to be over. Ick. Chole also gets sexually assaulted by one of the kaiju's parasites in a really uncomfortable scene (which I think was supposed to be humorous?) in which Carol does exactly jack and shit to help her friend. Maybe weird, unappealing sex is a staple of bizarro fiction, but trans women are disrespected enough in the porn industry, I was really hoping it wouldn't happen here too.
My confusion regarding the storyline made it difficult to focus on the book (as did the frequent mention of dicks), and I probably would've given up on it completely if not for part two, the saving grace of F4. Part two is proof that Glasser really is a talented author. Instead of getting a bunch of random nonsense throw at us we get an intriguing, but straight forward story of Carol's life prior to the Finasteride, full of suspense. Her character suddenly seems relatable, she's dating a loser she can't seem to dump, living in the middle of nowhere, and trying to figure out what to do with her life. Carol witnesses a murder, and tries to do the right thing by reporting it to the cops. But since no good deed goes unpunished, she finds herself in the media spot light after becoming a key witness in the murder case, and becomes a victim of an online hate campaign by a bunch of transphobic trolls. Part 2 is great, it's intriguing, suspenseful, we finally get some explanations about what's going on, and of course Glasser had to ruin in by making part 3 even more random and confusing. This just made me hate the rest of the book even more because I now knew I could've been enjoying a well-written story about a woman vs. a bunch of internet trolls, and dealing with the dilemma of being punished for doing the right thing, and instead I had to put up with awkward sex, magical girl dicks, and a series of loosely connected plot holes. I became bitter, and sulkily rushed through the third part of the story, desperate to find some of the magic from Part 2. The only thing that redeemed part 3 was Carol killing the two entitled dudebros who fucked everyone over for more power, one of whom was the leader of the internet trolls who ruined her life. That was immensely satisfying.
So yeah, I really didn't like this book. Of course, I'm not trans, so it's possible my privilege was preventing me from recognizing the appeal of F4. All the reviews I had read online were overwhelming positive, so what was I missing? Was it just not intended for me? So I went to my friend, Ashley Rogers, of http://www.ashleyrogersplays.com/ , for help. I figured since she's an author herself, a sensitivity reader, and a trans right activist she'd be able to offer some valuable insight. I also asked her to explain what Glasser meant when she kept talking about "hatching eggs", but Ashley didn't know either, nor did any of the other trans and non-binary people I asked, and I eventually had to resort to Reddit and Urban Dictionary.
Ashley had the following to say:
First a disclaimer: Trans/n-b folk can and should be able to tell whatever stories we want. I love bizarre and spooky material, and I want trans folk to succeed and regardless of my feelings on this novel I am excited to see more from Larissa Glasser...
Buuuuuuuut...
My main criticism is that the piece doesn't seem to know what it wants or who it's written for. F4 intends to shock (evidenced by the material referenced in the piece such as Cannibal Holocaust and The Human Centipede) but it falls short of living up to those expectations. We don't live in the uncomfortable moments and grotesque situations long enough to care. At most we're left with a sense of "ok... That's fucked up," but then we move on to something else before we have a chance to feel unsettled.
Part two feels like a completely different (and subjectively better) novel entirely. I was gripped by the backstory and it had a great flow, and some of the concepts are really cool (Hell, it's about turning a Kaiju into a cruise liner!!), but as a trans woman I couldn't help but be bored by how often Carol popped a boner in the face of danger. One of the positive critiques I've seen from other trans women is that it's a story that isn't about a trans character who's sad, angry, and depressed about surgical transition/dysphoria but the way the author focuses on Carol's anatomy and overly sexual descriptions rather than creating the atmosphere distracts from the story and intriguingly bizarre concept of the piece in the same way these other pieces focus on the tragedy porn that gets written about our physical transition struggles. If this book was all part two I would be writing a very different statement but... I wish it were either more shocking in execution or more approachable in material, but as it stands it sits in limbo of both.
I won't lie, I feel genuinely guilty about not liking F4. I mean, everyone else loves it, and I want to be supportive of trans and non-binary folk in a cis-centric genre, but I just could not enjoy the story. I had no idea what was going on half the time, a lot of it just seemed to be weird for the sake of weirdness and contributed nothing to the story, and, the sex scenes felt more gross and exploitative than sexy and empowering. I liked the ideas behind F4, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Glasser clearly has talent as a writer, as is evident from part 2 of the story, so maybe I just don't like bizzaro horror, I don't know. At the very least I can say it's like nothing I've ever read before. In the mean time, I'm going to stick to reading Nerve Endings when I'm in the mood for some well written trans erotica.
