While not traditionally speculative, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar offers one of the most well known portrayals of psychological isolation and emotional detachment. Upside Down can be seen as a…

Another layer of depth in Upside Down comes from how it portrays grief as both shared and isolating. Multiple characters carry their own histories, their own emotional burdens. There is…

And Then Did Something Neither of Them Could Upside Down occupies a space in fiction that no single comparison can contain, but following the trail of what it resembles gets…

Characters You’ll Recognize From Your Own Life In a landscape crowded with psychologically “complex” characters who are really just plot devices wearing inner-turmoil costumes, the characters of Upside Down stand…

One of the biggest challenges in speculative fiction is maintaining believable characters within an unfamiliar reality. Upside Down handles this with remarkable consistency. The characters feel grounded because they are…

Why Upside Down’s Central Relationship Is Psychological Sci-Fi at Its Most Human At the center of Upside Down is a love story, but it is not a love story about…

Grief centered fiction often asks a simple question: how do you move on? Upside Down asks a more difficult one: who are you after loss changes you? The novella explores…

A psychological and surreal novella about grief, identity, and the instability of reality.

Opaque Glass, Roots, and Mirrored Bodies in Upside Down In the novella Upside Down by R. Morello, the author weaves a complex narrative that explores the human experience of grief,…

There’s a tendency to define science fiction by its worlds, technologies, and futures. Upside Down challenges that definition by scaling everything inward. It is, technically, a speculative narrative. It introduces…