A fun, fast-paced graphic novel that made for a quick and entertaining read. Newly out as trans, Sammie is invited on a bachelor party trip, where theA fun, fast-paced graphic novel that made for a quick and entertaining read. Newly out as trans, Sammie is invited on a bachelor party trip, where they’re repeatedly misgendered and forced to participate in all sorts of performatively macho activities. But there’s also something distinctly weird about the location, a manmade island where the ‘fun’ includes the chance to hunt your own clone, and an organisation called the Gray Hand are recruiting people into a shady cult-like ‘network’. Boys Weekend is a lot of things – emotional drama, holiday-gone-wrong comedy, Lovecraftian horror – but I thought it all worked, in terms of the story at least. The weak point for me was actually the art. The backdrops seem unfinished, with good ideas for details but shaky execution, and I couldn’t always figure out how characters were meant to be feeling/reacting from how their facial expressions were drawn....more
(3.5) Favourite stories: ‘TRUTH SERUM’ by Jacob Steven Mohr, a cursed-TV-show story (so, automatic fave) spanning many different mediums; ‘The Troubli(3.5) Favourite stories: ‘TRUTH SERUM’ by Jacob Steven Mohr, a cursed-TV-show story (so, automatic fave) spanning many different mediums; ‘The Troubling History of Boddington’s Inlet’ by Rajiv Moté, a weird travelogue that riffs on Lovecraft; ‘~if the sky can crack~’ by Meep Matushima, in which we read backwards through LiveJournal entries from a troubled girl who’s begun to believe she can travel to an alternate world. Cool formats: a document that includes tracked changes (‘Heritage Assessment Daemonium’ by Chris Moss); an illustrated cheese journal (‘A Partial Record of Enchanted Cheeses I’ve Fed My Wife’ by Devin Miller); a series of increasingly odd product reviews (‘KentGent’ by Ren Wednesday). Once again, lots of great ideas and a really enjoyable anthology. See also issue 2 and issue 1!...more
Touted as ‘the first fully formatted, fully illustrated found fiction novella’, Revenge Arc moves between tweets, emails, blog posts, reddit threads aTouted as ‘the first fully formatted, fully illustrated found fiction novella’, Revenge Arc moves between tweets, emails, blog posts, reddit threads and messages on a Discord server as it tells the story of an online comics artist mired in controversy. Read it if you liked Idol, Burning, the graphic novel Parasocial or the film Red Rooms....more
I picked this up a) on the strength of a glowing review at Strange Horizons and b) because I thought it was mixed media. Strictly speaking, it’s mostlI picked this up a) on the strength of a glowing review at Strange Horizons and b) because I thought it was mixed media. Strictly speaking, it’s mostly epistolary, switching between diary entries and emails as it tracks a father’s determined search for his 12-year-old daughter. The missing girl, Liza, was obsessed with ‘the Hidden World’, the setting of her favourite fantasy series, and it’s these books (and their enigmatic author) that prove key to untangling what happened to her. I can never resist something that has plot points like ‘person follows clue to to place and ends up in a weird museum’, and Dreambound combines that with whimsical fantasy – something I wouldn’t usually enjoy, but here it gives the narrative an edge, makes the book feel like something fresh. Pure fun with a big heart....more
‘The Closet Game’ is the standout of this collection. A closeted boy plays a game as a teen, and finds it comes back to haunt him as an adult – or, pe‘The Closet Game’ is the standout of this collection. A closeted boy plays a game as a teen, and finds it comes back to haunt him as an adult – or, perhaps, it’s the other way around. It embodies the ‘loss and longing’ theme: thwarted desire, the ache of missed chances. My personal favourite was ‘The Rental Sister’, a short, creepy, urban-legend-style tale in a colloquial style, about a young woman in Tokyo who briefly works in the titular role (designed to help hikikomori ease back into the world). ‘Giallo’ is everything you could want in a story called ‘Giallo’, capturing every aspect of the film genre so perfectly and vividly, you’ll never need to watch one again. The queasy, bloody ‘Conversion’ takes a more brutal tack, following a perverted therapist who successfully ‘converts’ an unhappily gay young man, but with horrifyingly extreme results.