I really, really wanted to love this book. As you can see, most of the reviews are positive, which is awesome, and I feel like a jerk only giving it two stars. But I suspect bizarro fiction just isn't for me.
The horror genre is not generally kind to trans-women, frequently depicting them as serial killers and/or sexual deviants. Hell, fiction in general doesn't treat trans people well, forcing them into a victim role, and focusing on their angst and dysphoria. So you can imagine how unbelievably excited I was when I learned that Eraserhead Press was publishing a horror story about a bad ass trans woman who fights monsters and alt-right trolls, and, even better, it was being written by a trans woman. Glasser is also a librarian from Boston which makes her five-hundred times cooler in my eyes (I love librarians, they're like keepers of secret knowledge and they know everything). The reviews for F4 have so far been unanimously positive, the premise sounded weird and awesome, and it promised representation rarely found in the horror genre. F4 was like everything I had wished for and I could not pre-order it fast enough. Well, apparently whatever jinni decided to grant my wish for an awesome trans-lady horror story written by a trans person was one of those dick bag jinn who likes to pull that Monkey's Paw shit, because I haven't been this disappointed since I first saw Star Wars Episode One after months of hype.
In addition to her bartending duties, Carol also makes sex videos on the side with her friend Chole, another transwoman whom she's slightly obsessed with. Carol's wait staff of trans women, or "lady dicks" as she calls them, also make extra cash "servicing" the passengers of the Finasteride. This is the part that made me feel really weird. Frequently when trans people appear in fiction, it's as some sort of sex worker, and they're being written by cis folk who have littler understanding of, or respect for, either trans women or sex workers. It's such a cliché that cops will actually harass trans women on the street because they assume they're prostitutes. So having the majority of the trans women in a story do some sort of sex work, felt problematic, especially since most of the clients appeared to consider them a fetish rather than real people. It certainly doesn't help that Carol doesn't even seem to like doing web-cam work, and is only tolerating it because Chole pressured her into making porn. I enjoy naked people having sexy fun times as much as the next person, especially when those people are queer and/or non-binary, and one of the things that originally drew me to F4 was the promise of erotica with trans-ladies, but when the participants are being pressured, exploited, or fetishized, porn is just gross. F4 felt more like the later. The sex scenes aren't even arousing. One involves a toothless dude drooling on Carol's as she feels uncomfortable and wishes for it to be over. Ick. Chole also gets sexually assaulted by one of the kaiju's parasites in a really uncomfortable scene (which I think was supposed to be humorous?) in which Carol does exactly jack and shit to help her friend. Maybe weird, unappealing sex is a staple of bizarro fiction, but trans women are disrespected enough in the porn industry, I was really hoping it wouldn't happen here too.
My confusion regarding the storyline made it difficult to focus on the book (as did the frequent mention of dicks), and I probably would've given up on it completely if not for part two, the saving grace of F4. Part two is proof that Glasser really is a talented author. Instead of getting a bunch of random nonsense throw at us we get an intriguing, but straight forward story of Carol's life prior to the Finasteride, full of suspense. Her character suddenly seems relatable, she's dating a loser she can't seem to dump, living in the middle of nowhere, and trying to figure out what to do with her life. Carol witnesses a murder, and tries to do the right thing by reporting it to the cops. But since no good deed goes unpunished, she finds herself in the media spot light after becoming a key witness in the murder case, and becomes a victim of an online hate campaign by a bunch of transphobic trolls. Part 2 is great, it's intriguing, suspenseful, we finally get some explanations about what's going on, and of course Glasser had to ruin in by making part 3 even more random and confusing. This just made me hate the rest of the book even more because I now knew I could've been enjoying a well-written story about a woman vs. a bunch of internet trolls, and dealing with the dilemma of being punished for doing the right thing, and instead I had to put up with awkward sex, magical girl dicks, and a series of loosely connected plot holes. I became bitter, and sulkily rushed through the third part of the story, desperate to find some of the magic from Part 2. The only thing that redeemed part 3 was Carol killing the two entitled dudebros who fucked everyone over for more power, one of whom was the leader of the internet trolls who ruined her life. That was immensely satisfying.
