Beautifully written collection of short stories that are interwoven so wonderfully. The subject matter tends to lean to the darker side, but the characters are so wonderfully developed that you feel hope and love. Marra will be one of our generations great authors and I cannot wait to read more and more of what he writes.

Anthony Marra is one of our best writers. He’s so good, I like to read his sentences over again for their cleverness. He proved that with A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA and proves that again with THE TSAR OF LOVE AND TECHNO. Even so, TSAR is not another CONSTELLATION.

CONSTELLATION is an excellent novel in every way. TSAR isn’t a novel; it is a collection of short stories, which I usually avoid because they necessarily lack character development. Also, while short stories may be interesting, they are not able to grab me, pull me in so the book becomes unputdownable like a novel can.

TSAR’s short stories seem to try to have these qualities of a novel. The stories are interconnected; the book has a cast of characters who may appear in more than one story, and the places and certain objects remain the same. Therefore, some character development happens, but it’s not enough and left me disappointed.

So TSAR bored me. But I’m hoping that this book is just something Marra put out there to tide his readers over until he has the time to give us another great novel.