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juushikaAnother horror trio, give or take whatever would be the label for whatever Necrophilia Variations is attempting to do.
Title: Nestlings
Author: Nat Cassidy
Published: Tor, 2023
Rating: N/A
Page Count: 75 of 295
Total Page Count: 515,000
Text Number: 1863
Read Because: reviewed byrachelmanija, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: DNF at 25%. Probably there is something here, because even though I don't like the conversational, punchy voice, it had enough momentum to keep me reading. But then I realized that stories about childcare give me ickybad feels even when they're not about postpartum depression. Being trapped, socially and situationally and etc-ally is very much at the heart of this book, but my hangups doubled down on that and tore away any of the fun or atmospheric or provoking elements this probably is meant to have.
Title: Necrophilia Variations
Author: Supervert
Published: 2005
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 515,400
Text Number: 1869
Read Because: unusually intimate relationships reasons obviously
Review: As more or less the ideal audience for this, I appreciate the audacity and the literal approach to "variations," a density of short and micro fiction riffing on the theme of necrophilia and beauty in death. Unfortunately, it's also ... bad. While not without standout moments, the best of the writing is marred by repetition, there's a pervasive and unproductive misogyny, and necrophilia is constantly compared to queerness and sex work as if these are deviations on a sliding scale of perversity, as if they speak to the same cultural anxieties, which ... they don't, and the insistence otherwise is limiting in every possible direction. 80% boring shock value, 20% "I might like this if someone else wrote it."
Title: Last to Leave the Room
Author: Caitlin Starling
Published: St. Martin's Griffin, 2024 (2023)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 315
Total Page Count: 519,810
Text Number: 1893
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist is the cutthroat head of development behind an ansible-like technology. Only the technology may have knock-on effects, like the city sinking; like the basement in her home growing; like the door that appears there, and what comes through. Starling's oeuvre is composed of high-concept speculative hooks with pulpy but effective horror tensions set against issues of identity & queer longing, and I'm an easy sell on that combination even if the books don't always succeed. This one is very close to great, but missteps in similar ways to The Luminous Dead: there are concrete explanations which, while generally a good thing in speculative fiction, here are less interesting than any of the questions raised. This is particularly disappointing after The Death of Jane Lawrence, which does the opposite, growing stranger and more transformative as the speculative elements progress.
So: A slow open, establishing the protagonist's pre-speculative life, and she's unpleasant to hang out with. A great middle, with a glory of momentum and some creepy horror moments and interpersonal dynamics and particular expressions thereof (identity issues abounding, personal and bodily boundaries violated via body horror, relationships as dependency and infantilization and homemaking) that could have been written just for me. And then an ending which is too quickly paced and wraps up too neatly, both thematically and speculatively. I liked this a lot, I'll doubtless reread it, but was primed to love it and didn't quite get there.
Title: Nestlings
Author: Nat Cassidy
Published: Tor, 2023
Rating: N/A
Page Count: 75 of 295
Total Page Count: 515,000
Text Number: 1863
Read Because: reviewed by
rachelmanija, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: DNF at 25%. Probably there is something here, because even though I don't like the conversational, punchy voice, it had enough momentum to keep me reading. But then I realized that stories about childcare give me ickybad feels even when they're not about postpartum depression. Being trapped, socially and situationally and etc-ally is very much at the heart of this book, but my hangups doubled down on that and tore away any of the fun or atmospheric or provoking elements this probably is meant to have.
Title: Necrophilia Variations
Author: Supervert
Published: 2005
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 515,400
Text Number: 1869
Read Because: unusually intimate relationships reasons obviously
Review: As more or less the ideal audience for this, I appreciate the audacity and the literal approach to "variations," a density of short and micro fiction riffing on the theme of necrophilia and beauty in death. Unfortunately, it's also ... bad. While not without standout moments, the best of the writing is marred by repetition, there's a pervasive and unproductive misogyny, and necrophilia is constantly compared to queerness and sex work as if these are deviations on a sliding scale of perversity, as if they speak to the same cultural anxieties, which ... they don't, and the insistence otherwise is limiting in every possible direction. 80% boring shock value, 20% "I might like this if someone else wrote it."
Title: Last to Leave the Room
Author: Caitlin Starling
Published: St. Martin's Griffin, 2024 (2023)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 315
Total Page Count: 519,810
Text Number: 1893
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist is the cutthroat head of development behind an ansible-like technology. Only the technology may have knock-on effects, like the city sinking; like the basement in her home growing; like the door that appears there, and what comes through. Starling's oeuvre is composed of high-concept speculative hooks with pulpy but effective horror tensions set against issues of identity & queer longing, and I'm an easy sell on that combination even if the books don't always succeed. This one is very close to great, but missteps in similar ways to The Luminous Dead: there are concrete explanations which, while generally a good thing in speculative fiction, here are less interesting than any of the questions raised. This is particularly disappointing after The Death of Jane Lawrence, which does the opposite, growing stranger and more transformative as the speculative elements progress.
So: A slow open, establishing the protagonist's pre-speculative life, and she's unpleasant to hang out with. A great middle, with a glory of momentum and some creepy horror moments and interpersonal dynamics and particular expressions thereof (identity issues abounding, personal and bodily boundaries violated via body horror, relationships as dependency and infantilization and homemaking) that could have been written just for me. And then an ending which is too quickly paced and wraps up too neatly, both thematically and speculatively. I liked this a lot, I'll doubtless reread it, but was primed to love it and didn't quite get there.
