Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and like poetry, stories that focus on style over substance run the risk of failing to connect.

Spaceman Blues: a love song, by Brian Francis Slattery. 219 pages, published 2007.

An extremely linear and terrifically derivative sci-fi plot people with characters whose motivations are the most basic, the most common, the most Human. Interrupted by flashbacks, flashforwards, and the wildest fringe elements of human experience. All dressed up in a mishmash of stream-of-consciousness prose and purposefully obscure reference.
I found shades of M. John Harrison, James Joyce, China Mieville, William S. Burroughs, Mick Farren, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Provocative in its stylism and presentation, but not terrifically substantial. A simple plot with deeply real Human Archetypes submerged almost to drowning in the choice of description and outrageous cartoon-cinema violence. The novella’s effects are already beginning to fade, a mere hour after I finished reading.
Beauty, we all know, is in the eye of the beholder. And like most poetry, the success of this kind of stylism is deeply dependent upon the reader. For me, it failed to connect. It felt competent, but it felt more like a successful exercise than a finished product. Or perhaps a moderately-budgeted made for TV movie whose reach exceeded its grasp. It is worth an afternoon of reading, absolutely; but I find myself hoping that the author has managed in the intervening years to settle down, focus, and tell a story.