I liked ‘The Oestridae’, in which two siblings are blindsided when a previously-unheard-of aunt turns up shortly after their mother’s disappearance. I couldn’t get on with the indulgent ‘The Cenacle’, and ‘My Heart’s Own Desire’ left me with a lot of questions. There’s also the fact that a large proportion of the book is taken up by a novella, ‘Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol’. It’s well-written, and a good expression of the collection’s project, so it doesn’t feel out of place; but it’s a big chunk of pages, and I felt I was missing something – some essential context that might have made it more satisfying.
This is a collection united by theme more than anything else, so it’s not easy to find any one point of comparison. After reading ‘The Closet Game’ and ‘The Oestridae’, I felt it was going to be a similar book to What Makes You Think You’re Awake? by Maegan Poland and The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise. Yet ‘Ceremonials’ and ‘Giallo’ might slot quite neatly into a Carmen Maria Machado collection, while at other points (e.g. ‘DST (Fall Back)’) I was reminded more of Lovecraftian stylists such as John Langan. In the end No One Dies from Love was a mixed bag for me, simply because the subject matter and particular brand of horror weren’t always to my taste – the stories lost me whenever they veered too far towards dark fantasy – but it was a book that left me impressed with Levy’s skills as a storyteller, and sure I’ll still read more from the author....more
I wanted to read this and I enjoyed it in parts, but I was left feeling conflicted about the fact that it’s arguably quite an intrusive endeavour. In I wanted to read this and I enjoyed it in parts, but I was left feeling conflicted about the fact that it’s arguably quite an intrusive endeavour. In Her Words was assembled by Amy’s parents, and it’s largely made up of youthful ephemera – letters, photographs, school reports, pages from notebooks and diaries. But it’s emphasised over and over again that Amy was a very private person (to the point of her family not hearing much of her music until it was ready to be released), and most of the material is the sort of thing she might not have wanted the world to see. I felt uncomfortable reading journal entries about which classmates Amy hated or fancied – I have loads of stuff like this in old notebooks and even now I’d be mortified if anyone else read it!
The sections that deal with Amy’s evolution as a musician and songwriter are more interesting. Here, we get to see handwritten lyrics and unfinished songs, and there’s a clear sense of how her songwriting process worked. It’s easy to read many of the lines as she might have sung them. There are some beautiful photographs too, and at the end, two stories from people who have benefitted from the services offered by the Amy Winehouse Foundation. These are lovely to read – perhaps they should have taken up a larger portion of the book?
With any person, famous or not, childhood scribblings might well provide glimpses of the adult they became, but I don’t know that they’re particularly interesting in themselves to anyone other than the person’s family. In Her Words is mostly these, and more or less cuts off at the point Amy became truly famous. It’s unclear whether this is because there’s little or no material available from those years, or just that her parents find it too painful to revisit them. As understandable as that might be, it shows the limitations of this book being curated by Amy’s family. While it was a time of great torment for Amy as an individual, that period of creative productivity and fame is, after all, the reason she is remembered, and the reason people want to read more about her in the first place.