So yeah, I really didn't like this book. Of course, I'm not trans, so it's possible my privilege was preventing me from recognizing the appeal of F4. All the reviews I had read online were overwhelming positive, so what was I missing? Was it just not intended for me? So I went to my friend, Ashley Rogers, of http://www.ashleyrogersplays.com/ , for help. I figured since she's an author herself, a sensitivity reader, and a trans right activist she'd be able to offer some valuable insight. I also asked her to explain what Glasser meant when she kept talking about "hatching eggs", but Ashley didn't know either, nor did any of the other trans and non-binary people I asked, and I eventually had to resort to Reddit and Urban Dictionary.
Ashley had the following to say:
First a disclaimer: Trans/n-b folk can and should be able to tell whatever stories we want. I love bizarre and spooky material, and I want trans folk to succeed and regardless of my feelings on this novel I am excited to see more from Larissa Glasser...
Buuuuuuuut...
My main criticism is that the piece doesn't seem to know what it wants or who it's written for. F4 intends to shock (evidenced by the material referenced in the piece such as Cannibal Holocaust and The Human Centipede) but it falls short of living up to those expectations. We don't live in the uncomfortable moments and grotesque situations long enough to care. At most we're left with a sense of "ok... That's fucked up," but then we move on to something else before we have a chance to feel unsettled.
Part two feels like a completely different (and subjectively better) novel entirely. I was gripped by the backstory and it had a great flow, and some of the concepts are really cool (Hell, it's about turning a Kaiju into a cruise liner!!), but as a trans woman I couldn't help but be bored by how often Carol popped a boner in the face of danger. One of the positive critiques I've seen from other trans women is that it's a story that isn't about a trans character who's sad, angry, and depressed about surgical transition/dysphoria but the way the author focuses on Carol's anatomy and overly sexual descriptions rather than creating the atmosphere distracts from the story and intriguingly bizarre concept of the piece in the same way these other pieces focus on the tragedy porn that gets written about our physical transition struggles. If this book was all part two I would be writing a very different statement but... I wish it were either more shocking in execution or more approachable in material, but as it stands it sits in limbo of both.
I won't lie, I feel genuinely guilty about not liking F4. I mean, everyone else loves it, and I want to be supportive of trans and non-binary folk in a cis-centric genre, but I just could not enjoy the story. I had no idea what was going on half the time, a lot of it just seemed to be weird for the sake of weirdness and contributed nothing to the story, and, the sex scenes felt more gross and exploitative than sexy and empowering. I liked the ideas behind F4, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Glasser clearly has talent as a writer, as is evident from part 2 of the story, so maybe I just don't like bizzaro horror, I don't know. At the very least I can say it's like nothing I've ever read before. In the mean time, I'm going to stick to reading Nerve Endings when I'm in the mood for some well written trans erotica.
January 8, 2020
I picked this book up as the reviews seemed to be pretty positive and I enjoy the bizarre sub-genre. When I started reading it the story grabbed me straight away. I liked the characters and a lot of the concepts. Everything was going well until I got about a third of the way in and I just felt the story lost its way. It got pretty boring and I struggled to pick the book up. When I did, I read a few pages and put it back down. The wrap up is okay but not as good as the start of the book. I’d rather I had read just the first third as a short story. I think the author has a lot of potential, but the book didn’t stand up alongside other Bizarro books that I’ve read. In my opinion, the first third would have made a great short story and it should have been left at that.
February 14, 2019
Larissa Glasser's 'F4' is filthy, bizarre, ultra-violent, and hyper-(trans-)sexual, and I'm sure it's meant to be all those things. For a few moments, it's also quite melancholy.
It's a novella about a gang of women and a boy, most of whom have penises. They're stuck on a cruise ship, which is grafted onto the dormant body of a massive Kaiju. Within chapters the lecherous passengers of the ship morph into outer-worldly hellspawn, and it only gets wilder from there on out.
There are lots of guns, impossible shapes, oozes and other fluids, hybrids of the human and inhuman that should not be. And dicks. And dick energy. It's all a bit overwhelming.
While I am a trans woman, I haven't read all that much fiction by and for trans women specifically. In some ways, what Glasser writes sometimes borders on the objectionable, were it written by anyone other than a trans woman. I would call it objectifying and fetishizing. But I don't believe in the death of the author in this regard. The thing is: being a trans woman entails, to a certain degree, a near-constant hyper-self-awareness, an objectifying of the self. We have to, because we don't fit into any of the standard cultural (or sexual) modes of being in our society, and this is the only way for us to make sense of ourselves.
