By: Rachel Caine, Delilah S. Dawson, Jennifer Estep, Kelly Gay, Kevin
Hearne, Mark Henry, Hillary Jacques, Jackie Kessler, Seanan McGuire, Kelly Meding, Allison Pang, Nicole Peeler, Rob Thurman, Jaye Wells
When I first saw this anthology I leaped to request it –
so many of the authors included in it are the authors I already read and
already love, a collection of stories by them was definitely something I was
sure I’d be able to devour in seconds, loving every word.
I preface the review with this to make it clear that my expectations were very very high – perhaps too high given my oft mentioned dislike of short stories. This left me feeling a little disappointed.
Firstly, on the book overall I was impressed by the unity
of theme,
short story compilations by different authors can feel very disjointed as
you are buffeted from epic story to laughing comedy to heart wrenching tragedy
that makes them almost impossible to read in one sitting because they’re so
different. While the writing style of
this book was, obviously, very varied the overall theme not just of Carnivals
but of something sinister, dark and something pretty creepy was generally well
maintained throughout. I don’t know if it was intended or if the authors just
find carnivals as creepy as I do – but nearly every story had a strong sense of
the creepiness, the alien and the outsider about them that helped keep the
whole book together as a coherent whole which I appreciated.
In terms of the stories, the ones by the authors that
drew me in were very much their style, but also nothing special and didn’t form
much of a useful addition to their own stories:
Kevin Hearne’s The
Demon Barker of Wheat Street, was a fun ride with characters I’ve come to
know and love. Atticus, Oberon and Granuaile are always immensely fun romp
around a Carnival, fighting evil with humour and flair with odd moments of
depth and emotion to it that so characterises Kevin Hearne’s work; it’s good
but not his best, lacking in style or real relevance to the world he has… if you’re not a fan of the series already
you’re going to be a little lost reading this one – and a little Spoilered as
well, which is a bad choice for a short story, I think.
Jennifer Estep’s
Parlor Tricks, is much the same. If you know her world and her characters
then it’s a great read, a nice continuation and nice to see Gin in some
semi-downtime. If you don’t know her world then you’re probably going to be
more than a little lost as the full weight of her massive Ashland world is
thrown at you. As a fan and a current reader of her series, I enjoyed it while
still feeling I wouldn’t have missed anything if I hadn’t read it. That’s a
good thing in the sense that I don’t want my series to depend on me tracking
down anthologies, but bad in that I left the story feeling I hadn’t gained
anything.
Seanan McGuire’s Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid and
the Open, Lonely Sea, surprised
me in that it didn’t seem to be related to any of her actual series. While I liked
this story, I also felt that it was the only one that didn’t fit the overall
theme of the book, though I quite liked the subversion of finally presenting
the Carnie’s point of view and taking their otherness that had been so pushed
through the rest of the stories and making that a strength rather than the
sinister nature that had been pushed so far. It was an excellent close to the
book.
Notable
others were Painted Love by Rob Thurman,
it was the first story in the book and did a very good job of setting up the
dark and sinister theme; the fantastic and the other, the evil and the cruel,
the hidden threats as much as the hidden wonders. It was an excellent choice
for the first story. But, as far as the story itself goes, it didn’t work for
me. It had a nice twist ending but to make that work it forced a lot of
character interaction that didn’t make a lot of sense and some very stilted
descriptions. The story also had an over-wordy, over-introspective style that
I’ve never particularly cared for. It did really set up the sense of the other –
in ways that go beyond the simple supernatural creatures we’ve already known - and
definitely laid the groundwork for the creepy, the evil and the sinister
Mark Henry’s The Sweeter the Juice, stood out to be for so many levels of
uniqueness. A zombie apocalypse – with a twist of other marauders as well – a completely
new take on the hazards of a dystopian and post-apocalypse world. For the world
alone it would have been worth a read. But the protagonist is also a trans
woman, which is really damn rare in any media and almost non-existent in
dystopians. It covers a lot of issues really well – after all, in a post-apocalyptic
world, a trans woman wanting to transition still wants to transition, the
zombies don’t change that. But she still has the extreme problems of prejudice,
poverty and being at the mercy of an often hostile and highly patronising
medical establishment. We have her desperation and often being at the mercy of
hostile or indifferent agents while having to jump through hoops and pass tests
that are no-one’s business.
The negative
side is there are also a few prejudices and stereotypes thrown with a sense of
comic relief around the edges that warred with the darkness of this story –
probably the grittiest, darkest and most sinister of the whole book.