(Also, I’d mistakenly got the impression that In Her Words was some kind of follow-on from Amy Winehouse: Beyond Black, perhaps because of the similar format and design of the books, when in fact they were produced and published separately. If you want to read one book about Amy Winehouse, Beyond Black is the far better option, and a truly gorgeous tribute.)...more
A lot of very interesting stuff in here but I often found myself wishing Klein would just drop the doppelganger idea; clearly the book needed a more mA lot of very interesting stuff in here but I often found myself wishing Klein would just drop the doppelganger idea; clearly the book needed a more marketable hook than ‘how people choose to align themselves politically and how this has shifted post-Covid’ but it really does feel extremely tenuous at times. So much ground is covered, and plenty of it, while solid and sensible, doesn’t contain any revelatory ideas, and that goes double for the woolly conclusion....more
Very quick read for a long train journey. This is a faux-true-crime oral history novel (one of my favourite niche things) about a small-town massacre Very quick read for a long train journey. This is a faux-true-crime oral history novel (one of my favourite niche things) about a small-town massacre in the early 2000s. A bunch of high schoolers set out to spend the night drinking and hooking up; then they hear a local urban legend, and quickly discover it is in fact very real. The setup is great, with lots of detail to establish the dynamic within the group, who’s lusting after who, etc. Unfortunately, it lost me a bit when it turned into flat-out gore in the second half. If that’s your thing, you’ll love it....more
An incredibly well edited book; the chatty oral-history format makes it endlessly readable, whether or not you’re especially interested in all the actAn incredibly well edited book; the chatty oral-history format makes it endlessly readable, whether or not you’re especially interested in all the acts discussed. Apparently this is over 500 pages in print, which amazes me because a) it feels short and b) I could have gone on reading it for much longer....more
(3.5) Right from the start I was captivated by the caustic tone of Maia, the narrator of The Other Profile. Having moved to Milan (which she hates) wi(3.5) Right from the start I was captivated by the caustic tone of Maia, the narrator of The Other Profile. Having moved to Milan (which she hates) with her boyfriend, she doesn’t do much with her time except smoke weed and pick up a few shifts at a local bar – until she meets Gloria, a successful influencer. Despite disliking Gloria and everything she stands for, Maia’s sucked into working for her... and that’s it, really. When I stand back from The Other Profile, I can see it’s a ‘nothing much really happens’ book. Its portrayal of a twentysomething living an aimless life can seem cliched (Maia’s relationship with the older Filippo is tedious, and should either have been a bigger part of the story, or not there at all) and there aren’t any particularly stunning insights about influencers. Why, then, did I enjoy it? Graziosi has unusually good control of her narrator’s voice; Maia’s wit keeps the whole thing alive. I loved reading about her job in the bar and her disdain for the hangers-on surrounding Gloria. Personally I also found it interesting to read a novel in translation about online culture. Not because it’s different – because it’s exactly the same. This stuff is all so flattened and homogenised. Depressing. Anyway, I’d recommend this if you liked Oval, 70% Acrylic 30% Wool or A Touch of Jen....more
The Terror meets Heart of Darkness; a blood-soaked, frostbitten treat. Years after an infamous failed expedition, a captain with a sullied reputation The Terror meets Heart of Darkness; a blood-soaked, frostbitten treat. Years after an infamous failed expedition, a captain with a sullied reputation must return to the Arctic in search of a lost party that includes his former lieutenant. Wilkes has a masterful command of description and detail, so while this is not a quick read, it is thoroughly immersive and enthralling at every level: setting, atmosphere, character. I wanted to follow William Day forever, and the mental image of ‘Fort Stevens’ will stay with me for a long while. Gory and gorgeous.
I received an advance review copy of Where the Dead Wait from the publisher through NetGalley....more
An intriguing but cold novel of ideas that reminded me of Infinite Detail and Oval. The gripping opening chapter, in which a lorry driver commits An intriguing but cold novel of ideas that reminded me of Infinite Detail and Oval. The gripping opening chapter, in which a lorry driver commits an act of terrorism for reasons unknown, turns out to be something of a red herring. As does, really, the five-minutes-into-the-future setting, with things like scavenged crypto and looted supermarkets acting as background detail to the subdued tale of a uniquely dysfunctional family. This was one of those reader/book mismatch situations: Lamb just wasn’t the story I wanted it to be, which of course isn’t actually a criticism of the book, but does mean I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it. I will say, though, that one phrase from the jacket copy leaps out as particularly fitting – ‘moss-coated horror’ – there is indeed a lot of that....more
Abandoned at 33%. This isn’t a general history of social media, and it’s my own fault that I thought otherwise, because the real subject matter is rigAbandoned at 33%. This isn’t a general history of social media, and it’s my own fault that I thought otherwise, because the real subject matter is right there in the subtitle: fame, influence and power. Lorenz is concerned with two things: firstly, how the now-ubiquitous figure of the influencer (or, ugh, ‘content creator’) came to exist; and secondly, how influencers started making big money. It is, at its heart, a book about money, much more than it is a book about the internet.