On some level, all of the over-the-top bizarro hijinx feels like an exorcism, an outlet for how much like *freaks* we trans people often feel. The lurid, lewd parts of 'F4' embrace that in a rebellious and in-your-face way. It wants to say: "So what if we're freaks? So is everyone and everything else, if you really look at it."
It's for this reason that the ponderous middle part of the book, which focuses on a much more down-to-earth (trans) history of Carol, the protagonist, is valuable too. It shows a woman much like any other trying to get by in a world where other people (predominantly men) don't really seem to care for your well-being all that much.
I'm not sure how well all these parts fit together, but they do balance each other, and maybe even need each other. How apt then that most of the book takes part on artificial structures awkwardly bolted onto primal flesh. It's a supremely janky ride, but somehow it's one Carol and the other have to see through to the end. (Kinda like transitioning, ha!)
I don't like judging things, let alone rating them. I put 3 stars here because I feel like Glasser is still busy refining her voice—and this *is* her first novella. 'F4' is a strange hybrid of ideas and radical honesty about trans feelings and horror, and it sometimes feels awkward—insert 'mouthfeel' joke here. But this is also me listening to a story told by a sibling, a story no one else could tell quite the same way, and that is something you can't put a price (or a score) on.
It's a novella about a gang of women and a boy, most of whom have penises. They're stuck on a cruise ship, which is grafted onto the dormant body of a massive Kaiju. Within chapters the lecherous passengers of the ship morph into outer-worldly hellspawn, and it only gets wilder from there on out.
There are lots of guns, impossible shapes, oozes and other fluids, hybrids of the human and inhuman that should not be. And dicks. And dick energy. It's all a bit overwhelming.
While I am a trans woman, I haven't read all that much fiction by and for trans women specifically. In some ways, what Glasser writes sometimes borders on the objectionable, were it written by anyone other than a trans woman. I would call it objectifying and fetishizing. But I don't believe in the death of the author in this regard. The thing is: being a trans woman entails, to a certain degree, a near-constant hyper-self-awareness, an objectifying of the self. We have to, because we don't fit into any of the standard cultural (or sexual) modes of being in our society, and this is the only way for us to make sense of ourselves.
On some level, all of the over-the-top bizarro hijinx feels like an exorcism, an outlet for how much like *freaks* we trans people often feel. The lurid, lewd parts of 'F4' embrace that in a rebellious and in-your-face way. It wants to say: "So what if we're freaks? So is everyone and everything else, if you really look at it."
It's for this reason that the ponderous middle part of the book, which focuses on a much more down-to-earth (trans) history of Carol, the protagonist, is valuable too. It shows a woman much like any other trying to get by in a world where other people (predominantly men) don't really seem to care for your well-being all that much.
I'm not sure how well all these parts fit together, but they do balance each other, and maybe even need each other. How apt then that most of the book takes part on artificial structures awkwardly bolted onto primal flesh. It's a supremely janky ride, but somehow it's one Carol and the other have to see through to the end. (Kinda like transitioning, ha!)
I don't like judging things, let alone rating them. I put 3 stars here because I feel like Glasser is still busy refining her voice—and this *is* her first novella. 'F4' is a strange hybrid of ideas and radical honesty about trans feelings and horror, and it sometimes feels awkward—insert 'mouthfeel' joke here. But this is also me listening to a story told by a sibling, a story no one else could tell quite the same way, and that is something you can't put a price (or a score) on.
March 10, 2018
In Larissa Glasser’s F4, real-life kaiju have invaded Earth. F1 and F2 disappeared and F3 blew up but F4 has been captured. Kept unconscious with drugs, it has been retrofitted into the Finasteride, a sleazy, rip-off cruise liner that exists mostly inside F4’s guts.
Carol, a down-and-out trans woman, gets a job on board through her ultra-straight sister Roz, who already works there. Carol is escaping a massive online harassment campaign led by the alt right Ratites. She’s also pursuing another trans woman, the beautiful Chloe, who works in the ship’s casino (located in F4’s spleen) alongside Carol. But megalomaniacal Captain Brock has other plans and the Finasteride will never complete its cruise from the Caribbean to Miami … and, unknown to Carol, she plays a major role in Brock’s plans and also has a connection to F4 itself.
