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juushikaUnavoidable but unfortunate: not all of my spooky-time reading has been successful this year. Here are three of them.
Title: A Certain Hunger
Author: Chelsea G. Summers
Published: Unnamed Press, 2020 (2019)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 245
Total Page Count: 411,950
Text Number: 1550
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Woman of a certain age, convicted felon, food critic, and cannibal writes her memoir. This takes too long to get to the cannibalism, and improves when it does, but still doesn't work for me. And I'm such an easy sell! But this is none of the cathartic-but-guilty power fantasy; the protagonist is the unamusing and unengaging sort of pretentious, and the tone, with its focus on sex, is the unfun kind of tasteless. Reviews indicate that the camp works for some, but I don't recommend it.
Title: You've Lost a Lot of Blood
Author: Eric LaRocca
Published: Eric LaRocca, 2022
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 412,845
Text Number: 1553
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook requested & borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The collected works (novella, poems, audio clips) of a serial killer, this is "like Hannibal fanfic if written by Caitlín R. Kiernan, but not as good as that would be": the inner lives of queer serial killers observed through found documents. Interesting concept, but the final twist kills it for me: these are plagiarized texts, presumably from multiple sources which 1) make the erstwhile quaint writing tics ("a mouth that frowns easily" is my particular hobbyhorse, but it's not unique) stop feeling stylistic and start feeling like they should have been weeded out by an editor, 2) means the texts provide a lot less insight into the central character (not no insight, but certainly insight one more step removed), and 3) when combined with "serial killers revenge-killing cancer fetishists" the premise is absurdly specific, too concrete, not compelling.
I love a nested narrative, and have a lot of patience with that format even if the other elements are less successful than the novella. And the novella has some cool things going on, thematically and in techno-body horror. But this isn't as abjectly gross as Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, and wants for that hook; it also lacks momentum, the serial killer intimacy occurs offscreen (boo), and the twist kills my investment in the frame narrative. Not recommended.
Title: What Moves the Dead
Author: T. Kingfisher (aka Urusla Vernon)
Published: Tor Nightfire, 2022
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 180
Total Page Count: 413,385
Text Number: 1556
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A retelling of "The Fall of the House of Usher" that expands on the cause of the family's downfall, with a Ruritanian twist. This isn't in line with Kingfisher's other recent horror retellings: it's shorter, less transformative, more of a period piece that bulks up the plot. All that's fine, and I like the protagonist and the non-speculative worldbuilding, particularly the role of pronouns. But it's not scary. :( I saw the speculative concept coming from a distance, and I'm firmly team mushroom: to incubate a nascent alien consciousnesses is to be desired, so, while the uncanniness is great fun, the overall vibes just don't ping as horror; if anything, viewing them as such means not enough of the dynamic that I want. :(
Title: A Certain Hunger
Author: Chelsea G. Summers
Published: Unnamed Press, 2020 (2019)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 245
Total Page Count: 411,950
Text Number: 1550
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Woman of a certain age, convicted felon, food critic, and cannibal writes her memoir. This takes too long to get to the cannibalism, and improves when it does, but still doesn't work for me. And I'm such an easy sell! But this is none of the cathartic-but-guilty power fantasy; the protagonist is the unamusing and unengaging sort of pretentious, and the tone, with its focus on sex, is the unfun kind of tasteless. Reviews indicate that the camp works for some, but I don't recommend it.
Title: You've Lost a Lot of Blood
Author: Eric LaRocca
Published: Eric LaRocca, 2022
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 412,845
Text Number: 1553
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook requested & borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The collected works (novella, poems, audio clips) of a serial killer, this is "like Hannibal fanfic if written by Caitlín R. Kiernan, but not as good as that would be": the inner lives of queer serial killers observed through found documents. Interesting concept, but the final twist kills it for me: these are plagiarized texts, presumably from multiple sources which 1) make the erstwhile quaint writing tics ("a mouth that frowns easily" is my particular hobbyhorse, but it's not unique) stop feeling stylistic and start feeling like they should have been weeded out by an editor, 2) means the texts provide a lot less insight into the central character (not no insight, but certainly insight one more step removed), and 3) when combined with "serial killers revenge-killing cancer fetishists" the premise is absurdly specific, too concrete, not compelling.
I love a nested narrative, and have a lot of patience with that format even if the other elements are less successful than the novella. And the novella has some cool things going on, thematically and in techno-body horror. But this isn't as abjectly gross as Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, and wants for that hook; it also lacks momentum, the serial killer intimacy occurs offscreen (boo), and the twist kills my investment in the frame narrative. Not recommended.
Title: What Moves the Dead
Author: T. Kingfisher (aka Urusla Vernon)
Published: Tor Nightfire, 2022
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 180
Total Page Count: 413,385
Text Number: 1556
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A retelling of "The Fall of the House of Usher" that expands on the cause of the family's downfall, with a Ruritanian twist. This isn't in line with Kingfisher's other recent horror retellings: it's shorter, less transformative, more of a period piece that bulks up the plot. All that's fine, and I like the protagonist and the non-speculative worldbuilding, particularly the role of pronouns. But it's not scary. :( I saw the speculative concept coming from a distance, and I'm firmly team mushroom: to incubate a nascent alien consciousnesses is to be desired, so, while the uncanniness is great fun, the overall vibes just don't ping as horror; if anything, viewing them as such means not enough of the dynamic that I want. :(