In the chapter on MySpace and Facebook, Lorenz briefly writes about a ‘scene kid’, Kiki Kannibal, whose online popularity brought with it an onslaught of bullying. As I did with a lot of the figures in this book who were unknown to me, I googled the girl’s name to see what she’s doing now. This led me to a Rolling Stone article that fills in the details: Kiki was harassed relentlessly, threatened, doxxed, and targeted by a paedophile. It got so bad her parents had to abandon their house, which they then couldn’t sell, and ended up bankrupt. The article ends with the whole family crammed into Kiki’s grandmother’s house, broke, jittery, chafing against each other. It’s an incredibly bleak story. It’s also a hundred times more fascinating than anything in this book.
This encapsulates my problem with Extremely Online: the interesting human stories are buried under a load of boring generalised detail. An oral history might have been a better way to tell it. A book about influencers who never actually made it could also be great. This book, as it is, is not for me.
(It’s also so US-centric that Lorenz refers to a clip from The Day Today simply as ‘an early viral video’, as if it originated on YouTube. Which was, honestly, the point at which I thought yep, I’m probably not going to finish reading this.)...more
This is pitched as a gothic coming-of-age novel set in a isolated coastal village, but that’s only part of the story. In the parts of the book entitleThis is pitched as a gothic coming-of-age novel set in a isolated coastal village, but that’s only part of the story. In the parts of the book entitled ‘The North Shore’, the young narrator is at home alone during a storm. The next morning, walking on the beach, they encounter what at first seems like a dead man. He revives – albeit coughing up impossible quantities of seaweed, and apparently unable to speak – before undergoing a bizarre transformation. ‘The North Shore’ itself reminded me of several writers who combine a strong sense of a specific place and beautiful landscape writing with the uncanny: Lucy Wood, Tim Cooke, Gary Budden. But swathes of the book, notably the sections ‘Knotty Entrails’ and ‘Knapped Flint’, slip into a more conversational style of (perhaps) autofiction that’s more in line with something like Edward Parnell’s Ghostland. In these, the narrator finds the ‘North Shore’ manuscript among some old papers, many years later. Unable to reconcile the written version of events with what they remember, they reflect on this seemingly distorted memory with reference to stories, myths and art about transformation, thresholds, the vast unknown.
The North Shore deliberately plays into ideas about liminality and ‘the instability of that state we call reality’; nothing is fixed or certain. It’s a novel that reads like non-fiction, hard to categorise. It’s natural to assume the narrator is male (if only because the author is), but as far as I can tell, their gender is never stated. At one point they glimpse their own reflection in a dream, and the language is intentionally vague, as if they are aware of themselves as a cipher: ‘the face is unfamiliar and I am not sure if it is a boy or a girl that looks back at me.’ The narrator starts to read like a ghost in their own story. They are ephemeral while the ‘dead’ man becomes – literally – more solid, more permanent.
The only elements that didn’t work for me were those relating to the narrator’s relationship with a childhood friend known only as ‘Quill’. This whole strand seems unfinished, and particularly bothered me as The North Shore is otherwise such an effective portrait of a solitary person – it’s as though Tufnell felt obliged to give his character at least one friend, but Quill’s presence in the story adds nothing, with the few letters that pass between the two reading as rather mawkish. This aside, I found this book very interesting – its combination of haunting fiction and more rational analysis, the sense of a narrator dismantling their own narrative as they go along, is strangely spellbinding. And even after all this dissection, the story still retains a sense of mystery....more
Tons of fun! Imagine Aesthetica or The Odyssey but actually sharp and funny, with a sprinkling of the anarchic energy possessed by something lTons of fun! Imagine Aesthetica or The Odyssey but actually sharp and funny, with a sprinkling of the anarchic energy possessed by something like Come Join Our Disease. A good balance of humour that can bite, and not always by punching up, but also has a soft core. At times feels like an experiment in letting a female character behave like male characters once did (benefitting from the status of ‘artist’ despite repeatedly failing to create anything meaningful, chasing a succession of younger partners) – and you could argue the impact of that trope is blunted by the sheer amount of books about ‘messy women’ we’re drowning in nowadays but this is more acute I think, maybe because its concept (washed-up novelist gets obsessed with the work and philosophy of Ayn Rand, tries to apply it to her life and art) is hyperspecific, so there’s a hook to hang things on that doesn’t relate to a relationship/sex/being single/having or not having kids. Or... at least not entirely. Also endlessly quotable; Freiman can write an observation that cuts like a knife.