F4 is loud, fast, and disgusting, a mash-up of every trash movie genre, from action to gross-out horror to –- of course! -- Kaiju films. For all the darkness and cynicism, the tone is gleeful; Glasser obviously adores this stuff and had fun writing it. There’s also raunchy sex, all of it revolving around the hotness of “girldick” (as is only right).
But what makes F4 a must-read is that in the process of spewing out her uncensored fantasies Glasser also spills a lot of trans guts. She gives a raw account of transphobia, social marginalization, and self-hatred, especially in a long, realistic flashback to Carol’s life before F4 (which hints at Kansas-and-Oz parallels to the main story: her home is destroyed by an F4 tornado, and F4 is also the initials of her lame, best-she-could-get boyfriend’s band). Glasser goes further than that, though, plunging deep into the confused, queasy mix of lust and dysphoria that is Carol’s (and not just Carol’s) sexuality. Though I can’t quite call a manic puke-fest like this “emotionally moving” with a straight face, it’s gutsy writing that will hit trans women hard, and should be a headrush for anyone.
Carol, a down-and-out trans woman, gets a job on board through her ultra-straight sister Roz, who already works there. Carol is escaping a massive online harassment campaign led by the alt right Ratites. She’s also pursuing another trans woman, the beautiful Chloe, who works in the ship’s casino (located in F4’s spleen) alongside Carol. But megalomaniacal Captain Brock has other plans and the Finasteride will never complete its cruise from the Caribbean to Miami … and, unknown to Carol, she plays a major role in Brock’s plans and also has a connection to F4 itself.
F4 is loud, fast, and disgusting, a mash-up of every trash movie genre, from action to gross-out horror to –- of course! -- Kaiju films. For all the darkness and cynicism, the tone is gleeful; Glasser obviously adores this stuff and had fun writing it. There’s also raunchy sex, all of it revolving around the hotness of “girldick” (as is only right).
But what makes F4 a must-read is that in the process of spewing out her uncensored fantasies Glasser also spills a lot of trans guts. She gives a raw account of transphobia, social marginalization, and self-hatred, especially in a long, realistic flashback to Carol’s life before F4 (which hints at Kansas-and-Oz parallels to the main story: her home is destroyed by an F4 tornado, and F4 is also the initials of her lame, best-she-could-get boyfriend’s band). Glasser goes further than that, though, plunging deep into the confused, queasy mix of lust and dysphoria that is Carol’s (and not just Carol’s) sexuality. Though I can’t quite call a manic puke-fest like this “emotionally moving” with a straight face, it’s gutsy writing that will hit trans women hard, and should be a headrush for anyone.
April 29, 2018
Weird, confrontational, and fascinating. There are a ton of extremely strange ideas all mashed together in this book, and Glasser really makes it work. Carol is our protagonist who pulls us through Poseidon disaster after Poseidon disaster--if the Poseidon rode on the back of a massive kaiju, and was searching for an unfindeable island and was run by a complete jerk.
My one regret is that the book is short. I wanted to spend more time with Carol, but the breakneck pace of the book is well-served by its shortness. There's no fat in the narrative, it's lean, moves along quickly.
Pick it up. F4 is one amazing ride.
My one regret is that the book is short. I wanted to spend more time with Carol, but the breakneck pace of the book is well-served by its shortness. There's no fat in the narrative, it's lean, moves along quickly.
Pick it up. F4 is one amazing ride.
February 23, 2019
I had pick this book for Ladies of Horror Fiction February readathon under the category LGBQ+ authors. There were several book suggestions but F4 caught my eye and I wanted to read Bizarro Fiction, I never read one and I was just curious to see what it is.
F4 is pretty insane, weird, and twisted. At first I had no clue what was going on until I kept reading. I Iiked the story for what is was but I'm still putting everything on what I just read. This story is nuts lol! Maybe I need to read some more Bizarro Fiction to understand it more. I'm giving F4 three stars since I did enjoy some parts and had WTF! moments that lead me to laughter.
F4 is pretty insane, weird, and twisted. At first I had no clue what was going on until I kept reading. I Iiked the story for what is was but I'm still putting everything on what I just read. This story is nuts lol! Maybe I need to read some more Bizarro Fiction to understand it more. I'm giving F4 three stars since I did enjoy some parts and had WTF! moments that lead me to laughter.