Nicole Peeler’s The Inside Man was probably my favourite story of the
whole book. We had a nearly all POC cast, a massive supernatural world and it
did an excellent job of hinting at the greater series it was part of without
overwhelming us with minutia. The characters are fascinating with their own
strengths and weaknesses, bounce off each other well and spoke of a long
ongoing relationship without having to info dump on us. It was a perfectly
written short story and really intrigued me about the series
Allison Pang’s A Duet with Darkness was also a story I liked a lot – with a
number of POC and a fascinatingly different world; the myriad of creatures and
how they work, a completely different world building from anything I’ve seen
with lots of hints but no overt info dumping to an extent that it overwhelmed
the plot. The main character is interesting – not perfect or even all that
likeable because of her arrogance, but still with a lot of potential. Like with
The Inside Man I am intrigued and it’s
put this series on my radar
Which brings
me to Kelly Meding’s Freak House as
the third story in this book that made me curious about their wider world. A
combination of hidden and open supernaturals, a legal and police system that
was both ill-equipped and unwilling to deal with the wide supernatural world; a
comment on people who fall through the cracks, a couple of POC and an
interesting, pretty different but not overpowered main character. It was
actually something I have said before never works – a short story prequel to a
series that really makes me want to dive into the whole series.
There were a
few stories that made me vaguely interested in their worlds but didn’t quite
hook me in. Jackie Kessler’s A Chance in
Hell was interesting with the quest to take over hell and the various
denizens represented but there wasn’t enough there of the world to pull me in.
There were hints, but the author was a little too sparing with their world out
of fear of infodumping, I think; I’ll probably pick up the series, but I’m
curious, not intrigued. I think that too much has happened in the existing
story arc for me to catch up on. Much the same applies to Hell’s Menagerie by Kelly Gay in this case there was a lot more information
but I think that too much of it was relevant to the story. I have a feeling
that the series these stories are from are several books long and these short
story occurs after some of the later books. Too much has happened for me to be
comfortable jumping in. Of course, if I were familiar with the worlds and the
authors, I think I would have liked them a lot more.
Recession of the
Divine by Hillary Jacques didn’t pull me in at all. I like Greek mythology
but too much of what was there could easily have been swapped out for any
woo-woo, the Greek names felt pasted on more than immersed in the plot. Not
enough world building or development on this one
Rachel Caine’s Cold Girl had an excellent and chilling portrayal
of abusive relationships from the inside, including so much of the thought
processes that go into excusing, ignoring or just not seeing the abusive
treatment. But the story and world presented were both weak and hollow with
little explanation or development. It had some interesting twists but
ultimately wasn’t something that fascinated me. Jaye Well’s The Werewife was similar in that it dealt with some
real world problems – a broken marriage between 2 incompatible people which is
neither saved by woo-woo nor saved by coming together and defeating the
woo-woo. While intriguing I think it’s a story that needed more length and
depth, rather than presenting 2 partners with incompatible differences, instead
we got the long suffering husband and the hectoring, nagging, cruel and even,
to go all Shakespearan, shrewish wife. This particularly sits awkwardly because
the villain has “rescued” a number of women from abusive relationships, each
with their own poison pill and faustian bargain – but by linking the Werewife’s
unfulfilled relationship with outright abusive one feels off. I would have
liked the villain to be developed more as well, or at least had the end fight
be more of a battle and less of the husband wailing on this woman and her being
thrown to a wolf.
In Delilah S Dawson’s The Three Lives of Lydia
I’m not entirely sure what it was about and while I think that was the
intent of the author, to increase the level of mystery, alien and otherness by
leaving the whole doubt; that sinister feeling of not knowing what’s real or
not real. And there is a strong sense of that. But equally there is a sense of
a “and then I wake up” ending. It needed more, maybe more ins and outs of the
worlds to truly establish that doubt between real and not real, the protagonist’s
mental illness or a genuine other world and just to explore the issues raised.
I was surprised that the authors that hooked me into this
book weren’t the stories that I enjoyed the most; part of that is a minor
disappointment but also a pleasant surprise because it means I found some gems.
There were a large number of POC in the book – more short
stories included POC than not (sometimes only as side-characters like A Chance in Hell but often much much
more). The Sweeter the Juice had obvious – and very rare – GBLT inclusion,
but it was the only story that did. There are a number of female characters, of
course, in these books – but there’s also an astonishing amount of female
victimisation. 8 of these short stories are all about or contain elements of
rescuing a woman and a couple deal outright with murdering rapists (albeit ones
that get their comeuppance). There’s a lot of strong women as well, and certainly
a number of women doing the rescuing so there is balance there.
The overall feel I had from the though was one of LENGTH.
That sounds awfully shallow to say a book was too long for me, but it was. 14 separate
short stories is a lot for a book; and so many of them were dealing with large,
very established worlds that there was a lot of info dumping as well, to play
catch up making for a very wordy, very long book that felt like mining at times
To read this, I would suggest that you be familiar with
most of the authors and their worlds already. The short stories read far better
as people who know their worlds than as introductions to them. As
introductions, too many of these stories are established for this to be your
starting point. Secondly, I would
suggest reading them in chunks, I don’t think this is a book, despite the
unified theme, that you can comfortably tackle in one long sitting