I received an advance review copy of The Book of Ayn from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
(3.5) Is this the first time someone’s had the idea of inserting Slenderman into a historical gothic novel? Because it works surprisingly well! James (3.5) Is this the first time someone’s had the idea of inserting Slenderman into a historical gothic novel? Because it works surprisingly well! James Harringley, disgraced son of a landowner, reluctantly returns to the family manor at his brother’s request, only to find the place falling apart, his father diminished, and a suspicious police officer investigating a spate of mysterious deaths. The family – indeed the entire village – live in fear of a terrifying figure they call ‘the Tall Man’. I really enjoyed the first part of the book, which is full of atmosphere, as we learn about James’s past and his encounters with the Tall Man. The book remains engaging after that, but doesn’t live up to the eerie, chilly promise of its first third. I felt similarly about The Paleontologist by Luke Dumas, with the same reservation about both: with the exception of one sceptical character, everyone just accepts a wild supernatural explanation for events almost instantly. The book also could’ve done with a more thorough proofread – lots of modern speech patterns and Americanisms for a story set in Victorian-era Yorkshire.
Although I didn’t think it all hung together perfectly, I liked Blight for trying something different (and more ambitious) than your average ‘gothic chiller’. Would recommend to those who enjoyed The House of Footsteps, The Coffin Path, perhaps even The Silent Companions....more
Whisper it, but I actually enjoyed this a lot more than The Haunting of Hill House. It uses the setting of Shirley Jackson’s novel beautifully, while Whisper it, but I actually enjoyed this a lot more than The Haunting of Hill House. It uses the setting of Shirley Jackson’s novel beautifully, while also playing to Elizabeth Hand’s own strengths, and established style, as a horror writer. Stumbling across Hill House on a drive in the country, playwright Holly thinks she’s found the perfect venue in which to rehearse and workshop what she hopes will be her breakthrough play, Witching Night. Holly is joined by the cast – her talented yet capricious younger girlfriend, Nisa, and a pair of actors, has-been Amanda and never-was Stevie – and at first, rehearsals go wonderfully: the house’s atmosphere perfectly complements the play’s tale of witchcraft. But there’s the matter of the staff who refuse to stay overnight, the hostile woman who lives in a neighbouring trailer, and the terrifyingly huge black hares Holly keeps glimpsing (a brilliant addition). As tensions increase, Hill House’s influence begins to feel less like an illumination of Witching Night’s themes and more like an infection. Everyone in the book has their own ghosts, cleverly feeding into their own personal hauntings. I was frequently reminded of Hand’s previous, equally good (if not better) novel Wylding Hall; clearly, sticking a bunch of creatives in a haunted house makes for a foolproof horror formula in her hands.
I received an advance review copy of A Haunting on the Hill from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
Far more in line with what I expected from this collection, and probably the best of the bunch – a surprise to me, as I’ve often found Malerman’s writFar more in line with what I expected from this collection, and probably the best of the bunch – a surprise to me, as I’ve often found Malerman’s writing clunky and unsubtle elsewhere. The tale of a location-specific urban legend (Opso, the ‘demon imp’ that frequents a particular forest bridge) is impressive in its restraint and originality; I also enjoyed how the protagonist’s hobby of filmmaking was woven into every part of the plot....more
After his wife has a miscarriage, an increasingly unhinged would-be dad gets obsessed with an old pram, not stopping to question where it might have cAfter his wife has a miscarriage, an increasingly unhinged would-be dad gets obsessed with an old pram, not stopping to question where it might have come from. An uninteresting concept, flatly executed, though there are a few entertaining touches such as the neighbouring community of ‘Sin-Planters’. I was planning to read all the stories in Amazon’s ‘Creature Feature’ collection, but this was so banal that it put me off the idea....more
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