The Unyielding by Gary J. Shipley

The Unyielding Reviews

• 
  Janie

  An unnerving dissection of the uncertainty posed within our expectations of our own existence. Even when existence itself becomes too painful to look upon, it continues and mutates. In this narrative, the juxtaposition of extreme isolation and complete dependence upon a host is both ironic and thought provoking.
• 
  B.R. Yeager

  A feverish and viscerally accurate depiction of sentient existence becoming unthinkable. At once grisly and resigned, Shipley's narrative details the shifting of matter from one state to another, to another, and to another, ad infinitum. The Unyielding is a brief yet dense Ballardian nightmare, occupying space both surreal and utterly familiar.
• 
  Maggie Siebert

  interesting to think of as a thematic prequel to terminal park. i’d recommend reading them back to back in any order. shipley continues to be one of the few who well and truly frighten me
• 
  Barry Paul Clark

  Icky! 🖤
• 
  Horror DNA

  When authors talk about transcending narrative, they’re bullshitting 99% of the time. At the top of the other 1% is an author who just does it without talking about it:
  Gary J. Shipley. Brave, unique, new, extremely bizarre; call it what you will, no one else is producing the type of uncanny, poetic, philosophical, extreme fiction that Shipley keeps delivering. His latest novel, The Unyielding, is a narrative that manages to be all of that while also approximating a standard novel in terms of characters battling/experiencing something and possessing a somewhat linear/chronological progression. Aside from that, it’s a hardcore body horror novella unlike anything you’ve ever read.
  
  You can read Gabino's full review at Horror DNA by
  clicking here.
• 
  Christian

  Utterly weird and completely unique.
  I was maybe 20 pages in before ordering another Shipley book.
  I can’t stop thinking about this story.
  
  Some things I like:
  
  Melancholic and bleak atmosphere ✅
  Personal weird apocalypse/private hell ✅
  Body horror ✅
  Ambiguity ✅
  Surrealism ✅
  Nameless characters in a nameless place ✅
  Very smart and unhackneyed employment of the internet (forums specifically) and smart devices ✅
  
  Highest recommendation for fans of surreal horror/weird fiction.
• 
  Autumn Christian

  Deeply disturbing weird horror - amorphous and unresolved. The feelings of grief become manifest in a body that will not move, and the family that takes nourishment from its decay.
• 
  Mike Benoit

  Yuck. 😞
• 
  Jose Cruz

  Novela de terror surrealista de 160 páginas, publicada en 2017. Si bien la premisa es buena y la pluma del autor exquisita, pronto la trama se estanca y, ni el hilo argumental avanza, ni el misterio se trata de resolver. Al contrario, el resto de personajes toman decisiones extrañas e incoherentes. Mezcla de gore y escenas grotescas que desdibujan la premisa inicial de ciencia ficción tan interesante. Una lástima y una decepción. No recomiendo esta lectura.
• 
  Joseph Barber

  I try to always write a review for the books I read.
  
  This one had me bored and I kept falling asleep. I had to back track and read over because I was not sure what I read. It did not keep my interest.
  
  Not even going to attempt to talk about the story itself. Just wasn’t there for me.
  
  Absurdist horror, you can say that again!
• 
  Luke Pajowski

  The 2nd book of Shipley's I have read. Has similair themes to Terminal Park but also manages to stand outside of the sandbox all the other writers of horror are playing in. It take on an almost philosophical route ala Ligotti. I cannot wait to read more of this man's work for he has managed to crawl under my skin and leave me unsettled at not just the images he conjures up but the ideas he transmits.
• 
  Keith

  Instead of "healthily" transitioning to mourning (in the Freudian sense), this short novel doubles down on melancholy and its mysterious resources for (non-)survival: "More than anything I wanted the nothing I was promised."
• 
  Alex Delogu

  A lyrical descent into humanity undone. An allegory of deadened attachment led through a mirror-maze of debilitating hyper-awareness. Told through the lens of a father whose wife becomes unmovable, overflowing her own death. The book is a catalogue of slimy decline.
• 
  Thelonius

  I am about ten percent too stupid for this book
• 
  Lloyd Grady

  I never want to read this again.
• 
  José Pascual

  Cuando la vida es lo extraño.
  
  Se habla de lo extraño con ligereza. El género de terror y fantástico se han caracterizado desde siempre por la introducción de elementos imposibles o irracionales dentro de nuestro día a día. Este recurso es, no cabe duda, uno de los más utilizados por todo tipo de creadores cuya intención se base en generar incomodidad en el receptor, ya sea este lector, espectador u oyente. En literatura, estamos inmersos en una corriente que apela a lo estrambótico y a lo extravagante como medio para epatar. Es tal la aceptación del weird, que autores de «alta literatura» lo han fagocitado en sus propias obras. Sin embargo, nadie lo hace como el británico Gary J. Shipley. Créanme. Nadie escribe como Gary J. Shipley.
  
  La extrañeza lo abarca todo en Los inamovibles. La trama nos presenta a un hombre (el narrador) que, junto a sus dos hijos, han de lidiar con el cadáver de su mujer-madre en casa. El cadáver está bocabajo en el pasillo y nadie es capaz de moverlo. Con el paso de las horas y los días, asistimos a los cambios que se van produciendo en el cuerpo y en los propios personajes. Ellos lo detallan todo en un chat de internet llamado «Los inamovibles», donde una comunidad de usuarios comparten la misma experiencia.
  Desde el lento pero continuado discurrir de la trama hasta el comportamiento de los personajes, el autor nos sitúa en un microuniverso cuya racionalidad es distinta a lo que conocemos. El término alienígena empasta bien con esta obra. Sin embargo, resulta curioso que algo tan chocante, tan poco común a nuestra cotidianidad, describa tan fielmente la naturaleza humana...
  
  Reseña completa en «Dentro del Monolito»:
  https://dentrodelmonolito.com/2023/10...
• 
  Joseph (Kevin) Lewis

  My first attempt at weird or bizarro fiction and I loved it. Also, my first Gary Shipley (a philosophy professor, writer) and not my last. Having said that, I feel someone needs to teach a class on it to help me understand all the depth of it all. There are a few strings of sanity I held on to that helped me through, but after each paragraph (no chapters, headings, etc. in this book) I did have to stop and consider, mull over...contemplate what just happened. The 97 page story is presented by the husband (characters have no names) as he chronicles, with much restrained precision and to its utmost absurd conclusion, what transpires once he finds his wife lying in their hallway...dead!? The deadness of his wife is obviously important, but the absurd main theme of the novel is that the wife-mother cannot be moved. Definitely one to check out even if it's to mark of reading something in the genre.
• 
  Keith

  Edit: years go by and I think of this book all the time, it has proved to by one of my most favorite books I've ever read.
  
  This short story was absurd as they come, I don't think I'll ever get over the imagery shared with me through this tale. This work was... utterly masterful, with each page I know I've made encounter with a writer that resonates with me like no other, immediately upon finishing it I've planned to satiate this need to read everything else of his.