January 5, 2019
When it comes to bizarro it can be difficult to separate the merely-shocking sheep from the genuinely transgressive goats, but F4 is the latter. It doesn't just fuck with the gender binary but with every binary it can find, including victim/aggressor and hero/villain, biological/mechanical and magic/science, linear/nonlinear and rational/irrational, etc. Not a strong contender for people who want their heroes to be pure and their plotlines to make sense, but if you were looking for that you're on the wrong cruise...
April 2, 2018
i am about 3 pages away from finishing, but i couldn't wait to share a post. This book totally shreds!! i'be always been a wannabe goth and reading this book i feel so many new chances and inspirations to express that side of me. It's very fast-paced, and could easily be a 6-volume trilogy and still be just as gripping. but there's a lot here that warrants close and slower reading. Each phrase is jam packed with juicy details and voluminous imagery and smells! this book literally stinks!! also Carol is the trans superhero of my dreams and it's so good to read such unapologetic transsexual superpowers.
some critiques is that because it's so short, some details kinda appear out of nowhere, and there's only a few of the characters that get good development. but those that do (carol, roz most notable) are actually quite complex for such a skinny book.
anyways 10/10 would recommend to any human (especially the cisgenders cause y'all really need to learn).
Thank you Larissa Glasser!!
some critiques is that because it's so short, some details kinda appear out of nowhere, and there's only a few of the characters that get good development. but those that do (carol, roz most notable) are actually quite complex for such a skinny book.
anyways 10/10 would recommend to any human (especially the cisgenders cause y'all really need to learn).
Thank you Larissa Glasser!!
November 22, 2025
An absolute blast of a novel! A crazy surreal action-horror story set on a kaiju cruise ship. full of surprisingly coherent worldbuilding given its disparate and absolutely bonkers elements and several amazing, relatable and unique trans fem characters (Laura the kaiju nerd being one I’m especially grateful for). You never really know where it’s going next but it always ends up somewhere fun. Plus it’s got the perfect ending to top it all off.
October 19, 2018
Right off the bat, you know you're in for a ride with this book. Unapologetic in its usage of violence, sex, and humor, F4 reads like an old-school action movie from the 80s and is just as fun. Bizarro isn't for everyone, granted. However, if you're looking to read something unlike ANYTHING you've read before, you'd do well to pick up a copy of this book. Highly recommended.
April 26, 2020
Larissa Glasser's F4 is Bizzaro fiction at its best, featuring a trans bartender contending with fractured selves and wars with Internet trolls on the back of a kaiju (like, you know, Godzilla). From start to finish, it's a roller coaster of the strangest and most delicious pulp.
January 7, 2022
This book was certainly eye opening for me. It was bizarre but very well written with lots of Kaiju and sex. It's hard to describe but makes for a very interesting read. I put it down and picked it up a number of times as other books caught my interest but kept coming back for the weirdness
July 2, 2021
400+ pages of ideas crammed into 140 and that is both the strength and for me where it proved just a little too slippery to hold onto.
August 4, 2023
Larissa Glasser writes all-consuming rage with wild, irreverent abandon. Kinky, campy, and goopy. Very, very goopy.
November 11, 2024
4.5 rounding up
this was a wild ride
this was a wild ride
July 9, 2022
Considering its components (a transgender bartender working a cruise ship grafted to the back of a drugged kaiju about to be caught in a dimensional rift) this is remarkably unadventurous and often dull. The bizarro sex scenes seem always affected and distancing, there's a repetition in the story at odds with its disjointed nature, and none of the various elements come together in any satisfying and transformative fashion.
The more humdrum backstory—of the transgender protagonist caught up in a public court case, to their own detriment—is always more interesting and engaging, but gets short shrift in favour of the more fantastical plot, which is itself a lot of swagger and very little substance.
(Worth noting that the proofreading in this book is pretty abominable: multiple instances (every few pages or so!) of entire words missing or transposed with other, often similar, words—all signs of lazy, Spellcheck editing.)
The more humdrum backstory—of the transgender protagonist caught up in a public court case, to their own detriment—is always more interesting and engaging, but gets short shrift in favour of the more fantastical plot, which is itself a lot of swagger and very little substance.
(Worth noting that the proofreading in this book is pretty abominable: multiple instances (every few pages or so!) of entire words missing or transposed with other, often similar, words—all signs of lazy, Spellcheck editing.)
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