Reviews

• “The pages get heavier and heavier as you go until, finally, each beautiful and deeply affecting art panel or brief gut-punch of accompanying text feels so freighted with loss and disorienting strangeness that the pages become hard to lift. You fear what comes next in the best possible way. And you just can't stop looking.”

• “While this book features a more techno-gothic art style, it remains true to Tales From the Loop, the paintings calm and distant even when depicting the aftermath of horrific events, as if the reader has stumbled upon a crime scene hours or years after the action has finished.”

• “This is an absolutely convincing work: a passionate and truly stunning tale of the future we almost inherited.”

• “In Stålenhag’s universe, gray-tinged social realism is mixed with science fiction into a credible tale of a Sweden that never existed. The short texts that accompany the artwork add playfulness to the story. /…/ But it is the artwork that has the even greater impact. Fateful, almost photorealistic paintings where everyday reality and fantasy seamlessly overlap one another. More often than not you’ll find a nod to our own history as well.”

• “The combination of image and text is overwhelming. Things from the Flood is just like Tales from the Loop a luxurious art book where the nostagia-shimmering photorealistic paintings are vital to the story and deeper plot. /…/ Stålenhag seamlessly incorporates his robots, metal constructions, magnetrine ships and dinosaurs in the landscape, and the children and teens in situations so characteristic of the era that I smile and ache from the strong feeling of recognition.”